Words out of season

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

8 August 2010: 5pm

The Ven Robert McLay

• Psalm 108
• Isaiah 11:10 - 12:6
• 2 Corinthians 1:1-22

Our second lesson begins, like all Paul’s Epistles, by telling us who the sender is, who the recipients are and a greeting. “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,... To the church of God that is in Corinth…Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 1:1-3) This is usually followed by a thanksgiving for the growth and development in faith that has happened in the particular Christian community.

But in tonight’s reading, Paul launches straight into a pastoral situation and experience that is on his mind and heart. Perhaps this is because they have a history - previous letters, a delegation ‘from Chloe’s people’, and a visit from Paul, with the promise of another, as they attempted to resolve the issues facing ‘the church of God that is in Corinth”. Their relationship is such that Paul can immediately refer to affliction experienced and consolation received - both his and theirs.

Of his experience of affliction in Asia Paul writes, “…we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. (2 Cor. 1:9a) The incident is not described. It might have been something similar to those Paul lists later in the epistle - imprisonment, floggings, stoning, and beatings, to name but a few. (2 Cor. 11:23ff)

The afflictions that the Corinthian Christians experienced are not listed either, but from other New Testament sources we might assume they include, exposure to abuse and persecution; having their possessions plundered, being thrown into prison.

You probably didn’t come to Evensong to hear about affliction and suffering - it’s all around us in the media every day - flooding in China and Pakistan, fires in Russia and California, famine in Niger, a NZ soldier killed and two others injured in the Banyan Province in Afghanistan.

Some of you may have listened to the ‘Author slot’ on National programme last week- and Jim Mora’s interview of the author of "The Happiness Trap". Dr Russ Harris suggests that we often equate happiness with feeling good. But when we consider what many say are the nine basic human emotions - love, joy, curiosity, fear, sadness, anger, guilt, shock, disgust, the majority of them are unpleasant. They are painful and we refer to them as negative emotions. But Dr Harris believes, that to live a rich, full and meaningful life we need to experience the whole range of human emotions. Because we are conditioned to think of happiness as feeling good, we have difficulty handling the painful emotions and so fight with them, are overwhelmed by them or we often try to avoid them.

Even in Church life most of us would rather come to worship at Easter than on Good Friday!! I recently heard a Chaplain to a Women’s prison speaking of the importance of Good Friday and Holy Saturday in her context. It was a time when her ‘congregation’ could face the darkness in their lives. She referred to a part of the service where the participants wrote their ‘sins’ on black paper with black felt tip pens.

Many of us will have experienced affliction and pain - maybe in our relationships in family, work place, church. For me, Paul’s words to the Corinthians can enter into those situations as he speaks of consolation (comfort, encouragement). His thanksgiving in the form of a blessing is often read at Funerals. (HKMoA/ANZPB version p.839). “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, a gentle Father, and the God of all consolation, who comforts us in our sorrows, so that we can offer others, in their sorrows, the consolation that we ourselves have received from God.”

Those who have received comfort, consolation from God in the past can be a means of God’s consolation to those who are in sorrow in the present. The consolation is something that we can receive and pass on.

Paul then relates it to the Cross. “For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.” (2 Corinthians 1:5) - words that seem out of season and that belong to Passiontide and Good Friday.

Recently I attended a worship and art gathering - and heard about the Stations of the Cross that various Christian groups coordinate in the Public Gardens in Hamilton. Artists are invited to create an installation that depicts something relating to the passion story and linking it to today. One station had some traffic management barriers and signs street with Skull Hill, Cyrene, and Golgotha on them. Another was a huge corrugated iron pipe and inside were clear corrugated PVC sheets hanging from the roof. They were painted with words such as betrayal, sorrow, trouble, alone, tears, agony. Also in the pipe tunnel were potted trees with no leaves. Then there was a station where you were given an ice cube with a flax cross frozen into it. As the ice melted in your palm you felt the pain and eventually were left with the cross. All ways in which members of the public could enter into the experience of Good Friday and the sufferings of Christ on the cross.

When Paul writes about affliction and suffering, he doesn’t try to solve the problem. When he suffered, he was comforted. When others suffer, they can be comforted. He says there is an abundance from the sufferings; and that through Christ there is an abundance of consolation.

When Paul then goes on to write of feeling like they had received the sentence of death - it was so that “we relied not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.” (2 Cor. 1:9b); that the Corinthian church had helped them by their prayers; of the blessing granted through the prayers of many. (from 2 Cor. 1:11)

Prayers of intercession are an important part of our life as Christians. There are many in ministry in the Diocese who are grateful for the weekly “Prayers from the Cathedral” - written by your Associate Priest. Affliction and suffering in the world is often included. You also have your own monthly Prayer cycle as many parishes do which will include a variety of situations and people.

Praying for others and being prayed for, are ways of receiving and of passing on the consolation that Paul speaks of. It is a way of linking with others in the Body of Christ as Paul was linked with the Corinthian church and they with him. It is a way of offering the afflictions and sufferings to Christ who was crucified for us.

In the words of the prayer of St Richard of Chichester.

Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ, For all the benefits thou hast won for me, For all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me. O most merciful Redeemer, Friend, and Brother, May I know thee more clearly, Love thee more dearly, And follow thee more nearly: For ever and ever.

--St. Richard Chichester (1197-1253)