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We are located at the corner of First Street and Soule, just one block east of Central in northeast Dodge City
We are located at the corner of First Street and Soule, just one block east of Central in northeast Dodge City |
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When Life Plays Hardball: Failure & Shame When life plays hardball, we run the risk of being hit, knocked down. It can happen when relationships become broken and estranged, it can happen when illness or death strikes, and it can happen in a variety of ways when we feel that we’ve failed.
Failure—in our personal lives, in our professional lives, brings about many feelings of guilt and shame. Failure is when we do not reach our expectations...and when that happens, we blame ourselves. Injured pride, we are left to question our intelligence, our character, our worth as a human being. Nothing feels worse than failure. For in a way, failure and the shame that accompanies it can feel as if you are not only already down and in the dirt, but that you are being attacked even as you lay there. In the Bible there are more than a few failures from which we can learn. Samson, God’s own chosen judge for the Israelites, is undone by his lust for women. Moses, raised as a prince, is driven from his home for murdering an Egyptian soldier. The best he can do is to marry a sheepherder’s daughter and take care of his father-in-law’s sheep in the wilderness. The Disciples fail nearly at every turn, but none so great as Peter, whose failures are culminated in his denial of the Christ in the courtyard during his trial. Jesus himself tells of a story of a young man who takes his inheritance and runs, only to fail miserably and lose everything he ever had. There are others…Jonah, Jeremiah, the rich young ruler, James and John, Paul, just to name a few. If you’ve ever felt like a failure, you have plenty of company. But perhaps one of the best examples in the Bible is the prophet Elijah. God’s greatest prophet also succumbed to a crisis of personal and professional failure. King Ahaz and his wife, Jezebel had led the Israelites farther and farther away from God almighty, replacing the one true God with worship of Baal and other gods of the Cana. Elijah had a famous and fiery confrontation with the priests of Baal on top of mount Carmel, the result of which was the slaughtering of all of the prophets of Baal. The news did not please Jezebel, who swore out a warrant on Elijah’s life. Do you remember the story? Elijah fleeing for his life, running out of Jezreel south into the wilderness, where he pleads with God to let him die. “O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors,” he cries. But God feeds him instead, and allows him to sleep, and then an angel encourages him to continue his jouney toward Horeb, the Mountain of God. The same Mountain upon which Moses had met with God face to face. Elijah climbs up the mountain, and in a sad state of despair, crawls into a damp, dark, cave in the ground. Again, he is disconsolate. When asked by God what he is doing here, Elijah musters a feeble answer. “I have tried hard, I’ve been zealous for the Lord. But the people did not listen. They forsake your covenant, God, and threw down your altars. They killed all the prophets, I am the only one left. They want to kill me too.” Hear it? Failure. The failure in Elijah’s life evokes a feeling of powerlessness, just as it does for many of us. Too often, we watch a bad situation unfold and recognize that we are powerless to do anything about it. And we feel like failures. That’s because from the time we were little, we've been taught that success means taking charge and making things happen. “We can be anything we want to be, we can do anything we want to do. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!” But the truth is, we cannot always be everything we want to be, and we can’t do all that we want to do. The effort sometimes produces the exact opposite result than what we’d hoped for. The situation is beyond hope. One feels as if one can’t survive any longer. Beaten, afraid, and out of gas… Until the person thinks “I’ll just wallow in this damp, dark hole in the ground if its all the same…” Powerless. Useless. It’s worse than being knocked to the ground, Elijah is knocked INTO the ground! But thank God, God does not see the situation the same way Elijah does. Where Elijah sees failure and despair, God sees possibility and hope. Failure is when we become fixated on the present, but God remains fixed upon the future. You’ve heard me tell this story before. God calls Elijah out of his dark, damp, hole, telling him to be alert—that God will pass by. The fire , wind, earthquake. Still small voice. Many stop the story there. Actually, that’s where we began our reading today. Because what’s most important is what that still small voice had to say to Elijah, at the very depth of his failure. ‘Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; In other words, “you can’t stay here in your hole. It’s time to get back in the game.” Then God says, “when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.” This is important. “We need a new game plan, and some fresh players. If Ahaz and Jezebel are wicked, then it’s time to anoint successors. Hazael, and Jehu will do. And you need someone to succeed you in this work as well…so that your success will carry beyond your own presence. Anoint Elisha as the next prophet.” Then the battle plan itself is laid out as God tells Elijah: “Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill.” And finally, listen to what God provides for Elijah, who just moments ago, in his hole, felt utterly alone and completely exhausted. “I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” Ah—not all of the people have forsaken God. And those who are God’s people will be God’s instruments, an aid and a help to Elijah. Where Elijah sees only shame and failure, God sees possibility. This isn’t the only time such a profound restoration occurs out of failure. I mentioned earlier the story Jesus told to demonstrate God’s mercy for the failure. The story of the prodigal, who returns home after spending all of his inheritance on dissolute living. Wine, women and song. After nearly starving to death feeding pigs, he decides to go and plead with his father for a job on the family ranch where he might at least have a roof over his head and three square meals a day. You know the story. The father, seeing the boy as he is walking home, runs to meet him. He hugs him close, and as the boy begins his plea, the father interrupts him. The boy knows only failure and shame. “I have sinned against God and against you..” he says. But the father, representing God’s mercy in Jesus’ story, sees possibility. His son has returned home. Now, if only the father can help the boy know who he is and where he is. A robe will be put on his shoulders. Sandals on his feet. A ring on his finger with the personal crest of the father. So that all will know. This one who was lost, is found! When we’ve failed, we need someone to help us see possibility. And God does that not only through his Word, but through the community of the faithful. Once again, it is the care and concern of those around us through which God speaks to us, helping us to our feet, and easing the pains we bear. When we God helps us see possibility, we begin to sense that failure, while certainly not pleasant, has some important benefits. Failure humbles us, and helps us discard the pride and arrogance that begins to make us believe that we don’t need anyone else. By doing so, failure causes us to evaluate ourselves, our ambitions, values and priorities. And when necessary, rearrange them. In sort, failure helps us see our need for others, and our need for God. Secondly, it is from failure that we often learn the lessons that will help us succeed when we try again. America’s greatest inventor, Thomas Edison was a firm believer in the importance of failure, for failure led him to success. Edison was working on developing a better battery, when a discouraged assistant came up to him and suggested that Mr. Edison must be ready to quit after having performed some 10,000 tests without success. "You must be pretty downhearted with failing so many times", the assistant said. Edison replied, "Ah, but we've made a lot of progress. At least we now know 10,000 things that won't work!" In the end he developed a nickel-iron alkaline battery that became an industry standard and is still used today! Imagine all that failure has taught each of us! It was also Edison who reminds us “Life is full of people who didn't realize how close they were to success when they gave up." Failure isn’t permanent. Giving up, can be. That’s why God brought Elijah out of his hole to return to his task. Finally, failure equips us to offering help to others who fail, God’s own instruments to others—helping them see possibility where they can presently only see failure and shame. The community of faith is full of those who have failed. At marriage. At business. At parenting. At living as a Christian, even. And those who learn from those failures have much to offer others when they fail and fall. All three weeks of this series have ended with the same remark. We fall down alone, but we get back up together. In the community of faith. Please, don’t ever think of church as a Sunday morning program of music and inspiration. Church is living in the community of faith. Offering oneself to it--and allowing it to offer help when we need it. We worship to reconnect that community. To re-identify in it. But it is the community of the faithful who are the church, and who are the ever-present instrument of God, in our times of trial—when life plays hardball. Thanks be to God.
Thanks for dropping by: Guest # |
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