Courageous Embrace // Thunder Thighs

 

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 10/13/2013

video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard/ondemand
podcast here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

Nicknames. Fig Leaves. Bare Feet.

Belonging. Shame. Vulnerability.

My mom’s sister, Aunt Pat, called me Thunder Thighs when I was a kid. Yeah, I know. It was because I loved to play soccer and could kick the ball a long ways. When I hear it in my mind, recalling her saying it to me, it still makes me feel like I’m at home. Like I belonged with her. I can feel the pride in that nickname. Thunder Thighs. I can feel the humor in the teasing. You know you belong when you can be teased and you feel the humor of it, don’t you? The teaser loves you, knows you, gets you. It’s good to be gotten. Maybe one of the best things ever, in human experience. Someone who’s good at teasing teases in such a way that the teasing peels the layers of your mask off, gently showing you that they see you, the you that’s under all the masks, and saying that they love you. We all long for that feeling. The feeling of belonging. Thunder Thighs.

Shame is the feeling we hate the most in this world. It’s like a searing hot wave. If it doesn’t pass quickly, it’s like a black hole in an empty room we didn’t know was inside of us, squeezing, choking, violent. We want to run from it. Cover it up. Numb it.

I was athletic in middle school, always an early round pick in the gym class draft. But I ran a little bit pigeon-toed. Just enough that another kid, the coolest kid, noticed it and imitated it. Everyone would laugh. I would too, but just to cover my shame. Mask it. Because I felt like I was flawed. And that eventually, I’d be rejected. Not picked. Left off the team. Whenever I was alone, I’d try to run with my toes straight forward. Trying to fix myself, force my body to get it right. Not so I could play any better. But just so I wouldn’t feel that shame. That was low-level, bush-league shame, for a confident, well-loved, all-things-considered secure kid, “Thunder Thighs” for heaven’s sake, and it’s still stuck in my memory.

Shame sucks. Shame and its demonic offspring have wreaked havoc in our world and in our lives.

And no fig leaf has ever succeeded in covering it adequately. Not perfectionism. Not foreboding joy. Not busyness. Not drugs. Not shallow, promiscuous intimacy. Not cynicism, criticism, coolness, or cruelty. All fig leaves fail, leaving us flailing in shame.

And then there’s Vulnerability. How you terrify us! And yet, you are the way forward.

Chariots of Fire has long been a favorite movie of mine. Not until I began to understand shame and vulnerability did I understand why. Chariots of Fire tells the story of two athletes, two runners. One, Abrams, runs to cover his shame. He is driven to be the best, to secure his belonging by giving no one any reason to reject him. He runs with power and precision and incredible discipline. And yet his prowess on the track is his shield; it keeps anyone from knowing the pain and vulnerability at his core. The other, Eric, runs, because when he runs he feels God’s pleasure. He comes alive. His arms wheel about crazily, his face turned up. He embraces his vulnerability. He doesn’t hide his weaknesses. He doesn’t run with bare feet, but he might as well, because he is as vulnerable as a human being can be when he runs.

We see Abrams’ pain, and we understand it, because it’s ours. We long for him to know freedom, but there is a tragedy in him. It is our tragedy. Human beings trapped by shame, running ourselves into the ground to be free of it, and finding only empty success, becoming people we don’t really want to be along the way.

We see Eric’s joy, and we long for it, wishing we had the courage to be as he is, wondering if it’s really possible, could it really work that way. It is the comedy we want to play a role in. Thinking, I could never imagine letting myself be seen that way, letting myself be myself that way, flaws and all, but oh, how freeing it might be if I could!

So we’ve spent these last weeks talking about nicknames, fig leaves, and bare feet, about belonging, shame and vulnerability. And we’ve seen how Jesus points the way to the embrace of vulnerability as the way of salvation.

About how vulnerability is subversive like the gospel is subversive.

And we’ve seen how the best social science research backs up the witness of scripture on this score. God is a God of love, and love and vulnerability go hand in hand. The only way to life is an embrace of our vulnerability, and acknowledgement that all of us our needy people who find our belonging secured not by performance or merit, but by grace.

We’ve seen that we live in a world dripping with Grace, where the great lie is that there isn’t enough, but the good news is that God has entered our vulnerability and apprehension of scarcity with his generous, loving, multiplying presence and from this moment on, you + Jesus always = enough.

So shame can die a shameful death as we pick up our crosses and follow Jesus into the death that leads to resurrection life, the life God enjoys, the life of the heavens come down to meet us even here and now.

Today we finish our exploration by considering how we can create environments where shame can be defanged, and where vulnerability can be embraced. Families, certainly. Workplaces. Teams. Neighborhoods. Classrooms. Wherever we have influence. And most of all, churches. Starting here.

Let’s look at the famous story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. The story is told in John’s good news account, chapter 8. John 7 sets the scene though, so we’ll start there.

Jesus is in Jerusalem for a festival, but he’s there secretly because there are people there who want to kill him. It’s a huge festival – one of the three biggest feast days in Israel. It’s called the Feast of the Tabernacles (or Sukkot), and it lasts for 8 days. (Most recent celebration was in September.) It recalls the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness after the Hebrews are released from slavery in Egypt but before they enter the Promised Land of Canaan. Small booths, temporary structures, are made as a way of remembering how the Israelites lived as nomads in the wilderness, and people would sleep in them, entertain in them throughout the 8 days.

