Sermon 36 - Perfect
Romans 5:3-4
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces endurance/perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope.
Romans 8:18
I believe that the present suffering is nothing compared to the coming glory that is going to be revealed to us.
I am watching a lot of Hallmark movies. No, this is not simply a guilty pleasure. In fact, I find an awful lot of them extremely annoying. However, I'm watching a lot of them, and I'm not entirely sure why. It may be simply because my wife is dead, and I am needing to watch romances. At least watching Hallmark movies consumes less time than if I were reading Harlequin romances. They also aren't interested in the current preference for profanity and dark themes that seems to pervade most of the available movies these days. Hallmark movies are undemanding. They are not great art. I must say that, out of the possibly hundreds that I have now watched, I have found at least two that are, surprisingly, worth watching again. Possibly even three. And, given that about every third movie plot seems to involve a partner who has died, at some point in the past, maybe it's just pure random chance, but I have even found one rather profound statement on grief in one of the Hallmark movies.
Putting all of that to one side, though, an awful lot of Hallmark movies involve plots centered around, or at least touching on, somebody else's wedding. It's generally not the central character's wedding: it's usually a friend for whom they are being the maid of honor, or best man. And, of course, the brides are always claiming that the wedding must be perfect. Hallmark does not many opportunities to accuse the bride of being a bridezilla, but rather encourages this idea of the perfect wedding. There is no dispute. Everyone always agrees that the wedding must be perfect.
Gloria took on the role of wedding hostess for one of the churches she attended for quite a while. Of course, those weddings were a lot closer to perfect then they would have been without Gloria's assistance. But Gloria would encourage them away from this idea. Gloria always had a piece of advice for any couple who said that they wanted their wedding to be perfect. She always said that you didn't want the wedding to be perfect. She would tell them that twenty years from now nobody would remember the perfection of the wedding. Indeed, if the wedding was perfect, nobody would remember it at all. Forty years from now, when you were looking back on your wedding, you were not going to remember the perfection. No, the stories that would get told, over and over again, were always of the disasters. The mistakes. The things that went wrong.
This is absolutely true. Disasters. Errors. Imperfections. That's what we remember.
It was true in our own wedding. I really can't tell you an awful lot about that day. I do remember that my father, who had agreed to act as wedding photographer for the wedding, at the very last minute; at the rehearsal dinner, in fact; informed me that he was not going to do so. We had to scramble to try and make up this shortfall, making up a checklist of specific photographs, and specific family members, to get pictures of and with, at the last minute. We dragged in my little brother, as something of a stand-in for candid shots, and, basically, I was the photographer for our wedding, getting people posed, and then jumping in at the last minute while somebody else clicked the shutter. In the course of all of this, we managed not to get any pictures of Gloria's grandmother. That's what we remember about the photographs for our wedding.
Oh, that's not the *only* disaster. The very first name in our guest book for the wedding was a signature of a person who neither of us knew. This was (and possibly is) a street person, who came in to score free food. We even know that Gloria's mother talked to her, catching her scarfing sandwiches off a tray, and Sulla handed her the tray and told her to share it around the room. We even have a picture of her, in one of the candid shots, a woman, dressed in a man's suit, beaming smile, front and center.
Off the top of my head, I would struggle to recall, of the 350 people who were invited to our wedding, who came. Although I can recall one family. They had the radio antenna broken off their car, and the radio antenna was then twisted into a hook, and used to break into their car, so that somebody could steal the wedding presents that they had brought to the wedding.
Like I said, it's not the perfection you remember. It's the disasters.
Gloria arranged her parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, as well. And so, Gloria being Gloria, it was as close to perfect as you could possibly get. I don't really remember anything from that event, either. Well, I do remember that, delivering the thank yous and acknowledgments at the end of the evening, I was interrupted by a yell from Number One Daughter, who called out, "What time is it, Rob?" I didn't understand this, until I looked at my watch, and realized that it was precisely ten PM, which was the time that we had slated for the event to end. So I guess that is not exactly a disaster, but it's the exception that proved the rule, since that comment was definitely *not* in our plans. But the only *other* thing that I really remember from the fiftieth anniversary celebration, was that Number One Daughter had been dragooned to play the part of her grandmother, and to wear her grandmother's wedding dress. However, her grandmother, at roughly the same age that she was, seems to have been a little slimmer than Number One Daughter. While we had taken care, and Gloria had done amazing work at ensuring that the dress was repaired and ready, it was so tight that Number One Daughter could hardly breathe as she was walking through the event. Maybe not quite a disaster, but, again, about the only thing you remember. That's the story that gets told, and retold.
I am sure that you can recall, fairly easily and quickly, similar stories from your own wedding. Or anniversaries, or other major family events. It's the disasters we remember. Not the perfection.
I remember a professor at UBC, who made the argument that Heaven was inherently illogical and impossible. His point was that Heaven lasted for eternity. Therefore he asserted, we would eventually get bored. Even if heaven was perfect, we would eventually get bored with it.
I don't think he allowed for the fact that, when we are perfect in Heaven, we are going to be different than we are now, sinful creatures that we are. And Heaven is not going to be like here on earth, fallen world that it is. And so I very much doubt that we will be bored in Heaven. But I do see his point. Here on earth, perfection gets boring after a while.
What, after all, do we want out of the world. How perfect do we run the world to be? How much imperfection will we accept? When we put it that way, "Do we want the world to be perfect?" we will generally admit that of, course we don't expect perfection. This is a fallen world.
But how much imperfection are we willing to tolerate?
The answer to that, very often, seems to be, not very much.
