Blogs

Wet Feet

We all have known hurt. The hurt of being on the other end of someone’s sharp tongue. The hurt of being rejected. The hurt of being misunderstood. As surely as you need oxygen to breath so people bring pain. Sometimes deliberately. Sometimes unintentionally.

I first met Lucy in 2010 while living in China. From the moment I met her my life was not the same. Lucy stole my heart. After meeting 8 year old Lucy and her mum and seeing their poverty and at that time extremely shocking life circumstances I could not simply return to my life and not try and do something for them and others like them. (Some of you have heard Lucy’s story.) That was the start of my affiliation with Elim Kids and for the past 6 years I have travelled back to China to help out in whatever small way I could and every year I have connected with Lucy. Brought her gifts. I have given her my love. My hugs. My time. My heart. I believed that I had built a relationship with Lucy throughout that time.

This year when Lucy came to stay with us while we were in China something happened that caused me to question that relationship. Our time together started out as it always did with us both enjoying seeing one another again and sharing in hugs and laughs and fun and teasing one another. (Though she tended to love teasing Chris the most.) But suddenly, and it was suddenly, she became very distant from us. She stopped listening to us. She would turn her back on us when we approached her. She would ignore us when we asked her to do something or called to the table to eat. At first we put it down to her being 14 and teenage stuff, but the behaviour escalated and she began to talk to the other kids about us in a not very nice way and would try to convince them to ignore us and be disobedient. She worked at deliberately turning them against us. Lucy’s attitude toward us began to really impact the household.
I was hurt. I was angry. I was confused. I wanted to retaliate. I felt her attitude was unjust and unfair. I felt rejected as this girl who once threw herself into my arms now recoiled when I reached out for her.

Jesus knew the who and the why of His life. He was God’s Son and he was on earth to serve His Father. He knew his identity and authority. “So He got up from the table, took off His robe, wrapped a towel around His waist, and poured water into a basin” (John 13:4-5)

Jesus, He is the Son of the Most High God, king of the world, sovereign of the seas —– washed feet.

I’m not a fan of feet. I tend to recoil when touched by another’s foot. Feet have toenails. They have bunions and fungus, corn and calluses, and planter’s warts. Feet smell bad and if we were to be truly honest, they’re not really all that attractive.

Jesus touched the stinky, ugly parts of His disciples, knowing He came from God. Knowing He was going to God. Knowing that all authority was His, he exchanged His robe for the servant’s wrap lowered Himself to knee level, and began to rub away the grime, the grit, and the grunge from His disciples feet.

Jesus did not exclude a single follower. He included Philip, who in effect had retorted when Jesus told the disciples to feed the throng of five thousand hungry people, “It’s impossible.” So what does Jesus do with someone who questions his commands? Apparently He washes the doubter’s feet.

James and John lobbied for prime positions in Christ’s Kingdom. What does Jesus do when people use His Kingdom for personal advancement? He slides a basin in their direction.

Peter quit trusting Christ in the storm. He tried to talk Jesus out of going to the cross. Within hours Peter would curse the very name of Jesus and hightail his way into hiding along with the rest of his followers.
Do you ever wonder what Jesus does with promise breakers? He washes their feet.

And Judas. The lying, greedy follower who sold Jesus out for a measly 30 pieces of silver. Wouldn’t you think Jesus would miss his feet?

If He washes the feet of his Judas, you will have to wash the feet of yours.

“Since I, the Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you” (John 13:14-15).

In Max Lucado’s words, “To accept grace is to accept the vow you give it.”

Jesus washes first; we wash next. He demonstrates; we follow. He uses the towel then extends it to us, saying, “Now you do it. Walk across the floor of your upper room, and wash the feet of your Judas.

Max Lucado says about grace, ‘More verb than noun, more present tense than past tense, grace didn’t just happen; it happens.”

It is because it happens, God extends that grace to me now, today, that I am able to move past my hurt and walk across the room as Lucy turns her back on me and wrap my arms around her and hug her unresponsive body and tell her that I love her.

We all have our Judas story, probably more than one.

As the elements are being handed out I invite you to picture yourself removing your socks and shoes. Then allowing Jesus, God, wipe away every dirty part of your life – your dishonesty, angry outbursts, hypocrisy, envy, selfishness. Let him touch them all. Then go into your week following his example.

