The Gift of Resilience, the Call of Consolation

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Colin Byrd
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1 The Gift of Resilience, the Call of Consolation By Rev. Elizabeth D. McLean, Prince of Peace Presbyterian Church, Based upon Gen. 39:19-23; 2 Cor. 1:3-7 When my younger brother was a toddler, one of his favorite toys was a set of Weebles. Weebles, you may or may not remember, were little plastic egg-shaped people, like the ones in the picture on your bulletin cover. The Weeble's motto was Weebles wobble, but they don t fall down. My brother had a Weebles playground set, complete with slide, swings, merry-go-round and seesaw. You were supposed to put the people in the little indentations on the equipment, similar to the dents on deviled egg trays, and then gently make them play. But our favorite game was to make the equipment go so fast that it would fling the Weebles across the room. Not surprisingly, when they were treated this way, some of them did fall down when they landed; so much for truth in advertising. I guess the more technically correct motto, Weebles wobble and fall down, but always get back up again, was too wordy to please Hasbro s marketing department. That s too bad because the less catchy statement would have been a better lesson for my brother and me, and for all children to learn. In real life, as in Weebleland, everyone falls at least every once and a while, if not physically, then in some other way. We fail and flail, feel defeated or tossed about, and pushed down by forces outside of our control. To suggest that it is possible to go through life without falling, therefore, is to set an impossible standard for people as well as Weebles, one which can produce shame and fear as a result. But to suggest that it is possible to get back up again after you fall is a lesson worth promoting. Instead of inspiring guilt, it would teach about the important value of resilience. Resilience is a character trait that all people have to some degree because it is as much learned as it is instinctive. Resilience is the ability to get back up after falling, the capacity to recover quickly from all kinds of difficulties. 1 People with a lot of resilience are like human Weebles, hard to keep down for very long. Life can throw all kinds of challenges and sufferings at them, enough to knock them down and make them hurt. But resilient personalities do not allow the hurt to stop them. They do not stay down permanently or quit. After taking time to heal or mourn, they then figure out what is necessary to get back up again and move forward. This skill is more than useful. According to social scientists, it is also influences how happy you are with your life. 2 Low resilience people tend to cast themselves as the victim when they fall, and carry the anger, sadness, pain and frustration of that role with them into the future. Resilient people, in contrast, tend, either consciously or unconsciously, to cast themselves as the plucky, determined protagonist in their own life narrative, who is able to overcome obstacles, even when the odds are against them. This both enables them to move forward, and leaves them feeling happier over all. Since resilience is so helpful, sociologists have produced numerous lists identifying qualities or circumstances 3 which can strengthen human resilience. For example, they have noted that people with good self-esteem, loving families, high education, and strong 1 Resilience, Google Definition retrieved from 2 See e.g. Lockhard, Shona, The Happiness Experiment The link between happiness and resilience: 10 ways to build resilience, April 30, 2013, at 3 Resilience, Satisfaction and Happiness, in PsyArticles.com, Rev. Elizabeth D. McLean, ; all rights reserved. Page 1

