What's Worth It? Week 4: Values

What’s worth your suffering? As we talked about last time, everyone suffers. It may be for one reason or another, in some way or another, at some time or another, or to some degree or another, but everyone suffers.

Here are four reasons I can think of:

• Sacrifice. We choose to give up something of lesser value to get something of more value. For example: sacrifice time and money to get a degree. In the Old Testament, Hebrews sacrificed the blood of animals as an atonement for sins. In the New Testament, Ephesians 5:1-2 says “Jesus Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Jesus considered himself a small price compared to the value he placed on us.
  
  
• Discipline. Similar, but time based. Hebrews 12:4-11 describes discipline as an act that’s unpleasant at the time, but produces a reward. We give up something now to get something better in the future (e.g. budgeting, dietary choices, exercising).
  
  
• Punishment. The suffering we experience for breaking rules. Romans 13:1-5 says those who don’t submit to governing authorities have reason to expect punishment.
  
  
• Trials. This is the suffering we experience for no discernable reason in the moment.

Trials are tricky things, because we can’t distinguish them from punishment. In fact, we humans look for patterns even when there aren’t any. Like these images of Jesus in snack foods.

This tendency to look for patterns, even when there are none, is called apophenia.

Looking for patterns helps us make sense of the world; we’re far more comfortable with karma than we are with random suffering. Job is considered the oldest book of the Bible [Source], and this idea that “you’re being punished for your sin” was its central theme. Job and his friends went back and forth several times trying to interpret Job’s suffering. Is God like karma, or is he simply capricious? Even though God intervened at the end, He didn’t provide a clear answer, saying essentially (though authoritatively), “None of you are in a good position to question me.”

It was no easier in the New Testament.

In John 9:1-3, Jesus’ disciples see a man born blind, and they ask Jesus “Who sinned?” Jesus said the blindness was not the result of either his or his parents’ sin. He says that the man was born blind “so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

And in Luke 13:1-5, Jesus alludes to a disaster where a tower collapsed, killing 18 in Jerusalem. However, rather than explaining why those people suffered, he turned the conversation back to his present audience, saying they needed to focus on their own lives.

Even in these modern times, we’re still experiencing collapsed towers and looking at others’ sins to explain it.

When bad things happen, we look for reasons. Have you ever heard people ask “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

Well, how do you define bad? It’s subjective; it can be good or bad at any given time. And how do you define good? Mark 10:18 is pretty restrictive.

So if we get rid of subjective “bad” and redefine “good” based on our value of Jesus, we can rephrase the question: “Why do things happen to people?” And then the question becomes almost comical.

Despite the plethora of explanations, the world is no closer to getting any answers why certain people suffer certain things and others don’t. But from what Job, Luke, and John imply, I suspect that looking for a clear answer is the wrong approach. Perhaps we need a better perspective.

Jesus had that better perspective on involuntary suffering. He looked beyond the blindness and the tower collapse because he valued different things. He was less interested in differentiating punishment and trials; he was more interested in the underlying message of the Gospel.

This can seem callous or dismissive, but what we choose to focus on reflects our values. We do the same thing when our children have arguments. (“I don’t care who started it; I’m going to end it!”) As parents, we value perfect justice less than we value harmony (or our own peace of mind).

Sometimes, like Jonah, we hold poor values. At first, Jonah didn’t value God’s will or helping people. He valued his own safety and personal freedom. It took a traumatic event for Jonah to reorder his priorities.

Other times, the Bible shows examples of astounding focus. In Lamentations 3, Jeremiah is lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC.

Yet despite a punishment that -- in his opinion -- was greater than even that of Sodom’s (Lamentations 4:6), and despite the truly horrible desperation he saw in Lamentations 4:10, he celebrated God’s unfailing compassions (Lamentations 3:19-33).

We need to first establish, then maintain a focus on, good values. That way, even if we make decisions that result in trials, we can still be confident we’ve made the right decisions. Next week, we’ll read Ecclesiastes 7, and discuss whether the glass is half empty, half full, or whether we should just be grateful we won’t be going thirsty.

Discussion Questions:

1. In what ways do you respond to suffering? Anger, Hopelessness, Determination?
2. Why do you respond that way?
3. In what ways can your values help you with your suffering?
4. What should we do when we suffer in ways that don’t match our values?