And this leads us to something that, initially, will seem far distant from weddings, and perfect weddings, and bridezillas, and so forth. And that is the problem of pain.
The thing is, when we complain, "Why has God allowed this?" Well, yes, sometimes we are talking about major disasters. Sometimes we are talking about the loss of someone close and important in our lives. But often we aren't. Often we are complaining about minor issues.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his book "The Gulag Archipelago," makes this point. I've got to admit that I have my own story of imperfection, on my part, concerning "The Gulag Archipelago." I knew that it was important literature, and so I bought it. All three volumes. Yes, I know that there are three volumes. I have seen, over the years, many, many copies of volume one on people's bookshelves. And I know that that proves that they haven't read it. Volume one is the only one that doesn't have the volume number on the spine of the book. Volume two says two, and volume three says three. But volume one just has the title, The Gulag Archipelago. And so, a lot of people bought volume one, put it on their bookshelves proudly, displaying the fact that they're erudite and sophisticated. And not realising that the existence of this single volume proves that they haven't read it, and don't realise that they haven't got the whole thing.
But that's not the imperfection that I need to stress. I *did* buy the whole thing. But I struggled to read it. It took me two years to get seventy-five pages in. It wasn't until two years later, and seventy-five pages read in bits and pieces over the ensuing two years, that it finally grabbed ahold of me. And I read the rest of the 1700 pages in two weeks. Solzhenitsyn is a genius, and The Gulag Archipelago is a work of genius, and very, very worthwhile reading. And I'll give you one story from it, for those of you who, even though you may have it on your bookshelves, have never read it. The work, of course, is about the gulags. The prison system in the Soviet Union. He talks about the fact that this was kept secret even from Russian citizens. Therefore prisoners, when transferred from one prison situation, from one gulag, to another, were not transported by armed and uniformed prison guards. No. There would be the prisoner, there would be two guards, all three of whom were in civilian clothes. And they would be travelling on public transport.
It sort of needs to be said that there would still be a separation between you and the people around you. Not enforced by the guards, who couldn't, after all, admit that you were, in fact, a prisoner. And so you could talk to those around you. But there was a separation of understanding. You, as a prisoner, had the same understanding as those of us who are bereaved. The fact that anything and everything can be taken away from you in an instant. Which rearranges your values of what is important.
It isn't important that your daughter-in-law doesn't give you sufficient attention or respect. It isn't the important that your neighbour uses too much of a common resource. It isn't important that you didn't get the promotion that you thought you deserved, and therefore don't have your name on the door. These are minor issues in comparison to the ability to contact, at will, those whom we love and with whom we have close relationships. With those we care for, and who care for us.
So when we complain, "Why does God allow this?" often we are complaining about a minor issue, a lost opportunity, a lost promotion, a lost purchase opportunity. These aren't things that matter.
But that's only *one* problem with our understanding of the problem of pain.
Yes, there are losses in this world, and the losses hurt. But after all, what is our real situation? Look at somebody else, and see that they are worse off than we are.
I tell people that my life is terrible. I am a grieving widower. In addition, I am a depressive. I have just been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease. I was previously diagnosed with arthritis. I can't see as well as I used to. Old age is not for wimps.
Viewed objectively, though, my life is good. As only one example, I live in Canada. Nobody is dropping bombs on my house. What do I have to complain about? What right do I have to complain about anything? Just because I have a chemical imbalance in my brain, or the wrong mix of bacteria in my gut, or a brain chemical imbalance *because* of the wrong mix of gut bacteria, that means that I can't appreciate what I have and feel terrible all the time, is that a real problem? A lot of people would like to have my life. (As far as I'm concerned, they can have it.)
So Is that a real problem?
So, do we have real problems or not? Are we complaining about real problems? Or not?
I am a teacher. No, I am not changing the subject. I am pointing out a *second* problem with our understanding of the problem of pain. And that is the fact that sometimes, when you are teaching people something, you have to teach them before they can understand why they need to learn this lesson. This seems, ultimately, to be one of the major lessons of the book of Job. When God finally answers Job, His answer is, basically, I'm not going to tell you. You wouldn't understand the answer anyway. I am God. I created all this. I know how this works. And you don't. So you don't know why you are going through this, because you can't.
Yet *another* problem with our understanding of the problem of pain is that we may be asking the wrong question.
We are asking the question, "Why did God let this happen?" and thinking, "Why didn't God prevent this bad thing from happening?" But possibly, the answer may be, "What are you going to do to help?"
God could do everything for himself. God could do all the things that God is asking us to do. And God could probably do a better job of it. So, why is it that God gives us tasks? Gives us purposes. Gives us opportunities to work for His kingdom.
I'll tell you the answer: I don't know.
But He does. So it must be something for our benefit, not for God's.
And that means, when a disaster happens, it may be another opportunity to help.
I read a short story, many years ago, called "Chance After Chance." In it, a priest has had something of a crisis of faith, and sees God as simply testing us, and giving us trials. Trial after trial. To test us, and see if we are worthy.
But then he's given an opportunity to give the last rites to someone who is dying. And in presenting comfort to this person, tells him that in our life we are not presented with trial after trial, but chance after chance to do the right thing. And somehow saying that, convinces the priest himself of the truth of this. That God does not test us, time and time again, but gives us chance after chance, and opportunity after opportunity, to do the right thing. To help. To protect. To do what God wants.
So, has God allowed this to happen as a trial? Or is it a chance? Is it an opportunity for us to help?
OK, it's not a perfect opportunity. This world is not perfect.
But then again, that's our fault, isn't it? We sinned and messed it up.
This wasn't what God originally intended.
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