Yoder on suffering

Yoder says:

...the true missionary congregation is marked by suffering. This suffering, like that of the faithful servant in 1 Peter, is not the result of misbehaviour but of conformity with the path of Christ. It is not the resigned acceptance of limitations or injustice in an imperfect world but the meaningful assuming of the cost of nonconformed obedience.

It is no accident that the word 'martyr' has the double meaning of testimony and innocent suffering. The suffering of the church is not a passing tight spot after which there can be hope of return to normalcy; it is according to both Scripture and experience the continuing destiny of any faithful Christian community... (From The Royal Priesthood p. 86).

Is it the continuing destiny? Is that true of experience, really? If suffering is here persecution, then surely that is not the case experientially. The suffering of the faithful servant in 1 Peter is not the sign of his faithfulness: it is, rather, the very real possibility that he courts. But his duty is not suffering but faithfulness. His faithfulness is the sign rather than his suffering. There is no hope of a return to normalcy, true: but neither is it quite true to say that it is the 'continuing destiny' of any faithful Christian community, as if the lack of suffering was a sign that the plot had been well and truly lost. Suffering itself conveys no dignity of its own.