The Jewish people believed that when the messiah came (messiah simply means “anointed one” - the one who would liberate them from Roman occupation), streams of water would flow from the Temple in Jerusalem and fill the valleys around it, much like in the prophet Ezekiel’s vision. It’s a picture of the River of Life. And so for generations, every morning of this 8-day Feast a priest would leave the temple at dawn with a procession of people. They would go to the Pool of Siloam, which was just excavated in east Jerusalem in 2004. It was huge, the size of two football fields. There the priest would take a golden pitcher and fill it from the pool. The people would return to the temple where trumpets sounded three times. The priests would walk around the altar seven times, then go up a ramp at the side of the altar, raise the pitcher and pour out the water onto the altar. Then another priest would pour out wine on the opposite side of the altar, with the wine symbolizing the grape harvest. Once the water and wine were poured and Psalm 118 was read, the people would shout, “Lift your hands!” People looking back on a good harvest from God and looking ahead to the coming of the hoped-for messiah.

You can imagine this ceremony taking place - the pouring of the water and the wine onto the altar – when the Gospel of John tells us that, “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.” (John 7:37-39a) That took some courageous vulnerability, didn’t it?

No surprise, it causes a stir. People understood that Jesus was claiming to take the place of the temple; he’s reorienting their expectations about the temple around himself. You believe water will flow from this temple, but I’m telling you it will flow from me.

And it turns out that most of the people who hear Jesus are impressed by him, not upset. Which makes Jesus’ enemies furious, as you can imagine…

We pick up the story the next morning, after his enemies, some of the Pharisees, have had a night to plot against him.

²At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

Let’s notice a few things.

One, Jesus isn’t afraid of conflict. He goes right back to the temple, even though he knows some powerful people are upset with him. This is a mark of the courageously vulnerable. The thought that he might be rejected – even killed – because someone doesn’t agree with him doesn’t scare him off from doing what he’s there to do: teaching the people.

Secondly, the Pharisees wait until a crowd has gathered to pull off the little stunt they’ve planned overnight. They want to make Jesus look as foolish as possible in front of as many people as possible. They want to shame him so that he’ll stop his blasphemy, and they want to discredit him so people stop listening to him.

Here’s their plan (and we’ll look at the details of it in a moment): they wanted to make it look like Jesus either doesn’t understand Jewish law or that Jesus disregards the law when it doesn’t suit him. Either way, it would compromise his authority as a spiritual teacher, and completely undermine any claims of being a messiah.

Make no mistake; this is in all likelihood not a coincidence that they have this woman caught in adultery to present at this moment; it’s a stunt designed to put Jesus in a no-win situation. How do Pharisees catch someone in the act of adultery? Were they lurking outside bedroom windows all night long? Some have suggested she was just a vulnerable woman they rounded up to play the part (I’m not convinced of that, given Jesus’ last statement to the woman, but it’s an intriguing idea). Not to mention the fact that if they did somehow actually happen to stumble upon a couple in the act of adultery, where’s the man? Jewish law dictated that both of them would be stoned. Were the Pharisees themselves disregarding part of the law? That at least tells us this wasn’t about the integrity of the Law, but about publicly humiliating Jesus. And on top of all of that, they don’t use the woman’s name. She doesn’t matter to them; she’s just there to be used by them.

To understand the Pharisee’s plot, it helps to understand the physical setting. Jesus is in this large courtyard, under the shadow of a fortress built by Herod the Great when he re-built the Temple. Roman soldiers were stationed there, patrolling the walkways and the walls overlooking the courtyard. They are a presence in this story.

Now back to the Pharisees and their plot…

“Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

The Pharisees used this question as a trap, because they thought Jesus would only have two choices, both of them bad.

Stone her. Although this might prove Jesus knew the law and was willing to enforce it, it would have caused a commotion and resulted in Jesus’ arrest, because the Romans wouldn’t allow the Jewish people to put anyone to death.

Or

Let her go; there are soldiers watching. This would have looked like cowardice, as if he were willing to compromise the law to protect his own safety. What kind of messiah would that be?

But Jesus has other ideas.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.

Why write in the dirt?

In Jewish law, the day after a major feast (Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles) is considered a Sabbath, whether or not it falls on a Saturday. No one can do any work on a Sabbath day. Rabbis considered writing – even many today – be work. However, writing in dirt wasn’t considered work because it didn’t create a permanent mark.

So by writing in the dirt, Jesus proves that he knows his stuff, all the way down to the smallest detail. It’s like that scene in the Princess Bride when Inigo Montoya switches the sword to his right hand and says, I too am not left handed.

Also, he’s echoing a passage from the prophet Jeremiah, turning his writing into a symbolic action. “O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.” (Jeremiah 17:13) By writing in the dust, it’s like Jesus is making a commentary on shame. You’re trying to shame this vulnerable woman, and shame me as well. But be careful – it’s not our belonging that is threatened by your actions; it’s yours.

That’s pretty awesome, I think. But we’re only just now getting to the good stuff.

⁷When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

⁹At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

¹¹“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Here’s what’s happening. Jesus is leveling the playing field, which creates breathing room for the vulnerable, and chokes off shame’s power.

Remember, shame survives as a controlling influence as long as we try to insulate ourselves from our vulnerability. Because the only way out of shame is through it.

Shame wants us to run from vulnerability. So as long as we can pretend we aren’t vulnerable, or comfort ourselves that others are more vulnerable than we are, we don’t have to feel the awful pain of shame and we don’t have to confront our vulnerability and neediness, our flaws and difficulties.