I wonder who feels they can relate to Martha’s frustration here in this story?

It’s often a story that ladies might find themselves relating to more and I suppose that’s because it’s typically been to brand a busy housewife – for being too flustered and whatnot. I know I’ve thought of Sarah as a bit of a Martha at times. Thinking she should take a lesson from the more peaceful Mary. Sarah can’t stand Mary in this passage! But that’s okay – it’s probably the perspective that the passage is intended to be read from.

This is not a story about two women. It’s not about thinking of ourselves as either more of a Martha or more of a Mary. Instead, it’s a story about frustration, distress and discontentment. If we feel any of these things, then we’re invited into this story; where we can relate to Martha’s frustration and her interaction with Jesus in this.

Distress in a New Light

Distress is something that we often don’t deal with very well. When someone is agitated or distressed in any way, our natural response is to try and figure out a way to fix the problem. Because that’s what we see it as – a problem: a problem that needs to be fixed, so things can go back to normal again. Though we may have a desire to help people in this, this type of approach is rarely one that’s really helpful.

People with problems are not problems that need fixing. People with problems are just people. I don’t know what you call people without problems, because I’ve never come across any of those before! But people with problems are just people who are journeying through life. They don’t need mechanics, or problem solvers. What they need – what we all need – are companions who are willing to journey with us.

So we’re going to take a bit of a look at these things this morning. We’re going to look at attending to our own journey of growth and change and how attending to our own journey might influence the way we journey with others. But we’re really going to focus a lot of this around feelings of frustration and distress, and how we might discover the hidden things going on behind frustration – distress – and discontentment.

Martha’s Story

As we come to Martha’s story, we’re told that Jesus was journeying with his disciples. They came to village where Jesus was invited and welcomed by Martha into her home. I don’t think it’s any coincidence either, that Martha’s story here follows Jesus’ teaching in the story of the Good Samaritan.

What Jesus was teaching about caring for people – particularly in ways that meets their basic human needs – is precisely what’s being demonstrated here by Martha, as she welcomes and provides for Jesus.

Martha’s active service here, and her desire to provide for her guest in such a practical manner, is sometimes viewed negatively in the ways this story has been interpreted. But minimalising Martha’s practical service here, to being too worldly and insignificant, would greatly contradict Jesus’ teaching in the story that precedes this one.

Instead, I believe the story of Martha provides a good balance alongside the Good Samaritan story, by adding another dimension to the task of helping others. Martha clearly displays a great deal of kindness and generosity in her character, as she opens her home to Jesus and desires so much to serve him with her hospitality.

Martha is busy serving (we can presume she’s preparing a meal or something; we’re not told explicitly what doing, just that she’s serving). It maybe the author’s intention to leave this open so the reader’s of the story might be able to relate to this in different forms of serving and ministry. So while Martha’s busy doing what she feels she needs to do here, she gets frustrated with her sister particularly, who’s just sitting there listening to Jesus, leaving Martha to do all the work herself.

This is where I think of Sarah in this story. It’s not hard to tell when she’s frustrated. If I’m sitting on the couch watching the footy or something, I get the sense something’s wrong when the feet stomp a little harder and faster around the place. The dishes clang that little bit louder, and I don’t know, but I think she might even be pulling extra dishes out of the cupboards sometimes – just to make some more noise; because I’m quite sure there weren’t that many dishes in the sink to warrant the amount of noise that’s being made. It gets to the point where I have to say, “Do you mind? I’m trying to relax and watch the footy over here!” I know… it’s not really the right thing to say in that situation!

I can imagine Martha would have been making her own frustrations known too – before she eventually bursts out to Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” The way Martha expresses herself here implies that she assumes Jesus does care and that she’s expecting him to respond to her request.

Problem Solving

Now the obvious solution to the problem here, or best way to deal with the problem, would be to pick a side and resolve the conflict. It’s what I’ve tended to do in response to our daughter’s outbursts at home when she’s getting annoyed with her younger brothers. It’s certainly tempting to take my daughter’s side at times. I get pretty annoyed with the boys too, with the way they can carry on and the noise they can make.

