Be of Good Courage II Corinthians 6:1-13
June 21, 2009 Mark 4:35-41
Metairie, LA
St. Paul offers to the Corinthians a sobering list of adversities he has endured as he evangelized Asia Minor. Not a journey for the faint-hearted! When he completes his description of "extreme travel", he begs the congregation for a singular response to his travails on their behalf. He asks simply: "open wide your hearts also, as I open my heart to you."
No easy thing he asks, "keep your hearts open wide." Paul is asking them to stay vulnerable despite adversities. The more normal reaction to a threat is to throw up defenses. You might like to know that "coeur" ("heart" in French) is the root word for our English word "courage".
In the case of the church at Corinth, their challenges are internal. They are half-hearted in their beliefs and tend to follow whatever charismatic leader arrives in town or any new fashionable denomination or stylish worship service. In a port city, like ours, Corinthians are exposed to all kinds of exotic philosophies. The Corinthians repeatedly fail to take Paul's message to heart and find themselves quarreling constantly. Which leader is the best? Which brand of faith will they take up next? And they slowly devolve to impatience, arrogance, irritability, resentfulness, and vindictiveness. And Paul wants for them a better way- the way of love. You would not know that these are Christians by their love, that's for sure. Not at that time at least. But Paul maintains confidence that, despite many failures of harmony, the Corinthians will be persuaded, if only they will open their hearts.
We find a similar challenge in Mark's Gospel- the disciples fail to trust that God will vouchsafe their journey. These disciples lose faith when the storm rocks their boat. They devolve into an anxious fear based puddle; not so surprising, given that the boat was taking in water and the Master was fast asleep in the prow.
Both sets of disciples fail to keep the faith when beset by adversity. The Corinthians are caught up in divisiveness; the disciples fail to trust that their future is secure in God's plan.
Every week in our time of worship we include a confession where we as individuals hand our failures to God for transformation; we recall our failures to be disciples. Every week in the Lord's prayer we collectively acknowledge our desire for release from our debts, forgiveness for our trespasses. We acknowlege our tendency to go off mark, as a church, as individual disciples.
Both Paul and Jesus use the failures of the disciples to call them to a deeper faith, a broader trust in the plan of God for their lives. We ought to take this to heart ourselves- that failures may well be a path to a richer relationship with Jesus. A theologian, Robert McAfee Brown, says that "failures" or "mistakes" ought to be considered "therapeutic errors." Failures are teaching devices and help us find our way to a richer life, a better informed life.
A wonderful "Peanuts" cartoon has Sally sitting at a table with two peices of paper, one large and one snall, in front of her. As she wirtes on the large peice, she says to Charlie Brown, "I'm making two lists of all the things I've learned in life." Charlie Brown asks, "Why is one list longer than the other?" Holding up that list, Sally says, "These are the things I learned the hard way!"
Now I know a child like that, do you? Almost broke my heart, that child, who would not learn from the lessons I have learned the hard way. I doubt I am alone, feeling like a failure as a parent when you can't teach your own child to avoid learning the hard way. This for me was one of the most painful parts of parenting- watching my children learn the hard way. And also one of the bigger challenges- letting them live and learn from their own mistakes, rather than rushing in to rescue them. I guess every generation gets to learn the hard way, espite parents who try to help their children on an easier path.
I think we become more attentive when life gets hard. Facing hard things provides opportunity to let our guard down and see situations we did not imagine earlier. When we permit ourselves to be open, be vulnerable, the Spirit enters and charts new paths, brings us to a new place, to the heart of what it is to be human. It takes courage to open, to let ourselves be stretched, even though we may be worn and fragile from adversity. Like most experiences, we will not learn much from adversity if we fail to address it- name it and claim it. If we avoid or deny our failures, there is little learning. We are called to encounter, embrace and live through adversity openheartedly, reflectively, intentionally, even expectantly. We, who are disciples, who are the church. Easier said than done, I know, keeping ourselves vulnerable and expectant when failure makes us shrink with anxiety or grimace in frustration.
Failure provides the opportunity to look at important questions: Who am I? How do I want to live? What are the gifts of the moment that are not defined by the failure? We wrestle with our unique challenges and opportunities. This can be bewildering when we lose confidence in our talents or discover that our gifts are not valued in society or in a significant relationship. To have our gifts, our God granted talents, spurned is painful. I have a brother who is disdainful of church and religion in general, except perhaps aesthetically. He dismisses my beloved Bible stories as "fables" and the church as a fraud. And he does have a point. When the Bible is used literally to deny evolution in favor of creationism, a psuedo science, it is bunk.
When church leaders pass around pedophiles and other abusive ministers to maintain the status quo and avoid controversy and whe the church hoards wealth rather than provide for the poor, it is fraudulent. He has a point, but he does not affirm the goodness that church provides and will only condemn for its failures.
I am pained that my brother, whom I love and who loves me, in all integrity cannot affirm my life's work. To be fair, I have a hard time appreciating how he invests his gifts, at least professionally. He is a very successful marketing agent for the hospitality industry. He sweats blood to improve international lodging reservation systems and build teams to sell more rooms. I can applaud his talents- he is creative, energetic, smart, hardworking, kind and honest. But it is hard for me to applaud his professional commitment. Because of my failure to fully appreciate him, I try to break out of my closemindedness, my prejudice, my judgementalism. The failure of my appreciation of him has pushed my spiritual growth.
Failure can prompt reflection, solitary musing, interraltional conversations, communal discernment. In churches it may take the form of friendships, spiritual companionships, mentoring or pastoral counselling, even congregational analysis. Reflection may well instersect with critique when we examine our past failures and accomplishments, both, to envision a future. I think of Good Shepherd as we review our history in preparation for a search for a new pastor. Our first step is to consider our history, to acknowledge and appreciate our past- the successes and failures, both, with an eye towards learning.
As I have heard our history, some questions arise for me: How do we put our history of controversies around pastors to good use as we search? Another question: Will the tendency to distrust some of our denominational associations be a source of learning? And a bigger question: How do we let go of past failures, our own or others', so these do not trip us up in the future?
Graceful outcomes of acknowleging our failures, in confession or reflection, are many, One is relief- there it is; we did it; can we let it go? Can we let the recognition of failures help us move forward, rather than get stuck in a blame game? Can we rejoice together, though we have had some disagreements, can we rejoice together that, yes, we learned the hard way? Together we did that?
Failure reminds us to consider the big picture, not to get stuck iin pettiness. The Corinthians got it together and did finally display love. The disciples, though they temporarily lost faith, got back in the boat and sailed on. We at Good Shepherd, we have suffered discouragement over leadership issues, financial challenges, to say nothing of the adversity of the hurricanes. And here we are- our ship is righted, though we still have some baling to do.
Failure, real or perceived, taps into our fear that we are not viable, worthy, or perhaps even loveable. The challenge of failure is to stay faithful as we are able, in the midst of the fears, in the mire and muck of the pain, grief, disappointment, even embarrassment or insecurity- whether personal, relational or communal. To be faithful does not mean to ignor or discount failure or our feelings about it. Rather, being faithful means opening ourselves up so we may receive God's love and inspiriation.
As people of faith we remember that the resurrection tosses out any dreary world based predictions. The crucifixion reverses notions of success and failure, and either one can result in growth or stagnation or even regression. Our challege is to have faith- in failure or success, in storms or community quarrels, whatever adversities beset us. The unexpected events are all part of the journey of faith and opportunities to remember each step of the way that resurrection did not only happen once, a long time ago. It happens right here, right now.
Open wide your hearts and be of good courage.
And let the people say, "Amen"