But life is found on the other side of vulnerability. It’s found when we can embrace a God who enters our vulnerability with us, receiving his love and grace. It’s found when we can embrace ourselves in our vulnerability, with kindness and compassion. It’s found when we can embrace each other, flaws and all, with radical hospitality. It’s found when we can embrace vulnerability as the way to life.

When Jesus stands, it’s a way of saying that the judgment of the Law is that the woman be stoned. Jesus knows the Law.

But when Jesus says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,” he is placing all of them, together with the woman, under the same Law. Each person as vulnerable to the judgment of the law as the other.

When he stoops down again, he is placing himself under the judgment of the law with them, joining them.

All of them, oldest to youngest, most righteous to least righteous, vulnerable to the judgment of the law.

And by inviting them to put their names and faces to the execution of the law, he is reminding them that all of them are equally vulnerable, along with him, to the Roman soldiers. Because if they start the stoning, they are the ones who will be arrested and jailed.

Jesus isn’t making them vulnerable. He’s just shining light on the vulnerability we all share that they’ve been pretending they could avoid. God is the God of reality. Any attempt to live in a fantasy separates us from him and cuts us off from his life.

It’s the older ones who see it first. There’s something about getting older that brings one’s vulnerability – epitomized in our mortality – to light. And the younger ones follow.

Jesus doesn’t gloat, he doesn’t stare, he doesn’t sing that “Nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, Goodbye” song. He knows what a holy and terrible thing it is to be confronted with one’s vulnerability. The Pharisees are looking foolish now, but he is merciful and gentle with them, even though they were not that way themselves.

But instead he stays with the most vulnerable one in the story, the accused woman, so that she will not be alone in her vulnerability and shame.

This is how we create environments that create breathing room for the courageous embrace of vulnerability and choke off shame’s power. We level the playing field with one another in our pursuit of God.

We are all equally vulnerable to the judgment of the Law, and equally dependent on God’s lovingkindness, his Grace towards us.

We are all equally vulnerable to the brokenness of this world and brokenness of our old creation selves, and equally in need of God’s help and power and Holy Spirit.

This knowledge is what frees us to be real in relationship with one another. Martin Buber says: “When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.”

This is why leaders are servants.

Why pastors are members of the church, first and foremost.

This is why we are centered-set in our approach to what it means to be insiders.

This is why everyone gets to play.

This is why everything we’ve been given is ours to steward for the sake of God’s kingdom, and nothing is ours for our benefit alone. Because stewardship is an embrace of vulnerability, but claiming for our exclusive ownership is an attempt to distance ourselves from it.

This is why ministry to the poor and vulnerable is such a privilege and treasure.

Because it’s only working right when we realize we give out of our own fundamental neediness and vulnerability, not out of our wealth and strength.

This is why it’s OK to fail and learn.

It’s OK to not know the answer.

It’s OK to need help.

It’s OK to give it a shot. To take a risk.

It’s OK to disagree and talk about it.

Even if you disagree about what feel like are really, really important questions.

It’s OK to admit it. Whatever it is.

It’s OK if it’s difficult for you when others seem to find it easy.

It’s OK to have needs and say them out loud.

It’s OK to say how you feel. It’s OK to feel.

It’s OK to ask what you can do better next time.

It’s OK to ask for feedback.

It’s OK to take responsibility.

It’s OK to apologize.

It’s OK to say thank you.

It’s OK to say your aunt called you Thunder Thighs when you were a kid.

Just don’t any of you dare repeat it.

Kidding.

Sort of.

No, really.

Yes, really.

Practical Suggestions:

1. Do performance reviews sitting on the same side of the table.

2. Let your face light up when a person (especially a kid) walks in the room.

3. Allow your child to not do great at something. An assignment. A competition. A performance. Help them redefine their goal from excelling to gain approval to showing up for the sake of courage.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.…

—Theodore Roosevelt

Courageous Embrace // Come

 

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 10/06/2013

video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard/ondemand
podcast here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

The way out of shame to wholeheartedness is embracing vulnerability. It takes courage, because it’s not so much a way out of shame, at first, as it is a way through shame.

It’s recognizing shame for what it is – the painful feeling that we are fundamentally flawed and therefore unworthy of belonging – and not letting it dictate our actions or responses. Instead, trusting in Jesus’ good news, we see ourselves as we are – in some real, substantial ways, vulnerable, needy, and ultimately mortal – and we embrace our vulnerability. We own it. We look at ourselves with open eyes, God’s arm around our shoulders, and we take the next Spirit-directed step forward in obedience. Which, usually, certainly more often than we’d choose for ourselves, is a step that only exposes us even more.

I’d like to talk about why this is true – so that we have the courage to give it a shot – and then talk about what it means to actually do it, using a famous story from the Bible to illustrate it for us.

Why must we embrace vulnerability? Why is it the only way forward to life and wholeheartedness?

It’s because all life comes from God, and we receive it by coming to him.

Need/desire is designed to drive us to God

Vulnerability is an awareness of need/desire.

Embracing our vulnerability is essential for receiving from God all that we need, for life, for security, for shelter, for sustenance.

This is the point of the story of the fall in Genesis 3. Humanity, listening to the lies of the serpent, chose a path of trusting in itself – you won’t die! You’ll be like God! – and found itself enslaved to shame, living in darkness. Leading to everything that is broken with everything.

