Consolation
Craig Anderson
Psalm 22:1-5; 11-21; Matthew 11:28-30 September 3, 2006
I save the biggest question of all for the last session of the confirmation class. The one
about suffering and evil. The question about how and why a good and loving God would let the
world devolve into such a rotten mess. I preface the class discussion with a disclaimer, telling them,
“There is no answer to this question. You will wrestle with it all of your lives. For some it will be
the question which makes it impossible to have faith.” And then in that last class, with a year‟s work
under our belts we dive into the toughest question of all and later I send them on their way with no
answer.
There have been years when this routine varied: when the question couldn‟t wait. A year
when an 8th grade friend from Chester was killed in an auto accident. Another time, five years ago,
when the first class was on September 12th. We started in the deep end of the pool that year. Head
first. No water wings. Biggest question. No answer.
This week however, the poet W.H. Auden helped me realize that while no explanation for
suffering and evil suffices, there is a response. Commenting on Auden‟s poetry in the New Yorker,
Adam Gopnik observes “how reliably Auden returns to a single theme and a classic idea: that only
small circles of friends and lovers can console us for the world‟s evil.” Consolation. Consolation in
small circles of friends and lovers. From a Latin root, solari, meaning to soothe, or to salve.
Consolation: offering comfort and solace to another in distress. To alleviate and lessen grief and
sorrow. To strengthen, aid, encourage, refresh, relieve.
David Friedman, a contemporary lyricist explores this theme in one of his songs.
So many things we can't control (he writes),
So many hurts that happen everyday
So many heartaches that pierce the soul
So much pain that won't ever go away
How do we make it better?
How do we make it through?
What can we do
When there's nothing we can do?
We can be kind
We can take care of each other.
Consolation even when there is no explanation. We can be kind. This much we can do.
We are familiar with Psalms of lament. The opening phrase of today‟s reading was put on
the lips of Jesus, as his dying words, by Mark and Matthew, “why have you forsaken me?” Fully one
third of the Psalms are laments. And now I‟m beginning to understand. They are not only angry
and disappointed complaints, but they are also pleas for consolation:
2
„O LORD, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from
the sword, my life from the power of the dog!‟ Oh Lord, circle me with your love, save me from
despair over the world‟s evil. Give consolation.
We too have our complaints about suffering and evil. We despair over the state of the
world: the indiscriminate terror in Lebanon; tribal warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan; neglect in New
Orleans; happy talk in Washington. With the Psalmist we say, “trouble is near and there is no one to
help.” We feel “poured out like water, our bones out of joint; hearts melted like wax; mouths dry, as
if we were laid out in the dust of death.” These are dark days in our world and nation. Depressing,
discouraging days. What can we do when there‟s nothing we can do?
For one thing, we can keep coming here to gather with this small circle of friends and those
we love. We can come to hear again the stories of one who was acquainted with grief and familiar
with sorrow. We can come, hoping to hear him say again,
"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you
will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Easy yokes. Light burdens. Gentleness and humility. Rest.
But it is not only to this room in our building that people come for consolation. The
tattered carpet just beyond this door is holy ground. Parents and friends of transsexuals, lesbians
and gays meet there on the second Monday of the month to comfort one another. An older man
and his son: the father seeking to understand; the son hoping for acceptance. A mother whose
dreams for her daughter died, who after a year has new hopes; another mom who wants only for her
child to be happy. There is no answer for why humans are so cruel to one another; why everybody
must fit into the same straight-jackets, but in that sacred space, people are kind to each other,
remembering as David Friedman says, “everyone‟s needs, deep down are the same.”
Elsewhere, once in our building, but now in other churches, grieving parents of deceased
children, meet monthly as Compassionate Friends, founded locally by two of our Brookside friends.
Consolation in a small circle of friends. No answers, but comfort and solace for one another in
distress, to alleviate and lessen grief and sorrow.
On a local street, an exclusive club to which no one wants to belong, meets many mornings.
Two mothers, whose children have died, being kind, walking together and consoling one another.
There is very nearly the basis for an entire ethic in these words. Maybe I‟ll explore that in
the confirmation class this year. Being kind does not answer the question about why evil exists or
why human beings treat one another so horribly. But it is something we can do when there‟s
nothing we can do. We can be kind.