Session 1

The Gates of Pain

PLANNING THE SESSION

Session Goals

This session's discussions and activities will equip participants to:

• identify ways they tend to deal with their own and others' pain and suffering;

• describe the concept of being a "good steward of pain";

• relate Jesus' Parable of the Talents to experiences of pain; and

• plan faithful ways to comfort and support other people who are suffering.

Preparation

• Read and reflect on Frederick Buechner's essay, "The Gates of Pain" (A Crazy, Holy Grace, pages 15–32). Make notes about anything that raises a question or sparks a strong reaction from you.

• Read through Session 1 in the Participant Guide, deciding which portions of the material will be of most interest and relevance to you and your group.

• Read through this entire session outline and develop a balance of reading, discussion, activity, and reflection that will best serve your group's needs in the time available.

• Read, think about, and pray about the following Scriptures:

* Matthew 25:14-30

* Job 1-2; 3:11–4:9; 19:1-11, 42

* Psalm 131

* Matthew 11:28-30

• Provide a markerboard or large sheet of newsprint on which to write participants' ideas and questions.

• Have paper, pens or pencils, and Bibles available for participants to use.

• Depending on the activities you choose, you will also need a wax or electric candle, hymnals, recordings of musical settings of Psalm 131, or images based on Jesus' Parable of the Talents.

GATHERING

Informally welcome participants as they gather. Depending upon the group's familiarity with each other, spend a few minutes on introductions. Consider asking each participant to talk briefly about why this study of Buechner's book interests them. Pay special attention to these responses, and use them to inform your plans for and leadership of the sessions.

When you sense that participants are ready to begin, start the session with a time of prayer, using this ritual if desired:

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Listen for God's Word through these words of the apostle Paul:

"May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be blessed! He is the compassionate Father and God of all comfort. He's the one who comforts us in all our trouble so that we can comfort other people who are in every kind of trouble. We offer the same comfort that we ourselves received from God."

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

If desired, light a candle.

Let us pray. Compassionate God, who always draws near to the brokenhearted to bind up their wounds: Strengthen us by your Spirit, in this time of reading and reflection, to look deeply into and to speak honestly out of our pain, that we may share what is truly precious with each other and may offer it freely to you, even as you offered yourself to us in the suffering, death, and resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ.Amen.

Sing or read aloud together (or another hymn you think appropriate to the themes of this session):

"God of Compassion, in Mercy Befriend Us" (John J. Moment, 1933)* Exchange words and signs of peace with each other.

OPENING ACTIVITY

Encourage participants to free-associate responses to each of the following words:

• pain

• treasure

• trade

Emphasize that there are no right or wrong answers. Write down all responses. Point out any patterns or overlap you or participants may notice.

STUDY AND DISCUSSION

The Universality of Pain

Recruit volunteers to read aloud or summarize this portion of the Summary in the Participant Guide (pages 13–14). Lead a discussion using some or all of the following questions and prompts:

• How do you react to Buechner's statement, "Pain is what it's all about"?

• Buechner describes the night when his mother asked him, as a young boy, to keep car keys from his drunken father as "kind of the shadow side of [his] childhood." It is an early memory of emotional pain for Buechner. What is your earliest memory (or one of your earliest memories) of emotional pain and suffering — your own, or someone else's? How do you think that memory has shaped the way(s) you typically respond to pain as an adult?

• Buechner identifies four main ways of dealing with, or surviving, pain. Which way do you most often use to deal with your pain? What advantages does your usual way of surviving pain offer? What disadvantages come with it?

• Buechner points to Charles Dickens's characters Miss Havisham and Mrs. Gummidge as examples of people who "take a kind of grim, awful pleasure in [their] ruin." What other characters from books, TV, or film illustrate some of the ways of surviving pain that Buechner identifies?

• Buechner quotes the first Noble Truth of Buddhism: "All life is suffering, all life is pain." To what extent do you think Christians can or should affirm this statement? How would you respond if someone asked you, "What is the main thing the Christian faith teaches about pain?"

Good Stewardship of Pain

Recruit five volunteers to read aloud Matthew 25:14-30 by taking these "roles": the narrator (Jesus), the master, and the three servants. Then read aloud or summarize this portion of the Summary in the Participant Guide (pages 14–15). Lead a discussion using some or all of the following questions and prompts:

• "These extraordinary parables of Jesus," writes Buechner, "who could ever guess that that's the way the story was going to end? If you and I had written it in our boring way, we would've rewarded the [third] man, wouldn't we?" Had you written the parable, would you have ended it the way Buechner thinks he would have? Why or why not? How much do you agree or disagree with Buechner's evaluation of this parable as "dark and frightening and fascinating"?

