by Faith and Terence Fretheim

In the September issue of Lutheran Woman Today, we will begin a new Bible study called Hope in God in Times of Suffering. Here the authors tell readers about their work on this important study. God and Suffering:

God and Suffering was our original title for the nine-session LWT Bible study for 2006–2007. We believed that our title was straightforward and would speak to the point of the study. To our surprise, when the title was field–tested, we got feedback that it was "too negative" and "a real downer." Comments such as "How can I invite someone to attend a study with that kind of title?" led the magazine staff to ask us to reconsider. Hence the new study title is Hope in God in Times of Suffering.

Now, actually, we think the new title is just fine, because in times of suffering, as in all other times, our hope is in God. But by the original title, we wanted to urge readers to take a good hard look at suffering, rather than too quickly passing over it on the way to hope. Why?

Thoughts from Faith
First, because in this quick–fix, feel good society in which we live, talking about and digging into issues of evil and suffering are important. Often, we let easy answers suffice: "It was God’s plan for Henry to die at this time"; "God needs Mary in heaven more than we need her"; "I’ll leave it up to God if he wants Mother home now."

Could it have been God’s will that Henry not die? Might it be that God needed Mary more on earth than in heaven? Could it be that by "leaving it up to God" we neglect our responsibilities to listen carefully, to speak God’s word of hope, and to be with the other person in his or her suffering?

As program director for Women of the ELCA from 1988 to 2005, I spent a lot of time with Lutheran women. I listened to and, at times, experienced their pain, their deep hurts, and their often intense suffering. I saw first hand how women of faith can cope, share their distress, gather around each other for support, and "just deal with it!" I moved from surprise to awe at the incredible strength of women who have dealt with some pretty tough stuff and not only survived, but come out stronger, with a renewed zest for life, and with a deeper under standing of God’s part in their journey of suffering.

However, I have also been a part of groups and involved in the lives of individuals who felt the need to hide anything negative happening in their lives. "If I don’t talk about it, it might go away." Or, "I simply can’t admit anything is wrong because people — or God! — might think that I don’t have enough faith." Or, "I am too successful, too together, to admit to anything negative in my life." Could these be reasons why some people objected to the original title?

I believe in the strength of women, and I believe in the intelligence of women. I believe that when our knowledge of God’s working in our lives is deeper and more expansive, we are better able to deal with whatever life hands us. In addition, and more importantly, we are then better able to help others when they honor us by sharing what is going on in their lives.

A deeper biblical understanding of the God who is at work in our world will give us new ways to be responsive to the hurt, grief, trials, and suffering that surround us every day. A deeper biblical understanding of how God honors us as God’s servants in this world will lead us to fresh ways to respond — to others and to our own situations — when bad things happen. What you do with your own suffering and how you speak and act toward someone else’s are very important issues with which God presents us.

But, don’t get to answers or explanations too quickly (if at all). Live in the issues of suffering, work through them, talk about them, even get mad at God — God can take it! Then move on to what can be done, who can help where God is with us in the suffering, what word from God can be spoken. We can be confident that God will enable you and others to arrive at a new place in the midst of suffering!

To draw on 1 Corinthians 13:11–13: When I was a child I read the Bible as a child, thought and reasoned as a child, but as I have grown older — chronologically, mentally, and emotionally — more is expected of me. And that means growing up in the ways we read the Bible and think about God. We will still see in a mirror dimly regarding questions about suffering, but we do have God-given gifts to help us see more clearly. Children ask wonderful questions about God, but sometimes as adults we have not moved beyond those questions. God wants us to move into adulthood.

Thoughts from Terry
Renowned theologian Douglas John Hall in his book God and Human Suffering (pp. 14–15, 33–35) says: "God, the biblical God at least, is preoccupied with human suffering"... [indeed] "is appalled by human suffering" and has been working "at enormous cost! — to do something about it!" Because suffering is "where it is at" with us, and God wants truly to be Emmanuel (God with us), then God "must become a suffering God," most supremely in Jesus Christ but also throughout the Old Testament. In so doing, God chooses not to overpower suffering from without (as we would often like God to do). Rather, God chooses instead to affect the healing process from within. "God has to participate in [suffering] if God would be with us."

Suffering is real for God because it is real for each of us. If God is so concerned about human suffering, so concerned as to enter into the very heart of the lives of suffering people, shouldn’t we be as concerned and engaged? Is it possible that we don’t like to link God and suffering too closely, and that is why some objected to the original title?

Such engagement with suffering seems to be more and more difficult these days. We are a suffering–evading society. We will do almost anything to avoid pain. Avoidance is how we are able to cope when we know that, if we were to look suffering straight in the face, we would not be able to cope.

A big word in the news these days is security. While there is a legitimate concern about this matter, have we gone too far in our efforts to shield ourselves from possible suffering? We may even have intensified our suffering through all the anxiety and fear that the focus on our security has produced. In the process, we often come to blame others for our suffering and excuse ourselves. Keep track of how often the word enemy occurs in our conversations. The cartoon character Pogo is pretty close to the mark when he says: We have met the enemy and he is us!

We often have difficulty acknowledging our own suffering to ourselves, let alone to others. If we do admit that we suffer, others — perhaps even we ourselves — might think that something is wrong with us. Listen to Roberta Bondi (Christian Century, March 20–27, 1996): "Our churches project an image of what you’re supposed to be like when you go to church: you have to be successful, you have to have a happy face. You may be going through a divorce or your kids may be on drugs, but you still need to look like you’ve got it together. All this indicates to people that God is interested only in people who have it together. That is really just as oppressive to my students as anything I grew up with." At the same time, in our heart of hearts, we know that suffering is real for every one of us.

Painful events such as September 11 and Hurricane Katrina (among others) seem to have deadened the impact of suffering on our lives. We have acquired an ability to listen without emotion to the most shattering data about genocide, starving African children, and violence of every kind. The movies must be more and more violent to have any effect on us because we have become so numb to pain and suffering. And perhaps we do not want to talk much about suffering because it dredges up these fears and anxieties.

We have often become indifferent to pain in the lives of other people, just hoping that it will go away so that we need do as little as possible about it. We have difficulty entering into the suffering of others; it is almost as if their suffering is contagious and we will catch it! Look at the way we often avoid nursing homes and people with terminal illness. Look at how we neglect women and children in poverty and other marginalized people among us. Is it possible that we look away from such suffering because deep inside, we wonder whether in our evasion of suffering, we may often be the cause of the suffering of others?

We should consider more openly acknowledging our own suffering, learning better to understand what God’s relation to our suffering is (and is not), and engaging ourselves more intensely in the suffering of others. Such reflections and actions may help bring a hopeful word from God more closely into our hearts and into the hearts of others. God can use what we do and say to make a difference! Our conversation about God’s relationship to our suffering may sharpen our sensitivities to the needs of others.

We are called to take up the cross, to suffer beyond that which comes our way as a matter of course. We are called to stand in solidarity with those who suffer, risking our lives enough to enter truly into the suffering of others. We are called to be sufficiently nonchalant about our own personal condition and safety, sufficiently free from self-concern, to see and to be with those who are in need. As God suffers, as Jesus the Christ must suffer, so must we.

1 Peter 2:21 puts it this way: "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you should follow in his steps."

Terence (Terry) and Faith Fretheim are the authors of the September 2006-May 2007 Lutheran Woman Today Bible study, Hope in God in Times of Suffering. Faith is a retired staff member of Women of the ELCA and Terry is the Elva B. Lovell Professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn.