“Resilience: Embracing Challenge”
Genesis 12:1-4; Psalm 121; John
21:1-19
A sermon preached by Carla Pratt
Keyes
Ginter Park Presbyterian Church,
Richmond, VA
July 1, 2012
So, this is the
last sermon in my small series about resilience – the skill that enables people
to manage the stress of life and bounce back from trouble when it strikes.
Studies show that people who manage stress and adversity best have “3 Cs” in
common. We’ve talked about two already. Commitment
was the first. That’s an active engagement in pursuits that give meaning to
life. Control was the second. That’s
a belief in one’s ability to take charge of the controllable aspects of a
situation to influence a more positive outcome. The third “C” is challenge. Resilient people have, in
short, come to terms with the challenges of life. They view mistakes as
opportunities for new learning and change as a chance for growth. Underlying these
approaches to mistakes and change is often a belief that life is essentially difficult
- that we aren’t entitled to an easy life.
When we talked
about this in my coaching program, Laurie Ferguson, who was leading the
conversation, noted that life used to be more challenging in very basic ways.
Folks had to drag water from the stream or well. They had to walk to school (uphill
both ways to hear my grandpa tell it). Laurie said that when our lives are
relatively easy (with drinking water handy from faucets all over the house, and
school buses that stop close to home) our resilience suffers.
That was a
funny thing to remember this week, when so many of us lost electricity. Living a
couple of days without electricity reminded me how many conveniences I take for
granted. I kept reaching for the light
switch anytime I entered a dark room. Kept opening my computer expecting to
have wifi. Kept wanting to open the freezer we’d taped shut . . . . I know my
family was among the fortunate. We lost power at the start of the week, when it
was cool. We didn’t lose many groceries, and it wouldn’t have wrecked our food
budget if we had. No trees fell into our house or yard. I know not everyone
here can say the same! For me living
a couple days without electricity wasn’t especially hard. But if we’d had to do
without power much longer than that, I would have gotten grumpy. The washing
machine, the coffee-maker, the stove: these are some of the conveniences I take
for granted – things I want to be easy.
That is why I so deeply admire the
woman I saw last January, in a video the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
Program posted then. She was a Haitian woman, and she was talking about her
experience of the earthquake that had occurred in Haiti two years earlier. She
described the earthquake, the shaking of her house, the cracking noises that
came, the terror of it all. She told how she and her children had slept in an
open field after their house had crumbled. They made a shelter of leaves and
clothes, but were still soaked by the rain; they had to throw out almost everything
they had. This woman raised her children and grandchild on her own. She took in
another child, too, who had lost her mother in the quake. After describing all of
that, the woman said, “The hard things that happened aren’t ‘difficulties.’
It’s just life as I see it . . . I did everything I could to raise these
children. I hope someone would do the same for me, if something happened to me,
and my kids needed help . . . . [I am scared sometimes, she went on . . . . It
is hard. Still, the Haitian people] are strong. Haiti will be rebuilt because
we are not afraid to work.” [1]
This woman does not assume that anything in her life will be easy or
convenient. She assumes there will be difficulty, sweat, and effort. I think
that those assumptions have helped to
make her resilient.
I also think that Abraham’s willingness
to set out for a new land (what we read about in Genesis today) resembles this
woman’s courage, as she confronted disaster in her homeland. Abraham had more
material resources, certainly – animals, tents and servants. But like the
woman, Abraham faced significant challenge and momentous change, and he did so
without a lot of drama or any complaining. He left for a land “God would show
him,” and he must have been aware that establishing himself in that new place
would not be easy. Abraham would have to work hard and be brave.
Many biblical
stories begin this way, with someone who is willing to do what’s difficult,
even risky, in response to God’s call. Abraham and Sarah. Moses and the
Israelites. Elijah and David. Daniel and Esther. Mary, Peter and the other
disciples – all of them came to terms with a challenging path. They rose to
face an uncertain and difficult future in response to God’s call.
There’s a line
that recurs in these stories. Time and again, people are told to “Fear not.”
Fear not. They need to hear this, because they are facing scary situations –
experiences where fear would be the
natural thing to feel. Some of us can identify. Some of us are facing danger in our
lives. Illness, maybe. Or surgery. Or death. Addiction or poverty or violence
in our home or neighborhood. These things can do us harm. Others of us are
facing a different kind of fear – a better kind of fear, though still . . . fear. It’s what must have stirred in
Abraham and Sarah as they left to follow God’s call – the kind of fear you feel
when you’re doing something new and different. Something challenging. A
stepping-out-onto-the-high-dive kind of fear. We feel this fear, often, when we
are trying to embrace a new thing, when we’re facing significant change.
Change is inherently unsettling. Why is that? Any change begins with an ending.
We have to let go of something – maybe something or someone we care deeply
about, at least a situation we knew,
something familiar to us. We face some kind of ending, and then, often, a time
of feeling disoriented and confused – maybe a little, maybe a lot. We’re
unsettled, anyway, before we start the new thing . . . before we make the new
beginning. These changes in our lives aren’t necessarily dramatic (signaled by a
burning bush or an angel announcing news). Sometimes we are just moving to a
new city, beginning a new job or retiring from one, starting a marriage or
ending one, welcoming a child into the family or waving goodbye as her car
backs out of the driveway. Something in our life ends . . . something else
begins. We live faithfully when we attend to God in the midst of such changes.
Sometimes we know
God is calling us to push the boundaries, and that can be scary, too: reaching
out to a stranger, when it doesn’t come naturally to us; telling the truth,
when it would be easier to keep quiet; sharing what we have, when we aren’t
sure there’ll be enough for everyone. Following
Christ requires a certain willingness to reach out and to risk. It’s not as
easy as I’d like it to be.
