her fandt jeg det følgende stykke
( se også http://www.pulpit.org/index.htm)
kort resumé: Artklen er bagsiden af et blad The Living Pulpit, og handler om det nr. af bladet, som drejer sig om lidelse. Kan Gud lide. Eller er Gud altid sejrrig. Jesus var ikke fatalist.
A Message From...David H.C.Read: Preaching on Suffering
Good Friends:
Our theme this quarter is one that no responsible preacher can avoid. We may satisfy our conscience with the belief that every service offers in prayers and hymns the consolation of the Gospel, and many sermons indicate a sensitivity to the needs of those present who are right then suffering in body, mind or spirit. But surely, especially in the Lenten season and Good Friday, we need to meet the question of human suffering with its inevitable Whys (Why me? Why the innocent? Why does a loving God allow it?) head on.
I have come to believe that every Christian sermon should be accompanied by a fresh realization that there will be among our listeners some (probably more than we think) who are actually experiencing some pain or sorrow which seems without reason and beyond relief This will not mean a constant harping on the dark side of life or the inserting of tear-jerking anecdotes, but convey the conviction that the preacher, even in the most light-hearted moments of a sermon, is one who has wrestled with the Whys.
Our reading has taught us that many of the greatest poets and dramatists have created their masterpieces just here, where a King Lear throws his curse to the stormy winds, where a Dante names his story of human suffering and triumph a Divine Comedy, where Milton creates his magnificent Satan to argue the case for Paradise Lost, where John Donne confronts his sins and suffering with the shouted prayer: "Batter my heart, three-personed God," where Blake, in a riot of images, meets his God in a world of suffering. Our viewing of the greatest works of art reveal the extraordinary fascination of the artist with the figure of the suffering Christ. As in the Apostles' Creed, "suffered under Pontius Pilate" lies at the heart of the portrait of Jesus. It is the suffering Christ who transcends the barriers of our Western culture to speak to the whole human family. It was the Sufferer who said: "I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."
As you know, we open our columns to a great variety of theological views within the limits of the historic Christian tradition. Your editors try not to reject any contribution because it offends our own personal opinions. You will find in this issue considerable diversity in the approach to the theme of suffering. I have space here only to reflect on one debate that has revolved around a belief that rejoices in the name of Patripassionism (try that one on your congregation!). According to the OED it means the belief that 'God the Father suffered in or with the Son for the redemption of man.", While the teaching that God is, by nature, beyond the reach of human pain and anguish has been for centuries an assumption of the orthodox, there have always been protesting voices that give an affirmative answer to the question "Does God suffer?" This is particularly true in the voices of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to whom this issue is dedicated, and Jurgen Moltmann. Most preachers today would find it hard, with these real sufferers in mind in the congregation out there, to speak as if God were remote from any such human experience.
When I began to use John Baillie's A Diary of Private Prayer over 40 years ago, I was caught up short one morning by a prayer that began "0 Lord my God, who dwellest in pure and blessed serenity beyond the reach of mortal pain..." Later I was able to understand what he meant and discussed it with him. He recommended that I read Von Hugel, which I did to the profit of my soul. I remember asking myself the question: "who is the one who ultimately comes to my rescue in a time of real suffering? Is it one who is down with me in the slough of despair, or is h the one whose being is for ever rooted in the joy of the victorious?'t As I answered that it must be the latter I returned to Baillie's prayer and read the conclusion - "yet lookest down in unspeakable love and tenderness upon the sorrows of earth, give me grace, I beseech Thee, to understand the meaning of such afflictions and disappointments as I myself am called upon to endure." This prayer then comes to mean another of those holy paradoxes that hover over the most profound truths of the Gospel, when we find ourselves holding fast to belief that seem logically irreconcilable (God's foreknowledge and our free will, Christ as wholly God and wholly human, salvation by faith and our response) but are practically resolved for us by the grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
In our sermons today we confront interpretations of suffering that must be resisted as contrary to the love of God, the grace of Christ and the communion of the Spirit. One is popular fatalism - "Ifs all been fixed; my number was on that bullet; there's nothing to be done about it.
The Bible speaks otherwise, although it honestly reflects such an attitude (see Ecclesiastes, Job and some psalms). No one can read of the words and actions of Jesus and conceive of him as a fatalist, even in his agonized acceptance of the cross. His disciples are to be ready to meet suffering in their pilgrimage and transform it through his grace. It would be good to remind believers that "Thy will be done" is a cry of confidence, not a sigh of resignation.
Another interpretation of suffering which has its echoes today in every congregation, is that which connects our pains and sorrows to our sins. Jesus, like all in the Hebrew tradition, was aware of the relation of suffering to sin (the image of Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise because they rebelled against God haunts the whole Bible). But more than one passage shows Jesus totally rejecting the view that suffering is meted out in direct proportion to our sins (See Luke 13:1-5; John 9:1-4). Yet probably every pastor today has to meet the genuine query: "What have I done wrong that this should happen to me?"
The pulpit should be the place where the mystery of suffering is frankly acknowledged, all cynicism rejected, and the grace of God proclaimed. That's what Paul was doing when he wrote to his confused and often despairing parishioners in Philippi: "My God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus."
May this issue help both preachers and hearers experience the truth of these words with a new vitality and understanding.
Grace be with you,
David H.C. Read Chairman
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