Lent 3 - In the Midst of Suffering

Here's a link to this week's Gospel text:

http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/CLent/cLent3.htm

I am nine. I am growing up in a bright, lime-green house near a field whose tall weeds stretch for acres. Behind my house, in the middle of the field, lives a boy my age named Paul. Paul is friendly and mischievous, and his father takes us for rides on a tan tracker that rumbles like an angry bobcat when it comes to life.

They have a barn, too, just on the edge of their property. It is run-down, with rotten wood spilling out around broken nails at the building's joints and seams. There is a thick, silver padlock on the double doors leading into the barn, as its disrepair prevents Paul's family from using it.

It is the middle of Fall, the leaves have turned, and Paul and I find that a recent storm has broken a window on the outside of the barn, and if we climb a nearby plum tree, we can just make it inside. I spend the afternoon in the barn with Paul, breaking damp boards and digging holes, holding the wood tight in our hands before it is smashed and then using the scattered pieces to shovel the loose earth at our feet.

Just as we are about to leave, Paul gives a low shout and points with two fingers up toward the rafters, where I can just make out the shape of a nest. I squint and stare for a few seconds, and when I turn back to Paul he has a slender stone in his left hand. He lets it fly. He laughs as the nest falls, and I laugh, too, because he has, but my stomach twists when I see the small home hit the ground.

I return later, alone, and sit next to four broken eggs whose fluids have commingled with the dirt. I stare at the small, partially-formed bodies near cracked shells, hints of wings and beaks on two or three. Reaching out my hands, I pick up a few shells and try to fit them back together. I stay in the barn until it is dark before going home.


In the city, we found that the oasis we expected from our safe places didn't provide the comfort we needed. Now we're smack-dab in the middle of it, in the midst of suffering. Our text examines difficult, painful situations, and we find resonance within our own world, within our own lives. How do we find Christ here? How do we live in this brokenness?