Homily

In the section of St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians that we heard today it appears that he is writing about problems that were in that church. It's impossible to know exactly what the specific problems were in this section of the letter, but it seems clear that Paul generally felt that too many of those parishioners were acting in ways that were proud, worldly and even arrogant. So he reminds them that he and the other apostles are not living lives marked by comfort, status, worldly success and recognition, which the Corinthians seem to value. Rather he and the apostles are more like prisoners of war who are being paraded to the arena, where they will be executed, not applauded. And how does Paul, along with the other apostles, act when faced with this unjust treatment? He says, "We are reviled and we bless them; when persecuted we bear it and endure it; when we are slandered we try to make peace. We have become as the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things . . . "

Now here is what St. John Chrysostom writes about this passage: "Paul is saying that the main point is not that he and his fellow apostles are suffering, for suffering happens to all people. What is unique about them is that they are suffering without despair or anger. On the contrary, they are full of rejoicing and they prove it by returning good for the evil they receive."

So I think of pain, suffering and hardships as kind of like holes in the path of our lives. And there are three different ways to deal with these holes. 1) We can simply endure them, put up with them, learn to live with them. This is not an easy solution but it's not a bad solution. It can be a good thing for us to learn how to endure the bad things that come to us in life, especially if we learn to endure them with a hope in God Who sees us in our need and can strengthen us in our trouble. We can and should pray that the Lord take away our suffering or trouble, but if He does not, our willingness to endure these difficulties can bring a great deal of grace into our lives. St. Paul handled more hardships than most of us can ever expect to see in our own lives and yet he endured and he persevered through them all, even as he finally saw the end of his own life in sight. The second response to suffering and trouble is the one St. John writes about. How do you fill those holes in the path of life? You can fill them with gratitude, with a sense of joy for what you do have, rather than a cry for what you do not have. Even in the midst of trouble you can find room to rejoice. There may be holes in your path, but look around you, there is still plenty of solid road and you can still move along. The Lord will not allow you to fall into those holes unless you really want to go there. So look up, not down, and see what you still have, see what you have been given, and then be glad for that. Rejoice in that. Do good because of that. Don't return insult for insult, blow for blow, evil for evil because there is no real value, no real strength in doing that. Hearts that are aware of the genuine good they have been given can find a way to rejoice even in the midst of suffering, because no amount of hardship can erase the grace of God. No holes in the pathway of life can prevent us from reaching Him unless we allow it.

And of course the third response to trouble and pain is to become angry or to despair. To lash out against others, to seek revenge, to try and force others to share in our misery, to mistreat people as we feel we have been mistreated, to return evil for evil, and often to make even those who are innocent pay some price for what we suffer. I don't have to go on and on about these kinds of reactions to holes we may find along the road. We see them so often in the lives of other people, and I'm sure we are very well acquainted with them in our own lives. These are the ways in which we not only see the holes in our path, they are the ways in which we dig those holes deeper and wider for ourselves, and very often we may also be digging holes in pathways of other people because of them. So much pointless and negative work, and yet it all seems so very natural, so easy to do, and often with the hope that somehow it will end up satisfying us, but that hope is never, ever fulfilled.

So yes, indeed, we do have hardship and sufferings of many kinds, the holes in the road, some big, some small, some temporary, some long-lasting in our lives. And yes, indeed, we are almost always tempted to deal with them in ways that are negative, destructive and contrary to the law of Christ. We are tempted to dig them even deeper by our thoughts and our actions as anger, frustration, bitterness, jealousy, envy, pride and a whole assortment of bad responses push us to give in to those temptations.

That way is not for us. We all have experience in suffering through hard times by endurance, so let us never forget that endurance can be a great response to trouble we cannot get away from. But even better than endurance is when we bear up with trouble in union with Christ Who suffered for our sake. This kind of endurance can produce great spiritual reward.

And finally, even better than endurance in Christ, is when we can bear with trouble not only enduring it, but even rejoicing at all we have, rejoicing in Christ for his many favors, rejoicing that all trials will one day end, rejoicing that we have been called to share in His glory so we need not create our own glory, and we need not worry how it will all turn out if we are willing to keep walking with Him. If in our trials we can still be glad in Christ, that is a life of faith worth living and a road worth walking.