（William Stuntz was the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. More introduction about him, please see here.）

Thank you.

The first thing I want to say is that I’m not standing here thanks to any wisdom or virtue on my part; I have little of those things.  I’m here this morning to tell you about three gifts our God has given me in the midst of some hard times.  Credit for those gifts goes to the One who does the giving, not to the one who does the receiving.  My hope is that there are a few others in this room who need these gifts, as I do.  To you, I want to say:  the gifts are there for the taking; they are for every one of us who finds ourselves in the midst of hardship and struggle.

 

So, let me say just a bit about my own struggle.  Ten years ago, when we were driving home from a family vacation, I stopped our car to change a flat tire.  Something bad happened at the base of my back.  Ever since, my back and right leg have hurt.  Three surgeries later, they hurt constantly—it’s a little like having an alarm clock taped to your ear, and you can’t control the volume.  That pain isn’t going away.

 

That was my first medical blow; the second came a year and a half ago, when I was diagnosed with stage-4 colon cancer.  Surgeons removed three tumors, and in between the surgeries I did six months of chemotherapy.  By the beginning of this year, it appeared that the cancer might leave me alone for a time.  It didn’t work out that way.  Last month, my doctors found five more tumors in my abdomen, one of them on my liver, and a sixth possible tumor in my chest.  No surgery is in the offing; these tumors aren’t going away.  My oncologist says I’m likely to die sometime between six and eighteen months from now.  I’m 51 years old.

 

How does God provide for us in circumstances like these?  I know the answer I wish were true:  I wish God’s provision always took the form of physical healing.  Like anyone else in my shoes, I’d love to be pain-free and cancer-free, and not just in the next life.  I know God is capable of doing that, but I also know He doesn’t usually work that way.  Thankfully, healing is not the only gift, and I believe not the best gift, God has to offer in circumstances like mine.  Three other gifts are sweeter still.  First, God redeems:  He uses life’s curses to bring about great blessing, both for us and for others.  Second, God restores:  He returns a portion of the dignity that diseases take from us.  And third, God remembers:  He holds us close to His heart, especially in hard times.  I want to say just a few words about each of those gifts, and then I’ll yield the microphone.

 

First, God redeems.

 

Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery; later, thanks to Potiphar’s wife, Joseph was thrown into a dungeon in Egypt for a crime he didn’t commit.  Those were awful things:  I grew up in a family of rotten boys (that sounds like a redundancy), and even for my brothers and me, selling each other into slavery would have been a little extreme.  Joseph suffered terrible injustice.  And yet, awful as that injustice was, God used it to raise Joseph up to a position of power in Pharaoh’s court and thereby to save whole nations from starving.

 

I believe that story contains a promise:  that God will use the most awful pain and heartache and loss we experience to produce some larger good.  If He can redeem Joseph’s imprisonment, He can redeem my cancer and chronic pain, and He can redeem the worst things in your life.  I may never know precisely what form that redemption takes—and that’s fine with me.  It’s enough to know that I do not, and we do not, suffer pointlessly.  Our God delights in taking the worst of life and using it to produce the best of life.  That isn’t just what He does; it’s a part of who He is.  And it is an incomparably large gift.

 

Second, God restores.

This one requires a little explanation. One of the more unpleasant surprises of cancer is its sheer ugliness.  Cancer has tastes and smells, and they aren’t good ones.  More than that, the disease feels as though it covers me from head to toe in something foul. After I was first diagnosed and when I was first on chemo, there were days when I felt as if my clothes were soaked in sewage. Cancer does that: long before it kills, it steals the dignity and beauty from life; it’s as though tumors were attacking what little decency there is in me.

 

And yet, this thief does not have the last word.  God knows how foul it is, and He knows all too well how it feels to have one’s body beaten and brutalized.  Every piece of pain and discomfort I feel, Jesus felt too—plus infinitely worse.  And that fact changes everything.  I think this is part of our world’s Deep Magic:  When the One Man who is so supremely beautiful took on Himself all the worst ugliness this world has to offer, He changed forever what it means to live with that ugliness, to live in the midst of pain and loss and hardship.  My disease may be ugly, but I am not, and thanks be to God for that.  I no longer need wear those foul clothes that cancer gives me.  God the Son gave me cleaner clothes to wear, clothes I did not buy and do not deserve.  He elevates all He touches:  and He has touched ultimate suffering, and He has also touched me.

 

A better way to put it might go like this.  For years before His public ministry, Jesus worked in a carpenter’s shop.  That fact lends dignity and honor and even a little beauty to all honest work.  Jesus also gave Himself up to be tortured and murdered and, even worse, separated from the Father He so loves.  THAT fact lends dignity and honor and beauty to every pain-filled day every one of us lives.  That too is an incomparably great gift.

 

Third, God remembers.

 

For us, remembering is a small thing.  For me, it usually means putting a name and a face together, or summoning up the image of some past event that I had forgotten.  For our God, remembering is a very different enterprise.  When He says to the people of Israel, “Remember that I brought you out of Egypt,” He isn’t just saying “get your history right.”  A better paraphrase might go like this:  “Remember that I have loved you passionately.  Remember that I have acted on that love.  Hold that memory close to your heart, and you act on it too.”  Memory for Him is not mainly about recall.  It’s about a love so passionate and powerful it overwhelms us.  When God remembers, He doesn’t just connect a name to a face.  He connects a soul to His heart.  He remembers each one of us, in our worst moments, the way the prodigal’s father remembered his son, the way a lover remembers his long-lost love.

 

Job put it well when he was talking to God about what would happen after his death.  Job said this:  “You will call, and I will answer.  You will long for the creature Your hands have made.  Surely then you will count my steps, but not keep track of my sins.”  Notice the second sentence:  “You will long for the creature Your hands have made.”  Think about that for a moment.  God not only forgives my many sins; He LONGS FOR me, and He longs for you, and He will not rest until He has us secure in his fold.  Those arms are extended even here, even now.

 

There are curses in this life, ugly ones.  It’s a fallen world; we should expect nothing different.  But we should never forget that in the midst of those curses stands the God who longs to redeem and restore and remember and wrap you in His arms—not only in the next life, but in this one.  If there is one thing I have learned in the midst of cancer and chronic pain, it is this:  He is larger and lovelier and more powerful than the worst disease.  God grant that we would remember that truth, and act on it.  Thank you for listening.

在公园街教会的谈话

威廉.斯顿茨

2009年8月

 

谢谢。我想说的第一点是我在这里讲话并不是因为我有智慧或者美德；我真的没有。今天早上我想要分享上帝在艰难时刻给我的三样礼物。颂赞应该给那赐给礼物的上帝，而不是我这个接受礼物的人。我的希望是，也许这里有几个人也需要这些礼物，就象我需要它们一样。对这几个人，我想说，礼物是需要自己来取的，它们是给每一个在艰难和挣扎中的人的礼物。

那么，让我来谈一谈我自己的挣扎吧。十年前，一次我和家人一起度假结束开车回家，我途中停车换一只漏气的轮胎时，我的背部下方出了问题。从那时开始，我的背部和腿开始剧痛。我做了三次手术，但仍然剧痛不止——这象是在你耳边放了一个闹钟，而闹钟的音量是你不能控制的。这个病痛从此就没有离开我。

那是我的第一次身体上的打击。第二次来自一年半之前，我被确诊得了晚期肠癌。通过外科手术，医生从我体内取出了三个肿瘤。在手术之间，我做了六个月的化疗。今年开始，情况好像好转，肿瘤似乎不再生长。但其实并没有好转。上个月，医生发现我体内有五个新肿瘤。我的肝上有一个，胸腔内可能有第六个。医生不会再做外科手术；这些肿瘤也不会就不见了。我的医生告诉我，从现在开始的六个月到十八个月之内我会死去。我今年五十一岁。

上帝在这样的情形下会为我们准备什么？我知道我心里想要上帝准备的，我希望它是真的：我希望上帝准备的是身体的治愈。就象所有遇到我这样情形的人一样，我希望不再有病痛，不再有癌症，就在此时而不是在未来。我知道上帝可以如此做，但我同时知道他并不经常如此。让我感恩的是，治疗并非唯一的礼物，我相信它不是上帝给在我情形下的人们准备的最好的礼物。三样另外的礼物更为珍贵。第一，上帝救赎：他用生命的咒诅为我们自己、为他人带来更大的祝福。第二，上帝恢复：他把疾病从我们身上带走的尊严带回来给我们。第三，上帝记念：他把我们紧紧拥抱靠近他的心，特别是在艰难的时刻。我想要分别解释一下这三样礼物的含义，然后结束谈话。

