Keeping the Faith

My father went to church last week and listened as the pastor preached a sermon about prayer - and more specifically - how we respond when our prayers seem to go unanswered. It reminded me of another sermon I heard once in which the minister spoke of Christ being hidden in our suffering. His words frightened me at first. I'd encountered the concept of a "hidden Christ" in the classroom, from a theological perspective, but to sit in the pews and have to ask, "Why the hell is Christ hiding at my most desperate hour?!!" left me angry and grappling. I almost dared the minister to come up with some happy revelation, like the end of the "Footprints" story that hangs from the walls of rest homes and dorm rooms. The preacher said that it is when we are most lost and vulnerable that we encounter Christ in the midst of our suffering - nothing magical or mysterious - only blessed, painful, humbling, and true. The message was so adverse to the ministry of prosperity that has padded the pockets of the new age Christian movement. It was a sermon that didn't make money. (And, apparently, all sermons should make money.) His message was that alone in our suffering, we come face to face with ourselves and our God. Muslims are cast prostrate facing Mecca, Jews mutter sage morsels of the Talmud, Hindus chant a lullaby of Oms, and Christians drop their baggage at the foot of an empty cross. We all, in our suffering, are united in taking heed to the voice of the painful and joyful paradox that beckons, "Even in your greatest suffering, you are never alone, because you are not your own."

Humorist David Sedaris once wrote about his grandmother (YaYa) moving in with his family in Raleigh, North Carolina when he was a child. She embarrassed the s*** out of them at the Greek Orthodox Church when she crawled on her hands and knees, up the center aisle of the sanctuary, wailing and eventually clinging to the pastors feet. I laughed so hard I cried! The image was comic and ridiculous. This little old Greek lady, dressed in black, displaced from her home and all she knew, causing a scene in a public place. As I thought more about it, I laughed less. YaYa did not know the pastor or the congregation, but she knew there was something there. Beyond the pews and the incense, the pastor's robes, the vaulted ceilings, and the pious churchgoers looking on in embarrassment. It was something that no contribution to a collection plate could alter or erase.

No one really cares what they look like when the answers to fervent prayers lie in waiting. No one cares whose ashamed when sadness or loss leaves us grasping for hope. In her suffering, she crawled up that aisle toward a painful, humbling, and blessed truth. She is not alone, because she is not her own. I guess, there is no comedy or tragedy in that.