The Sacrament of Failure1
07-05-09
Some projects we undertake start out clean, but quickly gather a layer of dust to themselves. For example, I’m still working on knitting the prayer shawl I started four years ago, and the placemat my Loom is set up for. That is not to mention the half-conceived and drawn comic strip I created about my life in ministry and that antique rocking chair I was going to sand and refinish.
I have a lot of unfinished projects. Some I suspect I will never get back too. As I was thinking about that rocking chair this week, it provided for me a good illustration for my sermon today. Anyone working with wood knows the longer it is smoothed and sanded and sculpted, the deeper the pile of shavings and sawdust grows underfoot and on the project's own surface. Only when it is all finished can we wipe and shake all the dust away, leaving a clean surface. We have to know when it is time to blow the dust off, roll up our sleeves and start working; and when it is time to shake the dust off, redirect our energies and go on our way. Sometimes it is difficult to discern when to move on.
Jesus' commissioning words and directions at the beginning of the disciple's missionary work reveal that he too knew there was a time to get down to work and time to move on. At the same time, Jesus gives his disciples the power to participate in his work and authority, Jesus gives his disciples the confident directions to "travel lightly." He also gives his disciples guidance on how to deal with failure. He counsels his disciples that if they should find themselves or their message unwelcome that they should leave quietly, in the New Revised Standard text, it says they should "shake the dust off their off their feet" and move on. One can imagine that those disciples were shaking off a whole lot of dust. It is far more common to experience failure than to revel in success. Yet tragically, most of our education, beginning with kindergarten, has been seriously deficient when it comes to preparing us to confront and handle failure. We Americans are part of a culture that fears failure and worships success. We are part of a culture that says that if we work hard and remain dedicated, and do everything right we will experience success and wealth and happiness. In his article, "The Nerve of Failure," Leonard Sweet writes, the only acceptable symbols of failure in our culture are pathetic or comic figures, the Archie Bunkers of television and the Charlie Browns and Ziggies of the cartoonists' pen. The cult of success reigns supreme."2
Following Christ, preaching, teaching and living in the power and grace that he offers us, does not mean the life of Christian discipleship is insulated from failure. I bet I don’t need to tell you that. I’m guessing everyone in this room has experienced failure in their Christian journey, and in their life experiences. Robert Frost was once asked, "Do you find much meaning in life?" He replied, "Some days yes, some days no." There will be some days we will wake up saying, "Good morning, God." There will be other mornings we will wake up saying, "Good God, it's morning." There will be some Sundays when I will have a sermon to preach. There will be other Sundays when I will have to preach a sermon. There will be some days when we will feel like chosen vessels doing good work in our lives, our churches, our communities, our families; other days we will feel like earthen vessels, fragile, easily chipped, soaked, and broken apart. Failure is a part of life, but we can learn not be afraid of living "error embracing" lives.
"In fact, Jesus knows that failure will be such a recurring possibility in life that he provided his followers with a sacrament of failure. Just as there are ways to live that teach the world about Christ, there are also ways to fail that are uniquely Christian. Failure, or what futurist Don Michael calls "error embracing," is going to be a big part of any Christian's ministry. Nobody likes to hear they are going to have to face failure in life -- not the disciples 2,000 years ago, not congregations today. But understanding how Jesus' own ministry, how his very death on the cross for our sake, provided all Christians with a sacrament of failure can empower all of us with the "nerve of failure" as we witness to the world."3
There is nothing like momentary success to make our fear of failure grow exponentially, right? We start seeing a program grow and we are immediately concerned about sustaining it. We provide outreach, and we fear that we won’t be able to keep up with demand. We try something new, start a new relationship, start a new ministry, start a new job, or new hobby, or new whatever, and there is a fear that comes with success. As servants of our calling we must fight against the almost pathological desire and expectation to be liked, and enjoyed, and accepted by everyone.
Somewhere we have imbibed the notion that if we sow love and compassion in our community, we will reap love and compassion, and perhaps even acclaim and recognition. "Jesus sowed love and compassion, and for the many people he invited into relationship with God, he ultimately reaped death on a cross. No matter how hard we try, there are always some people that just won't accept us. There will always be people who don’t want to be in relationship with us. There will always be the person who judges us, or misunderstands us. Ernest T. Campbell once remarked in a sermon that some relationships which get off on the wrong foot always remain left-footed, if not flat-footed." There comes a time when we need to shake the dust off our feet, commend failed relationships to God and to other Christians and spend our time building other relationships (Sweet, 144).
This preoccupation with winning, being worthy, and success has infiltrated our conception of the church and our views on evangelism. We desperately need to redefine what it means to have a successful church. So much of "successful church" has become about baptisms, and budgets, and buses, and buildings. Yet, I think the meaning of church gets lost in a world of complexity by concerning itself with how to get people into church, rather than how to invite people into relationship, and then to send people out of church, like that little band of disciples, to live, and act, and tell of love of God. Our churches tend to get stuck on trendy, "half-baked theologies," which are being dished out by the latest theologian who is ready with some solution in response to the social problem of the month, specials which "end of littering the theological landscape of our throw-away culture."4
In terms of the prevailing cultural climate where success is power and prestige, wealth and status, the mission of the church is clear: to be bold, and sometimes be a failure. As disciples working together, it takes nerve to participate in a church community that shuns the quiet, safe harbors of status quo and trendy, surface-deep ideologies. As disciples in ministry together it takes nerve to navigate into waters that rock the boat and strain its structures. The church is the place where, if we're going to keep our heads above water, we've got to stick our necks out. And I know of no calling which demands of its followers more craning necks than ours. Our nerve of failure will be tested at every turn: when we stick our necks out as a brother or sister in Christ, as counselors, as educators, as evangelists, as catalysts for social action, as administrators, as arbitrators, as friends to the elderly, small animals and children. In ministering to the whole person, we have to ask ourselves, can we muster the nerve to fail to give people the answers, prodding them instead to ask the right questions?
Do we have the nerve to fail, and to participate in a community of people who at times fail-who fail themselves, who fail each other, who fail God? I heard someone say the other day that the church is like Noah's ark. If it weren't for the storm outside, the smell inside would be overpowering. But such is the true nature of the church, for the candles which we light to the glory of God all smoke, more or less. "The quality that should mark the Christian church is not goodness, but grace, not merit, but mercy, not moralism, but forgiveness, not the enshrinement of success, but the acceptance of failure."5 By lacking the nerve of failure, we have suffered a failure of nerve-to dare to dream dreams, venture visions, and risk getting splinters that come from cutting against the grain.
Jesus said to his disciples, "And if anyone does not welcome you or listen to what you have to say, as you walk out of the house or town shake the dust from your feet." These words are not a counsel of despair or an occasion of guilt. In the liturgy of life, Jesus' words on failure have no place in a confession of sin, they belong in a doxology of assurance. These words equip us for a lifetime of ministry. Of a ministry, that despite its failures, has and will continue to transform the world. Thanks be to God. Amen
1Due to a lack of time and preparation this sermon is derived largely from the Revs. Bob Taylor and Leonard Sweet. I thank them both for there profound words.