This Week's Light Service Sermon

Light Service Sermons for the Month
Overcoming Barriers to Relationships
Coping with Rejection
DATE:March 19, 2000
TEXT: Galatians 1:6-10
I will call her Brenda, but there are many women who could fit her description. The first time I met Brenda, a reporter of our town's newspaper, she had the appearance being self-confident and articulate. A couple of months earlier she had interviewed me about my involvement with the Mansfield Reformatory. She came well dressed in a tailored suit. This time, however, as she talked about her loneliness and the dreariness of her relationships, it was clear how miserable she was, and how desperately she longed for someone who would give her love.
When I began talking to her, I kept asking myself mentally, how could a woman as good-looking as this not have dates every weekend. That I would jump to such conclusions shows how naīve I was about what is attractive to a man. Author Alexandra Penny once asked hundreds of males to define the word "sexy." The seven most frequent responses were:
Self-confident Composed Intelligent Self-assured Friendly Feminine At ease with her body Beauty and having a sculpted body were way down the list, and nobody except the Millionaire who wanted to get married on TV said they wanted a woman who looked like a fashion model.
How was it that Brenda possessed so many outwardly beautiful attributes but lacked the self-confidence within? After just a few short minutes of discussion it became obvious that her feeling spring from her old memories of rejection. When Brenda was nine she grew five inches, and during junior high school she was always the tallest girl in the class. At 5'10" she stopped growing, until now, as a woman, her height sets off her good looks. But she cannot believe that, and she cannot remove from her mind the memories of school dances when all her friends would be chosen and she would be left alone. "You don't know what it's like," she said, "to be in a group and be the only one that's not chosen. It makes you feel like a piece of junk."
Here was a woman who still had inside her, like a stowaway, a painfully shy child, telling her to be careful lest she get into more situations where she might be rejected. And the result is that she was frightened and withdrawn. She seldom allowed herself to be in places where she would meet men and when she occasionally did have a date, she was cool and aloof.
As soon as a relationship showed the least sign of trouble, she quickly bailed. It was easy to understand why--she had painful memories of rejection and would do almost anything to keep from feeling that pain again.
Although most of us have not been scarred as Brenda, we have experienced rejection, and what is more, we are certain to experience it again. So how we cope with it is one of the most important factors in shaping our self-images and for our general success in life. The love of Jesus leads to self-confidence when you refuse to allow rejection to keep you from taking the initiative with people.
This is not only a cardinal rule for overcoming barriers to relationship, but for almost every endeavor. Anyone who is in sales knows that if you want to be successful, you have to have the ability to take rejection. It's the one quality you've got to have for success. In one sense, Jesus was in sales and he encountered rejection all the time. Even at the moment before his ascension, after Easter, the Bible says, "Some still doubted."
This holds true for love and friendship as well. I see many people who have been rejected. Perhaps they've had a love affair go sour, or they have been through a divorce, or there's been a rupture in the family. After going through these bad experiences, they became more and more wary that others would reject them, too. The result is a vicious circle: the more they suspect that rejection will come, the more often it comes. They withdraw, which others interpret as aloofness, and that turns people off, so the rejection comes with increasing velocity until eventually the person withdraws completely.
Withdrawal--more than anything I know of--is the reason so many are lonely. What is the antidote? Or, to put it another way, how can you cope with rejection in such a way that it does not damage your self-image? I know of no better place for guidance than the example of Jesus and his disciples. Here are some strategies:
1) Develop friendships. One of the first things Jesus did was to gather twelve friends around him for support. Within that group there were three with whom he had a special relationship--Peter, James and John. These three were his constant companions during his ministry. They were with him on the Mount of Transfiguration, in Galilee, in the garden of Gethsemane. And in spite of Peter's own frailties, when he denied him three times, still he was as close as he could be to Jesus--the courtyard outside the prison where Jesus was being held.
Human beings are made for love, and I find that many people forget that. They scramble to shore up their self-images with various techniques, without giving sufficient attention to the source from which they will get help most readily--good friendships. They make all sorts of protests--that they're too busy, that they've learned to live without needing anyone, that they can't trust people, that they are really loners and prefer solitude. But it is all a smoke screen, and underneath lies a powerful aching to love and be loved.
