Living with Negativity
Aug. 13, 2006
Karl Ruttan
Deuteronomy 8:1-10, Psalm 34, Ephesians 4:30-5:2, John 6:37-51
Does it sometimes seem to you like everything is a little bit off kilter? Have you had those times in your life when nothing seemed quite right. Nothing seemed perfect or good enough- so much was wrong with the world. It is so easy to get into negativity and start to complain.
And of course sometimes we can turn that negativity against ourselves. I could have been better- I did a lousy job on that.
Why do we do that? Why is this such an easy place to visit- and even to live there? Sometimes we seem to exult, revel in our complaining. Maybe it gives us safety or protects us from being disappointed. Maybe it keeps us in control. Maybe it shields us from the joyous- of being delighted with what is and possibly losing ourselves.
For whatever reason, negativity can truly distort our view of life.
I was listening to the series by Bill Moyer on Faith and Reason. Recently he had the American Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron on his program. She told some of the story of her life when he husband suddenly announced that he was leaving her for another woman. She was completely taken by surprise and she was left with two young daughters. Her world fell apart. She was hurt and angry. In time she began to look for healing for her pain. She tried a smorgasbord of religion but nothing seemed to help. Finally, she said, she saw an article called “Living with Negativity. ” It was an article on Buddhism and it taught that negativity is a part of life- and sometimes we can’t do anything about it but life with ti- to sit with it and to make peace with it.
She said that article changed her life. She said she had always felt so guilty about feeling bad. She thought all world religions said it was wrong. This gave her the freedom to accept her suffering and pain. She did not have to hold on to it or clutch it but simply to be at peace with it. With this new disposition, then and only then could the sting of her pain begin to lessen. She learned to sit and be still with her suffering.
This morning’s scriptures lessons give us some clues as to the Christian answer to the question how we can live with negativity. Pema Chodron’s teaching gives us some insight into our own tradition. Because the Gospel message tells us to not be attached to suffering but to face it and give it to God. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians is advising his community how to deal with negative emotions. “Put away falsehoods,” he says, “do not lie but speak the truth. Do not talk evil of others, but build up one another.” And most importantly, “Be angry but do not let the sun go down on you anger.” That is great counsel that says so very much. Paul is saying okay - be angry- that is natural and sometimes good and necessary. But don’t let the sun go down on your anger- don’t cling, don’t revel in. Indeed learn to make amends- let it go and bring healing. But ultimately let it go to God.
Well, that is good advise -- but how do we do it? John’s Gospel reading gives us more insight. Jesus makes the radical statement: “I am living bread -- I am the bread that gives life”
Well, the people of Nazareth did not want to hear it. They could not see the gift God had given them. They could not accept Jesus. They wanted to hold on to the past, the narrow judgements and failed to the hope. Why isn’t this merely, Jesus, the carpenter’s son. He is just some ordinary guy like us - how can he show us God? They were complaining, murmuring, the text says. This is the same word that scripture describes the Israelites in the desert. Remember the story. They complained to God that they were hungry and God gave them Manna. That saved their lives- and then they got tired of Manna and started to grumble and complain and murmur all over again. They couldn’t see the possibilities, the opportunities and the generosity of God.
In this story, Jesus is telling the people of God’s great generosity to them. God still feeds them and provides for them. Moreover, he gives them life in a new way that they could not comprehend or imagine. “Do not complain,” Jesus says. “Eat this bread and have life.” This bread is the gift of offering his very self that we might have life. Who ever has the eyes of faith to receive it, he promises, has the fullness of life. Jesus says you will have eternal life, that is the fullness of life abundant in every moment.
Oh that we had eyes to see- past our negativity to the goodness of God! What is remarkable is that the goodness of God is right there in the ordinary and commonplace. Indeed we see it in the ordinary things of life and in the very ordinariness of this bread offered for communion.
I love the bread that we have every Sunday that Pat Stevens bakes for us. I can just imagine her making it- taking the flour, gathered from farms who knows where- all those grains of wheat knit together into one loaf. I can imagine her kneading it, co-mingling all those grains into one piece. I can imagine the warmth of the bread on her hands and finally knit togetehr and baked we have this. Real bread with all its rich texture and taste. This is not some imitation. And this real bread represents you and me.
“We who are many are one bread!” We are like the grains of wheat knit together in one loaf. We are ordinary, common folk, sometimes good, sometimes evil, sometimes positive sometimes negative. We are people offering ourselves to Jesus- putting ourselves on the altar that God might take our common lives and fill us with life abundant- life holy.
And we are lifted up like this bread on the altar. And so this bread also becomes the Christ to us. It is food and encouragement to us in our discouragement or in our joys. In some liturgies after the bread is blessed, the priest says “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Thus we behold God taking the negative , the broken, the ailing, the lost into the Christ and making us one and whole in him. Jesus says in our Gospel text: “Nohing shall be lost.” He takes everything into himself carrying it to the cross; he takes the negativity and the pain of the world to make it whole. The bread is a symbol of the unity of the all in the wholeness of God. We are take all that we are, even in those feelings and complaints, and give them to God on the altar and let them go.
Lord knows this is a troubled world. We see the devastation of suffering and pain and loss on a daily basis- war is destroying nations and civilizations- but the Gospel gives us hope. By being transformed our negative can be turned to good and to God. God can restore all things if we become his body- we are his living bread to give nourishment to the world.
I have been re-reading Victor Frankl’s classic book, Man’s Search for Meaning. He tells of his experience in a concentration camp in world war II. He tells of a particularly bad day when the whole camp had been denied food because someone had stolen bread from the commissary. The men were practically starving and they had to work all day. Some were in despair and close to suicide. The head prisoner turned to Frankl, a psychiatrist, to speak to the men and give them hope. Frankl was himself at a low ebb but he began by describing the little things they could be thankful for. They still had their lives and mostly had their health. They had hope of seeing their families. He quoted Nietzche: That which does not kill me can only make me stronger. He mentioned the past, their joys, their memories. And then he said: “I spoke of the many opportunities of giving life meaning. I told my comrades that human life under any circumstances never ceases to have meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death. . .They must not lose hope b ut should keep their courage in the certainty that the hopelessness of out struggle did not detract from its dignity and meaning. I said someone looks down on each of us in our difficult hours– a friend, a wife, someone alive or dead, or a God. And he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope us to suffer proudly - not miserable– knowing how to die.”
“Finally I spoke of our sacrifice, which had meaning in every case. It was the nature of this sacrifice that is should appear to be pointless in the normal world. . . But in reality our sacrifice did have a meaning. Those of us who had any religious faith, I said frankly, could understand without difficulty. Frankl described a man that he made a pact without God that his suffering should save another human being- it was that pact that kept him alive. He had hope that his suffering would be vindicated. None of us want to suffer in vain.
The men heard Frankl’s words and experienced a certain sense of hope. He writes: “When the electric bulb flared again, I saw the miserable figures of my friends limping toward me to thank me with tears in their eyes.”
Frankl teaches us to see hope even in the midst of darkness. The question of faith is: Can we see the resurrection beyond every crucifixion? Can we see God’s possibilities despite the bleakness of the moment? Can we accept our negativity and turn it to God? Can we let God work in us to change us and make us whole? Can we let this bread nourish us with new life and new hope- that we might be hope and life to the world?