A few years ago at an interfaith event, a Buddhist person asked me what Mennonites believe about suffering. I was at a loss. For Buddhists, understanding suffering, is central to their teachings. So of course my Buddhist friend wanted to know how Mennonites approach suffering. I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t have a good answer.

Suffering is part of our story as Anabaptists. In this year, when we remember 500 years of Anabaptism, we are fairly invested in telling the martyr stories of suffering. And Jesus, who we look to as the model of our faith, suffered on the cross. But what do we believe about suffering? And to make the question more explicitly about Christianity, what do we believe about Jesus and the cross?

This might seem like a strange topic to explore on a steamy Sunday in August. But the suffering in Gaza, and Israel, in Sudan, in Ukraine, the suffering of black and brown neighbors, unhoused neighbors, the suffering of Muslim, Jewish, queer neighbors, not to mention the earth itself, is all too real and front of mind these days. So what can we say about suffering? I don’t in any way claim to have the answers but the current world situation certainly raises questions for me about suffering and the cross.

Let’s take a deep breath as we turn toward the cross and suffering. (Breathe) We can hardly get enough of deep breathing these days, to settle and center ourselves. (another breath)

Perhaps suffering is hard to grasp when one hasn’t suffered all that much. Some of us here did birth babies, which involves pain and suffering but the reward at the end is immense. Many of us have experienced huge loss, grieved people that we loved deeply. Some of us are not strangers to anxiety and depression. Others of us have suffered like the song from Ghana says “persecution, temptation, and loneliness.” (Voices Together 607)

On the other hand, life might look pretty cushy for the majority of us here. Does that mean we can’t understand suffering, can’t truly understand the cross? I take seriously this statement from black liberation theologian James Cone, in his essential book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree: The cross, as locus of divine revelation, is not good news for the powerful, for those who are comfortable with the way things are, or for anyone whose religion is aligned with power. (p 156)

That is a humbling statement to start with, and maybe I should stop right here. As a white person with power, I need to listen to this: the cross is not good news for the powerful or those who are comfortable with the way things are. Still, the cross is part of our tradition, even though we may not emphasize it much in this congregation. Let’s survey this “wondrous cross,” as the hymn text says. As always, I am interested in your thinking, experiences, questions and push back during the response time.

I have a snapshot memory of being a pre-teen and crying uncontrollably because I had just learned that Jesus died for me. (It must have been that Baptist vacation bible school I attended.) I was overcome by my unworthiness and the thought that Jesus had suffered for me. Sigh. It seems the wrong message to teach a 12-year- old whose only sin was fighting with her brothers.

But for many Christians in this country this is the message they hear – that Jesus suffered and died so that we can be saved – from suffering, or death or hell or – what exactly are we saved from?

We are not saved from suffering. Peter Gomes writes that “Suffering is not an exception to the human condition, it is the human condition and as such it is almost impossible to avoid; and since religion… has to do with the human condition…religion by its very nature has an intimacy with suffering.” (Gomes – The Good Book, p 220) Certainly with the cross as a central symbol, suffering is an intimate part of the Christian story.

And… in my book, the bible is not systematically clear about the meaning of the cross and suffering. In Mark, Jesus says this:

The Promised One has not come to be served, but to serve, and to give one life as a ransom for many.”

“Give one life as a ransom for many.” Jesus’ life was a ransom paid for subsequent generations? This is why I was weeping all those years ago. But to whom is this ransom paid? And how? This idea of Jesus suffering on the cross as an instrument of salvation is hard for me to swallow. What kind of God demands this kind of ransom?

Maybe it is the feminist critiques that I read but this ransom sounds like a justification for the violence of powerful people, for the violence of a corrupt empire. “God made Jesus to suffer and die, what is there to worry about. Suffering and violence are part of life, Jesus experienced it and Jesus saves us.” Does this kind of theology excuse the violence of the empire? Is it an excuse for violence and suffering in our homes? “Look, even Jesus suffered. Be like Jesus, embrace your suffering.” Except that Jesus also said, “Take this cup from me – if it is your will.” Jesus didn’t yearn to suffer.

A slightly different look at Jesus’ purpose is found in I John 4 –

God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent the only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent the Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

There it is again, with different language. Talk of love and – Jesus is a sacrifice for our sins. God loves us so much that God sent Jesus to be with us, that is a comfort. This is also how we love. We show up for each other. But then the author adds that Jesus was sent to be the “atoning sacrifice.” That can’t be the sole purpose for his presence on earth? Sent only to die?
I appreciate what the notes in the Anabaptist Community Bible include for this passage. One is from Menno Simons who said Love is the total content of scripture. (ACB, p. 1505) I am not sure exactly what that means but it helps me understand how I have come to prioritize love and to say “God is love.” Love is the total content of scripture.

