My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ

During the course of leading a Benedictine Experience Retreat recently one of the retreatants suddenly asked me, "What does the Rule have to say about comforting God?

I was totally taken aback and asked, "Comforting God?"

"Yes," he said, "who comforts God when God's heart is broken and how is that done?"

The question, of course, is easy enough to answer. Christian theology has, throughout the ages, maintained that God is impassible and immutable - that is, God does not undergo emotional changes of state and so is incapable of suffering and thus incapable, too, of being comforted. Benedict almost certainly would have subscribed to this doctrine and so, for him, the question would never have arisen and could not have been answered had it done so.

However, I am also aware that over the last century the idea of an impassible God has been challenged to the point that it would probably be true to say that the majority of modern theologians now subscribe, in one sense or another, to a God who suffers. Barth, Bonhoeffer, Cantelemesa, Cone, Kung, Macquarrie, Moltman, Pannenburg, Reuther (and feminist theologians generally), Sabrino (and most liberation theologians), Temple, von Balthasar, Whitehead (and all process theologians) - the list reads like a who's who of 20^th C theology. In fact, Ronald Goetz, Professor of Theology at Elmhurst, goes as far as to say, "The ancient theopaschite heresy that God suffers has, in fact, become the new orthodoxy."

In the light of this quantum shift in theological thinking, I found the question both provocative and soul-searching. Can one talk of comforting God and, if so, how would this be done?

In trying to answer the question, I think it is important to note that scripture seems to speak of God suffering in three ways:-

1. God suffers because those whom God loves have rejected God as Lord (cf Isa 63:9-10 / Luke 23:34);
2. God suffers with those who are suffering (cf Isa 49:15 / Luke 19:41);
3. God suffers for the people (cf Isa 42:14 / 1 Cor 15:3).

God is self-sufficient and does not need anything of us, so clearly we cannot speak of comforting God in the same way that God comforts us or we comfort one another. God does not need to be comforted. Nevertheless, Jesus speaks of joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, and in his parable of the prodigal son tells of a father filled with joy at the return of his son. Therefore, it could perhaps be said that God delights in the lives of the faithful - those who love and persevere in love and in whom Christ is more and more to be seen.

Perhaps I am stretching matters, but could our faithfulness not only be a source of delight and joy, but also a source of comfort to our Lord? If so, then at least part of the answer to my retreatant's question is that it is our faithfulness - the daily acts of perseverance and sacrifice of each one of us who desire to follow and serve - that brings joy, delight and comfort to the heart of God. "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1)

But I think we can go even further. Bonhoeffer says that the cross is laid on every Christian and speaks of discipleship as suffering with God and for others in the midst of an earthly life. That suffering for God is experienced first in the call to abandon our attachments to the world and die to self and then in the invitation to follow Christ into a hurting and hostile world. "Bear each other's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ" (Gal 6:2).

This is important. For Bonhoeffer, the calling is not to separate ourselves from the world and strive for holiness in some safe and sacred space, nor is it to seek for perfection in social and political activism. It is rather simply to be present with Christ in the world, a Christ-presence in both the order and chaos of life. It is a sharing in the messianic suffering of God that changes the world not through power or influence, but by a patient endurance that reveals God's compassion and love.

One of my favourite prayers, as many of you will know, is the prayer of Eugene Marais, "Lord, may my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God." As our hearts are broken by the things that break the heart of God and as we persevere in love, so the offering of our lives bring joy, delight and comfort to the heart of God.

May your heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God

+ Brian

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