Preaching and Suffering

Hearing stories about Gustavo Gutiérrez after he died a few weeks ago made me curious about his writing.

I was encouraged to start with his book, “On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent.” I’m only a few chapters in but already I’m very drawn to his reflections.

I wanted to share one passage:

“The center of the world—so called because the crucified Jesus dwells there, and with him all who suffer unjustly, all the poor and despised of the earth—is the place from which we must proclaim the risen Lord.”

This is not dissimilar from the reflections I’ve had this past year about how the Heart of the Church is where there’s love for to poor, vulnerable, and marginalized. But what I see him adding is that our (mine, yours, the Church’s) proclamation of the Kerygma must in fact come from, come out of, that heart.

Further, as I read this, the center isn't only from those who suffer, but also from the center—the heart—of the preacher who has suffered.

We must preach the resurrection from our own hope born from our own cry of abandonment, our own cry of “God, where are you?”

Otherwise all we have to say is platitude.