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Sunday, February 28, 2010

Grief and Loss
Second in the Series: Where is God When It Hurts?

By Rev. Jerry Herships

Mark 14:65-72

⁶⁵Some began to spit on him, to blindfold him, and to strike him, saying to him, “Prophesy!”  The guards also took him over and beat him. ⁶⁶While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant-girls of the high priest came by. ⁶⁷When she saw Peter warming himself, she stared at him and said, “You also were with Jesus, the man from Nazareth.” ⁶⁸But he denied it, saying, “I do not know or understand what you are talking about.” And he went out into the forecourt. Then the cock crowed. ⁶⁹And the servant-girl, on seeing him, began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” ⁷⁰But again he denied it. Then after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them; for you are a Galilean.” ⁷¹But he began to curse, and he swore an oath, “I do not know this man you are talking about.” ⁷²At that moment the cock crowed for the second time. Then Peter remembered that Jesus had said to him, “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept.

For me, this is a hard sermon to write.  Not just because the subject matter is heavy but because I am worried that there might be people who come here tonight to get answers to their grief.  I don’t have them.  I have thoughts, ideas, and suggestions.  What I don’t have is a magic potion that will make grief go away.

I could be very clinical about grief and tell you all about the five stages of grief.  Tell you about denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  I could go into each of them in depth.  All of that is useful but I don’t know if that is what people come to hear a preacher talk about.  I think people come to hear about hope.  I think people come to hear good news.  I think what I might try to do is dispel some of, what I feel, are myths about God, the Church and grief and loss.  Your experience might say otherwise.  But let’s tackle them together.

First I want to talk about the fact that grief and loss are NOT just about death.  There are all kinds of grief/loss.  Besides the grief of losing someone there is the grief of losing your health.  So many people have had to deal with the grief that comes with losing your health.  This is also not confined to the first ones we think of.  Just the loss of not being able to do the things we once did can be painful.  I dread the day that Hudson beats me at stuff, especially physical stuff.  He is already better than me at a lot.  But I have heard it said that the first time your son beats you at basketball that is a tough day on a lot of dads.  In Mitch Albom’s book, Have a Little Faith, the Rabbi tells Mitch, “Mitch, people don’t mind getting old.  People mind BEING old.”  There is sadness to that loss. There is a grief.

See I think there is more grief in society than we know.  When I moved from L.A. to Orlando, I went to go see my Pastor.  I was in a funk I just couldn’t shake.  He listened to my story and then he said. “Jerry you are grieving. You are grieving your lost dreams. You dreamed of going to Hollywood to make it big and now you have left without having achieved all you hoped to achieve there. You are grieving the loss of your dreams.”

DEAD ON.  You don’t have to go to Hollywood to have that happen, or dream of a professional sports career. You could have dreamed of being CEO or to have your own business or to make partner by the time you were 30. You could have had the dream of having a big family and for one reason or another that didn’t happen.  You could have dreamed of being married by the time you were 25. When these things in life don’t go as we planned, we grieve their loss. We go through the same stages. Make no mistake. This is real grief. We need to walk through it the same way.

When we do deal with grief we have to allow ourselves to be angry.  The truth of the matter is the one that we are often angry with is God.  Wow doesn’t that feel wrong?  Still worried about the lightning bolt hitting you?  I shouldn’t be angry at God. Or do you think I should be much more spiritually advanced than that. The truth is that the Bible shows us, ALL OVER THE PLACE, that it is okay for us to be angry at God.  It happens all the time in the Bible.  

There is a whole book in the Bible called Lamentations. Jeremiah is traditionally associated with writing it although that probably isn’t the case. It was probably an anonymous author or authors.  It is made up of five mournful poems and is all about grieving. The Bible makes it clear that it is okay to be angry with God. God can handle it.

Job let God have it. The Psalms let God have it. Jeremiah let God have it. In Jeremiah 20:7, Jeremiah says, “O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me.” It is not just about yelling at God. It goes deeper than that. It is about being honest with God. God knows how we are feeling anyway. What God wants more than anything is relationship with us.  But God wants honest relationship with us. It is like when we are in a relationship with someone and we ask if anything is wrong and they say, “Nothing.” If they say “nothing” and it takes a certain tone….you KNOW it ain’t nothing. God knows when it ain’t nothing, too.  We might as well be honest.

