OCTOBER 22, 2006 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
IS 53:4-12; PS 91:9-16; HB 5:1-10; MK 10:35-45
Rejected…Resurrected
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we believe and in believing we obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
He was rejected…
So do we have any World Series junkies at worship today? I’d be one of if the Minnesota Twins had made it into this “really big shew…” but they didn’t. They made it to the playoffs, but then their luck ran out, their fortune foundered, their mojo disappeared…in fact, they didn’t even win one game against Oakland – they were thoroughly and completely rejected.
Are you familiar with that feeling? Can you relate to that kind of pain? Have you ever had to respond to the reality of rejection?
- Unwanted by either side for the sandlot baseball game
- Did not get picked for All State Band or Choir
- Felt deserted by a loved one due to distances…divorce…death
He was rejected…
I have yet to meet a person who has made it any distance through life without knowing some version of that pain. Carolyn and I are certainly no strangers to rejection. For example, I’ve had my ego bruised by congregations who decided that I was not the perfect pastor to shepherd their flock – I know, I couldn’t believe it either!!!
But the most baffling experience of rejection in our family happened to my wife back in St. Peter, Minn. Our situation there, in so many ways, seemed to be the perfect fit. I was happy in my call, and the kids were doing well in school, sports and church.
The problem was with…my wife. Carolyn, who has been a well-regarded teacher in every other community, could not get a teaching job in St. Peter… and the superintendent was a member of our congregation!
Her last interview there came just days after I received the letter of call to serve Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Anchorage, Alaska. And you know how secrets get passed around a small town…just after she shared with me the news that someone else got the job, I walked into church. Our secretary looked at me and said, “You’re moving to Alaska, aren’t you?”
Needless to say, Carolyn felt somewhat vindicated when she was offered a teaching job in Anchorage...before we’d even moved up here!
He was rejected…
A few years ago, a scholar from Japan came here to observe our American mindset and way of living. One of the great differences he noted between our cultures is that American parents teach their children…how to lose.
We bleed a stiff-upper-lip stoicism about disillusionment – we know that we must learn to accept dashed dreams, bruised egos and broken promises. We teach our kids how to learn how to live with loss and rejection, because everybody experiences that pain. Disappointment is a part of life, and if we want to survive and thrive, we have to figure out how to deal with it.
He was rejected…
That doesn’t mean it’s easy – or that we’re very good at it. In fact, it’s hard to deal with disappointment, to accept rejection, to have our highest hopes be dashed to the ground, fall shattered on the floor.
William Shakespeare writes a masterpiece on this topic in his play simply entitled, King Lear. Lear is an aging king of Britain who has decided to retire. But before he gives up the throne and divides his kingdom among his three daughters, he invites them to publicly profess how much they love him. We all know, as do they, that the one who describes their love the best will be awarded the best parts of the country to govern.
The oldest daughters go first. Their praise is profound, their language of love is limitless, their commitment to care for the king in his old age, they say, is as constant as the stars. Finally, it is the youngest daughter’s turn to speak, Cordelia, Lear’s favorite. His expectations are great. If the older two can so profoundly praise their papa, what pearls of prose, he ponders, must his preferred pet have planned for his pleasure?
Are there any Shakespeare experts here who can tell us what happens?
The young Cordelia is a woman of honor. She says what she means and she means what she says. She refuses to join this juvenile jousting match to out-schmoose her siblings. Instead, she speaks the simple word of truth: she loves Lear as her father…and can add nothing more to that truth.
Well, the king feels…rejected. His anger burns so fiercely that he divides his kingdom between the two older girls. His youngest, the one who speaks the truth, he dismisses, disowns, denounces, decries. This story is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and for very good reason – all is not well when it ends. Both Lear and his beloved Cordelia die.
But in the midst of all this pain, there is a sense of hope that faintly flickers like a candle in the wind: Cordelia is something of a Christ-figure. She was rejected, yet her sacrifice paves the way for good to triumph over evil.
Robert Coleman tells another story of sacrifice about a little girl who was dying of a blood disease. Her only hope was a transfusion from her older brother who had recovered from the same condition two years earlier. Would you give your blood to her? the doctor asked the young boy.
Her brother hesitated before answering…then finally said, Sure…for my sister. Soon the two children were wheeled into the operating room where the nurse inserted the needle into the boy’s arm. As he watched the blood flow into the tube, he asked the doctor, When do I die?
Only then did the doctor realize why the boy had hesitated to donate his blood. He’d thought that the family was asking him to give up his life so that his sister might live…(Written in Blood by Robert Coleman).
This, of course, leads us to another tragedy that we all know well…says the prophet Isaiah, He was despised and rejected…and by his bruises we are healed. It kind of makes all our selfish squabbles seem silly, and our sacrifices superficial. Thanks be to God for that unending gift of forgiveness and love that fills us up and sends us out to love and serve. Amen.