2 problem-solving skills all tend to be more resilient than people without these qualities and circumstances. But one of the things that surprised me as I was reading the studies is that there has been very little work done investigating the correlation between resilience and faith. The connection seems so obvious to me, especially when you consider that one of the things both the heroes and heroines in the Bible have in common is that they have resilience in spades. Consider the heroes in today s lessons alone. Joseph s story is so inspiring that in schools and drama clubs all over the States, people are still singing about his technicolor dream coat, decades after the musical version of his life was first produced. But in the biblical account, it isn t really his coat which gives him an edge over the others, nor even his ability to interpret dreams; it is his relationship with God. God gives Joseph the ability to be resilient. And boy does he need that gift! The little novella which is his story in Genesis records a nonstop roller coaster of highs and lows. Joseph starts out high: he is his father Jacob s favorite, and is spoiled with presents and privileges. Then he gets knocked down for the first time, when his jealous brothers throw him into a pit, and then sell him into slavery. Most people would be devastated after toppling from the high of privilege to the low of slavery. But the Bible doesn t record Joseph licking his wounds for long. It records that God was with him. So instead of wallowing, Joseph works hard to rise almost back to the top in Potiphar s house. Then Potiphar s wife s deceit knocks him all the way from the top of the household hierarchy back to the bottom again, this time in prison. Most people would have given up at that point, and resigned themselves to a life of misery. But God was with Joseph in prison too. So it wasn t long before he began working his way up through the prison ranks until soon he was indispensable to the head warden and positioned to be an asset to Pharaoh. Now Joseph did have good self-esteem. According to the first part of the story he actually had too much self-esteem which is why his brothers found him so irritating; he was full of himself. But he did not have a loving family around him to support him in Egypt, nor a good education. He didn t have a community or a plan. So we cannot say he was just one of those lucky folks equipped by his circumstances to get back up after a fall. The story makes it very clear that the reason that Joseph was able to Weeble his way through life is that he had God s favor. From the time that Potiphar made him overseer in his house, Genesis Chapter 39 says, the Lord blessed the Egyptian s house for Joseph s sake. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, the text says again at the end of the chapter, after Joseph was thrown in prison. It s easy to miss what an extraordinary and counterintuitive statement this is, since we know how the story will turn out. But when it was written, many people believed, as many still do today, that prosperity is a gift from God, and tragedy is a punishment from God. This story throws that whole idea out the window, by making it clear that God did not cause the bad things to happen to Joseph, people did. It also throws out the window the related idea that it is God s job to keep bad things from happening to us. Even people who do not believe in a punitive God often believe that. If God is sovereign and all powerful, we think, God s job must be to protect the faithful so that they won t be hurt. That is what a shepherd does, after all; and we celebrate God as Shepherd all the time. So if Joseph s problems were not evidence of a punitive God, doesn t this mean that God must be a bad shepherd? Not according to this story. One of the lessons the Joseph narrative affirms is that our God Rev. Elizabeth D. McLean, ; all rights reserved. Page 2

3 is both an attentive God and a powerful God, just not in the ways that we think. God s power is neither punitive nor traditionally protective; it is a transforming and consoling power. We may wish that God would stop all bad things from happening, and not understand why God does not. But the Bible assumes that bad things will happen and shows us that God s greatest power is to help us overcome them. This is the real work of God, according to Jewish tradition, interceding in human life to transform desolation into consolation. Thus the Psalmist proclaims: Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name... Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. (Ps. 30:4, 5b). God does not prevent the darkness or cause it. But God consoles us in the midst of it, and then leads us step by step into the light. There is a word in Greek, used both in the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, and in the New Testament, which captures how God operates in this way. That word is parakaleo (pronounced para-kal-eh-oh). Literally it means to call to one s side, or to call to oneself, which is how it is used in non-biblical sources. But in the Bible, maybe because most of the stories already affirm that God is already by our side, parakaleo is not usually translated as call. When it s in the imperative, it is translated to admonish, exhort or urge; and when it is in the indicative, it is translated to comfort or console. Put all these meanings together and you get God s recipe for how God gives us the resilience we need. God is forever by our side teaching us how we should go, admonishing us not to forget that God is with us, and consoling us when it seems as though everything is lost. Parakaleo was one of the favorite words of our second resilient hero today, the Apostle Paul. Blessed be the God of all consolation who consoles us in our affliction so that we can console those who are afflicted with the consolation with which we are consoled by God, he wrote to the Corinthians. When Paul writes this way it makes me want to shout, Get a thesaurus already Paul! But for Paul, the word parakaleo said it all. It said that God is in the business of consoling us with the saving grace of Christ, something Paul knew better than anyone was a gift like no other. Paul s ministry for Christ was so plagued with suffering that it makes Joseph s life journey look like a walk in the park. Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one, he writes later in Chapter 11. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked... He also wrote about frequently being in danger from rivers, bandits, Gentiles, cities, wilderness, and more. (2 Cor. 11:24-27). It s a wonder that he was able to persuade anyone to worship his God given how much he suffered! But for Paul, his suffering proved how powerful, not how powerless God is in Christ. The reason Paul was able to become a Weeble par excellence, notwithstanding all of the attacks against him, was because of God s consoling power. For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, he explained, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ... We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed... Every time Paul fell down and every time he was pushed, he remembered that God knew suffering in Christ. Every time he felt that his end was near, he remembered that God had saved him in Christ. Every time he was imprisoned, he remembered that God was in prison with him, planning his way out. If we remember all of this as Paul did, we, too, can become resilient people even if we do not have all the advantages that the sociologists point out. God strengthens our self-esteem by Rev. Elizabeth D. McLean, ; all rights reserved. Page 3

