The Reading: 1 Samuel 1.1 – 2.10
I’ve noticed that suffering is a topic that we talk about fairly often when we get together here, and even when we don’t talk about it a lot, then I’d say chances are good that we think about it and feel some special connection to it.
I’ve been convicted in the last week because I see within my own suffering and my attitude toward suffering such incredible hypocrisy, and I felt led to speak about some of these things that I’m learning right now because in this place where we live, I think that it is all too easy to make the mistakes which I’ve made and which I’ve been humbled to discover in myself these last few weeks.
I’m not sure what you think of, exactly, when I talk about hypocritical suffering. What I’m not talking about is that sense of shame we all feel when we compare our own, seemingly insignificant suffering with that of the impoverished family who lives on the street. Of course, when making such a comparison moves you to reach out to the poor with the love and generosity of Christ, then it’s definitely a good thing, but it doesn’t make you a hypocrite or even mistaken to think that your suffering is real. In fact, to allow such a comparison to convince you that you aren’t really suffering robs you of the opportunity to experience those blessings which come only through suffering. Furthermore, we begin walking on dangerous ground any time we allow the focus of our suffering to become how much we are suffering because there is a very real sense in which none of us suffer enough, and there is also a very real sense in which all of us suffer too much. The main question, should never be “how much am I suffering,” but rather “how am I suffering” or “how do I respond to or persevere through suffering?” But, before I start on that question, I want to go back and look at a more fundamental one, which is “am I to suffer?”
To answer this question, lets go back to the story that we just read and lok at the Song of Hanna, starting in Chapter 2. Look at vv. 4-8.
4The bows of the mighty are broken,
but the feeble gird on strength.
5Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,
but those who were hungry are fat with spoil.
The barren has borne seven,
but she who has many children is forlorn.
6The Lord kills and brings to life;
he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
7The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
he brings low, he also exalts.
8He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honour.
Hannah both begins and ends her prayer – before and after this section we just read – by proclaiming that the LORD shall and does come to judge the earth, and in this central section she gives a clear picture of what his verdict will be. Although suffering is never mentioned outright, through the references to the poor, the barren, and the hungry, it is clear that when he comes bringing justice, it is those who suffer that shall be exalted and vindicated. It seems clear that we should desire to be found among those who suffer. If we need further proof of that, then we can look forward to the example of Paul who writes to the Phillipians that he wishes to know Christ in the “fellowship of His sufferings.” Jesus himself calls us to take up our cross and promises that all those who follow him do so into persecution.
In fact, we are shown many times that true suffering is a holy thing and that fellowship with Christ’s sufferings, which we gain through true suffering, is not simply an empathy or ability to relate with Christ. In fact, it is almost never those things. Rather, we are shown that to truly suffer is, in some mysterious sense, to actually walk with Jesus to Calvary and to be crucified with him. It is vital to what it means to follow Christ, and it is a part of that process which sanctifies us, changing us into the his image.
You remember that earlier I asked “how are we to suffer?” I feel like perhaps we’ve already started to answer that question vaguely, and now perhaps we can work toward a more specific answer, keeping that question in mind.
You may think that from what I just said about suffering that I think it is the chief end of Christianity, and perhaps that would be true if the story of Christ ended at the cross, or if the story of Hannah ended without a child. We know, however, that this is not the case. Hannah was given a child, Samuel, and Jesus rose form the dead, proclaiming victory over death and sin and even suffering. In light of this victory over suffering it seems easy for the question to quickly become, “what place does suffering really have for us?” I know I’m often inclined to think and act along these lines: that if the climax of our story is deliverance and vindication – just as we see in Hannah’s story – then, sure, we should learn to deal with suffering because it is unavoidable, and we should learn, even, to let it work for good in our lives because, again, some suffering is just unavoidable, but as a general rule, our attitude towards suffering ought to be to avoid it, and when I cannot avoid it, to rectify the situation in any way that I can; and in this same line of thinking, I behave as if learning to deal with suffering is only really applicable to that short intervening time between the moment that my suffering begins and the moment that I can escape it.