Therefore the path out of shame, through shame to wholeheartedness, is a reversal of the fall. It’s light – in the form of God in human flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, the light of the world – coming on the scene. You are dying. You will die. Stop running from that. Look at me! I’m the light of the world! And I will die. I will embrace your vulnerability, taking it on myself. I will endure your shame – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And I will show you that that path – the path of the courageous embrace of vulnerability – leads to resurrection life. Because God can be trusted. He does desire life for you. Your flaws have not separated you from his love. Just as my perfection has not separated me from death. You’ve been doing the math all wrong – you haven’t accounted for God’s love! He is love. He loves you. He loves me. Death is not the end of the story. It’s just the end of the old story. But it’s also the beginning of the new story. Listen to my voice, not the serpent’s, because I love you. I’m telling you that if you embrace your vulnerability as I have – instead of running from it as you have since you first listened to the serpent - you will be like your Father as I am like my Father. You will be like God. You will be courageously vulnerable – because vulnerability is the essential quality required for love – and alive with the life of the ages, eternal and undying.

Not convinced yet?

How can we make sense of this following story, unless the courageous embrace of vulnerability – and ultimately, of death, the most profound vulnerability – is the way of salvation?

²¹From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

²²Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

²³Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

²⁴Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

Matthew 16:21-25

Peter’s like us. The last thing he can imagine is anyone willingly embracing that kind of vulnerability. Never! Never! Even though Jesus had said it would end up with being raised to life.

Jesus calls him Satan for saying that. Because it’s the same voice that spoke to Adam and Eve. Avoid vulnerability at all costs – you can be like God! Except, of course, that that’s not like God, that’s a twisted view of God, a God made in our image. God is a vulnerable God. He demonstrates it, time after time, through Jesus.

Jesus makes it explicit to Peter: you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. We know what human concerns are all about, don’t we? Ever since the fall, even our holiest concerns have been laced with concerns about shame and vulnerability, about being flawed and therefore unworthy of belonging. But Jesus has in mind the concerns of God, and God is untouched by shame, because he’s never backed away from the vulnerability that is at the center of his very being. After all, God is love. Can love exist without vulnerability?

Listen to the great writer, C.S. Lewis:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

– C. S. Lewis, the Four Loves

God’s concerns are that the children he loves be set free, and that freedom required the embrace of vulnerability. It required the Father sending the Son to be incarnated in a human body. To be subject to pain and rejection. To suffer, as the Apostles’ Creed proclaims, under Pontius Pilate, a 2-bit Roman procurator who was eventually fired. To die a shameful death, naked on a hill, mocked by the basest and meanest of his own creatures. It required Jesus marking out a path to life for his followers, so that they could follow him into life. They themselves picking up their own crosses. Bending under their own instruments of shame, arms wrapped over their heads, dragging them up a hill outside the city.

²⁵For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

Allow me to paraphrase:

Whoever wants to protect themselves from vulnerability will be enslaved by shame, but whoever courageously embraces vulnerability will find wholeheartedness and life.

Consider the beatitudes in Luke’s gospel:

Blessed are

you who are poor

you who hunger now

you who weep now

you when people hate you, exclude you, insult you, and reject your name as evil

These are all pictures of people at their most vulnerable, aren’t they? And yet these are the very people Jesus says are blessed, who will have the kingdom, who will be satisfied, who will laugh, who will have great reward. Because when you are poor, when you’re hungry, when you’re weeping, when you’re hated, excluded, insulted, rejected, it’s pretty hard to pretend you’re not vulnerable, isn’t it? Which means the path to embracing your vulnerability is paved for you, and so the kingdom of God, eternal life, salvation is oh so near.

And immediately following,

Woe (warning!)

To you who are rich

To you who are well fed

To you who laugh

To you when everyone speaks well of you

Why the warning? Because it’s so much easier to pretend you’re not vulnerable, to insulate yourself from all neediness, when you are rich and well-fed. Don’t be fooled, Jesus is warning. Your neediness will assert itself, eventually, and if you have come to depend on yourself instead of embracing your vulnerability and depending on God, you will find yourself in the death grip of shame.

As Jesus says in Matthew 7,

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Matthew 7:13-14

Surely the wide gate and broad road is the road traveled by the perfectionists, and the numbed-by-busyness and addiction, and those who have insulated themselves from their mortality through wealth and technology and comfort. And surely the small gate and narrow road is the courageous embrace of vulnerability, those who lose their life for Jesus and end up finding it. [AA]

Why else would Jesus say,

How hard is it for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

Luke 18:23

It’s not because there is anything wrong with being rich – what a privilege and joy to be entrusted with much to be a blessing to many and an agent of God’s favor in this world! – but because being rich can cause us to be unwittingly insulated from the call to courageously embrace our vulnerability.

And the courageous embrace of vulnerability isn’t some kind of one time, heroic thing that we do. It’s the way of Jesus, through and through, because it’s the way of Love. The courageous embrace of vulnerability required for everything we do as followers of Jesus. (recognize shame, trust good news, embrace vulnerability, next step in obedience)

Repentance… (I was wrong! And that doesn’t make me look good.)

Receiving forgiveness… (I’m willing to accept you canceling my debt without me paying you back, because I trust that in the new creation our good standing with one another is rooted in grace and not perfectionism and that the only motivating reality is God’s love at work within us. And because I might never have been able to pay you back in the first place.)

Healing sick… (Umm, what if nothing happens? What if I get sick from them?)

Casting out demons… (Umm, what’s going to keep them from airing all my dirty laundry? And won’t I have a target on my back now?)

Announcing good news… (Umm, I might look like a fool because this news runs counter to a lot of the day to day experiences people have had – Jesus to John Wimber, “Don’t preach your experiences; preach my word!”)

