Trinity 3 (Proper 6 - Year A) - 12th June 2005, 8.00am
The composer Beethoven seems to be in vogue this week. Radio 3 has given over a good deal of its schedule to his music and BBC 2 is currently running a series on his life. Apart from writing the most famous 4 note phrase in music history - ‘da da da daa’ - he is also famous for his deafness. There can be few things more frustrating for a musician who by definition flourishes on the interplay of sound.
There is a story that when Beethoven knew he was going deaf he is said to have commented “I will take it by the throat”. Far from rolling over and giving in he came back with what in our first reading (Romans 5:1-8) Paul calls ‘endurance’ or fortitude; a spirit that can overcome the world.
I’m not sure I would say that suffering produces this endurance, but it does provide a catalyst to bring it out if it is there. Suffering brings out the fight-flight response within us; we either fight back in some way or run away, a basic survival technique.
So having found our way in to this piece of rhetoric - suffering producing endurance, producing character, producing hope - we can begin to see how they build each other up. The endurance feeds and strengthens our character. The word for character is one used for metal that has been strengthened in the fire. Base elements have been purged from it and it is purified.
The character reinforces our sense of hope and trust. This in turn tops up the well from which we can draw our endurance, the fight rather than flight response that drives us through whatever pressures cause us the catalyst grief.
It is not just suffering that does this, after all we all know people who have been broken by suffering and that may even be our experience at times. They are all integrally related - suffering, endurance, character and hope. It is how we interpret that suffering and the bigger picture that we use to assess it that provides our way into the cycle that Paul outlined. That bigger picture is built around our hope in Jesus Christ who proves his love for us in dying and rising for us (v8). This is the hope that enables us to share in the glory of God (v2).
© Ian Black 2005