Text: Mark 6:1-13, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10
When you come to worship on a given Sunday, what is it that you are looking for? What do you expect?
Most people come to get a lift, to get our spiritual batteries charged up in order to make it through the week ahead. We come expecting some assistance in learning how to be happy and well-adjusted. We come in the hopes that we will get inspiration to make our lives better in some way. Most people want their faith to help them be a success.
Maybe that is why you came here this morning. If that is the case, I hate to disappoint you, but rather than how to succeed, we are going to be looking at how to fail. Rather than happiness, we’re going to be thinking about rejection. Not that there is anything wrong with success or happiness—Lord knows, we all want to be happy and successful. But even if that is where we wind up, there is going to be a measure of failure along the way. Life is all the time presenting us with difficulty, and we need to be prepared for that.
Adversity is simply a fact of life. No matter who you are, if you have lived life at all, you have experienced some pain or hardship or setback or disappointment. Even those whom we think of as great successes had to deal with adversity.
Beethoven had a rather awkward playing style and preferred to write his own compositions rather than play the classical works of his day, which was what was expected. Disapproving of his technique, his teacher called him hopeless as a composer.
Thomas Edison’s teachers advised his parents to keep him home from school, stating that he was “too stupid to learn anything.”
We were in Los Angeles this past week for our ABC/USA biennial. The presence of Disney was pervasive: Disneyland, Disney Studios, the Walt Disney Concert Hall. I saw Walt Disney’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But early in his career, Disney was fired by a newspaper editor who said that he was lacking in creative ideas.
Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four. He could not read until age nine. He was described by his schoolmaster as “mentally slow, unsociable and adrift in his foolish dreams.”
You may remember that Michael Jordan was once cut from his high school basketball team. And after Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director said, “Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance a little though!”[i]
Most of us can recall as many disappointments and failures in life as we can successes. To be honest, most of us are more like the Chicago Cubs than the New York Yankees.
It has always been this way. Even the heroes and heroines of faith experienced heartache and tragedy and rejection and failure.
Our reading from 2 Corinthians begins with Paul speaking of some ecstatic spiritual experience he had had, 14 years before. Apparently, the Corinthian church doubted the authenticity of leaders who had not had such an experience, or perhaps antagonists who felt spiritually superior to Paul liked to speak of their visions. At any rate, Paul feels it necessary to mention this experience that he had without giving any of the details. He does not want to boast, he says. And if he is going to boast, he will boast of his weakness. Not his strength or success or spiritual muscles, but his weakness. He had a “thorn in the flesh,” he said, which God would not remove. There has been much speculation over what that might be, but the point Paul makes is that he is well acquainted with suffering. He says, “I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ.”
Even Jesus himself knew what it was to suffer rejection and failure. He went to his hometown of Nazareth, and people just could not imagine Jesus as a religious leader. “We know this guy,” the people said. “He’s just a carpenter. Why, we know his family. Just who does he think he is? He’s getting a little big for his britches, if you ask me.”
Failure is something we can all count on. In the last part of our scripture from Mark, Jesus sends out the disciples in pairs. And his instructions center on what to do when you are rejected. Not if you are rejected, but when you are rejected.
One of our problems is that we do not always have this healthy sense that failure and adversity are just a part of life and to be expected. We need to know that failure is OK, in fact it is normal, and that our failures and setbacks do not define us.
A speaker started off her seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, she asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?” Hands started going up. She said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you, but first, let me do this.” She proceeded to crumple the bill up. Then she asked, “Who still wants it?” Still the hands were up in the air. “Well,” she replied, “What if I do this?” And she dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with her heel. She picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. “Now who still wants it?” Still, just as many hands went up in the air.
“My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or whom we know but by who we are!”
We are not defined by our failures. And neither are we defined by our successes. We are valuable simply because of who we are: children of God.
Failure and adversity is a part of life, and it does not define us. What is important is how we respond to failure -- how we deal with adversity.
Jesus went to his hometown and was by and large rejected. He healed a few people, we read, but just a few people. He couldn’t do much because of what he saw as an amazing lack of faith. It’s not easy to be rejected by people you have known your whole life. That hurts a lot more than being rejected by folks who don’t know you. What did Jesus do?
What would we do? What do people typically do? A common response would be to go home and lick our wounds. We might get mad, or try to get even. We might doubt ourselves. We might work on our resume or perhaps go see a career counselor. Or go home and eat a 2 lb bag of M & M’s or drink a bottle of cheap wine.
What does Jesus do? How does he respond? The very next thing we read is that he sends out the disciples in pairs to carry on his ministry. This is a huge step in the spread of the gospel. It is an important strategy. Jesus doesn’t have to do it all by himself; his followers will begin to exercise their ministry.
Jesus responds to adversity by moving forward with a pivotal new stage in the spread of the gospel. He doesn’t follow the time-honored strategy of building on success; instead, Jesus builds on failure.