Forgiving… (But if I don’t collect on this debt, who is going to make up for my loss? Who is going to make sure I don’t lose out even more in the future? Won’t I look like the fool?)

Perhaps you’ve heard the story about Jesus sending out his apostles to do his work. He said to them:

As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.

⁹“Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts— ¹⁰no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff…

¹⁶I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.

Matthew 10

Like sheep among wolves. What a striking picture of vulnerability! They can’t take anything along to make them feel less vulnerable. No money. No bag of provisions. No extra clothes. No shoes or staff even. They are to be totally dependent on God on their journey. Which is what embracing vulnerability requires us to be.

Or perhaps it what it empowers us to be.

Because if we can embrace our vulnerability, if we can see our neediness and not try to mask it or cover it with fig leaves, but instead place it, and our whole selves, in our loving Father’s hands, we can share in the resurrection life of Christ.

The fall of man can be reversed.

But only by the son of man falling to the ground, like a seed.

Alright, it’s time to look at a famous story from the Bible to see how this actually works for us, assuming we’re coming close now to working up the courage to embrace our own vulnerability and take a step in that direction, in faith.

²²Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, ²⁴but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

²⁵Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

²⁷But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

²⁸“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

²⁹“Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

³¹Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

³²And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Matthew 14

The disciples are in a situation that highlights their vulnerability. It’s night. They are in the middle of a large lake. The wind is strong and waves are buffeting their boat. They must have been exhausted, since they’d been trying to cross this lake, unsuccessfully, from some time before sunset to just before sunrise.

Jesus shows up, walking on the water, lit by the predawn light. The disciples are terrified, crying out. Grown men, crying out. Some of them fishermen.

Courage! Jesus says. I am I. No fear.

I hear in this statement Jesus saying, Take courage. Look, you’re alone in your boat. You’re vulnerable. So am I. I’m alone by myself. I’m even more vulnerable than you right now. But have no fear. Vulnerability is no cause for fear. Embrace it as I have. I sent you off on your own to experience vulnerability, while I was alone in prayer on the mountainside. I embraced my vulnerability, took it to the Father, and look at me, I’m walking on water and cruising along a lot faster than you. While you, in your fear, together with each other, and in a boat to protect you from the water, no less, are afraid and not making much headway.

Peter gets the message. If it’s you, tell me to come out and join you on the water! You’re the master, I’m the disciple. If you can do it, I’m here to learn.

Come.

So Peter does. He courageously embraces his vulnerability. He steps out of that boat. It’s still windy. The waves are still going strong. And Peter is alone on the water, walking towards Jesus.

Peter’s a work in progress, as we all are, and he begins to sink, panics. No worries. Jesus speaks to him endearingly, gently. Peter has a journey ahead of him. As we all do. But what a great start!

So Jesus gets in the boat, the wind dies down. Makes me think of God in the garden, covering Adam and Eve with a pelt to replace their fig leaves. Jesus has mercy with us in our shame and vulnerability. He’s put himself in our boat. But he’s calling us out on the water with him, one way or another. One day or another.

We are in the same place in our lives as Peter. It can look like we aren’t making much progress. It can seem like the people around us aren’t much help. It can seem like we’re trying to do what Jesus told us to do, and still we are out on this lake, buffeted by the wind and waves.

We’re here because what Jesus wants from us is to not deny our vulnerability. Rather, to face it. To embrace it. To bring it to him.

We’re going to be tempted to do what we do every time we see our vulnerability. But we’ve got to resist Shame’s voice telling us to cover our shame with fig leaves – ineffective strategies like perfectionism, or numbing busyness and addictions. And secondly, we’ve got to not trust the story of the world that shame presents to us. The story that there isn’t enough, that we aren’t enough, that only those who look the strongest will survive. Instead, Co-operating with God by showing kindness and compassion towards ourselves. Essentially saying, wow, maybe I’m not acting like or even actually being who I really want to be. Maybe I am flawed. Or maybe I just blew it. But that’s not the end of the story. Because true worthiness isn’t a function of performance. It comes from the fact that God, for whatever reason, has chosen me. He asked me to be a disciple. So here, goes, I’m going to start doing what disciples do.

Uh, hey, Jesus, you want me out there with you? Just say the word.

In Jesus’ last conversation with Peter, after Peter had denied him 3 times, fearful and ashamed, Jesus undoes Peter’s shame, asking Peter 3 times if Peter loves him. Peter, 3 times, affirms his love for Jesus, and Jesus reaffirms his call on Peter’s life. And then Jesus says this to him:

¹⁸Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

John 21

The kind of death by which we will glorify God is the kind that is an embrace of our vulnerability. Our hands stretched out, dressed by someone else, led where we do not want to go. When we were young, God came upon us in the garden, our hands crossed over our shame, dressed by ourselves in our fig leaves, having hidden ourselves from him and each other. When we are old we will stretch out our hands to him, and he will clothe us in royal garments, and lead us to a cross where, not unlike Jesus, we do not want to go. But we will go, and the old creation will be crucified and the new creation will be born in resurrection, incorruptible, immortal, and yet, still vulnerable.

Practical Suggestions:

1. Name your Shame. Tell someone who has earned your trust what you’re ashamed of and/or afraid of. If you can’t figure out who that might be in your life, start with God. He’s earned our trust. It’s like taking the fig leaves off. And we’ll never be able to pick up our crosses while we are still wearing them.

