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Sermon
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OVERCOMING THE ODDS Then Luke has Jesus saying, “See how this unpleasant magistrate acted. How much more will God see justice done for those who appeal to him?” Both that conclusion and Luke’s little introduction are probably tacked on to the original. Remember what a parable is. It is a thought starter. It is open-ended and can have as many shades of meaning as people who hear it. It speaks differently to different people – like a painting, a piece of music or a picturesque scene. To say “This is the meaning and there’s no other” is to miss the genius of teaching with parables. All the rabbis, Jesus among them, taught using parables; they told these little stories and then said, “What do you make out of that?” So, parables shouldn’t be confused with sermon illustrations. They are popped in to light up a specific point the preacher hopes will then be better understood . So, what do you make of this parable? My new walking route is around and around the Timber Ridge sportsground in Doncaster. Early one morning I tried to let the parable speak to me; indeed to let God speak to me if that doesn’t sound too pretentious. I got past the symbolism of a magistrate and a widow. Of course, one is a figure of power, and the other of powerlessness. There is, of course, the man against whom she seeks an intervention order, but the major players are the magistrate and the widow. This congregation has a lot of widows in it, and some widowers also. I draw inspiration from them, as does our minister. They show us that overcoming the odds (as I have called this address) can be done – as does the woman in the parable. What the parable holds up for me is this issue of ‘overcoming the odds’. The type of person represented by the widow could give up in desperation and be a victim, but the parable suggests that this is not the only option. I want to look at ‘overcoming the odds’ in terms of three things that get in the way: past failures, self-doubt and aloneness. I want to say a little about each, and why they get in the way of overcoming the odds – and I want to remind you what the Bible and our faith say about each. I
First, past failures. There is a proportion of people in every society who seem destined to stumble and tumble over and over. It’s like they have ‘two left feet’, mentally and morally speaking. Something goes wrong, and instead of being put behind them, it seems to ‘pre-set’ them for failure in the next challenge. In fact, failure is part of life. Those who have been denied the occasional soul-enriching experience of a prize belly-flop will be in for a terrible shock when it does eventually come around! Some of you know my position on this, because I referred to it on another occasion. One of my addresses is called “How to Fail Successfully”! A mark of the well-formed person is not that she has never failed (or he), but that she picks herself up after a tumble, dusts herself down and moves on. The ill-formed person is disabled by failure. It has been suggested that a resounding failure can be a positively good thing. This was argued when the Australian cricketers were given a painful lesson by the Brits on their last Test tour. Some of the critics were saying they had become altogether too cocky and contemptuous of other cricketing nations, and had it coming to them. It hurt and humbled them (for a little while!) but more importantly, it provoked them to a spot of reflection and resolution. The Bible is full of tales about men and women who have failed. In fact, it could almost be called ‘the book of heroic failures’! It can’t, because that is the name of another book, by Stephen Pile. He is described on the fly sheet as a Renaissance Man, equally unable to do a vast range of activities. It says, “Western civilization is obsessed with success, even though most of us have a genuine flair for the exact opposite. Three years ago Stephen Pile decided to do something about it: he formed the Not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain. To get into the Club you had to be not terribly good at something and preferably downright awful. Members addressed the Club on the things they did worst or couldn’t do at all. Sometimes they would give displays and win standing ovations.”The Bible doesn’t condemn people for failing. Nowhere will you find a commandment that says ‘Thou shalt not fail’. Jesus didn’t criticise people for failing. He criticised them for not trying. Remember the man who buried his money in the ground rather than risk spending or investing it? The great message of the Bible is that failure doesn’t have to disable a person. The concept of divine forgiveness says we can pick ourselves up and move on. That’s a biblical principle. II
The second thing that gets in the way of overcoming the odds is self-doubt: lack of confidence or faith in oneself. This is not to be confused with humility. Many experience a degree of self-doubt at some point in their lives, but letting it rule one’s life is something else. Simma Lieberman is an American speaker and consultant on issues that affect our functioning – like stress management and self-doubt. She says that when we let self-doubt rule our lives, we miss opportunities. We predict and believe that nothing good will happen to us, so we don’t try anything new, and refuse to take even small risks. Lieberman has come to these insights through her own bitter experience. She grew up in a low income family in the Jewish quarter of New York City (the Bronx). She says she heard over and over that “people like us could never really be successful.” As early as kindergarten, the teacher told her mother Simma was slow, and not to expect too much of her. She was put in the slow learners’ class. In reality she was very smart, but bored silly. Her next teacher recognised this and moved her into an advanced class. But she was still hearing the voices that said, “You’ll never make it. You’ll never be popular.” She felt she wasn’t as good as the rest because she didn’t have the money and clothes some other girls had. Her parents told her she didn’t have too many options vocationally. She started to study journalism but dropped out. She was admitted to a school of performing arts, but negative expectations of herself led to failure and dropping out. She became a model with a top agency, but felt that she was unattractive and she couldn’t imagine being successful. She gave that up and dropped out. She moved across the country, believing that her problems were related to the place where she lived and the people there. A breakdown in her health found her in hospital. Doctors told her what she already knew: she had to make big changes in the way she was thinking. She says, “It was time to look at my past and my present, and to decide what I wanted for my future. If I didn’t break through negative thoughts I would always stay where I was. I had to learn to change my attitude about myself.” In due course she did, with a very good outcome. As a Jewish woman, she might have been familiar with a great biblical affirmation that God believes in the human race – but she wasn’t. This is the message of the ancient creation story which has God appointing the Adams Family to be his farm managers. So what, if they play up! The bible says God’s faith in humanity is indestructible. God knows our possibilities, and believes we can live up to these. That is a second great biblical principle. III
The third thing that gets in the way of overcoming the odds is aloneness. I distinguish this from ‘loneliness’ – which is the painful condition of wanting company and feeling the absence of it. By aloneness I mean ‘going it alone’, as we say. In some circumstances we make that choice, as in sailing solo around the world or going into retreat. Aloneness can be the necessary condition of great insight and growth – like Jesus in the wilderness. But sometimes when faced by heavy odds, aloneness is not what we need. That is when we need company. I think of the wee boy wakened by the storm and a nightmare. Mother came in response to his crying. After settling him down, she said, “It’s all right, darling; God is with you.” “I know,” he said, “but I need someone with skin on!” So it is; we all need someone with skin on when the times are tough. But we need equally to hold to our sense of the divine reality: an issue that will be dealt with in the study of Marcus Borg’s The Heart of Christianity – which I hope you are planning to enrol in. Borg, a man who lost his faith and regained it, says we live in God as fish live in the sea. Just as truly, the sea is in the fish. The ancient troubadour sang, “Where could I go from thy Spirit, where could I flee from thy face? I climb to heaven? But thou art there. I nestle in the netherworld? And there thou art. If I darted swift to the dawn, to the verge of ocean afar, thy hand even there would fall on me, thy right hand would reach me.”The ultimate key to overcoming the odds is that sense of the divine reality in everything and in whom everything dwells. May that be your strength. ___________________________________________________
An
address presented by the Rev Dr John Bodycomb at St Aidan's
Uniting Church North Balwyn, on 21st October, 2007 IT MAY BE
REPRODUCED WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. |
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Page updated 23/10/07