With a few rare exceptions (like exercise) we try to avoid discomfort at all costs. This seems like a pretty self-evident statement, right? Why would it be otherwise? From the moment we are born, we seek to comfort over discomfort. Warmth over cold. Safety instead of danger. Satisfaction over disturbance. Pleasure over pain. These are choices we don't even think about. Again, why would we? It is nonsensical to entertain the idea that it would be any other way.
But what do we do when discomfort cannot be avoided? What do we do when pain is necessary? Do we continue to try to avoid these realities? Do we give in and admit defeat? Do we lose faith and hope?
A good part of Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians has to do with comfort versus suffering. In our reading for this coming Sunday from
2 Corinthians 1: 1-11, Paul uses the word "comfort" or "consolation" 9 times. Similarly he uses the word "trouble" or "suffering" 8 times.
You see, the good people at the Church in Corinth ask Paul to address a fundamental theological question: if God loves us and we have put our faith in God through Jesus Christ, why do we still face so much trouble in the world? Shouldn't faith save us from any and all suffering? Perhaps you have wondered the same thing yourself on your own faith journey.
Given our proclivity toward comfort, Paul's response is rather surprising. Instead of defining suffering as something to be avoided at all costs, he actually suggests that, as followers of Christ, we should embrace suffering as an opportunity to enter into God's holy work. Essentially, Paul's definition of a Christian is a human being who, from time to time, will voluntarily shut off the instinct to seek comfort at all costs, in order to go where God calls. To make his point, Paul directs us to Christ and his suffering.
Professor Lois Malcom writes, "In Christ, we now have a different way of interpreting all that happens to us: all our affliction now becomes the means for others' consolation and affliction; and all the consolation we receive is such that it not only consoles us but others as well as they go through the same suffering."
Let me be clear, this does not mean that all suffering is good or that we are to seek discomfort over comfort to please God. That would be sadistic. But what it does mean is that suffering is redeemable, because we know that God does not abandon us in the midst of it. This allows us to transform our pain into something that is useful to others and ourselves. In other words, because we know that God works with us in our times of trouble, we are enabled to partner with others who suffer. According to Paul, this is central to our identity as followers of Christ.
Being with others as they suffer is hard. Just ask anyone who does it with regularity, such as social workers, doctors, therapists or chaplains. Much like our own suffering, most of us would rather avoid being with others when they are in pain, whether physical or emotional. We don't know what to say, how to act or what to do. The experience puts us face to face with our own helplessness and sense of inadequacy. Yet, as followers of Christ, this is precisely where we are called to be.
Join us this Sunday as we explore this calling and ways we can become just a little bit more comfortable with our own discomfort. I think the Anne Lamott quote that will be on our bulletin cover sets the tone nicely: "Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns." The promise of the Gospel is that the light will always return, not necessarily to take away the pain, but to reinterpret it and replace despair with new hope!
In faith, hope and love,
Mark