2. Gratitude 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. Intentionally practice gratitude, starting with 1 minute a day, and adding 1 minute each day (so, 7 minutes next Saturday). True gratitude is a form of embracing vulnerability, because it acknowledges that there is goodness in our lives that comes from another source than ourselves.

In the midst of shame triggers (you screwed up, or someone spoke critically to you, for example) it interrupts the shame cycle. Yeah, maybe I did blow it. But I’m thankful for my family. Or my health. Or the food I have to eat today. I belong with you God, even when I mess up.

In the midst of prosperity, it interrupts pride (which is just a perfectionism-born form of shame insulation) and protects us from developing a discipleship-killing distaste for vulnerability. I’m thankful for all these things which are going well and I remember that none of it makes me less vulnerable and needy than I would be without it. I am completely dependent on your grace, God, for every good thing.

3. Come to Jesus. Embrace Jesus as your master. You’ve heard him inviting you. But perhaps you haven’t felt worthy of being his disciple. To sign up as his follower requires you embracing your own vulnerability. Requires you allowing him to embrace you in his vulnerability. Requires you to be open to the vulnerability his path holds for you.

Courageous Embrace // Killing Me Softly

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 09/29/2013

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There is a famous story about a man named Saul of Tarsus – more commonly known as Paul. He’s on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus to arrest members of a small but growing Jewish sect called “The Way” and return them to Jerusalem so they can be questioned and, in all likelihood, executed.

At the center of his dramatic conversion experience are the same things we’ve been talking about for the last several weeks. Belonging, shame, and vulnerability. And tucked into the middle of it, hiding in plain sight, is our topic for today: kindness and compassion as keys to moving towards the courageous embrace.

Here’s the story, from Acts 9.

9 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest ²and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. ³As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” [When Paul tells this story himself, later in Acts, he includes the additional detail that Jesus also said: “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”]

⁵“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. ⁶“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

⁷The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. ⁸Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. ⁹For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

What does this story have to teach us about moving from shame towards the courageous embrace of vulnerability, with the help of kindness and compassion? That’s going to take some unpacking, so we’ll get to it a little bit later today, but for now we can use the story as way to review and illustrate of some of the dynamics we’ve been talking about.

One of the things we’ve said is that both scientific research and biblical wisdom teach that belonging is the primary human need, and shame is the universal response when belonging is threatened. The main character in this story, Saul, has lived his whole life in an attempt to escape from and cover over the intensely painful experience of shame. How so, you ask?

Paul is a Jewish man, an Israelite. At the time of his birth, Israel was in exile, a nation under the thumb of Roman oppression. Exile is like the ultimate shame trigger, and Israelites were not immune. Many in Israel interpreted Roman occupation as a signal that Israel’s good standing – her belonging – with YHWH was no longer secure.

And what have we learned is one of the primary human responses to protect itself from shame, to defend itself against the painful feelings of shame and vulnerability? Perfectionism. The idea that if we can achieve a level of perfection in our lives, no one will have any excuse to reject us; we will be worthy of acceptance.

Saul was a member of the Pharisees, a group in Israel who was concerned about Israel’s strict adherence to the law code God had given Israel. They subscribed to the idea that if they could purify Israel of lawbreakers, and call everyone to a higher level of religious observation, they could demonstrate their worthiness to God. That God would no longer have cause to reject Israel, but would instead send his Messiah and overthrow Rome. They were hard on themselves, for sure, and they were self-righteously ruthless towards anyone that they perceived as a threat to Israel’s purity and perfection.

That sure sounds like a form of religious perfectionism, doesn’t it? But like every attempt to cover the shame and vulnerability we feel, it’s ineffective. It leads to joyless, brittle, bitter, exhausting, uncreative, disconnected life. And it has destructive consequences, such as anxiety, jealousy, greed, and prejudice.

(All self-righteousness, in fact, is a shame response at heart. We are insecure in our belonging, and so by viewing others as less secure than we are, less worthy of belonging, we bolster our own anemic sense of worthiness. This is why Jesus displayed no self-righteousness. He was totally secure in himself and in his relationship with his Father, and so had no need to make anyone feel less worthy.)

The only way out of shame and its destructive effects is to courageously embrace the vulnerability and neediness that shame reveals, but perfectionism hates vulnerability. (Saul probably hated the vulnerability he saw on display in the first Christian martyr, Stephen, whom he helped stone just a chapter earlier.) But of course, at the end of this story, Saul finds himself exposed and vulnerable, doesn’t he? Knocked to the ground by a bright light. Blind, needing to be led by the hand. Hungry and thirsty after three days of not eating or drinking. Quite a transformation from the authorized representative of the chief priest, riding into town with a posse, arrest warrants in his hand.

That’s why we’re calling this series “Courageous Embrace.” Learning to courageously embrace ourselves in our vulnerability. To embrace a God who makes himself vulnerable. To embrace others in their vulnerability. To courageously embrace the vulnerability required to change a world ravaged by sin and chained by shame. Because vulnerability is the way of Jesus, it’s the way of salvation, it’s the way of freedom and life and wholeheartedness, it’s the way of love.

So today, let’s talk about moving toward vulnerability. We know it’s the only way forward, but it’s terrifying. Counterintuitive. We’re fighting all kinds of habits and momentum in the other direction because of perfectionism and the scarcity mentality, as we’ve talked about.

Don’t be vulnerable! Be perfect so that you are invulnerable!

Vulnerability will be perceived as weakness and you’ll be rejected!

There’s not enough to go around; you’ve got to fight for what little there is!