Our next door neighbor told us about a time he had visitors over. They commented that they could hear a storm coming. What they thought was thunder overhead, was in fact our boys running up and down the hallway in our house. That might give you an idea of the sort of noise we’re dealing with at home. But I don’t always find this annoying. There’s even times when I’m contributing to those thunderous noises up and down the hallway! So, instead of taking my daughter’s side and sending the boys to bed, or telling them to “shut-up” as she so animatedly requests, I could take the boys side and say the very same thing to her.

Picking a side, and dealing with it either way like that, is the quickest and easiest way of dealing with the problem and easing the distress. Well, it’s a way to ease my own distress anyway.

This isn’t really Jesus’ way of dealing with problems though. He responds to Martha’s outburst by saying, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.” Jesus is not taking Mary’s side over Martha here, as it is sometimes suggested. This is where we can assume that Martha’s problem is her busyness; if we take Jesus’ response as implying that Mary is in the right, with her peaceful listening, and Martha is in the wrong, with her busy serving. But as I mentioned before, this would only be confusing what Jesus was teaching about practical service in the story of the Good Samaritan.

We see numerous instances where Jesus refuses to take sides throughout the gospel stories. People are often posing questions to Jesus; trying to find out whose side he’s on and what side he sits on with certain issues. But we notice that Jesus rarely gives them straight answers to these sorts of questions.

I’ll just mention here that there’s a big difference between hearing what people really have to say and questioning people just to see what side they sit on with certain issues and whatnot. One is ‘listening’, the other is just ‘interrogating.’ Jesus wasn’t interested in taking sides, so he wasn’t interested in entertaining their interrogations.

Instead, he answered with things that were actually worth listening to. Jesus demonstrates in his interaction with Martha, how he cares more about the person, than he does about the things people care about. I’d say that Jesus’ defense of Mary is more to divert Martha’s attention away from the thing she thinks is the problem, so that she can visit the real source of her distress.

Distress

There are various forms of distress that we experience. Besides frustration, it might be things like stress, anger, and even boredom, or any other feeling of discontent that we can’t pinpoint exactly. Distress is any of those feelings that make us feel put out in some way: like something’s not quite right. When we experience these feelings, we often look out at the things around us to find the cause, or the thing that’s putting us out.

For example, when we feel bored, we say it’s because there’s nothing to do. But there are times when having nothing to do is a good thing: it’s an opportunity to rest. But there is always this restlessness that accompanies boredom. It’s that stirring inside that makes us feel bored; more than what’s happening, or not happening, outside. More often than not, it’s not the state of things around us that causes us to feel distressed, but the state of things inside. And this is where Jesus is pointing Martha; away from the things outside that she’s looking at, to the real source of what’s going on, which is inside.

Inner Journey

The inner journey is often not an easy path to take – which is why we look around for things to blame outside. It can serve as a good distraction; helping us to avoid the inner journey; avoid going to those places where the distress is coming from. But it’s a journey that God’s voice calls us into. It’s not a forceful voice, but one that is gentle and caring, like we hear in Jesus’ voice, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things.”

When we’re feeling frustrated we tend to look for similar voices. Think of when you’re frustrated about a particular issue; when you’re trying to talk about those things. There’s nothing more frustrating than talking to someone who doesn’t seem to really care about that thing. So we will often find people who share our feelings on these things: because they get it. We find some comfort in that: we can be frustrated together. But those other frustrated voices, they don’t do too much to alleviate our distress, do they? They’re probably likely to be only feeding it, more than anything else.

It’s the gentle caring voice that calls us into the journey that’s really needed: however difficult it may be. Because this is the voice that really only cares about us, more than the things we care about; or rather, the things that are distracting us and helping us to avoid the inner journey.

Dallas Willard says that, “Denial and self-deception are things God allows us – in part to protect us – until we begin to seek him.” “Because,” Willard says, “it would simply drive us mad if we ever confronted (those hidden things) on our own.”

Transformation is what the journey with God is all about, and it’s only through the inner journey that significant growth and change occurs. Prayer and solitude and other spiritual practices are largely where this inner journey takes place. It’s the place where we open ourselves to the voice of God and where he is calling us. These are by no means just ways of trying to escape the realities of real life. They are ways of being brought into a greater awareness of life, and that’s what it’s all about: entering into a fuller experience of life.

