Troubles
If I had been walking when I heard it, I would have stopped in my tracks. As it was, I was seated in an icy room in a desert city many years ago. I happened to be headlong into a cascade of troubles, not enjoying them in the least. I wondered when life would start behaving itself.
Well into his nineties a beloved pastor, Malcolm Cronk, simply said, “Troubles will come. Let them do their work.” Troubles will come. Let them do their work. Two short sentences which were a jolt and which instantly changed the way I viewed my struggles. It was one of those “ah ha!” moments. In addition to being shocked into a new way of understanding, his words brought to mind a memory from years before.
When I was a child, my brother and I spent summers with our grandparents on their Nebraska farm. They were idyllic days in many ways, not the least of which was the time spent eating around the table in my grandmother’s farm kitchen.
After many such meals, Grandma would wash the dishes by hand, and I would dry them with a tea towel. It always amazed me that she could plunge her bare hands into scalding rinse water leaving the dishes so hot I could barely hold on to them with my own small hands. After the washing and drying were finished, she would sweep the linoleum floor with her straw broom. More than once she reminded me, “Honey, move out of the way while I sweep and don’t track the dust.”
Troubles will come. Let them do their work. Move out of the way, and don’t track the dust.
The pastor’s two short sentences – simple yet profound – tell us, first, that troubles, struggles, and pain are inevitable. They will come. We need not be surprised when another trial rounds the bend. We can expect, even anticipate them. Jesus was not kidding when he said, “In this world you will have trouble.” It was a delusion that life would start behaving itself, and the pastor settled the issue once and for all. Ain’t gonna happen.
If the first sentence was an “ah ha!” moment, his second was my marching order. Let them do their work. They have work to do. They have a purpose. I need to stop fighting against those purposes, move out of the way and let them do their work just like my grandmother’s broom had work to do.
What might that “work” be? There are so many possibilities, aren’t there? One outcome of this good work may be to smooth my sharp edges, to transform me into someone better – a more compassionate version of myself.
Another result is that I eventually discover that I can trust Him. I fear less because He has already carried me through this, that and the other trial, and I have learned that He will be there with me the next time around. I need not be afraid any longer.
She will not fear bad news. Her heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. (Psalm 112:7) That kind of trust only comes after you have been in the pit with Him, and He has brought you out. Again.
O’, we hurt, and we ache. We do not trust perfectly nor do we always stay out of the way. We doubt, we cry, and we learn. So much. Lessons that drive us deeper than we want.
We limp our way through on His strong arm trusting Him to use it for good. And, He does.
If you cut your teeth on Bible stories and the parables of Jesus, you are probably familiar with the Parable of the Talents which, to me at least, is more than a little disturbing. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, it is in the Gospel of
Matthew 25:14-30. Hold on to your seat.
There are three servants who are entrusted with “talents” by their master who then goes on a journey. The three are given a specific number of these talents “each according to his ability.” Two of the servants, those being given five and two talents respectively, trade with their talents and earn more. The third servant digs a hole in the ground and hides his one talent, earning nothing more.
When the master returns, he asks for a report from the three servants. The first two are praised for the return on their investment and are told, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.”
The third servant who had been afraid and buried his one talent has it taken away and is cast out where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Gulp. On the face of things, the end of the story is shocking and appears harsh and unfair.
There is pure gold buried (pun intended) in this parable, and we have to dig to find it.
However, to properly understand the ending, we need to understand more of what is going on in the beginning of the story, and the first question pertains to a basic, bare-bones definition. What is a talent? What does it represent?
Have you asked that question? I have. My guesses have ranged from a talent being literal money to the gifts and talents with which a person is born or possibly opportunities granted during a lifetime. Fairly ordinary and straightforward guesses, don’t you think? As I have read and re-read this parable over the years, possibly because of an over-familiarity with it, I have tended to skip to the sad ending where I would squirm and think, “There is a good reason for this unfortunate ending, but I don’t see it. I must be missing something.”
Well, I was missing something, and that was the very definition of a talent which then casts the parable, its beginning and its end, in an entirely different light.
Enter Frederick Buechner. If you do not recognize his name, he is a writer, minister, and theologian who has changed my life, and I do not exaggerate his impact on my thinking about faith.
