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Sunday, February 21, 2010
Burnout
First in the Series Where is God When It Hurts?
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Mark 1:35-39 New Revised Standard Version
35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37 When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." 38 He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." 39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
On this first Sunday of the Christian season of Lent, Jerry Herships and I are both collaborating on a new sermon series based on the hurts and hope that we are hearing from our congregation and most other people around us. The post card that we have made available to you last week and that we sent to 16,000 households tells it well.
We feel like we are in a fragile time-economically, emotionally and spiritually. We feel fearful and uncertain. Most of us have lost money over the past two years and many have lost jobs. Others worry about job security. We are asking painful questions.
- How can I maintain?
- How will we get through this?
- How can my faith sustain me and direct me through this dark valley?
These painful questions are not only real and strongly felt by most of us, they are also questions that are centered in the stories of Lent as Jesus himself undergoes temptations in his forty days in the desert at the beginning of his ministry, as his disciples are deeply afraid after he has set his face toward Jerusalem and toward the life threatening conflicts that he and they will face with the bureaucracy there, and as they deal with their own loss and guilt and failure.
The sermon topics, therefore, deal with the feelings that are present in Jesus’ friends in his journey toward Jerusalem and toward the cross. They also deal with the real feelings present in us: burnout, loss, failure, guilt, loneliness, and suffering. We have all known these all of our lives and we may be especially attuned to these right now as we still deal with the worst economic downturn in 80 years.
As we address these issues, we are going to be listening to two resources. First, we will be listening to your hurts and hopes and your questions. Please Email us or let us know what you are experiencing. Second, we are going to be listening to scripture, particularly to people who share these feelings and to the stories in scripture that give us hope and help.
I am going to start with one scripture story today about a dedicated leader in Israel who was at the end of his emotional rope and was so drained and burned out that he did not think he could go on. He appears in the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, about 800 years before Jesus but you may remember him from some stories in the gospels, as well, because he was talked about in the time of Jesus as being strongly connected with the Messiah.
This man was the prophet Elijah and here is how he appears in the gospels, after his earthly life, 800 years before Jesus. When John the Baptizer, the cousin of Jesus, was baptizing people right before Jesus came to be baptized by him, some people thought that John himself was the prophet Elijah come back to announce God’s coming Messiah (John 1:21).
And in Mark’s gospel, when Jesus asks his friends who people think he is, right before Peter recognizes him as the messiah, another disciple tells Jesus that people think he is either, John the Baptizer come back to life, or Elijah come back to life.
Elijah must have still been important for people in Jesus’ time because there is one more reference to him in the gospels, 800 years after he lived, when Jesus and his friends go up to the top of a mountain and his three friends have a spiritual vision. They see not only Jesus transfigured in an image of white on the top of the mountain, they can also see two other very important people in the history of faith; Moses, representing the law or Torah-and who else? They see Elijah!
If you know the ritual for the Passover meal from your Jewish neighbors and friends, there is always an empty chair and empty place at the Passover table for a hoped for guest-and that guest is Elijah.
I give you this background because the story of Elijah, in the Hebrew Bible, is a story of burnout, a story of a faithful man who did some very hard and very important work and then just felt he was at the end of his rope and maybe at the end of his life! The rest of his story is how God helped him through that dark, burnout time.
Elijah was a prophet, a spokesperson for God, who lived in a time of drought. Think about that image of drought and how it might relate to the spiritual and emotional and economic drought that we might feel today. He lived in northern Israel in a time of fear and uncertainty and drought, and he sensed God calling him to go to King Ahab. When he went to the king and confronted the paganism of the king’s advisers, God would be able to send rain.
The whole story of Elijah’s spiritual battle with the prophets of Baal, at the top of Mount Carmel, (25 of us were there on top of Mount Carmel just three months ago), is an exciting one and I will let you read it later in I Kings 18. The end result of that confrontation between Elijah and 800 pagan prophets is that God sent rain, and, strangely, the end of the drought causes King Ahab and his wife Jezebel to be so angry that Elijah has to run for his life.
A day later, Elijah finds himself in the wilderness, after he has walked in the desert all day. He is so despondent and burned out, that as he sits under a tree, here is what he says: “this is just too much Lord. Take away my life. I might as well be dead.”
God provides nourishment for him in his time of darkness and burnout. Elijah has enough strength from that to walk a few more days to Mount Sinai, the holy mountain of Moses and the Ten Commandments, and there on Mount Sinai he goes into a cave, still despondent, and cries out again in anguish to God. God gives him hope again and instructs him to go to the top of the mountain, and God is present with Elijah in a powerful way. You probably know this story.
Elijah stands on the mountain and there is a furious wind that cracks the rocks, but God was not in the wind. Next, there is an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. Then there is a fire, but God was not in the fire. And finally, there was - a still small voice, the soft whisper of a voice, and in that voice was the comfort and strength of God.
When we talked in a couple of groups I was in this week about burnout, we asked each other what has been most helpful to us when we have felt as drained and as low as Elijah. Here is what some of you said.
Just naming it is important. It has been important for us to say aloud that we are feeling tired and drained. Most of us know this feeling whether we are parents, particularly of more than one small child. That can be a definite source of emotional, spiritual and physical burnout. If we are caregivers, for a vulnerable person, that can bring us to burnout. Judy and I have seen that from our involvement in the disability community over the past 37 years. And, we all have seen, in ourselves and others, the possibility of burnout in times when our companies or businesses have cut back on staff and we still try to achieve the same results.
Knowing and naming our feelings as burnout is a first step. The other steps are easily known but more difficult to do, take time for self. Do what Elijah did. Figure out a way to get away. Take time for God in worship and prayer and music. If we can get a day in the mountains, that is refreshing for many of us. Physical exercise, even simply walking regularly is an antidote for burnout. Exercise is one of my resources. Our bodies were made to move, and when we do that, good things happen in us and to us physically, as well as chemically and emotionally.
One simple way to avoid burnout is to sometimes say, “No,” when there is a demand that may be depleting to our soul and our strength. That is easier for some that others, but it is one important resource in being able to love and care for ourselves.
You know some things that have worked for you that have been sources of re-creation and refreshment for your soul. Cindy Bates asked us the question in her, as usual, eloquent Lenten meditation on Ash Wednesday, “How are you paying attention to your soul or NOT paying attention to your soul? Being in worship for quiet time and for music and prayer and encouragement can be an antidote for burnout.
The scripture we heard tells us that Jesus himself needed that time away, that time to listen to God and to pray. He was often away from his friends by himself in prayer and they had to go looking for him. He was in worship each Sabbath day. It was his custom, according to the Gospel of Luke, to be together with others in worship.
Jesus took time away from people because he needed that away time to keep from being peopled out. There is even one story in the Gospel of Mark where he went to the region of Tyre, gentile territory, and did not want anyone to know where he was because he just needed a vacation. If Jesus needed some “downtime,” certainly we must also need that.
Finally our book tells us that we are mandated to take time for Sabbath, for time to renew and replenish our lives and our souls. In fact it is so important to do that regularly, and faithfully, that keeping Sabbath is mandated in the Ten Commandments!
Everyone needs downtime, that Sabbath time, that soul refreshment time. Jesus needed that. Elijah needed that. You and I need that and our book tells us that when we take that time, that is when we have the best chance of hearing that comforting and encouraging voice, that still small voice of God.