The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
Proper 6A
St Paul says to us this morning, “And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.”
This sounds suspiciously like something I read as a kid. As a child, I was one of the millions of people who loved the absolute best comic strip ever written. You might be familiar with the work of Bill Watterson and “Calvin and Hobbes.” In the strip, Calvin’s dad often would tell Calvin prior to some incredibly undesirable task or outing that the unfun activity will produce character. Going camping without screen time and toys? Building character. Doing chores? Character.
What made the comic strip genius was that it reflected nonjudgmentally on both Calvin and his dad. From a kid’s perspective, all of that suffering was ridiculous just to build “character.” And from an adult’s perspective, going through stuff builds endurance and character. The genius wasn’t that Calvin’s dad was right and Calvin would eventually grow into it; Bill Watterson was not into that kind of moralizing nonsense. No, Calvin’s protests were an authentic part of childhood and should be heard from his perspective. The suffering was real to Calvin, and all of us in touch with our inner children would understand that perspective, and understand why Calvin was not convinced by his father’s promises that it would all build character.
At first blush, it feels like St Paul’s perspective on suffering, endurance, character, and hope is like Calvin’s dad’s view on why sometimes we need to endure the mosquitos and boredom of camping when what we’d rather be doing is sitting in front of the TV eating another huge bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs cereal. “Why go through all this suffering? Because you’ll build character.”
Through Christian history, that perspective has had a significant sway. Suffering was a royal highway to Christian perfection. Suffering meant being like Jesus, and thus enduring more suffering was a way of being even more glorified in Jesus.
It meant that a lot of our readings of the Bible have that interpretation floating in the background, that more suffering equals being more like Jesus. We might see traces of it in Jesus’ admonition to go out to preach the Good News in today’s Gospel reading, but Jesus gives straightforward advice: don’t take a lot, just go. Accept hospitality. If they welcome you, wonderful; if they don’t, wipe off that dirt and walk on. Even if things get really bad, even if there is violence, don’t be afraid. Trust in the Spirit working in you.
If we bring that “suffering builds character” lens, however, we might read it into what Jesus says. Be poor beggars because that proves you’re not in it for the money. If people are mean to you, wipe off your sandals in protest – you’re too good for them. If violence rears its head – you’re a vindicated martyr. Glorify in it.
See how that’s a very different read than Jesus’ counsel. Jesus says go, and don’t overthink it. But a “suffering builds endurance” lens can make it say something different. Suddenly the emphasis on the suffering that *could* happen becomes the centerpiece rather than just a fact in the story.
In the first centuries, people would actively seek martyrdom, and eventually rules had to be put in place that you couldn’t actively pursue being persecuted. Later centuries would find Irish monks standing neck-deep in freezing water and enduring endless fasting in the pursuit of what came to be called “Green Martyrdom”. Then time would lead to wearing barbed wire and hair shirts to increase the suffering endured by monastics. Suffering produces character, but I’m not sure what kind of character gets produced from a single-minded focus on creating suffering for ourselves.
We see that perspective continue to live on in comments about “kids these days have it so easy” or things that say because I suffered, therefore I am morally superior just by the fact of having suffered.
But that perspective has had a challenger in recent years. Now we look at that focus on suffering and recognize it can be, to use the modern overused word, “toxic.” That emphasis on suffering valorizes the suffering that people go through instead of looking at how to alleviate and stop suffering. We recognize that sometimes the emphasis on suffering is a way of resigning ourselves to a status quo that produces suffering. Those who suffer are told to just accept it, figure it out, move past it. “Life isn’t fair” is an easy phrase to toss at those who are suffering.
We also recognize whose suffering gets treated this way. When anesthesia was developed, there were men who thought it would be immoral to give it to a pregnant woman during childbirth because “well, she should suffer in childbirth because that’s what the Bible says happens because of Eve in the Garden of Eden.” That suffering is just acceptable. Or the suffering of Black communities under the injustices of slavery, or of Jim Crow, or of the ongoing political and economic disenfranchisement – grin and bear it, but don’t get angry, prove you’re better than them. Even when mobs of white people will ransack prosperous Black communities, as happened in the Tulsa Race Massacre a hundred years ago, precisely because the white community felt that the Black community was doing better than them.
And so generations have also worked to push back on the valorization of suffering. Sometimes we aren’t meant to endure suffering. We’re supposed to change it – for ourselves and for others. Suffering isn’t something we just smile and say, “Well, this produces character!” No, sometimes we have to push back. We work for justice for all people.
But … we still do live in a world where suffering happens. We live in a world where sickness and cancer happen. We live in a world where we experience setbacks and limitations. We live in a world where death, pain, and fear still plague us. There are forms of suffering that we do have to simply endure. Some suffering is brief, and some is a life-long heartache.
Suffering is a fact in the midst of life.
So what do we do with St Paul’s thoughts about suffering?
If suffering is a part of life, we don’t need to seek it out. We don’t need to make more of it – we only need to face head-on the suffering that we have in our daily lives to have more than enough. We also don’t need to be passive in the face of suffering, just suffering under a heavy load in silence. In fact, we should be active in the face of suffering. Even if all we can do is float along in a turbulent sea of suffering, we can try to be actively hopeful, ask for help, ask for people just to sit with us, ask God to be here in the midst of it. We see our strengths and weaknesses more, and we see how powerful empathy and a listening ear can be. We embrace our limitations, not in giving up, but in that we are called to be our human selves, nothing more. The Spirit is at work in us, and we will see the traces of her work sometimes only in retrospect.
This is not, perhaps, a clear-cut answer. Calvin’s dad is right – the suffering that we endure, for better or worse, is part of our story, and we can choose what we will do with that story. And Calvin is right too – suffering is experienced as suffering, not the means to some abstract character-building.
Thus, we come to be both Calvin and his dad. We are Calvin: “Why do I have to do this? Why is this happening to me? I don’t like it!” And we are Calvin’s dad: “It’s not the end of the world, truly. You’re stronger than you think. This, too, shall pass.” Suffering, endurance, character, and finally hope. Rightly considered, Paul wasn’t too far off the mark. Hope does not disappoint us. Amen.