Suffering and service?

     This coming Sunday marks our annual Polka Fest!  We are thrilled to gather together with Barefoot Becky and the Ivanhoe Dutchmen and the wider community to worship, eat, dance, and play in order to raise funds for the St. Luke's Child Protection Center.  It is hard to talk about the Child Protection Center because of why it exists.  It makes me sad, angry, and pray fervently for God's kingdom to come.  The Child Protection Center is a clinic that cares for children who have suffered abuse.  The figures are rather staggering:

• Approximately two-thirds of victims are female.
• Over 40 percent of victims are under the age of seven at the time they are seen at CPC.
• Nearly 90 percent are abused by someone they know.   

As we are called to care for the least and last, the most vulnerable in the world, it is our joy to help support this clinic as part of our mission for sharing God's love to those most in need.
     In the reading from Hebrews for Sunday the writer shares about many who were abused, people who "suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented — of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground."
     Now these were abused because of their faith, which is a different reason than children are abused, but violence is violence; oppression is oppression; injustice is injustice; no matter the reason or the victim.  And these, says the author, are the ones who surround us.  That is how it is with the body of Christ.  The baptized are unified, all being washed with the same cleansing that is baptism, and so we are one body.  The saints - past, present, and future - are joined in the mystical mystery that is Christ's body.  And since "we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God."
     Because of the mystery that is God, we are joined with all who have been, are being, and will be abused.  Because of the mystery that is the body of Christ, when one suffers all suffer and when the body suffers we are called to serve.  And that is what this race is about, I think.
     It is easy to look around at the suffering and begin to lose hope that it will ever be relieved.  It is easy to look around at the abuse which constitutes an approximate 3 billion dollar industry in the United State and begin to think it is futile.  Which is why, I think, we are urged to look to "Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith."  He endured when he wanted to give up.  In the face of abuse and suffering, God was able to work new life and resurrection.  And now it is he who died and was raised who 'has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.'  Which means that the suffering has been totally redeemed, that the new life is seated in power, that the body, through broken, is made whole.
    It is that wholeness into which we are baptized that we are invited to live.  Jesus was able to endure and run with perseverance the race, and we are joined (tied, tethered, or whatever other joining-verb you care to use) with him in baptism so that his endurance is our endurance, his perseverance is our perseverance, his suffering is our suffering and his resurrection is our resurrection.
     The mystery I am left pondering is this mystical Body of Christ.  Joined together, how am I called to be my part so that as others suffer I can work to serve or to be receptive to others serving me?  And of course there is the great mystery of suffering itself - which is lifted up in the following prayer:

God of liberation, you see works of violence and weep. Relieve the suffering of all who are experiencing/have survived abuse or violence in human trafficking. Grant them peace of mind and a renewed faith in your protection and care. Protect us all from the violence of others; help us to bring offenders to justice; keep us safe from weapons of hate; and restore us to tranquility and peace; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

  ~ Evangelical Lutheran Worship Pastoral Care edition