Vulnerability will weaken you and decrease your shot at getting your fair share!

Of course, all of these are just twisted, distorted truths that Shame uses to keep us wrapped around his crooked finger.

Step one is what we’ve been working on these last several weeks, hopefully: developing an awareness of shame. Just seeing it for what it is. Seeing how it blinds us to reality. Distorts our view of ourselves, God, others. Seeing its destructive intent and capacity so that we aren’t seduced by its lies.

A brief clarification before we move on to step 2, today, which, as I’ve mentioned, is all about kindness & compassion: sometimes shame gets confused with guilt, humiliation, and embarrassment. They are not the same.

Guilt isn’t shame. Guilt we’ve talked about some before. Guilt is what we feel when we do something that doesn’t hold up to our values. It’s helpful in that it can lead us to apologize, to make amends, and to change our behavior. These are all positive outcomes.

Researchers have found that shame, on the other hand, eats away at the part of us that believes we can change and do better. Shame makes us feel that we are so deeply flawed that we are unworthy of belonging, and therefore it’s a waste of time to even try to improve. It’s strongly correlated with addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders, and bullying. Shame isn’t a solution for negative behaviors; it’s very often the cause. To use biblical language, shame is a sinful response to sin.

Adam and Eve demonstrate no guilt in the garden. Only shame. And we see what came of that.

Humiliation isn’t shame, either. Dr. Donald Klein, at Columbia University, says, “People believe they deserve their shame; they do not believe they deserve their humiliation.”

Imagine you stretched out for a diving catch in center field in the bottom of the 9^th. Let’s say you were to just miss the ball as it glanced off you glove, and as a result, your opponents score and your team loses. After the game your coach calls you out in the locker room for losing the game for your team.

How you feel about that is the difference between shame and humiliation. Imagine you think to yourself, “Man, I am such a loser. I should have caught that. I totally failed my team and cost us the game. They’ll never let me play again. I wish I could run far away and never have to talk to them again. I suck.” That’s shame. But imagine you think to yourself, “Sheesh, my coach is such a jerk. I gave everything I have out there; I don’t deserve this. Any number of things could have cost us that loss – no one is going to be perfect on every play, and that was an almost impossible catch. This is ridiculous.” That’s humiliation. It feels terrible, but it’s not shame.

Again, Adam and Eve didn’t feel humiliated by God in the garden. Before God is even on the scene, they’ve already taken on shame.

Finally, there’s embarrassment. When we do something embarrassing, we don’t feel alone; we know other people have done similar things. Embarrassment doesn’t define us the way Shame does. Embarrassment is usually fleeting, and eventually, funny. Shame sticks with us, and is the furthest thing in the world from funny.

Adam and Eve aren’t embarrassed in the garden. They aren’t sitting around a campfire later, laughing about it. They aren’t going on the late night talk show circuit making fun of themselves. No, they’ve got nothing but shame. And hot on its heels, of course, death.

So once we’ve recognized Shame at work in us, what can we do to move towards the courageous embrace of vulnerability that leads to life, and away from the death that Shame shuffles us towards? Step 2: We can practice (Jesus-Brand) kindness and compassion.

Yup. Just like it sounds.

We can be kind and compassionate. Towards ourselves mainly, at first.

Because that’s how God is towards us.

That’s how the rescue begins.

Changing direction in the bible is called “repentance.” Repentance just means “turning around.” When we are heading towards death and destruction, holding Shame’s hand, God calls us towards life. He calls us to repent. To turn around. To change directions.

And it’s his kindness towards us that empowers us to turn back towards life.

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

Romans 2:4

The Hebrew root of the concept of God’s kindness is חֶסֶד “Hesed.” Hesed is perhaps the most important word in the Bible besides God. Notoriously difficult to capture: Covenant loyalty. Steadfast love. Faithfulness. But one translation, my favorite, is “lovingkindness.” And it’s often paired with God’s compassion.

I will betroth you to me forever; Yes I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness and in compassion.

Hosea 2:19

Answer me, O Lord, for your lovingkindness is good; according to the greatness of Your compassion, turn to me.

Psalm 69:16

In Lamentations 3, the writer has the powerful description of shame, attributing his misery to rejection from God, it goes on and on, ending like this:

¹⁴I have become a laughingstock to all my people,

Their mocking song all the day.

¹⁵He has filled me with bitterness,

He has made me drunk with wormwood.

¹⁶He has broken my teeth with gravel;

He has made me cower in the dust.

¹⁷My soul has been rejected from peace;

I have forgotten happiness.

¹⁸So I say, “My strength has perished,

And so has my hope from the LORD.”

But then, he remembers God’s hesed:

²¹This I recall to my mind,

Therefore I have hope.

²²The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,

For His compassions never fail.

God’s lovingkindness and compassion cause the writer to abandon his shame, and begin to move toward life in repentance.

Let’s go back to Saul’s conversion story now.

Remember, Saul is a zealous Pharisee persecuting the resurrected Jesus’ followers, his religious perfectionism an armor against the shame and vulnerability of Israel’s exile.

Then he encounters Jesus in a blinding light on the road, and is knocked from his horse. When Paul (formerly Saul) talks about it later, he indicates that he hears Jesus in Aramaic, Jesus’ native tongue. Jesus is speaking in his most personal voice, maybe even with his Galilean accent (Paul’s accent was different, having been raised in the Roman city of Tarsus).

