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Sunday, February 21, 2010
Burnout
First in the Series: Where is God When It Hurts?
By Rev. Jerry Herships
Mark 6:31-32
31He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.
So Harvey and I are doing a sermon series during lent. We are covering life events that many of us have to deal with everyday in one form or another. They are things that we will see as we move through the weeks, that Jesus and his disciples had to deal with as well.
Over the next few weeks we will be looking at where God is when it hurts. We will be looking at burnout and grief and loss. We will be looking at guilt and failure and loneliness, suffering and pain.
Because church should be about good news! The good news is that we don’t leave you there. In addition to bringing these things into the light, we will, also, look at what we can do, as people who follow Jesus, to confront these events in our lives when they rear their head.
This week we will begin by looking at burnout. What causes it, what are the symptoms, who’s at risk, what the Bible has to say about it and how to come out the other side.
Who's at risk?
Technically, everybody’s at risk. But according to the Mayo Clinic, you may be more likely to have job burnout if you are, someone who identifies so strongly with work that you lack a reasonable balance between work and your personal life. This applies to pretty much EVERYONE I know, in most fields. The second one is that you try to be everything to everyone. This would include every mother in the room. Your job is monotonous. Now we can add the entire postal service. You feel you have little or no control over your work. You work in a helping profession, such as health care, counseling, teaching or law enforcement.
What are the causes of job burnout?
These are some of the things that can be the cause of burnout. Just because you have these things in your life doesn’t mean you are going to burnout, but they are things we now know lead to burnout.
- Lack of control. Maybe you're unable to influence decisions that affect your job, such as which hours you'll work or which assignments you get. Perhaps you're unable to control the amount of work that comes in.
- Unclear job expectations are another possible cause. Maybe you’re uncertainty over what degree of authority you have at work and/or not having the necessary resources to do your work.
- Dysfunctional workplace. Anybody work in a dysfunctional workplace? Maybe you are working with an office bully, being undermined by colleagues or having a boss who micromanages your work.
- Mismatch in values is one that a lot of us feel. If your values differ from the way your company does business or handles employee grievances, it will wear on you. This was the case with me when I was at the Improv and working at a talent agency in Beverly Hills. I would come home with stomach pains every night.
What are job burnout symptoms?
Personally, I don’t believe if you have these things it means you are suffering from burnout, but I also don’t think they should be ignored. Ask yourself these questions.
- Do you find yourself being more cynical, critical and sarcastic at work?
- Do you drag yourself into work?
- Have you become more irritable and less patient with co-workers, customers or clients?
- Do you feel that you lack energy?
- Do you have a hard time laughing at yourself?
- Are you tired of your co-workers asking if you're OK?
- Are you disillusioned about your job?
We live in a time when the pace is always go, go, go. Laura and I had friends that worked for Disney Studio’s and the expectation was that you are always to be working. The saying was, “If you don’t come into work on Saturday don’t even bother showing up on Sunday.” It would be funny if it wasn’t true.
We are a country that values the hard work ethic and if you take time off to regroup or catch your breath, you are considered weak. The church should be modeling healthy lifestyles, but we don’t. We have caught ourselves adapting to the world rather than modeling for the world a healthy balanced life.
Not all countries have nearly the same problems we have regarding this issue of burnout. Juliet Schor, a Harvard University Professor, in her book, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, noted that since the late 1960s, the average American has added 160 work hours a year to his/her schedule. That is a month of 40 hour weeks. Via a national study, she found that 40% of Americans now work more than 45 hours a week on the average, with a large share regularly putting in 70 - to - 80 hour work weeks. Twenty percent said job pressures have caused them to neglect important family needs and that their marriages have suffered.
There is another side to this story. The sad truth of today and today’s economy is that so many people don’t have job burnout because they don’t have jobs. This leads to a different kind of stress which can also lead to emotional burnout. Many of the same elements are there: lack of control, lack of energy, cynicism, irritability. Life is monotonous.
So what does the Bible have to say about all this? This is not a new phenomenon. Jesus wasn’t exactly a slacker. They had a lot going on. There were feedings and healings as well as preaching and teaching. Every time you turn around, the gospels indicate that there were crowds wanting Jesus and his time. What did he and the disciples do to hold burnout at bay?
First let’s take a quick look at Mark’s gospel as a whole. Mark is the first gospel written. Early dates given are around 65, later dates around 75. I say we split the difference and go with 70. With references to the second temple being destroyed in 70, a lot of scholars say it was written shortly thereafter.
The passage that we looked at today happened right after we read the news that John the Baptist was beheaded and right before they fed the 5,000.
Now, we don’t know if Jesus and the Disciples heard the news of John the Baptist but if they did, right off the bat we have two huge factors in contributing to burnout, stress and over working. This passage tells us they didn’t even have time to eat! Anyone ever have a day when they didn’t have time to eat? There wasn’t a Chick-fil-A drive-through in Galilee at the time (oddly, I was just there a few months back….there are none there now, either.) Has anyone been so busy they had to go through a drive-thru to get a meal in the last month? The last two weeks? The last 24 hours?
So our scripture takes place between these two events. Jesus was trying to get time to rest. He knew how important this was. We find our story in chapter six of Mark. In my research, one of things I discovered is that when Jesus goes off to the mountains to pray, it happens IN CHAPTER SIX, in every gospel. We also see it in other places in Mark as well. In Mark 1:35-37 we hear, “…he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” In Mark 7:24 we see, “…he set out and went away…he entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.” Ever want to get away and have no one know where you are? Alone time. This was something that Jesus valued. He knew it was important and because it made it into the gospels, the writers knew it was important for us today.
Jesus knew, even as the Son of God, he had to take time for himself, leisure time, quite time, prayer time, call it what you want but Jesus knew the importance of it.
The Greeks took the question of leisure very seriously. They thought of leisure as a state of freedom from the necessity of labor. Leisure was something used to cultivate the mind. It was a time of contemplation, which was the best way they believed for people to find truth. For the Greeks, leisure was the basis of the free man’s whole life.
How often do we take time to just do nothing, time to just think and read and relax and enjoy or time to pray and connect with God? I have been on vacations that I have needed a vacation from.
One of the best remedies for burnout is getting time away. I know there are some very busy people in here, but I have to ask; are you busier than Jesus? Is your work more important than the work of Christ? If the answer is yes, then you will want to hear our sermon on narcissism.
In writing this sermon I realized I needed to take some of my own advice. That’s why I will be taking a few days off in the next two weeks to recharge my battery. Two weeks from now, Stacy Spehn will fill in for me. Stacy is going to be preaching on guilt…don’t miss it…you will feel guilty if you do! I will be taking time to think, pray, read and slow down.
Find time to recharge. Find time to relax, and read and pray and be alone. If it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for you.