Blog

“You shouldn’t have to suffer … You don’t know that that’s what’s going to happen. … You have to stay positive! … There must be something you can do to change it. … Have you thought of … I think you should try … Why don’t you talk to …” 

I don’t know what Peter’s words were, when he was rebuking Jesus for talking about his impending death.  I imagine that they may have been similar to many of the things that hospital patients who have just received a  terminal diagnosis hear from family and friends who are trying desperately to find a way to make life different from what it is.

Or perhaps Peter’s rebuke of Jesus had religious overtones. Perhaps it sounded more like, “You should trust God. … You shouldn’t call it suffering. God will not give you more than you can handle! … Whatever comes will be good because God is in control. …” These phrases sound like words of faith, but they are actually a form of spiritual  bypass, an attempt to avoid the discomfort of uncertainty and vulnerability to arrive at a place where one has more of a sense of control.

Watching someone else suffer, and feeling powerless, is very uncomfortable, so family and friends often deny the experience of suffering by encouraging the other person to change their thinking and stop feeling what they are feeling. Rather than being fully present to what the other person is experiencing in the here and now, we often focus on a mythical alternative, something that could make the present pain irrelevant. We behave as if not  looking at the pain will make it disappear.  Too often we succeed in convincing the person who is ill to hide the pain as much as possible. This may make it easier for us, but it leaves them to suffer alone even when they are  surrounded by loved ones. 

Today’s gospel reading is a challenge to all of us who have loved ones who are suffering. It is also an invitation to us as a faith community to think about how we walk with each other through suffering. This is the first of  several occasions in which Jesus asks his disciples to bear witness to his pain. He is asking for the support of their  presence as he accepts the absolute vulnerability of being human – the inability to stop death. Even as he is  preparing to lay down his life for those he loves, he is asking his followers to support him by staying with him in the moment of powerlessness. But Peter, like most of us, does not want to feel powerless, therefore he tries to  convince Jesus to claim power. He is in fact doing the same thing that Satan did when Jesus was in the desert,  trying to convince Jesus that he should change his current reality in order to accomplish good, rather than  looking for the ways that God is working good in the present reality.

In order to process pain, whether it is physical pain, emotional pain or spiritual pain, human beings need to be able to feel the pain while maintaining a secure sense of connection to someone else. It is only when these two conditions are met simultaneously that we can move out of a threat response mode and begin to make creative choices even in the midst of hardship. To find peace in suffering, we need people who will stay with us, who will bear witness to the suffering and acknowledge how much it hurts without running away and without adding a “yes, but …”As a church we often tell people who are suffering to trust God. Today’s gospel reminds us that rather than telling the sufferer what to do, we should begin by demonstrating our willingness to truly bear their suffering, staying present to whatever they are feeling, offering our own vulnerability and powerlessness  to accompany theirs.

~Pam Driedger