Sermon 104: suffering as the noblest thing next to God

I say that next to God, there is nothing nobler than suffering. If there were anything more noble than suffering, the heavenly Father would have given it to his Son Jesus Christ, as the example for everything. In Christ, as far as his manhood goes, we find nothing so much as suffering. Suffering was with him at his birth, and it never left him while he was here on earth. I say, further, that if Christ had been a man on this earth without his divinity, he still would have been noble beyond all human understanding because of his suffering. For granting that suffering is noble, the one who suffers most is the noblest. But no human suffering equaled Christ's passion. And he is the more noble in proportion to it. Again I hold that if anything were nobler than suffering, God would have saved mankind by means of it, for we might well accuse him of being unkind to his Son if he knew of something better than suffering. And I say, if suffering were not always noble, the heavenly Father would have left his Son a few hours on earth free of suffering. But we do not find that Christ on earth spent a single hour without suffering. Suffering, then, must be above everything else. I believe that our Lady, God's mother, rather than lose the reward attached to the smallest instant of her suffering at the sight of her child's martyrdom, would choose to remain here on earth and not see God until judgment day, if that were what it took to win back this reward. So great was the reward earned in that short hour.

I declare that all the humility and virtue we credit to our Lady did not bring her as great a reward or as much love from God as the least of all the sufferings God sent her. I say that if our Lady, God's mother, and suffering stood together in the street, and with our Lady stood all the reward she had earned for chastity, humility and her other virtues except suffering, then to our Lady suffering would look as lovely as sunshine in a garden bower, for without it she would be outside God. And again I say, suppose a man committed a sin beyond all sins. It might involve a suffering through which, by virtuous conduct, he could cancel all his sin and win greater merit in God's eyes than any of the saints. Further, I maintain that no one apart from God has ever been so holy or so good as to deserve the least nobility that the smallest suffering would give. Take one man with all the combined humility and virtues of everyone who has lived since God created the first man. For all his virtues, he would not earn the reward a man wins through a little suffering. I tell you, right suffering is the mother of all virtues, for right suffering subdues the heart so completely that it cannot rise to pride but must stay lowly. And suffering makes for chastity, for in right suffering vice is burned away. And for one who has already mastered all the virtues, suffering is the mother of virtue as a whole. Nothing makes a person so like God as suffering. For the one with the fewest vices is most like God. And nothing kills a person's vices like suffering does. Therefore it makes a person Godlike. Finally I say that all the theologians together could not describe the profit and the glory that lie in suffering. Suffering alone is enough to prepare God's dwelling in the human heart. God dwells only with the sinless. But suffering drives out sin. So God is always with a person in suffering, as he himself declared through the mouth of the prophet: Whoever is sorrowful, I myself will be with him.

[Perhaps you will say: if it is true that suffering is so noble and profits a person so much, why are the Jews and the heathens not saved? I see and hear a great deal about their sufferings, for as captives they are always subject to Christians, and that causes them much suffering. My answer is this. Baptism is the foundation of the welfare and salvation of mankind. Without it, virtues and good works are not rewarded with eternal grace. And since the Jews are not baptized, they have no reward of eternal grace, but are cursed on earth as well as in the other world.]

This is probably a gloss that has become mixed into the text.

But you might object: why is it that not all Christians are saved? They all belong to God, and there is no one on earth who is not bound to suffer in some way. My answer is that there are two kinds of sufferers. Some, when suffering comes to them, do not take it as coming from God. They resist it with all their strength, saying in their hearts, 'What have I done to God that he should visit me with such misfortune?' and they are moved to tears. This thought alone may not always be blameworthy, though at other times they rebuke God sharply, when in fact God sends the suffering to free them from their sins, and by not accepting it in the right spirit they make it useless to themselves. For people like this there is no reward for suffering, though they are always having it. They scorn God's gift and push it away. And they drive God away too, even though they would rather have him near. By contrast, some people take their suffering as coming from God, and they send it back to God. They take it from God, saying in their hearts, 'God, I accept this suffering from no one but you, for my sins have fully deserved it.' And they send their suffering back to God, saying in their hearts, 'Lord God, I willingly offer up all the suffering you endured from the hour of your birth to the very end. For you were a pure and sinless soul, yet you were in great affliction. It is more fitting that I should be afflicted, since I am a sinful man.' Accepting suffering in this way, a person earns the eternal kingdom. God help us reach it. Amen.