What about Paul? Well, you’ve got to wonder about Paul. He just seems to thrive on adversity. “Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” Paul just goes right on and understands that in these times of weakness, he has no choice but to turn to God, and so in his weakness he is strong through God’s strength.
For us, the great temptation of failure is to do nothing. With difficulty and hardship before us, with the possibility of failure very real, we tend to not want to stick our necks out. The natural inclination is to “circle the wagons” and pull back. We avoid risk like the plague.
I was watching the NBA playoffs just a few weeks ago – I mean, they extend all the way into June – and in one game, one of the best shooters in the league, Ray Allen, had missed something like 10 shots in a row. He couldn’t hit the side of a barn. But he kept shooting, and sure enough, at a crucial moment in the fourth quarter, he made a 3-point shot that was a turning point in the game. I was impressed that he made the shot, but more than that, I was impressed simply that he kept shooting.
Both Jesus and Paul see failure as a part of life. It comes with the territory. To venture forth in ministry means there will be disappointments and failures.
The fact is, if we never fail, we are not trying much of anything. Once an assistant urged Thomas Edison to quit after hundred of failures on a particular project. Edison said, “Why quit now? We know at least a hundred ways not to do it!”
We respond best to failure by seeing it as a part of the process and simply moving on. Jesus tells the disciples that if their message is not received, to shake the dust off their sandals and move on. Don’t carry it with you, just leave it and move on. We are not responsible for the response of others, and if we are rejected, just shake the dust off and keep going.
But that is not always easy to do. Jesus knows that, and Jesus knows that given the potential for rejection and failure, we need community.
It is interesting that Jesus does not go to Nazareth alone. The disciples don’t take the weekend off while Jesus goes to Nazareth to visit his family. He goes to do what may not be easy, and the community is with him. And when it comes time to send the disciples out, they are sent out in pairs. They do not go alone.
Setbacks and disappointments are best handled with the support of the community of faith. We can lean on one another and encourage one another and be there for one another, and this community is vital. It is important to know that no matter what happens, there is a place where we are loved and accepted, and it is important to know that no matter what happens, God loves us and accepts us.
With God, we can not only face failure and move on, but our failure can be redemptive.
About 10 miles from where I grew up is John James Audubon State Park. It was named after the famous naturalist who pained magnificent paintings of the birds of North America. But this might not have happened had he not gone bankrupt in business! In 1808, Audubon opened a store in Louisville, Kentucky. It was after he went bankrupt in 1819 that he began traveling and painting birds. We are all richer because of his business failure.
Sometimes it is our shortcomings that enable us to succeed. TV star Ed McMahon died a couple of weeks ago. (I also saw his star on the Walk of Fame.) Once, McMahon was working as a door-to-door salesman. He was always trying to get his appearance just right. At some houses his suit and tie made people suspicious, but when he didn’t dress up, others would be less than impressed. He didn’t want to look too well off, but he also knew that it wouldn’t do him much good to look like a bum. Then, completely by accident, he came across a solution.
His favorite pair of shoes had worn right through, so he threw them in the trunk of his car, intending to have them resoled. The next day his brand-new shoes were hurting his feet, so he put his comfortable old ones back on before making a call. After he had been there for a few minutes, it was obvious that the sales pitch wasn’t going well. The gentleman made it clear he thought McMahon was already too successful. McMahon was sinking fast when he leaned back in the chair and put an ankle on his knee. The man saw his shoe, and a puzzled look came into his eyes. Then he smiled for the first time, and McMahon wound up making the sale, not because of his selling ability but because of his shoes. He said that he never did have that pair of shoes repaired.[ii]
Sometimes it is our very failings and disappointment and heartaches that enable us to minister to others. Who can better help one struggling with drugs or alcohol than one who has been there? Who can better encourage one in the throes of a painful divorce than one who has been there?
And sometimes we need to experience adversity in order to gain perspective. Paul was certainly able to set his “thorn in the flesh” in the perspective of God’s love and grace. Having experienced suffering, we can empathize with those who themselves are suffering, and we come to learn that God’s grace is sufficient.
This is not to say that God sends us heartache or causes failures or wants us to suffer. But when those times of adversity and failure come our way, and they will, God can use them to bring something good—to bring healing and wholeness.
At the cross, we see the height of rejection, the height of failure, the height of suffering. But the cross has come to be a symbol of triumph, a symbol of victory, a sign that our failures are not final, that not even death is final, and that with God, all things are possible.
“I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ,” says Paul, “for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” God’s grace is always with us and may be especially near in times of weakness. We don’t set out to fail, but failure is a part of life, adversity is just part of the deal, and times of weakness can be times of receiving God’s grace. For Jesus, for Paul, for you, for me. May it be so. Amen.
[i] Patricia Datchuck Sanchez, Celebration, July 1997, 313.
[ii] Ed McMahon, Ed McMahon’s Superselling (Prentice Hall, 1989), 59.
0 comments:
Post a Comment