How do you make friendships? Well, I would suggest that you start by deepening the relationships you presently have. Many of us have acquaintances who could be promoted to friends, some friends who could be promoted to a good friends. It may seem easier to begin with someone new, but the best source of love is probably in your present circle of family and acquaintances.
2) For thirty years, Jesus stayed with his family. We read that he often was in contact with his mother--at the wedding in Cana, in Capernaum, in Jerusalem. Even from the cross, Jesus took time to be sure his mother would be taken care of.
Cultivate relationships with your family, and I am not just talking about your parents. But how about aunts and uncles, nieces and cousins, and grandparents.
A friend who is 45 years old tells me that when he goes back to visit his parents in Indiana it is always a "mixed bag." He makes connections with some relatives he would just as soon not see any more, and he usually has at least one blow-up with his parents. "But it's important to be around my family," he says. "I watch my grandmother's mannerisms, and my parents' ways, and say, 'So that's where I got that trait,' or 'that's why I react this way.' Sometimes I say, 'I'm glad I have this characteristic, but that one I'm going to throw out.' And I always come back feeling that I know myself better, where I came from, and where I want to go.'"
3) And Jesus is the premier example of the small group leader. There is no mystery why I have been stressing small groups around here at Faith Lutheran Church. Groups provide splendid support for persons struggling with concerns and needs. Some groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Co-dependents of Alcoholics, or Adult Children of Alcoholics, all of which meet here at Faith each week, are support groups for people with chemical dependency and there are many other types of support groups for people with special interests and needs.
In April our LIFE groups will be celebrating their first anniversary. LIFE stands for Living in Faith Everyday. They are a combination of nurture and learning as well as just a good place to meet people in like LIFE circumstances. We have a Wives Group, a Great Literature Group, a Home Improvement Group, a young mothers group, an evening Faithful Women's group and a group called Experiencing God that covers the range of Life circumstances. And, of course, we have the Faith Student Fellowship for our junior and senior high youth. We need more groups, one for singles and singles again, one for retired couples, one for men.
Learning groups like the Explorers' Club, the Preschool and the Adult Learning Class put more of an emphasis on the learning than support or nurture but anyone who has been watching our little ones in the Explorers' Club know that neither support or nurture are absent. They are having just wonderful time.
And, finally, ministry teams that emphasize a project or task like the Soup for Hospice or the Faith/Celebration Worship Team, or the Flashlight Band, or the Finance Team or the Resource Development Team, for years thought of as Stewardship, or the Explorers' Club teaching team. One might ask what is the difference between a ministry team and a committee? The major difference between a committee and a team is the former traditionally has been more concerned with the task than the care of its members. A team, on the other hand, is just as concerned with the care and nurture of its members than with its task. And a second difference is like it, in order to have time to care for its members it can not attempt to do too much.
My goal is that everyone who is a member of Faith belongs to at least one small group or ministry team. We were created for relationships. And groups are an important component of dealing with rejection.
A group's life does not go on by itself. It takes work on each of our parts. It requires juggling our schedules so that we can be together. It requires dragging ourselves to the meeting when we must confess that we have not been able to stay with the resolves we promised last month. We are tempted to stay home at such times, but we have a pact that no matter how crowded our schedules, we show up. And we are always glad that we did because a true small group is one where we are welcomed and cared for.
I know of no single step one can take to enhance self-confidence that is as important as building a network of accepting, loving relationships. Self-confidence comes when we are able to relax, stop begging for love, and begin loving. People who overcome barriers to relationships are those who send a word of encouragement instead of waiting for one, who look for someone for whom they can do a favor, someone whose shoulder they can put an arm around. When we are "net-working" merely for what we can get out of it, it usually backfires. But when we start finding others who need love and take the initiative in giving it to them, loves seems to begin flowing back to us.
Begin this process by cultivating your friendship with Jesus. He really does want to be your friend and mentor. I know of no other friend who can be as true and as giving as Jesus. If you have not talked to him lately, take a moment later today and just talk to him. I guarantee there is nothing that you can say that will shock or dismay him. More to the point, he will be glad you did and you will be too.
AMEN