• In Buechner's reading of the parable, the "talent" encompasses many things, but is especially our experiences of pain and suffering. What makes up your "talent," as Buechner defines it?

• Buechner stresses that he does not believe God causes our pain: "God doesn't deal with the world that way; he doesn't move us around like chess pieces." What do you believe is the relationship between God and human suffering?

• "He was right, the man with the one talent, to be afraid. There is much in life — there is much in the nature of God as we understand him — of which to be afraid. He asks a great deal of us." Do you agree with Buechner? Why or why not? Talk about a time when you have sensed that God has asked "a great deal" of you. How did you respond? What happened?

• Buechner defines sloth as "getting through life on automatic pilot." When has fear tempted you to be slothful? What happened?

* According to Buechner, God "does not sow the pain ... [but] looks to us to harvest treasure from the pain." When is a time you have harvested "treasure" from your pain? What have you done with that treasure?

Pain Is Treasure

Recruit volunteers to read aloud or summarize this portion of the Summary in the Participant Guide (pages 15–16). Lead a discussion using some or all of the following questions and prompts:

• What does Buechner mean when he says we should "trade" with our pain?

• How does Buechner illustrate what he means by "life-trading" out of his own experiences?

• Buechner says that because his mother chose to deal with her pain by "burying" it, "her life was diminished. ... She never became the human being she richly had it in her to become." When have you seen someone you know or know of — or when have you seen yourself — grow as a result of choosing to "trade" with experiences of pain?

• Read Job 2. How do Job's friends, in their initial response to his suffering (verses 11-13), exemplify the "life-trading" about which Buechner is writing?

When Job's three friends heard about all this disaster that had happened to him, they came, each one from his home — Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuah, and Zophar from Naamah. They agreed to come so they could console and comfort him. When they looked up from a distance and didn't recognize him, they wept loudly. Each one tore his garment and scattered dust above his head toward the sky. They sat with Job on the ground seven days and seven nights, not speaking a word to him, for they saw that he was in excruciating pain.

Job 2:11-13

• Read Job 3:11–4:9. How do Job's friends attempt to comfort him? How does Job respond? What does this Scripture suggest about how we should and should not try to comfort others who are in pain?

• Skim Job's speeches in the poetic portion of the book of Job (3:1–42:6). Mark words, verses, and passages that especially catch your attention. What does Job show us about how to speak truly out of our pain, as Buechner urges readers to do?

• Why does Buechner conclude that pain is a treasure?

• When, if ever, have you experienced pain as the "gates" through which we can enter into joy?

CALL TO ACTION

Discussing again the first two servants in Jesus' parable, Buechner concludes, "The reward [they receive] is not so much something that God gives them because they did it right" — that is, talking and living out of their pain — "but that in trading with their lives, they truly lived their lives, and ultimately their reward, as the master says, 'is to enter the joy of your master.'"

Invite participants to sit comfortably and, if they wish, close their eyes. Ask them to think about someone they know personally who is currently experiencing some kind of suffering or pain — any sort of physical, emotional, or spiritual distress. Encourage them to visualize that person. After a few moments, encourage participants to visualize themselves "trading their life" with that person in some specific and concrete way. Remind participants of how Buechner's friends "traded" with him: They called him, they visited him, they took him to lunch and talked with him in honest ways. Ask: "How will you, this week, 'trade life' with the suffering person you are thinking about now?"

CLOSING PRAYER

We thank you, God, for this time of reading, discussion, and reflection. We praise you for the people whom you have sent to us in our seasons of pain. We ask that you would move us, in the same mysterious and merciful way, to go to others who are in pain, trading honestly out of our depths, that they, too, may find you as their very certain help in trouble. We pray in Jesus' name, and for his sake.Amen.

OTHER ACTIVITY OPTIONS

Draw an Image of Freedom from Pain

Read aloud the first paragraph of Buechner's essay. Say: "For Buechner, the cricket he frees from his room becomes an image of what it is like to be freed from suffering and pain." Distribute paper to participants. Invite them to sketch (or write about) their own image of freedom from pain. (You might also have participants look through magazines and newspapers for such an image.) Recruit volunteers to show and talk briefly about their images.

Reflect on Musical Settings of Psalm 131

LORD, my heart isn't proud; my eyes aren't conceited. I don't get involved with things too great or wonderful for me. No. But I have calmed and quieted myself like a weaned child on its mother; I'm like the weaned child that is with me. Israel, wait for the LORD — from now until forever from now!