There is another comment in the “community reflection notes” from a group of contemporary Anabaptists that read this I John text together. They speak my mind (as the Quakers say.)

“When sacrifice is so closely linked with love, we run the risk of encouraging behavior that our society has condoned for centuries: women and other marginalized people sacrificing their well-being, their safety, their sense of self, to “love” an abuser. For those who have experienced an abundance of healthy love, this may not be an issue, but those with power should be cautious about asking vulnerable people to sacrifice their well-being as an expression of love.” (Anabaptist Community Bible, p 1505)

Let’s hear that again: Those with power should be cautious about asking vulnerable people to sacrifice their (own) well-being as an expression of love. We don’t always recognize the power we have but if we are asking someone else to make sacrifices that we are not willing to make, we should check ourselves. If we are asking someone else to forgive when we are not willing to forgive, we should check our power. If we are being told that God wants us to love someone who has harmed us and we are not ready to forgive, it is okay to say no.

Because listen to what else Jesus said -this time in Luke 10:

“I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

Whoa, so much for Blessed are the Peacemakers. Up until this point Luke’s Jesus has been describing how the flowers grow, neither toiling or spinning. He has been sharing parables with his disciples and then wham – he becomes fiery, impatient and frustrated. He has a message that will divide, that will cause his own baptism by fire and his death. He doesn’t quite embrace it but neither does he run from it. Love yes. But this deep commitment may divide.

So what does any of this have to do with suffering and the cross? Is the suffering of the cross about ransom, love and sacrifice? Or is the cross about such commitment that it brings division?

Recently I have been thinking about the cross through the lens of accompaniment. What if the significance of the cross is not that the death of Jesus saves us but in some mysterious way because Jesus suffered, he is with us in our experiences of suffering and death? As the song from Ghana says,
In your sickness, your suffering, your trials and pains,
God is with you all the time.
Persecution, temptation and loneliness,
God is with you all the time.
God is there with you (repeat)
(VT 607)

Earlier this summer the Prince Georges cluster of Congregation Action Network hosted a training here at HMC by the DMV Accompaniment Network, (DAN for short.) DAN trains people to walk with, to accompany, immigrants as they go to their ICE check-ins and court appointments. People who need to interact with ICE can request a DAN volunteer to show up for them and with them. Volunteers give rides, help look through documents, and are a presence as the “compas” navigate the system on a particular day. (Compa is Spanish slang for “friend or buddy.”)

Volunteers with DAN cannot take away the pain, humiliation and danger from the “compa.” Accompaniment cannot magically make ICE go away – though we do hope against hope that accompanied by a volunteer, there might be the possibility for more kindness or even justice. In one sense, the compa is like Jesus, being tried by an unjust system. And at the same time the accompanying volunteer is like a tangible presence of Christ with the compa in their suffering.

Mennonite Action does a slightly different kind of accompaniment as it advocates for the people of Palestine. We may never meet the people in Gaza but we pray and sing and protest and advocate for them as they suffer day after day. It is amazing to hear that even across continents, religion and culture, the advocacy and presence, the remembering and witnessing, that happens in this country is a comfort to those in Gaza. Again, it doesn’t take away the terror, danger, injustice or provide food for the people in Gaza. But Palestinians say that to be seen as people with dignity, to be remembered and carried in prayer, is powerful in some way.

More personally, many years ago I had a miscarriage that forced me to stop and grieve a series of deaths in my family. I have sometimes viewed that experience as one where that baby/bundle of cells was sacrificed so that I could keep on living. “This is my body broken for you.” Then I would take it a step further and say that the sacrifice of that little baby was what rescued me – from depression, from unresolved grief, from blaming my husband for my grief. But what if it was not the death/miscarriage that saved me? What if it was the presence of this community, and others, who sat with me, prayed, cooked, did child care. What if it was that accompanying presence that really was made the difference, that allowed the necessary healing process to begin?

Jesus knew suffering, abandonment. He died on the cross. What if another message of the cross (besides ransom and sacrifice) is that in some mysterious way Jesus accompanies us in experiences of suffering and death? Emmanuel, God with us.

Remembering James Cone’s warning, those of us who hold some power tread carefully here, as we seek this good news: when our lives intersect in real ways with the powerful Jesus story, in some mystical and inexplicable way, Jesus accompanies us. And as followers of Jesus, we are called to accompany those who suffer, who experience the cross in real ways. Accompaniment doesn’t take away the horrors but it might help relieve the suffering for a moment.

In these days of too much suffering and injustice, may we keep our minds and our hearts open to the presence of Christ on the cross when he appears before us. And may we be open to the ways that we can be Christ’s accompanying presence, in body and in spirit.