第一，上帝救赎。

约瑟的兄弟们把他卖了当奴隶，后来，因为波提乏的妻子，约瑟在埃及因为莫须有的罪名被下了监狱。这些都是很糟糕的事情：我自己生长在一个有一群道德不好的男孩子的家庭里（这似乎不须说），但即使像我和我的兄弟们，把我们中某一个卖了当奴隶也似乎有点过分。约瑟因不正义而受害。但即使有这些不正义带来的伤害，上帝用它们把约瑟培养为法老内阁里的大臣，后来得以把他的民族从饥饿中拯救出来。

我想心这个故事包含了一个应许：上帝会使用我们经历的最大的痛苦、伤心和失落来创造更大的善。如果他可以把约瑟从牢狱中救赎出来，他也可以把我从癌症和不断的痛苦中救赎出来，他也可以把你从生命中最糟糕的事情里救赎出来。我可能永远不会知道救赎会以什么样的形式发生——这没什么。我只要知道，我不会，我们都不会，无缘无故的受苦。我们的上帝乐于拿走生命中最坏的并把它变成生命中最好的。这不仅仅是他的行为，这就是他的本性。他是我们生命中无以比拟的礼物。

第二，上帝恢复。

这一点需要一些解释。得了癌症的一个让人不愉快之处就是它的全然丑陋。癌症可以闻到、可以尝到，都不是好的味道。更讨厌的是，这种疾病让我觉得它让我从头到脚都满了脏东西。第一次确诊后我第一次接受化疗，有好多天我觉得浑身衣物都浸透了污水。是癌症的原因：在它把你杀死之前，它会先剥夺你生命中的尊严和美好；这就象癌症在攻击我身上仅剩的尊严。

但是，这个剥夺者并不能够最终决定。上帝知道它是何等肮脏，他也知道一个人被殴打和折磨的滋味是什么。我所感受到的每一点不适和痛苦，耶稣也都感受到了——他曾感受到的其实远远比我更糟。这个事实改变了一切我的认知。我认为这是我们世界的更深奥的真理: 当一个如此美好的人把所有世间丑陋都担当在身上的时候，他就永远地改变了承担丑陋、痛苦和艰难的意义。我的疾病也许丑陋，但我不是，感谢上帝。我再也无须穿着癌症给我的污浊衣物。上帝的儿子给了我干净的衣物，这些衣物我没有买来，也不配得到。他将所触摸到的提升：他已经触摸到苦难，同时他也触摸到了我。

说的更清楚一些：在耶稣公开传道之前，他是个木匠。这个事实让所有诚实的工作都有尊严和荣誉。耶稣同时把自己交出来，被折磨，被杀死，更痛苦的是被与他所爱的上帝分离。这个事实让我们在所有感受到痛苦的日子有尊严和荣誉。这，也是无以比拟的伟大礼物。

第三，上帝记念。

对我们而言，记念是件微不足道的小事。对我而言，记念通常意味着把名字和长相对上号，或者回忆起我早已忘记的过去的世间。对我们的上帝而言，记念与此绝然不同。当他对以色列民说：“当记念我将你们从埃及领出来”，他并不仅仅是说“要把历史搞正确”，更好的解释是“记住我深深地爱了你们，记住我因爱你们而行动，把这段记忆藏在心里，按照它而行。” 它的记忆并非仅仅与回忆有关，而是那得着我们的深深的、大能的爱。当上帝记念，他并非把名字和长相对上号而已，而是将一个灵魂和他的心相连。他记念我们中每一个人，在我们生命中最糟糕的时刻，就象浪子的父亲记念他的儿子，就象爱人记念他逝去的伴侣。

约伯与上帝谈话，说起他身后会发生什么时讲得很好。约伯说：“你呼叫，我便回答。你手所做的，你必思念。你数点我的脚步，但不窥察我的罪过。”注意第二句：“你手所做的，你必思念。”停下思考一下。上帝不仅赦免我的许多罪，他思念我，他思念你，他不把把我们拥在怀中绝不停歇。他拥抱的臂膀即使现在、即使在这里仍然在伸向我们。

在此生有咒诅，丑陋的咒诅。这是个堕落的世界，我们也无须指望它美好。但我们不能忘记，在所有这些咒诅中间，上帝想要救赎、恢复并记念，它要把你拥在怀中——并非只是在我们要去的那个世界，而是在这个世界上。假若有一样东西是我从癌症和不断的痛苦中学到的，那就是：上帝比最坏的疾病更大、更有爱心、更大能。上帝要我们记住这个事实，并按此而行。

谢谢您听我讲完。