Brené Brown, a research professor at the University
of Houston, spoke in a TED talk recently
about obstacles to reaching out and risking, a primary obstacle being the fear
of failure and the shame so often associated with failure. Brené spoke
candidly about the failures she’s
experienced in her own work, and the great insecurity she’s felt as her work
has become well known. Brené said that one of the things that’s kept her going (despite her fear!) is Theodore
Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” quote. Do you know it? Roosevelt said, “It is
not the critic who counts. It is not the man who sits and points out how the
doer of deeds could have done things better and how he falls and stumbles. The
credit goes to the man in the arena whose face is marred with dust and blood
and sweat. But when he’s in the arena, at best he wins, and at worst he loses,
but when he fails, when he loses, he does so daring greatly.”
[Brené said,] That’s what life is about, about daring
greatly, about being in the arena. [Then she spoke again about shame, which
keeps so many of us out of the arena. She said,] When you walk up to that arena
and you put your hand on the door, and you think, “I’m going in and I’m going
to try this,” shame is the gremlin who says, “Uh, uh. You’re not good enough.
You never finished that MBA. Your wife left you . . . . I know those things
that happened to you growing up. I know you don’t think that you’re pretty
enough or smart enough or talented enough or powerful enough . . . .” Shame is
that thing.
. . . Shame drives two big tapes – “never good
enough” and, if you can talk it out of that one, “who do you think you are?”
The thing to understand about shame [Brené says, is that] it’s not guilt. Shame
is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is
“I did something bad.”[2]
I don’t know which was affecting
Peter – guilt or shame – as we read about him in the gospel according to John.
He’d been through a lot at this point in the story, especially in recent days. He
had seen Jesus arrested, crucified and buried. During that time, Peter had denied
knowing Jesus three times. He had heard about Christ’s resurrection, had
visited the empty tomb, had seen Jesus at least twice, and had received the
Spirit Christ breathed upon the disciples. That must have been amazing and
encouraging for Peter and his friends. And yet . . . everything was different
than it had been. The risen Jesus was different; the disciples both knew him
and did not know him. He came to them, but left as mysteriously. They couldn’t
follow in his footsteps – not literally – as they once had done. Life as the disciples had known it was past.
All the disciples were feeling disoriented by the change. They must also have
been afraid that the people who had come for Jesus would come for them, too. On
top of it all, Peter was haunted by his betrayal of Jesus. For so many reasons,
he was unready to return to the arena.
So he and his
friends went fishing instead. And Christ came to them there at the lake, seeking
them out before they could get too comfortable, reminding them he brought good gifts
into their lives. The catch, the breakfast, the conversation . . . all were hints
of a Eucharistic feast, and they reminded the disciples about the resources God
would always give them when they rose to follow Christ’s call: an abundance of
love and power and nourishment.
I am especially
drawn to Christ’s conversation with Peter. Three times Peter had denied Jesus
outside the courtyard of the high priest, while the high priest was questioning
Jesus at the start of his Passion. Three times, when challenged and asked about
his relationship to Jesus, Peter had given into fear. Not wanting to suffer, as
he had known Jesus would suffer, Peter had claimed not to know Jesus. Christ
had seen it coming, had known Peter would deny him . . . and as Jesus faced
Peter now, both of them remembered Peter’s
failure.
“Do you love me?”
Jesus asked
Peter three times, giving Peter the chance to say what he had wanted to say
before. I love you. I love you. I love you. And three times, Jesus called Peter
back into the arena, to try again . . . to risk again . . . to do what Christ
made him able to do: Feed my sheep. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep. It would be difficult
work, even dangerous work; it would lead someday to Peter’s death. But Jesus
showed Peter he was known, forgiven, called, and equipped to do it. And, as we
all know, Peter rose to face the challenge.
What challenge
do you face? What arena is God asking you to enter? What does God need you to
dare? And what holds you back as you stand there with your hand on the door?
Only you can say. I will simply remind you: Christ comes to you, as Christ came
to Peter. His hands are full of gifts. His voice is heavy with compassion. He
sees and forgives and challenges you, too. And he calls you – one way or
another – to follow him.
[1] http://light-and-leaven.blogspot.com/2012/02/its-just-life.html
[2] http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame.html
QUESTIONS FOR
REFLECTION
How do you respond to change and challenge? Is
life best for you when it’s predictable and known? Or do you enjoy pursuing new
experiences?
How often (and how easily)
do you step out of your “comfort zone”? Where in your life are you taking a
risk?
How do you respond to the
notion that people do well to accept that life is difficult – that we aren’t
entitled to an easy life?
Every transition in life
begins with an ending. Letting go of something that’s been important to us is,
at best, an ambiguous situation, as we come to realize what’s been good and bad
about the part of our life that’s ending. Think back over the endings in your
own life. Some may have been big and terrible (like a death in the family); others
may have been insignificant to everyone but you (like the end to a kind of
innocence or trust). Try to recall the feelings and thoughts you had at those
endings. Do you have a “style” for dealing with endings? In what ways is that
style good or bad for you?
What events have brought
change to your life in the last year? How are you responding to those changes?
(e.g. losses of relationships, changes in home life, personal changes, work
& financial changes, inner changes)
Consider your recreational
activities. There’s a difference between what’s pleasurable and what’s
enjoyable. Pleasurable activities are
the ones we slide into easily – TV, puzzles, eating, easy reading. They’re our
go-to activities. Enjoyable activities
are things that (to some extent) we have to make ourselves do. They take some
effort, but it’s worth it; we feel different after engaging in these kinds of
activities. What’s the ratio of pleasure to enjoyment in your life?