Conclusion

As we grow into a greater awareness of God, God always calls us to a greater awareness of ourselves: where we visit those places where growth and change happens. In visiting those difficult places and experiencing the life on the other side of them, we get to see distress in a new light. I don’t think distress is anything we’ll ever want to invite, in any of its forms. But we get the opportunity to see it, not so much as a problem to be solved, but as an invitation to growth and change. We get to see other people’s distress in a new light too; helping us to journey with them, instead of trying to fix them.

When we see distress simply as a problem that needs fixing, we’re often just trying to get things to go back to the way they were in life, instead of moving forward into the newness and surprise that’s on offer in front of us. This is what we’re all being invited into, in our own journeys and the journeys that we get to share with others; the surprise of what lies on the other side when we visit the hidden things behind the frustrations.

I just want to finish with something that’s been written by an unknown author. I think it nails what journeying with people is all about, through listening; through listening for the hidden things. Some of you might have seen this on the website during the week.

 

“Could you just listen? When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving me advice, you have not done what I asked. When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I should not feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings. When I ask you to listen to me, and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as that may seem. Listen! All I ask is that you listen, not talk to or do, just hear me. Advice is cheap. I can do for myself; I am not helpless — maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and inadequacy. But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel no matter how irrational, then I quit trying to convince you and get about this business of understanding what is behind this irrational feeling. When that is clear, the answers are obvious and I do not need advice. Irrational feelings make more sense when we understand what is behind them. . . Please listen and just hear me, and if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn, and I will listen to you.”

 

Luke Drury

We’ll be visiting the topic of ‘Listening to Each Other’s Voice’ this coming Sunday.  Here is something written by an anonymous author on the same topic.

“Could you just listen? When I
ask you to listen to me and you start
giving me advice, you have not done
what I asked. When I ask you to listen
to me and you begin to tell me why
I should not feel that way, you are
trampling on my feelings. When I ask
you to listen to me, and you feel you
have to do something to solve my
problem, you have failed me, strange
as that may seem. Listen! All I asked
was that you listen, not talk to or do,
just hear me. Advice is cheap. . .I can
do for myself; I am not helpless —
maybe discouraged and faltering, but
not helpless. When you do something
for me that I can and need to do for
myself, you contribute to my fear and
inadequacy. But when you accept as a
simple fact that I do feel what I feel no
matter how irrational, then I quit trying
to convince you and get about this
business of understanding what is behind
this irrational feeling. When that
is clear, the answers are obvious and I
do not need advice. Irrational feelings
make more sense when we understand
what is behind them. . . . Please listen
and just hear me, and if you want to
talk, wait a minute for your turn, and I
will listen to you.”

Theme – In a world of three billion voices it can be difficult to believe that my voice matters. This week’s theme will discover some of the ways that we can recover our voice. We can then live confidently knowing that we speak with God’s authority. To do this, we need to be very sure of our Father’s voice, and then allow His voice to speak to the important things in our lives.

What is the unique message God has called us to give to the world?

Key Verses – John 10: 1-5

1 “I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! 2 But the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. 5 They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.”

I recently was reading a book on resilience that told of one young boy’s journey through incredible difficulty. This young Jewish boy was taken in by a French couple, and hidden in a room by a couple  for six months to escape capture by the Germans.

During this time in solitude, he wasn’t allowed to go outside the room or to make a noise. In the space, he occupied his time by constant pacing and then rocking back and forward. He also spent a lot of time lying on his back and licking his knees.

After six months, he was discovered by the Germans and taken to a concentration camp. But rather than seeing his entry to the concentration camp as horrific, he describes it as a relief. In his account, he describes the connections that he was able to develop in the camp; even though it was a place of death and cruelty. His memories primarily center around the games he played with the other children, and the relationships formed with the older prisoners.

The relief was because he was able to reconnect to people. He no longer was forced to sit silently in a room by himself day in and day out.

The perceptions of this young boy are interesting and quite different to what we would expect. The horror that we envisage in the concentration camp, was eclipsed by the horror of no longer being heard. Being locked away in a place where his voice was no longer wanted, valued or connected, was soul destroying. Facing death in the concentration camp was a relief.

This morning we will first consider three ways that our world can demonstrate a lack of care for our voice. Then we will look at the way God talks to us. Finally we will look at how God affirms our voice. We recognize His voice, and He knows us, because we are His sheep.

