"The Exile of Despair”

Luke 18:1-8

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley

February 27, 2005

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

            When I think of the concept of the exile of despair, it is not hard to find examples today.  I think of the families and communities and countries and economies devastated by the late December tsunami. 

            I think of the victims of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, Somalia, Rwanda, Burma, Central America and the ripple effects that war has on too many of us in the United States.

            I think of those who battle the demons of depression and those whose depression sinks so low as to contemplate suicide.

            I think of the people who put their heart and souls into the last election and now see a long four years with little hope in sight.

            I think of those who are survivors of abuse who try to piece together their lives when so much of it does not make sense since.  For survivors, the world “love” too often wears the definition of “abuse” and lack of safety.

            I think of those who are dealing with mental illness and the judgmentalism that comes from the stigma.

            I think of those who are unemployed or underemployed.

            I think of the oppressed groups of people who have to bow to the whims of the majority class, who may not even be the majority, but who seem to have all of the power.

            I think of those who have lost a loved one.

            And if these people dare to come to church, and I know many do, we church folk often give them nothing more than platitudes.

Think of the platitudes we say,

“God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle.”

“All things work together for good for those who love God.”

 “The tsunami or the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombing is God’s way of getting back at a world or a people who have traded in evil for too long.  These tragedies reestablish karmic balance.”

“God must have needed our loved one so much that God took them from us” which is not far from saying, “you must have done something wrong.”

“Have you tried this medication, this seminar, this new product, read this book?” 

The so-called friends of Job said things like this to sorry old Job a few millennia ago.  It was wrong when they said it and it’s still wrong.

You have heard these before.  They are nothing new.  And they do very little to help someone who is in despair.  They make the speaker of platitudes feel better about themselves and about God. It is so tempting to try to sing the sacred songs in the exile, just so we can feel a little bit better.  And if we do it right, in our worship hour we can go from the exile of despair to hope, right?

Religious folk tend to be uncomfortable with despair.  We wish there would be some hope.  We want to rush to the hope.  We need to cling to the hope.  And so we offer words of comfort, which too often come off as religious-sounding nonsense.

So, here’s the question for this sermon: how do we effectively respond to someone who is in despair?

I think there are three things we can do.

The first is to hear the despair.  We were given two ears and one mouth for a reason.

The second is to stand with the person in despair.

The final thing is to gently accompany the person out of despair.

Remember, you can’t really accompany someone out of despair until you have heard the despair and stood with the person in despair.  I want us to resist the temptation to run to solving a problem that is bigger than we know.

So what we need to first do is hear the despair.

This means making yourself open and available to someone who is grieving.  We do this by being a listening ear, a helpful friend.  But we don’t often do this by telling someone how to feel.  “Oh, don’t take it so hard.”  “lighten up.”  We need to resist the temptation to fill a gap with a platitude.  This means not only listening, but making sure your face is free of judgement.  People in deep despair often don’t trust folks with their despair, especially if it means they might get lectured.

Jean Lubke and I attended the Rochester Summit this past weekend.  In that group of 158 people from 14 states were people who were in deep despair about the exclusionary direction of our American Baptist denomination.  Via e-mail and web sites we acquainted ourselves with each other’s struggles. 

After our opening worship, Pastor Susan Johnson from Chicago summarized the points of despair in our denomination.  She answered questions and dispelled myths and named some of the elephants in our denominational room.  Once we did that, we could go about our work to try to repair some of the breaches.  But we could not do any of it until we felt heard.

The widow in today’s scripture reading was not heard by the powerful judge who had jurisdiction over her case.   She was alone in telling her despair.  It does not appear like she was with anyone else.  She kept going to the judge and complaining.  Over and over again she came and over and over again she was ignored.  Until she wasn’t any more.  The judge finally granted her case, not because he agreed with her or cared at all about justice, but because he was worn out by her persistence.   

According to John’s Gospel, Pontius Pilate acquiesced to the death of Jesus not because he wanted to, but because he wanted to silence the crowds that were calling to crucify him. 

The Civil Rights movement was successful because of the persistence in the streets of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X's and a whole lot of other committed folks.

Saul Alinsky said that the greatest social movements happen not because of great policy, but because of the need for politicians to keep their phones from ringing.

Despair is like this.  It is persistent.  It lurks under the surface.  Unaddressed, it rears its ugly head and makes us all uncomfortable.  It can even cause violence toward ourselves and others.  Listen to the persistent despair out there.   That’s the first step.