Psalm 131

Find at least two recordings of hymns and songs based on Psalm 131, the psalm Buechner says was like a "magic talisman" for him during his daughter's illness. Check such sites as YouTube, or consult a church musician if you need help finding examples. Play the recordings for participants and encourage them to compare and contrast the selections. Discuss:

• How does this music enhance your understanding of Psalm 131?

• How does the music convey the psalm-singer's emotions?

• What thoughts or prayers does listening to the music evoke?

Reflect on Art Inspired by the Parable of the Talents

Have participants search online for images of paintings or other art based on or inspired by Jesus' Parable of the Talents (or, before the session, gather such images from illustrated Bibles, art books, Sunday school curricula, or other resources). Have participants select an image that especially grabs their attention. Discuss:

• Why do you find this image compelling?

• How does it influence your understanding of the parable?

• Would this image serve to illustrate Buechner's particular reading of the parable? Why or why not?

Session 2

A Crazy, Holy Grace

PLANNING THE SESSION

Session Goals

This session's discussions and activities will equip participants to:

• remember their pasts with vivid and concrete details, as does Buechner;

• practice looking and listening for God's gifts to them in the details of their experiences; and

• pray with an attitude of openness toward God's "helping hand."

Preparation

• Read and reflect on the chapter "A Crazy, Holy Grace" (A Crazy, Holy Grace, pages 33–52.) Make notes about anything in this chapter that raises a question for or sparks a strong reaction from you.

• Read through Session 2 in the Participant Guide, deciding which portions of the material will be of most interest and relevance to you and your group.

• Read through this entire session outline and develop a balance of reading, discussion, activity, and reflection that will best serve your group's needs in the time available.

• Read, think about, and pray about the following Scriptures:

* Ecclesiastes 9:1-12

* Hebrews 1:1-4; 11:1-2

* Mark 10:23-27

• Provide a markerboard or large sheet of newsprint on which to write down participants' ideas and questions.

• Have paper, pens or pencils, and Bibles available for participants to use.

• Depending on the activities you choose, you will also need: wax or electric candle, hymnals.

GATHERING

Informally welcome participants as they gather. Consider asking those participants who were present for Session 1 to describe briefly its content for those who were not present, and to discuss how insights from that session shaped their experiences during the past week. Ask participants who are attending for the first time to talk about why they have come and what they hope to gain from the study.

When you sense that participants are ready to begin, start the session with a time of prayer, using this ritual if desired:

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Listen for God's Word through these words of the apostle James:

"Don't be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above. These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. He chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created."

James 1:16-18

If desired, light a candle.

Let us pray. Generous God, from whom all blessings flow — all blessings known and unknown, remembered and forgotten; all good and perfect gifts seen and unseen, the ones we overlook and pass by, as well as the ones we cherish and remember always: May we experience this time as a gift, as your Spirit guides us toward greater awareness of and gratitude for the constant presence, through our pain and in our pleasure, of your Son, our Savior, who promises to be with us always on our sacred journeys, Jesus Christ.Amen.

Sing or read aloud together (or another hymn you think appropriate to the themes of this session):

"We Walk by Faith, and Not by Sight" (Henry Alford, 1844)

Exchange words and signs of peace with each other.

OPENING ACTIVITY

Invite participants to think of and remember, as vividly as they can, a place they lived when they were children — a room, a house, a whole town: whatever location first enters their mind or whatever location they can remember in the most detail. After a few minutes of silence, lead group members in a guided remembrance of their chosen places, asking these questions as prompts and inviting volunteers to speak responses aloud:

• Describe the most memorable sight in this place. What could no one fail to notice, looking at it?

• What smell do you most associate with this place, and why?

• What sound can you still hear the loudest when you think about this place?

• How warm or how cold is this place, and why?

• When you reach out to touch what is usually just in front of you in this place, what do you feel? Describe the sensations.

• Is there a taste you associate strongly with this place? What taste is it?

• Does this place make you feel happy? Sad? Both? Something else entirely? Why?

Be aware that strong memories may awaken strong feelings in some participants; take time to acknowledge and affirm these emotions. Model a supportive and accepting attitude for group members.

Tell participants that in chapter 2 (which is an extended excerpt from Buechner's memoir of his first volume of autobiography, The Sacred Journey), Buechner spends a lot of time remembering the people and places of his childhood in great detail. He does so because he believes "God speaks to us through our lives," but that we can only discern God's message after "many years and many further spellings out" of it. Memory is important for Buechner as a way of glimpsing "blessed and blessing moments," gracious gifts in our past that point us toward a giver.