Holy Discomfort
Psalm 95 & Exodus 17:1-7
February 24, 2008
JW McNeill
It’s hard to remember almost that there used to not be remotes for televisions.
I bought a dvd player a couple of weeks ago. I did my research on which type to buy for a plain vanilla dvd player for about $50. Actually it cost $45. But on the way home from Circuit City I began to wonder whether it had a remote. I really wanted a remote. I realized later that you can’t buy a dvd player without a remote. Or a television I think.
Isn’t it remarkable that we will no longer tolerate a tv or dvd player without a remote?
The remote on our stereo receiver no longer works and it is beginning to annoy me. Walking 8 feet. Too much!
We can’t get up and turn the channel. I’m not sure I even know how to change the channel on our tv at home without the remote.
Now I honestly don’t think there is anything wrong with having a remote.
I do believe that it may be a kind of symptom or a signal of what can be a problem with our orientation.
This is a subtle point that I read once in a work by a very wise rabbi and psychotherapist, Edwin Friedman. He wrote this about physicians, therapists, clergy, and political leaders:
"They have all become too concerned with making people feel good…rather than with increasing their threshold for pain."
Of course we want to feel good, be comfortable. But if that desire dominates, then we are in trouble.
If we have responsibility for someone as a teacher or a parent, we must be in the business of disappointment and discomfort.
Parents and teachers misunderstand their role if they believe that they must always satisfy the desire for comfort of their children or students.
In order to help children or students of any age learn, teachers must help students cope with the frustration of learning. Trust that the discomfort/ anguish/difficult work of learning is for the best.
A student who gives up in the midst of that frustration/discomfort will not learn.
God’s role is not to make us feel happy, comfortable, good at every moment. Rather God is about building our capacity to reflect justice, mercy, and compassion so that these virtues will take ever greater root in the world.
That was God’s role with Israel. And, of course, when people are frustrated, disappointed, hungry, thirsty, they get grumpy.
The relationship, as I said, can be stormy.
Israel and we have a natural desire to be cared for and to feel secure.
We look to God for that. As children we look/ed to our parents for that. But that is not the whole story of what our parents need to do for us.
It is not the whole story about how God works in our lives.
When we are uncomfortable, frustrated, that does not mean that God is not with us.
Our threshold for pain, frustration, disappointment may need expanding.
We need sometimes to practice detaching ourselves from our need for well being, so that we have more room to function.
When I don’t find the parking place, when I hit every red light on 31 F going into Rochester, it does not mean that God is not with me.
It may mean that I need more patience and openness to the surprises of life.
G.K. Chesterton once said: An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
An adventure trusting that God can be at work in all things expanding our capacity for justice, mercy and compassion.
Often that will require that our tolerance for pain increases so that we are not overwhelmed by the bumps, bruises and annoyances that are bound to beset us.
We best understand this with coaches and trainers. Training for sports requires serious physical discomfort, mental toughness, spiritual stamina. Coaches must push but not too much. Part of being a good coach is knowing appropriate limits, When can encouragement help an athlete push their limits of achievement? When does a coach need to help an athlete dial back effort to prevent an injury. Sensitive judgments.
Depends on the knowledge of the coach and the trust the athlete has in him or her.
Nicole working with the choir. When the choir trusts her – music not too hard and eventually they will get it, they will put up with the difficulties of the first few times.
The relationship can be stormy when we are at the edges of our limits.
There are times when we do reach the end of our rope. When we need comforting and a sense of security. And it is a blessing when we find it.
But the longer our rope is, the less often we’ll reach the end of it and the more opportunity we will have to be agents of justice, mercy, and compassion.
From what I gather in the Exodus passage and its memory in Psalm 95, the Israelites got to the end of their rope too quickly. In the midst of their discomfort they lost their trust that God was with them.
At least part of the reason for Lenten disciplines of fasting, abstinence and other practices of self-denial is to help us detach ourselves from our need for comfortable satisfactions. My own experience is that such practices have helped me become more aware how dependent my equilibrium was on not being hungry or able to overwhelm my dis-ease or anxiety with a piece of chocolate or the distraction and jolt of a cup of coffee.
Such realizations have helped me become more conscious of my attachments to my own comfort that can keep me from pushing out into the personal and spiritual challenges to which God is inviting me.
The lessons that the Israelites were asked to learn are our lessons as well:
Learning to ask in the midst of need.
Learning to be open about limitations.
Learning to expand our capacity to tolerate pain and discomfort.
Learning to trust that God is leading us into a future in which we are increasingly able to be agents, signs, and blessings, in this world of adventure.
Thanks be to God. Amen.