The second thing we need to do is to stand with people in their despair.  People desperately need to feel that they are not alone.  We need to feel that someone is with us, stands by us and is not afraid to hang on.  A survivor of abuse wrote a powerful article in the Hartford Courant a number of years ago.  She both wept about and praised her partner who stood by her as she recovered forgotten memories.  Her partner described it as holding the hand of someone on fire and not letting go, even if it means you get burned, too.  Not all of us can do this.  Not all despair is that dramatic, but the effect is the same. 

When we stand with people in despair, we are witnessing to the true ministry of God in our world.  We are being compassionate.  We are reminding someone who may not be even able to see it that they are not alone.  We are being there for them. 

It’s not always easy to stand with someone in despair.  It takes a lot of love, a lot of persistence, a lot of faith and a tremendous commitment.  Let’s be honest, not all of us can do it.  Sometimes it’s too much.  Sometimes we get sucked down and we can’t pull ourselves out, let alone the other person.  So the person standing with someone in despair needs someone to stand with, too. 

That’s where the church comes in.  We come here Sunday after Sunday and we share our joys and our concerns.  We lift each other up in prayer.  We tell each other our stories, or at least part of them.  And when we do that, we remember that we are not alone.  There is a force more powerful that can restore us to sanity.  There is hope out there.  We are not alone.  We have someone who is standing with us.  And as hard as it is, sometimes we need to sing those sacred songs even when we are in the strange land of despair—if for no other reason than to remember that the despair is not all that there is.

In Rochester, we had the opportunity to work on the different aspects of this denominational despair by calling together a group of people to discuss a topic.  Soon groups of five to fifty were forming all over the place to try to strategize our way out of our despair.  So much of our despair came from feeling that we were alone—that no one else cared or felt the way we did.  In Rochester, we found many people who shared our concerns and we used the collective brainpower and presence to find our way out of the despair.  We came up with strategies and plans and statements.  They may or may not change the denomination the way we want it, but I feel I am no longer in the lonely despair mode.  People feel our pain and I feel others’ pain.  And as we shared it, we felt lighter.  We were taken seriously and we were not judged.

When we hear each other’s despair and walk along beside them in their despair then we are ready to do the third thing which is to gently accompany people out of despair.

Now, even though I made this into three simple points for the sake of this sermon, the journey from despair to hope is not an easy one.  It is often fraught with pain, suffering, backsliding and fits and starts.

Take Joseph, for example.  He had plenty to despair about as he was left for dead by his own brothers and thrown into prison in Egypt.  He eventually gained his power and his stature.  He may have even retained his arrogance, but it was many years later that he was able to reconcile with his brothers, oddly after they came to him in his own despair.

            Once we hear the despair of our sister or brother, we commit to walking beside them, even holding their hand which is on fire, then we can slowly and gently walk with them out of their despair.  It’s not easy.  It often takes a long time.  It often means unlearning things from your life.  It also means looking at God with new eyes.  I say that to mean that God is not necessarily the granter of platitudes, but God is the force that moves you from despair to hope.

            As a result of the Rochester Summit, we will present a number of resolutions, by-laws changes and statements of affirmation to various boards and committees.  In fact, you can add your name to the on-line petition which will be on a link from our web site in a few days.

            We will seek to gently walk each other out of the despair of immobility.  When we are in despair, often we are angry, hurt, sad, lonely, ashamed and as a result immobile.  When Jesus says “I have not left you comfortless,” he was talking about each of us.  We are God’s hands and feet.  We are God’s ears and hearts.  And grafted like we are to God’s Spirit, our presence and our persistent priority of health is the way that people take those tentative steps out of despair.

            Sisters and brothers, remember the despair of another.  Remember that they need you to hear them.  They need you to stand by them and they need you to walk with them out of the canyon of despair.  The path out is not always well lit, but it is a path that is seldom traveled alone.  Remember you are here for each other, just as God is here for you. 

            Let me close with the prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, who knew his share of despair and also held all people and beings in love.  May we be the instruments of peace and healing that we are called to be.

 

            “God, make us instruments of your peace.

            Where there is hatred, let us sow love

            Where there is injury,    pardon

            Where there is doubt,   faith

            Where there is despair, hope

            Where there is darkness, light

            Where there is sadness, joy.

 

          O Divine Master, grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,

            To be understood as to understand,

            To be loved as to love;

            For it is in giving that we receive,

            It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

            And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”