The Rev. Sara Warfield
Scriptures: 1 Peter 3:13-22
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” This is what Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise tells Lt. Data in one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Data is an android, but he is struggling with self-doubt after losing a strategic game despite playing without any technical or procedural errors.
I followed all the rules, but still lost. I anticipated every move and every need, but someone was still disappointed. I took good care of myself and did everything the doctor told me, but I still got cancer.
There is in all these thoughts the inherent idea of what people deserve. If I do all the things I’m supposed to, I deserve to win. I deserve to be free from suffering. Or, to phrase it another way, if someone doesn’t do what they’re supposed to, if someone is sinful, they do deserve to lose, to suffer.
And there is some biblical basis for this. We hear how God keeps the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years, forbidding even Moses to enter the Promised Land, because of their disobedience, their sin, against God.
I do think there is a category of suffering that has to do with consequences of certain actions. Sometimes our sin causes other people to suffer, and sometimes other people’s sin causes us to suffer. And I firmly believe that all sin causes the sinner to suffer in one way or another.
But then there’s the category of suffering that Jesus describes to his disciples in Matthew: “For God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” This kind of suffering is not about what people do or don’t deserve, it’s simply part of life in a finite body on an ever-changing planet.
As far as suffering can feel like losing, “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.”
Having faith isn’t about trying to explain why suffering happens, having faith is about how we respond to suffering. In fact, that’s what the whole first epistle of Peter is about.
Now we’ve been going through First Peter this entire season of Eastertide, and I imagine it’s a book you haven’t heard much about. It’s a letter written 60-odd years after Jesus’ death addressed to some of the earliest Christians in the stretch of the Roman empire that is now eastern Turkey. These Christians have been marginalized and in some cases abused for their belief in Christ. It’s not the full-on state-sanctioned persecution that will come in the next few centuries, but more casual oppression by their own neighbors who think of their new faith as a creepy sect, at best, or a dangerous threat to their community, at worst.
These new Christians are being mocked and shut out of community events and gatherings. Wherever they go, people turn their eyes away and whisper to one another.
And what does this writer of First Peter say to these people who have suddenly become pariahs in their own neighborhoods?
Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.
I visited with Casey about a week before he died. If you are relatively new to St. Luke’s, Casey was part of our church family. He’d been diagnosed with cancer in 2019. Though he was treated and went into remission, the cancer came back in 2023 in a way that could only be contained and only for awhile. He died on January 4th of this year. He was just a few years older than me. His funeral was yesterday.
It wasn’t the last time I saw Casey but it was the last time he was fully conscious. And you know what we talked about? Star Trek. He was telling me about the larger philosophy of the show, which he described as “if you have to resort to violence, you’ve already lost.” It’s a philosophy of pacifism, of coming to mutual understanding in order to maintain both peace and dignity.
Casey loved Star Trek, as evidenced by his wardrobe consisting mostly of Star Trek t-shirts.
We also discussed his funeral liturgy. Casey had gone through the service in the Book of Common Prayer, which we heard yesterday, and he wanted to make some changes. I was like, yeah, let’s do it!
So he opened up to the first page of the service, where the anthem says:
As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth.
It’s from Job, Casey told me, toward the end of his story of extraordinary and excruciating suffering. And it’s an Old Testament story, he said, but in this funeral context it seems to be referencing Jesus. Job surely wasn’t referencing Jesus, he said, so it feels a little disingenuous.
I nodded, because Casey was right.
I don’t know if you know this, but Casey was a bible scholar and theologian. He’d fully rewritten one of the gospels as he interpreted and understood it. He could find the biblical references hidden all over pop culture. But his biblical scholarship wasn’t the only reason he didn’t want Job included in his funeral liturgy. That day he looked at me and he said, “the thing is, Job got everything back.”
If you were at the funeral yesterday, maybe you noticed that we didn’t say that part. He picked a passage from Luke instead: “Concerning the resurrection of the dead,” says the Lord, “God is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to God.”
When Casey was given his terminal diagnosis, he started writing a book about the theology and philosophy of his life. It was for Faith, his wife, and Charis and Zoey, their children. Not only that, he designed the book himself, because he was also a graphic artist and designer. Then he had it bound and printed and sent to his family for Christmas last year. It didn’t arrive on time, though. In fact it didn’t arrive until a few days after he died, on his daughter Charis’ birthday. It seems he was pulling strings even after he departed this life.
Now I’m not saying that Casey didn’t struggle throughout this time, that he didn’t wrestle with sadness, doubt, or anger. I can’t imagine any human going through what he went through without having a huge variety of emotional and spiritual responses. I’m sure Faith bore witness to many of those harder moments.
What I am saying is that, in the face of what he knew was his approaching death, even as he lost his appetite, even as his voice turned into a hoarse whisper, Casey was teaching me about Star Trek. He was diving deeply into the theology of his own funeral liturgy. He was pouring himself into a creation so that he could be resurrected, at least in a small way, for his family whenever they opened his book.
Even in what were likely the most difficult days of his life, Casey was making an account of the hope that was in him.
Now I’m not prone to using superlatives, but I think in this case it is accurate to say that holding onto hope even in the darkest moments, especially in the darkest moments, is the greatest demonstration of our faith in Jesus that we can make—enduring his suffering, being present to his death, and trusting in his resurrection.
Casey was faithful until his last breath.
Amen.
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