Suffering Sunday: Exercising my Right to Suffer
Isaiah 50:5-9a; James 2:14-18; Mark 8:27-35
I have the right to suffer, because my God suffered for and suffers with me! This is a controversial statement because in places where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, has taken hold on people, we talk of “my rights” and how to protect them. The said Declaration has no place for suffering or should we say torture, and that is a good thing — to oppose anyone else from making another to suffer or feel pains is a Christian imperative. But when I choose to suffer, it is my right too, because nothing good hardly comes cheap, some level of suffering, self-imposed suffering, is required.
“Suffering Sunday” talks about the suffering or sacrifice required for good things to happen. In child birth, there is suffering, even if epidural injections help to assuage pains, without alleviating the suffering or inconvenience of 9 months of pregnancy; every hard work, my role as a doctor saving other people’s lives; my job as a cleaner reducing the spread of diseases; my patience as a teacher to form the next generation; these we do at personal costs and great sufferings — our right to suffer. The good news today is that God suffered for us as an example and suffers with us, when we choose to uphold our right to suffer to create a more just world.
Our first reading proposes suffering, self-imposed inconvenience or sacrifice, as the imitation of God and a way of making our world a better place for all. It is difficult to convince human beings that any kind of suffering is part and parcel of human life. The first challenge against “suffering Sunday” is human deafness, because we do see suffering around us, but we refuse to hear its message, the majority of us. The revolution we are called to is listening or hearing: “The Lord God opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled, have not turned back” (Isaiah 50:5), says our first reading. What we “hear” from God as solution to the ills of our people and society is the need for sacrifice, “suffering Sunday”. “Rebellion” is the refusal to embrace suffering in order to change the ills of the world, that is, the “turning back” from the example of God, who epitomizes sacrifice and suffering.
When we consider our first reading as the prophecy of the suffering of Christ, then, God suffered and suffers in all those suffering in order to make a difference in our world today. To begin with, the suffering Isaiah describes is God’s solidarity with all who suffer, but in an attempt to change their lot and the course of history. Here is the preceding verse to our earlier quotation, for a better grasp of our first reading: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught” (Isaiah 50:4). In other words, we must sacrifice our time, talents and energy to make those suffering around to experience a better world! The slavish exploitation of the Babylonian empire of all those she conquered required the intervention/suffering of God with those who were suffering deprivation and colonization. The suffering of God was for liberation, he set in motion the wherewithal for liberation from slavery and an eventual return home of those exiled from their homes to Babylon.
Our first reading does not ask for extraordinary measures. How difficult is the request, “that I may know how to sustain with a word [of encouragement] him/her who is weary”? After all, we all have mouths, but to choose words of encouragement over insults and keeping quiet before oppression is the challenge our first reading poses. The free initiative to combat evil, to have eyes that see injustice and muster the guts to challenge it, is what Isaiah proposes to you and me. Our revolt in the face of injustice must make us willingly take up suffering to topple the architecture of evil in our world!
The idea of “suffering” connects our first reading to the gospel. Our gospel reading shows that the suffering of Christ was cut out for him. This is how he explains Christ’s prospective suffering: “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days”. Interestingly, it was the question of identity, “who do people say that I am?” that leads to the “right to suffer” answer. Jesus chooses to be known and identified as “the suffering one”. Isaiah forewarned the possibility of “rebellion” or refusal to accept suffering, which continued to this day. Peter takes Jesus aside to “talk sense” into him against his stance on suffering! Jesus’ rebuke of Peter seals the human destiny as one that necessitates suffering, if we must right the wrongs of injustices in our communities and countries. Jesus’ declaration, superior to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is unambiguous: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”.
“Suffering” procures two remedies, physical and spiritual. In our first reading, “suffering” was a revolution against the structure of oppression and colonization. In our gospel, the overthrow of sin and evil is the purpose of suffering. In both instances, human beings have got stakes in the physical and spiritual transformations of our world. The refusal to engage with our world towards making it a better place for all and sundry is to reject the Christian message of suffering and the right to suffer. Remember that we participate in suffering through whatever good we do to transform the world.
“Suffering Sunday” is a clarion call to do something, to engage actively with the world. Our second reading provides us with a practical social example, NOT the only example possible: “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?” The refusal to oblige the world to be just towards the poor and needy is absconding from the obligation of Suffering Sunday. It is our suffering working for justice that will create a better world.
The ear that hears the cry of the weak and the needy, the back that carries the burdens of the down trodden, the face that is covered with the spittle of the proud and insults of ingrates, is a disciple of God who allows his rain to fall on the good and the bad, his sun to shine as well upon them. God is our yardstick for measuring how human life should be lived, the testimony of how God has related with us individually and as a community – compassion. The story of God’s magnanimity is a tale of love and forgiveness. It is a concrete demonstration of how the strong helps the weak; the power of God’s example and not the weight of God’s strength, when he punishes! The love of sacrifice and suffering is to have an eye that sees the good in others and to help bring out the best in others. Jesus is the epitome of this kind of suffering, and we must learn from him.
Assignment for the Week:
Help somebody oppressed to feel good this week.