But this line of thinking that I’ve just described isn’t true. The most dangerous thing about it is that it is almost true. It is almost true that we should flee suffering because it is true that suffering is not our final destination. It is almost true that we should seek a way out of our sufferings because it is true that Christ leads us to a Kingdom in which there is no suffering.
The great difference is that the path which Christ has chosen does not travel around suffering, giving it a wide birth or even skirting along the edges of suffering. Rather, the path of Christ passes through suffering. I have heard it said before that “the path to the empty tomb leads through the cross,” but because of my own stubbornness, I find that this statement is not enough unless I add to it the reminder that it does not simply lead through the cross whenever I am unable to avoid it or only until I can find a way to wriggle out of it. It is ever and always leading through the cross and unto the resurrection, or I am not following Christ.
I do not suggest that we shouldn’t look for deliverance in the present. Look at the example of Hannah, who asked from the Lord and was given a son. God can and does offer deliverance from suffering in the present. The question I ask is one of the heart. Are our hearts – that part of us that steers what we do because we are who we are – are our hearts on the path that seeks deliverance from suffering by fleeing it or by passing through it to the other side? The first path is very conditional – it says, “I can endure some suffering,” but only because it has set a limit on the amount that it will endure, and beyond that, “I’m out.” The second one is not conditional like this. It does not endure suffering because of limits which I have imposed. Rather, it endures, knowing that the present suffering has already been measured and found unjust and condemned. This path passes through ever-increasing sufferings because the vindication will be immeasurably greater. And those on this path do not defend themselves but rather allow nails to be driven into their hands and feet, and so pass through from death into life.
As I looked for a universal application of this truth, I found that such applications were incredibly difficult to find – not because suffering is not universal, but because it is so varied and often so personal to the point that it is almost impossible for me to present and everyday situation and tell you that “This is holy suffering!” or “This is not suffering with Christ!” For that reason, I have chosen a passage from Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton. Merton was a Trappist monk during the first half of the 20th century, and like all monks in his order, he had taken a vow of poverty. Here, he reflects on that vow:
What one of us, O Lord, can speak of poverty without shame? We who have taken vows of poverty in the monastery: are we really poor? Do we know what it is to love poverty? Have we even stopped to think, for a moment, why poverty is to be loved?
Yet You, O Lord, came into the world to be poor among the poor, because it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of Heaven. And we, with our vow, we are content with the fact that we legally posses nothing, and that for everything we have, we must ask someone else’s permission?
Is this poverty? Can a man who has lost his job and who has no money with which to pay his bills, and who sees his wife and children getting thin, and who feels fear and anger eating out his heart–can he get the things he desperately needs merely by asking for them? Let him try. And yet we, who can have many things we don’t need and many more which are scandalous for us to have–we are poor, because we have them with permission!
Poverty means need. To make a vow of poverty and never go without anything, never have to need something without getting it, is to try to mock the Living God.
I read this a few weeks ago, and it was possibly what started me thinking about suffering. Listen to that last paragraph again:
Poverty means need. To make a vow of poverty and never go without anything, never have to need something without getting it, is to try to mock the Living God
Merton’s vow of poverty and his reflections upon it are profoundly applicable to the question of how we ought to suffer, not least because poverty is itself a type of suffering. Again, note that although Thomas makes a comparison of his situation with that of another, the error that he points out is not one due to his comparative lack of poverty – although that may be illuminating – but rather, his error is due to the way that he himself has lived, truly or falsely, with his own impoverishment. It is a matter of his heart – his being – just as our question of suffering is a matter of ours. “How do we suffer,” then? By holding all of this before our eyes. We see that the commitment to follow Christ is a vow to suffer and die with him in the hope of Resurrection. Therefore, the greater our commitment to following Christ, so is the greater our vow to suffer with Him. We might say, then, that we who profess our commitment to Christ as our great and only purpose thereby make profession of this holy vow of suffering with as much seriousness as Thomas and his vow. Let us not, by our hearts and actions mock the Living God by first vowing to suffer and then perpetually fleeing suffering. Let us seek to suffer with Christ, to the Glory and Honor of the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
