ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

The Sixth Sunday of Trinity, 19th July 2009
Sermon preached by Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at Solemn Evensong and Benediction

Readings: Job 13. 13 - 14. 6; Hebrews 2. 5-end

There were a couple of headlines that caught my attention this week (BBC Website Monday 13 July 2009). They were to do with the subject of pain. Pain in childbirth: 'a good thing' was one. Dr Dennis Walsh who teaches midwifery at Nottingham University said that pain in childbirth is 'a good thing' because pain creates a bond between mother and child. Pain is essential for parenting and nurturing. As you might imagine there's been some backlash. Male midwives are rare and Dr Walsh has been written off by some as yet another man talking about something that he knows nothing about.

So perhaps we're on safer ground with the other headline: Swearing 'helps to reduce pain'. This time its researchers at Keele University (Have they nothing better to do?) who claim that people who eff & blind seem to cope better with pain than those who don't. The story was accompanied by a photograph of the celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsey: Exhibit A.

Pain: we don't talk about much in sermons outside of Lent. When we do it's usually about endurance (what we have to go through) or about what Jesus suffered on the cross. But the Letter to the Hebrews from which we heard this evening points us in a different direction. For the author pain and suffering is the point of intersection between God and humanity through Christ. There is a 'fit' (it is fitting). We are brought (or more accurately lead) to glory by the pioneer of our salvation (Christ) who is made perfect through sufferings (v 10).

So what does pain offer us beyond being a fact of life that we have to endure and when we can, cure? What is this perfection of which Hebrews speaks? Well, I think that we are being invited to consider three things but I speak about them hesitantly. I hesitate because it's very easy to sound glib. Anything positive that we say about pain should be hedged around with qualifications. It's easy to be insensitive and naive but pain is a fact of life and if we believe in a good God it must have a role in creation.

It's the experience of the hospice movement that many people who draw to the end of their lives say that they wish they'd come to know earlier what they've learnt through their illness. It's altered their whole perspective. They've come to see life differently. And if that is what pain can do then we need to be educated to use it ahead of time.

Two books that have influenced me on this are Kenneth Stevenson's Rooted in Detachment and Michael Mayne's The Enduring Melody. Kenneth Stevenson is the Bishop of Portsmouth and is soon to retire. He's had leukaemia for some time and he writes about it movingly in his book. Michael Mayne was the Dean of Westminster who died from cancer in 2006 only a few days after finishing his book. Not only did Michael Mayne have had cancer but he had also lived with ME for many years. In both of these books there is a sense of journeying into a darkness that is punctuated with light and insight. Neither makes easy claims but both claim our attention because they are honest and lucid. There is 'Good News' but it is of an eerie and fleeting kind.

So what might there be that's positive in pain? I'm going to suggest three things. Firstly, it can help make us wise. Secondly, it can give us authority. And thirdly, it can draw us into solidarity. (Wisdom, authority and solidarity.)

Let's start with wisdom. When we endure pain we acquire a certain kind of knowledge. We go to the doctor. 'Where's the pain?' we're asked. We point. We describe it as best as we can. But beyond the purely physical symptoms we also come to know something more general: that however healthy we may be our bodies age and at some point get sick. We're not total masters of our destiny. We aren't supermen. We're contingent, mortal human beings. One day we shall return to dust and the getting there may be a slow and messy business. And what's true of the physical self is true also of our minds, hearts and spirits.

All this is humbling. It brings us down to earth. However powerful we may be we aren't omnipotent. Paying attention to our pain instructs us. Yes, there are people who rail against God ('Why has God done this to me?') but there are others who soften, who allow control of their own lives to be loosened and who come to know the love and compassion of others. Wisdom teaches us that this world and its many delights are not the only world and that the things in which we often put our faith (money, assets, status and even our looks) are not eternal. Yet there are things that endure; things in which we can put our faith. The most important of these is love.

Pain can give us wisdom. It can also give us authority. What we know through suffering may not be always right but it is much more difficult to gainsay. When I lived in South Africa I was often moved when I listened to Africans speaking about their lives especially those who had been imprisoned and sometimes tortured. I didn't go to Johannesburg thinking that apartheid was a good thing but living there convinced me that not only was it bad but that it also had to be changed.

As we continue to go through testing times economically now, times that may well lead to some major adjustments in how we run our country, it's going to be very important that we listen to those who suffer. Some will suffer even more if government spending is cut willy-nilly. How we fund our care for the sick, the elderly and the vulnerable people in our society is a question for politicians but that it is funded is up to us as voters and that it is funded justly and generously is something about which we as Christians should speak. Traditionally the church has stood alongside people in need. The church should speak with authority.

And then suffering gives us fellowship. Paul talked about the fellowship of Christ's sufferings (2 Cor 1. 5). This isn't a phrase that Hebrews uses but the idea is implicit. Hebrews emphasizes our connection to Christ. For the one who sanctifies (Christ) and those who are sanctified (us) all have one Father (v 11). If we share a common parentage then we must we be brothers and sisters. That is the reason why Hebrews quotes from the Old Testament in this evening's passage. The quotations are there to 'confirm' the notion that we are siblings of Christ. As siblings we share the same things(v 14). Indeed, Christ had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect (v 17).

This experience should lead us into solidarity with other people especially those in pain. This enables us to see that the things that so easily divide us such as ethnicity and religion are less important than the things that unite us: that we are all human beings who share in creation and are called to serve each other in love.

So, I find myself at odds this week with another headline, one that appeared in the latest edition of Alpha News, the paper that updates us on the progress of Alpha courses word-wide. It read I was a Buddhist and hated any talk of Christianity ... until I got cancer. The writer paints a dismal view of Buddhism whilst lauding her newfound faith. I don't know the author so I can't comment on her individual story but to use cancer and its apparent miraculous cure as a basis for mission seems misguided. It's a long way from the gentle and profound Anglican journeys of Kenneth Stevenson and Michael Mayne.

Suffering is not a subject to be explored in this rather detached way when we are seated at the bedside of someone who is wracked with pain but if I'm right in what I've said then perhaps it will fortify us for the occasions when we are in pain. Our faith and honesty will bear us along and give hope to others. It's something by which we should be able to swear - but not in the Gordon Ramsey kind of way.