Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favour granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
(2 Corinthians 1:3-11)
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It's always about the other. Setting overtly religious language and formal doctrine aside, if I were asked to say one thing about Christian faith that a non-Christian might be able to truly relate to and understand without a whole lot of explanation being required, those might be the words I'd choose - “it's always about the other.” It seems to me that's how Jesus lived, and that's how Jesus reflected the love of God and the presence of God to those around him. He always made “the other” the focus of whatever he was doing at any given time. It was never about him. It's not that he didn't have needs; it's not even that he didn't have wants. But he never allowed his own needs or wants to become the focus. He was committed to the mission he was carrying out on God's behalf, and his early disciples, for the most part, seem to have learned that lesson. They understood that the faith in Jesus they now professed needed to be displayed in the same way that Jesus showed his faith in God – that they had to be “always for others,” and never for themselves – at least not as a first priority from the perspective of faith. Paul, for example, learned that lesson. In the course of his life of faith, he faced many hardships and he received a lot of comfort (from God and from fellow believers) – and he understood that every experience of his life (every challenge he had faced and every piece of comfort he had experienced from God or from others) – was valuable, because they gave him the ability to help others. By being comforted and helped, he was empowered to comfort and to help. He refers to God as the one “who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” The very principle of being “always for others” comes first from God, and we see that displayed throughout the Bible.
The prime example of this principle is probably John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave ...” God is a giver, and not a taker. That's important to understand. It is true that if you read the Book of Job you come across the famous line, “the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.” I'm not sure, though, that Job really meant that God was actively taking things away. In the context of that story I think the message was that in both the things we receive and the things we lose, God is present. The whole point of the story of Job is that God sees Job through calamitous times and never leaves him in spite of the troubles that he faces; that God continues to bless him; that God provides for him; that God sees him through his difficulties. So even though Job may say “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away,” it's clear that basically Job understands God as the one who gives and who will continue to give, and so Job is able to stay firm throughout his troubles because he knows that God is a giving God who won't abandon him. And that's shown most clearly for us in the story of Jesus. “For God so loved the world that he gave ...” What did God give? “... his only Son ...” Understand the giving of Jesus and the cross as you will (because there are different ways of interpreting the message of John 3:16) but the point is that God not only gave – God gave that which was most precious! God is always for others – God is always for us. God doesn't hoard that which is precious and valuable. God gives it away – to the world! It's the way of God.
Of course, “God ... gave his ... Son.” And his Son gave as well. There are all sorts of examples in the Gospels of Jesus being always for others. A few days ago, in some private reading of Scripture that I was doing, I was working my way through Matthew 14. There's a passage in this chapter in which Jesus seems to put himself and his needs first. It's the passage where we see Jesus, tired and in need of refreshment, setting off in a boat to go to a secluded place, presumably for some rest and relaxation. What's interesting in the passage, of course, is that it's questionable as to whether Jesus ever gets his R&R. Someone found out where he was going, and a crowd gathered to meet him when he arrived. It was difficult for Jesus to get a moment by himself. It was before the days of the paparazzi stalking movie stars and other celebrities just for the sake of getting a picture, but people with their own needs still followed Jesus everywhere. Jesus – at that moment looking for a secluded place to rest and commune with God – perhaps could have been excused had he seen the crowds waiting for him and simply turned the boat around to find some other place. But no. Jesus understood the principle established by his Father. Always for others. And the passage tells us that rather than being irritated by the demands that others were putting on him and rather than simply turning around and trying once again to leave the crowd behind, he was instead moved by compassion – and instead of withdrawing he stayed among the crowd and he healed them, in spite of his own need for R&R. Jesus is our example in every day terms of someone who gives ... and gives ... and gives. Who lives always for others, sacrificing himself. Jesus was always for others. When there was need Jesus met it, no matter how much he might have wanted to take time for himself. It's the way of God; it's the way of Christ.
And Paul understood the concept. We can see that from today's reading. From Paul's perspective, not only everything that a Christian has but even everything that a Christian experiences is neither for our benefit nor for our hardship – they represent opportunities for us to learn how to be active in serving others. Everything that we have can be sacrificed for the sake of others, and everything that happens to us gives us the ability to relate to and help others in the same circumstances. God “comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” God is the one who comforts us, and so from God we learn how to be a comfort to others. God is the one who is with us when we're facing troubles, so that we have the example of standing with others who face troubles. Everything about our faith pushes us outward into the service of those around us, rather than inward to be concerned about ourselves. It's how we live as Christian people, it's how we live as a Christian congregation – by always putting the needs of others before our own. Otherwise, faith can easily become a selfish thing, in which we focus only on what we need, which easily becomes a focus on what we want but don't really need. Too easily, we can start to perceive our faith as being useful only for what we can get out of it – but faith, to be meaningful, is about what we put into it and about how it moves us to touch the lives of others. It's the way of God; it's the way of Christ; it's the way of Christians.
And if it's the way of God, the way of Christ and the way of Christians – then it should be our way too! It should be how we live our individual lives – in true love and compassion and caring for others, and seeking ways to serve those around us. It should be how we live our corporate life as a congregation – also in true love and compassion and caring for others, and seeking ways to serve those around us. Either way, we have to remember that what's important isn't what we get out of having faith; it's about what we give away because of our faith. And if we really adopted that way of living, then what would there be to hold us back? We'd be free of fear, because we'd be willing to give everything away. That's the way of true life, and it's the road to resurrection. Being willing to give everything away for the sake of those in need. Being always for others. The way of God; the way of Christ; the way of Christians. Our way.
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