Something for Sunday

Those who are preaching on the gospel lesson for Sunday (or those who find themselves listening to someone else preach on it) may find these words, from Henri Nouwen, helpful, as I did this morning:

The immense suffering of humanity can easily be understood as a sign of God’s wrath, as a punishment. It often was understood that way, and it often still is. The Psalmist says: “Yahweh is holding a cup filled with a heady blend of wine; he will pour it, they will drink it to the dregs, all the wicked on earth will drink it” (Psalm 75:8). And we, looking at the horrors that plague our world, are saying, “How can there be a loving God when all this is happening? It must be a cruel, spiteful God who allows human beings to suffer so much!”
Jesus, however, took upon himself all this suffering and lifted it up on the cross, not as a curse but as a blessing. Jesus made the cup of God’s wrath into a cup of blessings. That’s the mystery of the Eucharist. Jesus died for us so that we may live. He poured out his blood for us so that we may find new life. He gave himself away for us, so that we can live in community. He became for us food and drink so that we can be fed for everlasting life. That is what Jesus meant when he took the cup and said: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood poured out for you” (Luke 22:20). The Eucharist is that sacred mystery through which what we lived as a curse, we now live as a blessing. Our suffering can no longer be a divine punishment. Jesus transformed it as the way to new life. His blood, and ours too, now can become martyr’s blood—blood that witnesses to a new covenant, a new communion, a new community.
When we lift the cup of our life and share with one another our sufferings and joys in mutual vulnerability, the new covenant can become visible among us. The surprise of it all is that it is often the least among us who reveal to us that our cup is a cup of blessings. - Henri Nouwen, Can You Drink the Cup? pp.68-69