“Why do you persecute me?” He is speaking as a person who is vulnerable, someone who can be harmed and is being harmed by Saul. [Like any prisoner being abused might appeal to the humanity of his captors, “Why are you doing this to me?”] Jesus is joining himself with the vulnerability of his followers, whom Saul is arresting and killing. He doesn’t show up aggressively, angrily, but with vulnerability.

Then: “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” The goad was a stick with a sharp point a farmer used to goad his oxen forward when plowing a field. It would have been painful to kick against a goad. To me this suggests that Jesus sees a pain in Saul, and has compassion on him. Perhaps Shame is like the goad driving Saul forward, and Saul has been unable to get free of the yoke. Jesus comes to him like he comes to all of us – “Come to me all who are weary and heavy burdened. Take your yoke upon me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

In Jesus’ public ministry, he was hard on the Pharisees. But here, in this intensely personal encounter with Paul, in the midst of Paul’s wrongness and strength-masked pain, Jesus meets him with true Hesed. With lovingkindness and compassion.

It’s reminds of that Roberta Flack song, “Killing Me Softly” (famously redone by the Fugees)…

Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song.

As my dad has written, was Paul’s conversion so deep because Jesus’ lovingkindness was so achingly rendered? As if this is what Hesed, lovingkindness is for…as if this is when it is most affecting and powerful…

Jesus’ lovingkindness and compassion bring Paul into an unprecedented freedom; the blinding light on that road drives Saul’s shame-filled darkness away, letting him see a truer reality then his shame-lens would ever have allowed…

If others think they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

⁷But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3

Everything has changed for Paul. Now, instead of being goaded by shame into the lie of perfectionism, he courageously embraces the vulnerability of the cross – recognizing that it’s the only true path to resurrection life.

What does this mean for us, today? It means that if we want to cooperate with God by repentance from shame, we must practice lovingkindness and compassion towards ourselves, as a way of receiving it from Jesus. Kindness and compassion towards our selves is a participation with God in the freedom from shame he wants to bring us, and a step in the direction of a courageous embrace of vulnerability.

Remember what Jesus said? I only do what I see my father doing.

That is to be our mantra as well. What do we see our father doing towards us? Lovingkindness and compassion. He embraces us in our vulnerability. [Adam & eve in garden, Lord YHWH coming with gentleness. Replacing their inadequate covering with one that foreshadows the only adequate covering that will one day come in Christ…]

We must do the same, starting with ourselves. To treat ourselves differently than God treats us is sin. And, then of course, we will be freed to relate this way to others, even outsiders, practicing the radical hospitality of Jesus that is central to what it means to be part of the Jesus movement.

Self-compassion/kindness vs self-esteem…Research shows a difference between bolstering self-esteem & self-compassion [Kristen Neff, Researcher, Moral Development]

Self-esteem movement was a response to lousy childrearing practices of 50’s: stingy on affection and praise (don’t let it go to their head!)

“Self-esteem based on a global evaluation of self-worth. A judgment, am I good person or am I a bad person.”

-Dr. Kristen Neff, University of Texas

Psychologists saw it as a marker of mental health. But recent research suggests self-esteem emphasis may have had some unintended negative consequences. UM Institute of Social Research has been tracking the ability of young people to show empathy; current generation in college is at all-time low. Narcissism (excessive self-regard, self-absorption), on the other hand, is high. There is debate about how to interpret, what to do about it, but something is amiss…

The problem isn’t self-esteem, it’s how we go about getting it. In a competitive society, self-esteem is based on being special and above average. So 97% see themselves as above average drivers, including those who have caused recent accident. (Or tone-deaf contestants in American Idol tryouts, crushed to learn they don’t make cut…as if surrounded by family boosting their self-esteem at expense of their grip on reality)

In our society, people also boost self-esteem by putting others down.

In religion: feel better about our group if we put down other groups.

Boosting self-esteem by rendering a positive moral judgment (I’m a good person not a bad person—the language of moral affirmation) ties in well with the original sin: eating from tree of knowledge of good and evil. Twisted religious idea that it’s our job (rather than God’s) to confer moral approval or condemnation on each other.

“Self-esteem is a way of judging ourselves, while self-compassion is a way of relating to ourselves kindly, embracing ourselves as we are, flaws and all.” 

-Dr. Kristen Neff

Isn’t this how God relates to us in Christ? Kindly, embracing us as we are?

Jesus was known as “the friend of sinners.” He didn’t use this as a title for himself…it was what the Pharisees called him. It was their commentary on how they saw him relating, behaving around sinners. Like he preferred their company.

Which says that Jesus must have liked sinners. Who are the people in your life that you like? Your friends. Generally we don’t befriend people we don’t for one reason or another like. So why would we rob this term – friend of sinners – of its essential meaning? As though it meant he religiously loved them (savior that he had to be to them)…rather than he actually and humanly liked them?

What if you could picture yourself being liked by Jesus, because he preferred to hang around your kind, sinners?

Research supports the value of this: those who practice self-kindness get benefits of high self-esteem without down-sides of lower empathy, narcissism. [Romans: Let each person regard himself with sober judgment.]

Which brings us to our PRACTICAL SUGGESTION (in three parts)

1. Pay attention this week to your self-talk, especially when you are not performing up to snuff.

2. As you become attuned to your self-talk, ask yourself, “Would I ever talk like that to a friend?”

3. Just for the next week, as an experiment, try talking to yourself in the same way that you would want to talk to a friend when your friend is disappointing himself.

See what happens. After you’ve done it for a week, do you feel closer to God or further away?