In the fourth and final sermon of the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman takes his exploration of suffering a step further. Thurman suggests that we must learn to be worthy of our suffering. We should not seek out suffering, but when it comes to us, we must search for the meaning and dignity in it. Thurman also considers that human beings can only suffer because we are capable of loving. To love is to identify with another's suffering, to enter into it and yet remain as ourselves. Religion, he says, is our wrestling with the pain and helplessness of love. Thurman ends on the doctrine of incarnation, in which God learns how to suffer with human beings, so as to teach us how to move into another's suffering.

Part of the Collection, Freedom and Suffering (1959, Marsh Chapel, Boston, MA)

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Description by Rodell Jefferson III.

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Freedom and Suffering, Part 4, 1959 November 29,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1054.