15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A July 16, 2023
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing.” Isn’t that a bit callous? If you tell someone in serious pain that their pain is nothing, people would think you are insensitive, cold-hearted, mean. Rightly so, too. But that’s not what St. Paul is saying in our second reading. We need to pay attention to what he actually says. He doesn’t say “suck it up” or “your pain is nothing.” He says he “considers” the suffering is as nothing. To “consider” something is not a passive thing, an automatic thing. It is the choice to reflect, to evaluate. “Consider” comes from a word that means to study the stars. Not just look at them, but study them and wonder at them.
So, when Paul “considers” sufferings as nothing and implies we should do the same, he is talking about what we think, not what we feel. This in no way dismisses suffering and it certainly doesn’t mean we should feel guilty that our suffering actually affects us. It’s not wrong to notice our pains and to actually feel bad when we feel bad. What St. Paul is doing is inviting us to a perspective. What we experience and feel – these things are usually outside of our control. What we think, how we evaluate, how we process feelings and experiences… these are things we can and should control. It is one thing to admit that you are depressed or in pain or lonely. It is another thing to say that your sorrow and isolation are the most important things in your life or anyone else’s.
Suffering tends to make itself the center of our attention. If we let it, our suffering can blind us to everything else. But if we make the choice to examine, to consider those sufferings according to the principles and perspective of the gospel, we can arrive at the truth and the freedom that truth brings even as we suffer.
Human beings in general and our culture in particular often confuse strong feelings with certainty. If a political speech inspires me, it must be true. If a statement infuriates me, it must be false. You can even see evidence of this in the way people talk. All the time, you’ll hear people say “I feel like…” before describing their thoughts. Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely room for intuition and gut instinct, but we shouldn’t completely reduce thinking to what we feel. If we let ourselves think that the feeling of suffering is the most important factor in our decisions, then Jesus’ teaching and example will seem downright cruel and absurd. Today’s gospel shows this very thing.
When the Apostles ask why Jesus speaks in parables, he talks like he doesn’t want people to understand what he’s saying, like he wants people to be confused. But serious confusion can cause quite a bit of suffering and if the most important thing in your life is to avoid suffering, then you’ll avoid Jesus. Add to this his teaching about the cross and self-denial and avoiding Jesus becomes the obvious choice… if the feeling of suffering is the most important thing to avoid.
But with perspective, with the realization that the true value of something is not determined by how it feels, then a clearer picture comes into view. Human beings are fallen – this is the corruption and futility Paul is talking about. Because of this, because we are too easily misled by our own fallen instincts, because of the grip that sin has on our minds and hearts, getting to the truth is hard.
Jesus uses parables for two reasons. First and foremost is to emphasize the point that understanding the truth is a gift. It is a grace from God that enables us to know and love Him and to be saved from sin. There is a mystery in who receives this grace and when… a mystery that will always remain beyond our complete understanding.
Secondly is that to know the truth takes work. The grace is a gift, but a response, our cooperation is still needed. We aren’t just missing information, we are missing an entire framework of truth… a whole network of insights and principles that are required to understand what Jesus is really telling us. So, his parables do give us the truth but are also meant to make us work for it. By being a little off, a little obscure, these parables are supposed to nudge us into the mental effort needed to not just learn, but change the very way we think.
The initial stages of wrestling with Jesus’ teaching can be painful. But just as doing math problems over and over as a kid enables you to think through other kinds of problems more quickly as an adult, so the work of thinking and praying through these parables enables you to more quickly and easily think like God. The sufferings of childhood math problems are as nothing compared with the thousands upon thousands of quick decisions and insights you’ll make throughout your life. These trials and pains break up the hardened dirt of our hearts so the seeds of the gospel can penetrate them and bear abundant fruit.
This is why God so rarely answers prayers with a direct “do this” or “go there.” He doesn’t want puppets and computers that simply process information or execute commands. He wants sons and daughters who live and think like Him. And this is why, far from dismissing our sufferings, St. Paul is actually giving them real value by comparing them to something so great. To say that something is more powerful does imply there is power in the first thing.
Jesus sees your sufferings. He knows how immense they are, how real. The point being made here is that yes, you can and should admit that your experiences of futility and corruption and pain and suffering are very real and, at the moment, seem very, very powerful. For all that, however, don’t think they are all there is. Using your mind, the light of the gospel, the grace of God, consider them and put them in their proper place. Realize that, as great as they are, they are completely surpassed by the glory to come. It takes an act of trust because the suffering feels real and the glory is yet to come, but this hope is not blind. The very fact that you yearn for peace, that you “groan” for redemption is part of the first fruits, the foretaste of that glory made possible by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it is the gift of the spirit that has enabled you to consider all this in the first place. Take courage because His work in you has already begun. When He’s done, you too will consider the sufferings of this present time as nothing… mere soil for the seeds of your salvation, ready to bear fruit 30, 60, one hundredfold.