{"id":645,"date":"2020-03-16T14:09:48","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T14:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=645"},"modified":"2020-03-16T18:11:19","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T18:11:19","slug":"third-sunday-in-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2020\/03\/16\/third-sunday-in-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"Third Sunday in Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exodus 17:1-7, Romans 5:1-11<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nI read this morning\u2019s lesson from Exodus, I shook my head in agreement,\nunderstanding how true it seemed. These were real people with a real concern,\nwater; I know these people; they make up the bulk of most congregations. Right\nnow, these people are concerned about the Coronavirus. Generally, when things\ngo well, they are excited and enthusiastic; they want to run out ahead and do\ntheir parts; but, at the first sign of difficulty, when fear or disappointment\nset in, they begin complaining, and honestly, it seems that Moses wasn\u2019t much\nbetter; he went complaining to God, about the complaining of the people. They\nwere good at complaining; we likewise do complaining well! It\u2019s the human way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teresa\nof Avila, a saint as described by the Roman Catholic Church, wrote about her\nown complaining. She wrote, \u201cI had some fun with God today! I dared to complain\nto him.  I said: Explain to me, please, why you keep me in this miserable\nlife.  Why do I have to put up with it?  Everything here interferes\nwith my enjoyment of you.  I have to eat and sleep and work and talk with\neveryone.  I do it all for the love of you, but it torments me. And how is\nit that when there is a little break and I can have some time with you, you\nhide from me?  Is this the way you show me mercy? If you love me, how\ncan you do this to me? I honestly believe, Lord, that if it were possible\nfor me to hide from you the way you hide from me, you would not allow it. But\nyou are with me and see me always. Stop this Lord!  It hurts me because I\nlove you so much. I said these things and other things to God. Sometimes love\nbecomes foolish and doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Lord puts up with\nit.  May so good a King be praised! We wouldn’t dare say these things\nto earthly kings! (This is the end of her little story) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\nit is that we human beings complain! There is a philosophical approach to life\nsummarized by the word stoicism. The idea is that you face life, with all of\nits struggles and joys, without complaint or (for that matter) without great\njoy and celebration; everything is kept at an even level; all emotions kept\nintact. You would think that this might be the Christian way, that it might be\nwhat Paul had in mind, but it isn\u2019t. Stoicism, is as far from Paul\u2019s\nunderstanding of our faithful response to God (for when we are dissatisfied),\nin other words, complaining, as we are from solving the coronavirus. It seems,\nif we are to understand complaining and its place in Christianity it would help\nfor us to look at Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans. Paul, was in fact, an emotional\nguy; not a stoic; he spoke from his heart and faith, both harshly and joyfully,\nto those who would listen to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul\nwrote, \u201cTherefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God\nthrough our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace\nin which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And\nnot only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering\nproduces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces\nhope and hope does not disappoint us, because God\u2018s love has been poured into our\nhearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.\u201d We \u201cboast in our\nsuffering\u201d. We do not complain. Suffering for Paul, especially suffering for\nJesus, for the faith, was a kind of feather in one\u2019s cap, a good thing to feel\ngood about. And Paul, in more than one of his letters, boasted in his\nsuffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nit is not just about boasting, Paul wanted us to be aware of the benefits that\nwe receive by our suffering. And here I am referring to real suffering, not\njust our displeasure about the color of a wall, or the kind of toilet paper, or\nthe appearance of a wasp or two during worship, or a mistake in the church\nbulletin. Such complaints have meaning, but of a very different kind, they do\nnot involve real suffering. Complaints even about issues that involve true\nsuffering went against what Paul believed, that they benefit us. \u201cSuffering\nproduces endurance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every\nperson who goes to a gym or exercises at home, knows that they benefit from\ntheir suffering, by getting stronger, lighter or thinner, or simply healthier. Every\nstudent understands that studying, maybe losing a little sleep, maybe doing\nextra school work, adds to their school experience, likely improves their\ngrades and in the end makes them more likely to advance or get a good job. And\neveryone who puts in the time to plant vegetables and herbs understands that\nthe work involved will likely save them money and give them better tasting and\nbetter-for-you foods. Our sufferings help us to endure the struggles of the\nworld, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, in all kinds of ways. And\nPaul points out that such endurance builds in us character. Character is that\n\u201cit\u201d factor, that makes an individual stand out, that allows others to trust\nand feel confident that the individual will not disappoint us; the individual\ngrows in hope that will not disappoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think\nof people like Mother Theresa, we would most of us have trusted her with our\nlives. Paul did not want us to shy away from the sufferings that come along with\nour faith, but to embrace them, be proud of them and find joy in them. Paul\nwould not understand the complaining that we often do in church about things\nnot involving real suffering. Paul would not understand the concept, shared by\nmany, of retiring from church service, the expression that \u201cthey did their part\nin the past\u201d and so they suffered all they needed to do already. Paul would not\nunderstand the reluctance of our membership to give to the church from their\nabundance rather than from their leftovers. Suffering for the Lord is a real\npart of Christian faith and it produces endurance which builds character and it\nis there that we find true hope through God\u2019s love, which will not disappoint\nus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exodus 17:1-7, Romans 5:1-11 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ As I read this morning\u2019s lesson from Exodus, I shook my head in agreement, understanding how true it seemed. These were real people with a real concern, water; I know these people; Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":646,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}