4 teaching us that in Christ we are loved just as we are. God educates us so that we can see all the options before us; and God provides us with family in the form of the church, so that we will have all the encouragement and consolation we need to have the strength to get back up again and again. This is one of the calls of the Church, according to Paul, to be an instrument of God s consolation. As we have been consoled, so we are called to console one another. I guess in this sense he restores the original meaning of parakaleo. It s not that we need to call God to be on our side, but that we are to call others to our side, in the Oh Honey! Come here - sense, so we can give them a hug and do for them what God does for us: urge them to hang on, admonish them not to despair, and comfort them through the darkness. I think that we are good at honoring this call in this church. When we know that people are ill or injured, grieving or overwhelmed, we rally around them providing food, cards and shoulders on which to lean. Perhaps that is because there are so many people here who know as well as Joseph and Paul the darkness of the pit. There are people in this congregation who have suffered devastating losses, and people who have faced and continue to face challenges daily which would leave others in a heap on the floor. But even though we do console one another well in this way, there is still a take- away from these texts which can help us in our ministry, and that is how powerful consolation can be theologically, as well as psychologically, when we speak from our own experience of suffering. The culture outside of the church tells people that they need to mask their pain and hide their problems, which is one reason why addiction and other self-destructive behaviors are on the rise. There is shame perceived in admitting that we have fallen. But in the church, the Gospel gives us the permission and in fact commands us to be more honest in sharing our trials as testimony to God s power; and that is something we do not do enough. I ve known people who have left churches because they feel that doing church is all about putting on a facade and dwelling in superficialities and clichés. We dress well and limit ourselves to polite chit chat most of the time. On days when we are not up for this, we stay home. No one really knows me, the frustrated congregants have said to me. This was the worst year of my life, but when I come here all everyone does is smile and pretend everything is fine. Did you tell anyone that you weren t fine? I ask. Did you ask for help? No, they always say. I don t know anyone well enough. Now some people are very private and don t feel comfortable asking for help. That s OK. But for all those who are feeling alone and bleak, what a blessing it would be to hear from someone else that they know what it s like to be in the pit. How consoling would it be to know that someone has spent time in an emotional prison made by grief, and managed to make it out to the other side with God s help! I m not saying that we should all go up to each other, and introduce ourselves, saying, Hi, I m Sally, and I suffer from clinical depression. But we should not feel that we need to hide our real situations from one another in order to do happy church. We should strive to be honest, coming to church when we feel emotionally and spiritually lousy as well as when we feel triumphant. God has given us this community so that we can console one another, and in so doing build up our resilience. If we take nothing else away from Joseph and Paul, therefore, let us at least take from their stories the fact that even good faithful people suffer all kinds of problems. So there is no need to mask our realities in church, and great benefit from doing just the opposite. The good news of the Gospel is not that it is now impossible for us to fall because of God s grace in Jesus Christ. The good news of the Gospel is that because of God s Rev. Elizabeth D. McLean, ; all rights reserved. Page 4

5 grace in Jesus Christ, and with the help of God s consolation, it is possible to get back up again and to discover joy and new life. We are living proof of that. That may be too wordy for a catchy motto, but it is not too good to be true. Thanks be to God! Amen Rev. Elizabeth D. McLean, ; all rights reserved. Page 5

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