We need to be honest with each other, also. So often people come to church and when people ask how we are doing we say, “fine,” but we aren’t fine. If we aren’t fine, we need to stop saying it. I love the title of a book I read not too long ago. It was called, No Perfect People Allowed. That is such a problem in church. When did “great” and “fine” become the only acceptable emotions in church? People keep thinking it is a place for perfect people, people that don’t hurt or grieve.  If you can’t come to church to grieve, where can you go?

When my brother died in 2001, I found out about it late on Saturday night, at 2:30 in the morning. I was in church that morning at the 8:00 service.  I needed to be in a place of love, a safe place. A place I could just be. I didn’t have to pretend. Life was pretty lousy that morning. And people I talked to knew it. I let them love on me. I let them be Christ for me. We need to be reminded that we can have other emotions in church besides, “I’m doing great.”

That’s fine for the people grieving, but how do you respond to that?  People would love to help but always think, “What do I say to someone grieving?”  You know what?  You don’t have to know.  Sometimes you just need to be with them.  Be present. Just…be.  

Parker Palmer tells the story in his book, Let Your Life Speak, about the time he went through a bout of depression. He said no one had the right words. You know who helped him the most? The person who helped him the most would just come over and rub his feet, wouldn’t say anything, just rub his feet and just be with him. As much as we don’t want to believe it, that is being Christ for someone.

In our scripture today we see grief, Peter’s grief. A lot has happened prior to where we pick up the story. Jesus has already been betrayed by Judas. He has been arrested as a result and Jesus tells Peter about the betrayal Peter is going to commit, the one we see in our story today.  Not only did Jesus say Peter would betray him, he said ALL of the disciples would betray him.  Many people know that Peter said he would never betray Jesus, but what people forget is at the end of Mark 14:31, after Peter claims he would never desert Jesus, it says, “…and all of them said the same.”  They all made the same promise and they all ran and bailed on him.  Within the same chapter, they had all gone away and we see Peter broken down and grieving.  He wasn’t grieving death.  He wasn’t grieving his health.  He was grieving about how he had let Jesus down.  How he let himself down.  He was grieving the fact that he didn’t live up to his highest ideals and potential.  He was grieving his weakness. There are probably at least a few of us here that have felt that way at one time or another.

Now there is no question about what Peter did was wrong.  Heck he was lying about knowing Jesus WHILE Jesus was getting beaten up!  The point is what happened AFTER the betrayals.  Judas, after betraying Jesus, hung himself.  Peter went on to head the church.  

It is not whether you will or will not have grief and loss in your life.  You will.  If you haven’t yet, talk to any number of people in this room.   All you have to do is look at the prayer cards.  Some day you will experience grief.  The Bible tells us this in John’s gospel.  The question is, what will you do after you begin to experience your grief?  

Of the five stages of grief, depression is one of the most dangerous.  It is here that we are darkest before the dawn.  It is the last stage before acceptance.  What we chose to do after we experience grief is what’s important.

There is no timeline. There is no, “They should be over it by NOW.”  One of my professors and dear friends, Larry Graham, told me after my mom died during my first year of seminary, “Jerry, there is no ‘right way’ to grieve, only your way to grieve.”  I tell this to every family for whom I do a funeral service. Pain translates a number of different ways. Be gentle with each other when you or someone you love is going through grief and loss.

We see in Peter’s story tremendous grief.  What we don’t see is Jesus’ love and grace that he gives Peter at the end of the Gospel of John.  It is here that we realize that God is with us in the grief and loss, that God will walk with us, and that Jesus will be there when we come out the other side, with open arms and joy in his heart.

 As the title of the biography of Jim Morrison says, No One Gets Out of here Alive.  As Jesus says, “In this life, you will have sorrow.”  We are never promised a life without grief and loss.  What we are promised is that God will be with us and that we will never have to face anything alone.