Buechner writes that, among other possibilities, he thinks the talent represents our pain. Sit with that for a moment.
If Buechner is correct, the talent of which we are called to be a good steward is pain - every affliction, heartache, betrayal, every burden and tragedy, the silent suffering, loss, the injustice, hardship, the disappointment, disillusionment, and the unfairness - that every one of us has experienced. Buechner goes on to write that our pain is a precious gift that we can either choose to invest wisely or which we can choose to bury. Clearly, it is the gift that no one wants.
A few pages ago, I wrote about the words of Malcolm Cronk, “Troubles will come. Let them do their work.” His first sentence was my “ah ha!” moment about the inevitability of pain. The second is his marching order to let troubles do their work by transforming, changing and molding us.
Buechner’s interpretation of the talent as our pain is the third piece of our conversation which asks a question of us. That is, what work will we now do with the pain which has been entrusted to us?
If our pain is a gift, a good and valuable gift, we are not to bury it, but we are meant to share it, use it, and to be a good steward of it. And as we do so, Buechner writes, we spin the straw into gold. Eventually, that which threatened to destroy us is redeemed. Buechner adds that we do not necessarily talk about our pain all the time, but we speak, listen and relate to others out of those dark places.
If our pain is not the end in itself but the means to an end, my guess is that it is an infinitely richer end in which we have the privilege, dare I say the joy, of using it to bless those who are in our lives. After all, what does the master say to the two who had been good stewards of the talents given to them? “Enter into the joy of your master.”
Have you had a particular struggle that has made you feel isolated and alone? Then, you meet a person who has once walked where you now find yourself. She understands what you are experiencing and can speak into your life in a way in which others cannot.
On the other hand, have you lived through and survived a dark tragedy only to meet someone who is currently in that place? You can speak from your experience, offer them hope, and in the process you are both blessed.
Malcolm Guite writes, “(We) make the journey through the memories of pain and darkness not to stay with these things but to redeem them and move beyond them.” [1]
Perhaps that is what Buechner means when he writes, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” [2]
Finally, we have yet to look at what appears to be the messy end of this parable. What of the one who is cast into the darkness because he has buried his pain?
Unfortunately, I know all about burying stuff – pain, secrets, all kinds of things. I must be part beagle. And, I know all about the ensuing darkness.
Many years ago, my eighteen-year-old brother and I were in a tragic car accident that took his life. The loss and heartbreak were nearly unbearable. I stuffed (buried) the trauma, my pain and loss because I thought stoicism was the mark of a mature Christian, and I paid dearly. I had buried my pain and, in the process, had buried a part of my life and myself. Because I was stuck in the grieving process, I could not move forward.
As Buechner says about the end of the parable, “The buried life is itself darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth and the one who casts us into it is no one other than ourselves.” [3] Yes, and I learned the hard way.
Twenty-five years later, a wise woman walked alongside me as she encouraged me to open my wounds to the light. Together, we pried open the coffin of my pain, a tearful process of remembering and re-living it, and I finally experienced the healing I had not dreamed possible. But, that was not the end. I was now able to be a good steward of that pain.
With healing, I was able to speak of my brother without my heart racing and hands trembling. I could relate to others who had lost a loved one because I remembered how my grief was like a vacuum inhabited and how the only relief was sleep. At one time, I had thought I would never experience joy again. I was wrong. As years pass, the grief continues to come in waves, but those waves are farther apart and are no longer likely to drown me.
The specific, unique pain of each one of us – which is part of our story - can become one of our greatest treasures. And, how does that story end?
“Joy is the end of it. Through the gates of pain we enter into joy.” [4]
Rebecca Biegert Conti
[1] Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness (London, Canterbury Press, 2014), p. 86.
[2] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking (New York, HarperCollins, 1973), p. 119.
[3] Frederick Buechner, “Adolescence and the Stewardship of Pain, “ in Secrets in the Dark (New York, HarperCollins, 2006), pp. 215-216.
[4] Frederick Buechner, “The Gates of Pain,” in A Crazy, Holy Grace, (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2017), p. 32.
