“God might not deliver, it’s almost paradoxical. He says God will deliver, but if he doesn’t deliver, is he hedging his bets? What’s he doing? He’s being honest about the life of faith in a fallen world. He’s being honest about something that all of us know. And sometimes we’re even confused. Notice on the one side is RADICAL TRUST. Did you hear it? God is able and God will deliver us. God is able and God will deliver us from the fiery furnace. On the one hand, it’s this radical trust in the ability of God and that God will do this. On the other hand is REALISM.

Less than a year before he was assassinated, Dr. King gave a sermon on this text. The title of his sermon is the title of my sermon, BUT IF NOT. In the sermon, he said, there are two kinds of faith. He said there is 1) If faith, and then there is 2) Though faith. And he says, if faith, if faith says, if all goes well, if life is hopeful and prosperous and happy, if I don’t have to go to jail, if I don’t have to face the agonies and burdens of life, if I’m not ever called bad names because I’ve taken a stand that I feel must take, if none of these things happen, then I’ll have faith in God, then I’ll be all right. He said, that’s if faith. And you know a lot of people have if faith. But he says, there’s also a though faith. And he says, though faith says, though things go wrong, though evil is temporarily triumphant, though sickness comes and the cross looms, or we might add those fires burn and homes lost and communities are changed. Though all of that happens, nevertheless, I’m gonna believe and trust and remain loyal anyways. I’m gonna have faith. Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, says Dr. King, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. But look, you know, don’t get me wrong. God can meet us in if faith. If faith is all you got, then God can meet you there. But he wants to take us beyond if faith to a though faith. Though he slay me, yet still will I trust Him. This is the kind of faith that so trusts God, that we are willing to trust him even with our deepest, vulnerable pain and heartache and grief and sometimes anger. This is the kind of faith and trust that can coexist alongside what the biblical authors often do, which is lament. God, how long? When will you act? When will you do something? God, what? And this kind of faith can coexist because it’s a faith that says, even though I’m upset, even though I’m grieving, I will not leave you. Where else can I go? In you, I have found that you have the eternal, the words of eternal life.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego learned this faith through what they had suffered. It was through suffering. You know, this kind of deep faith and character, it’s like film. It develops in the dark. It is when we walk through dark valleys that faith begins to develop. They lost everything once and they kept their faith, they grew in their faith. And now when they’re in a second trial of losing everything, their faith is at a deeper place than it was before. Faith and character is like film. It develops in the dark and it doesn’t develop any other way. You know, Paul put it like this. He said, not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings. Why would you glory in your sufferings? Because we know that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope. In suffering, then you bore testimony. To faith, you’re grieving, you’re sad, this is devastating, but you’re holding on and you bear testimony to a faith that can endure even in the midst of a valley. And you are growing stronger because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope. A lot of us want to become people of character. Do you want to be somebody who trusts God, even when the ground is shaking? The only way you get there is through suffering. You know, we want big faith, but we don’t want big suffering. And yet it’s suffering that will take us to that place to deeper faith. You know, last year about this time, I was reading a book by the brilliant James Baldwin. He wrote this book called The Fire Next Time. And he said, Look, I don’t mean to be sentimental about suffering, but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. It’s when the tide drops that what’s below the surface is exposed. You can discover who you are, and you can begin to grow up more.

Korean theologian Chung-Hyung Kyung, who herself had gone through immense suffering, and actually had been tortured 25 years prior, she put it like this. She said, there is a brokenness, which devastates us and breaks us apart. But there is a second kind of brokenness, a brokenness which breaks us open and expands us and connects us. And what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had known in the land of Babylon was a brokenness that broke them open to God and they had expanded. Latin American theologian Oscar Romero put it like this, there are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried. None of these voices are trite. They are all people who have walked through real immense suffering, and they testify to the importance of what we walk through when we walk through the darkness. Now, of course, it’s not a given that when we go produce something good. You know the same sun that melts the wax can also harden the clay. It matters how we respond in the midst of these times. Do we hold on? Keep holding on. Hold on with your hurt and voice it to God. Voice it to your community, and you can be upheld as we walk together through loss and suffering. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The flames will not see you ablaze. ”