Someone once said that a pastor’s job was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.  That was certainly true for Jesus.  He was a thorn in the side of the elitists of his day, whether they were religious authorities such as the Pharisees, Sadducees and Chief Priests, or whether they were civil authorities like Herod and Pilate.  Jesus had some unflattering things to say about those occupying the more comfortable and cushy stations of life, which is why he was considered by them to be a threat and which is also why they sought to eliminate him.  Jesus was definitely bad news from the perspective of the comfortable.

But Jesus represented great Good News for the afflicted. He brought healing to the sick, wholeness to the demonically possessed and fellowship to the socially marginalized. He ate and drank with sinners, dared to touch the untouchables and fed poor common folk in both body and soul. That is why they flocked to him in multitudes and sought out his comforting words and touch. Jesus brought comfort to the afflicted.

Who do you suppose we represent? Anyone want to take a guess? Well, whatever your guess, you were probably at least half right? We represent both. There is a little comfortable Pharisee in all of us, and there is also an afflicted outcast in all of us. There is always somebody who has it better than we do and somebody who has it worse. That is why God’s Holy Word comforts us at certain times and afflicts us at others. That is also why we should not presume to judge others unless we are prepared to be judged by the same standard.

Today we are going to consider both comfort and affliction, with a slight emphasis upon comfort. In our text the Greek root for comfort, paraklesis, occurs 10 times in verses 3-7 alone. The Greek root for affliction, thlipsis, occurs 3 times and the Greek root for suffering, pathema, occurs 4 times. That is 10 times for comfort verses a total of 7 times for affliction and suffering, which, I am sure you will agree, is more comforting than not.

In our text for this morning Paul begins with praise: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles…. (Verses 3-4). Not who comforts us in some of our troubles, but who comforts us in all our troubles. The title of our message for this morning is "Comfort-Able." God is able to comfort us in all our troubles. There is another way to understand that title, which we will get to in a moment. For now, Paul is testifying that God is able to comfort us in all our troubles.

I would say that Paul speaks from the voice of experience here. He has certainly seen more than his share of troubles in witnessing for Christ. Listen to this catalogue of catastrophes he lists later on in this letter to the Corinthians. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Apparently 40 lashes were enough to kill or maim a person, so they backed it off by one. This reminds me of a comedy routine about "Maximum Strength" medications. Go to the drug store and you will see "Regular Strength," "Extra Strength" and "Maximum Strength" printed on a lot of products. A comedian, wanting to know what "Maximum Strength" meant on, say, a bottle of aspirin, surmised: "Find out how much will kill me and then back it off a little bit."

Five times Paul was lashed to within an inch of his life. And if being whipped with lashes was not enough, he continues: Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned (that is where a group circles around you and knocks you silly by throwing rocks at you), three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea (and if that does not seem like much of an ordeal, keep in mind that my Dad received a Purple Heart after languishing in the open sea after his amphibious plane was shot up and sunk while attempting an open sea rescue).

But wait, there’s more. Paul writes: I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches (11:24-28).

Only a pastor would include the daily pressure of concern for the church with being hit with lashes and rocks. As a pastor in the midst of yet another stewardship campaign, let me ask myself which is worse: the daily pressure of concern for the church or being beaten with rods………….don’t rush me, I’m thinking…………. By the way, Paul does not even mention here a couple of things he mentions elsewhere: the time he had to fight off wild beasts, the riots precipitated by his preaching or the recurrent physical malady he suffered. Suffice it to say that Paul was more than acquainted with affliction, and he wanted the Corinthians to know that.

I our text he writes: We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death (Verses 8-9). What the exact hardships were we are not spelled out in this letter. It has been deduced that Paul wrote no fewer than 5 letters to the Corinthians, only two of which have been preserved for us. That is why he only needs to allude in our letter to the particular affliction that he suffered because it was already well known to his hearers.

All we need to know is that he faced hardships that were severe enough to convince him in his heart that he had received the sentence of death. I said earlier that this message is about both affliction and comfort, with an emphasis upon the latter. How can that possibly be in light of the many and varied afflictions just recounted from the experience of Paul? Only if there is a redeeming aspect to the hardships and afflictions we must suffer. Paul says there is.

About this sentence of death he writes, But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead (Verse 9). Hardships that were greater than Paul could handle led him to rely not upon himself but upon God. And God did not disappoint. God comforted Paul and his companions in a surpassing way. They gained the peace of God, which transcends all understanding (Philippians 4:7). Hence the reason for Paul’s praise after all he had been through. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles….

And why does God do that? According to Paul, …so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God (Verse 5). Again, the title of our message is "Comfort-Able." God is able to comfort us in all our troubles. But God has an ulterior motive here. God intends for that experience to make us "Comfort-Able" ourselves, able to comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

One of the things I learned in my Clinical Pastoral Education at Grant Hospital was never to say to a patient, "I know what you’re going through." When we do not know what to say to people, we usually say something inane like that. But Chaplain Knodt insisted that unless I had personally lost a child, lost a limb or received a terminal diagnosis, I was not to say I knew what someone was going through, because I did not.

Chaplain Knodt did insist that I be a presence with people in need. "What if I don’t know what to say?", I asked. "If you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything. Just be there." Chaplain Knodt was a wise man, because I have often put his lessons into practice. Once I had to go be with a woman whose grown daughter had just died unexpectedly. When I arrived at that woman’s home, I did not know what to say, so I did not say anything. I spent hours with that woman not saying anything. She came to me for months afterward seeking some comfort for the aching pain she felt. I could not say that I knew how she felt, so I largely listened and said nothing. Over the following years that woman would send me Pastor Appreciation cards that always said the same thing: "I love you like a son." And I believe she did.

Still, there are times when the of our presence cannot compete with someone else’s power to help the hurting. Do you know who is really helpful to a woman who has just received a diagnosis of, say, breast cancer? A breast cancer survivor. Do you know who is really helpful to a person struggling with that demonic possession known as alcoholism? A recovering alcoholic. The best thing I can do for an alcoholic is get that person into AA, and I am not very good at that. So I will ask a recovering alcoholic to get another alcoholic into AA, and that is a much more effective approach.

The redeeming side of our afflictions is that they make us "Comfort-Able," able to comfort others in special ways. I think I was a comfort for another pastor this week who happens to be going through the kind of hard times that are not uncommon for those in the pastoral ministry (this is not a thinly-veiled reference to Rev. Horak by the way, or any other pastor associated with this congregation). I am able to feel a unique sense of compassion for cross-bearing pastors, just like I am now able to feel the same for someone who has lost a dearly loved father.

How have you been fashioned by your afflictions to be a special source of comfort to someone else going through the same thing? Maybe you are not a breast cancer survivor. Maybe you are not a recovering alcoholic. Maybe you are not a beleaguered pastor. But maybe you have lost a special loved one along life’s way. Maybe you remember how comforting it was to see a friend show up at visiting hours even though that friend had never known your departed loved one. Now you know what to do when a friend loses a loved one you never knew. Most people don’t know what to do in that situation. You know better.

In a moment I am going to read the names of people who have been loved by members of our congregation, and lost to our earthly presence. You may hear some sniffles as these names are read, perhaps by someone sitting close by. I hope you will feel "Comfort-Able" enough to reach out and touch that person, or to give them a hug after worship. If you don’t know what to say, and you feel like you have to say something, just say, "I love you." For now I ask you to join with me in the Resurrection Litany printed on the blue insert in your bulletin.