What are the faces of not being heard?  

1.  Contempt
   

The message of contempt is that the other person in the relationship is saying, “I am better than you.”  It’s often done by people who feel insecure and have to seek to elevate their own position. The best way they have found to do this, is to put others down. Contempt is the choice for those who know no other way than to tread over others in their effort to feel a bit better about themselves.  Their weapon is often sarcasm, the most common vocal expression of contempt.

Disrespect and humiliation are closely connected when a person is treated contemptuously. Contempt is one of the ugliest faces of not being heard. It seeks to humiliate a person and degrades their very being.

In the Christian world, we talk often  about the necessity of being humble, but we want to have a comfortable humility that is of our own making. The path of humiliation is much more difficult than this. Jesus saw this on the cross when he was mocked. “Come down and save yourself.  Come on – you can save others but you can’t save yourself.”

2.  Distraction

We live in a world where we are distracted to the point of breakdown. Each day throws an avalanche of information at us. We are expected to deal with this information and it’s volume, and the way that we handle it has led to a new word: multi tasking.

Clifford Nass, a researcher at Stanford University, assumed that those who multitask heavily, would nonetheless, develop some other outstanding skills. He thought that they would be amazing at filtering information, switching between tasks quickly, and keeping a high working memory. Instead he found that, “When you try to multitask, in the short-term, it doubles the amount of time it takes to do a task, and it usually at least doubles the number of mistakes.”

Just as an aside there is one thing that we can add to our brain’s mix. In the case of music, it’s a little different. We have a special part of our brain for music, so we can listen to music while we do other things.

When we arrive in another’s presence in a distracted state, we are not able to give them the attention they need to be fully heard. Have you ever tried to get people to turn their mobile phones off completely? In some contexts it can be so difficult, and the best we can do is to go silent. Which isn’t silent because they will still vibrate, distracting those people, so they are unable to focus on your story, because they cannot wait to find out what that vibrating alert meant.

3. Indifference 

A number of years ago, I read Professor Manning Clark’s, (the notable Australian historian) summary of Australia as a culture that doesn’t believe in anything very much. At least we don’t believe in anything enough to change what we do.

Indifference is defined as:  ‘lack of interest in, disregard for’

In the context of today’s message, it’s all about the way that we view people. I will never forget at a training event that I was a part of, we did the everyday thing of introducing ourselves to each other and telling each other our names. One person said, “Don’t bother telling me your name. I am not interested because I won’t see you after the next 6 weeks.”  And that summed up his attitude to other people!

Bob Geldof’s great song, Indifference, highlights the lack of care that led him to create an initiative such as Live Aid:

“I don’t care if you live or die, couldn’t care less if you laugh or cry,

I don’t mind if you crash or fly, I don’t mind at all.”

Indifference says that you don’t matter to me, you don’t offer anything that can benefit me, so therefore I am not interested in your story.

My Poem: Eternity’s Breath (see below this article)

I wrote this recently as I reflected on the fast arriving anniversary of my father’s death. I allowed myself a moment of sadness as I thought about his voice and how it’s now missing from my world. I don’t hear his laughter, or his attempts to be funny, or his incessant questions any more. I realized that I miss these things and his presence in my life.

But, then I considered eternity, and realized that there is my Heavenly Father’s voice that is speaking to me. And that in the context of eternity, this time now is a brief second where I don’t hear my father’s voice.  But, I also realized that I haven’t always been good at recognizing God’s presence in my journey.

I thought about God’s voice in my life as I reflected on what words I will hear throughout eternity, and I wrote this about the sound of God’s whisper to me and to all humanity.

It’s gentle rhythm beating, with the sounds of,

loves eternal longing, that beats in all our hearts,

none is forgotten.

It’s very easy to allow the din of the world to drown out God’s voice. When I thought about my father’s death I realized that I made myself too busy, too quickly, and I wasn’t able to hear what God really wanted to say to me during my pain at that time.

And then two years on as I sought to discern the voice of God speaking to me I wrote these words:

What voice will be heard…

When I wrote this line I was thinking: Who listens? I mean really listens? There are too many people, who are too busy, with too many problems that they are facing. Who could be bothered with me? Then I recognized God’s listening.

The voice of love whispers, you child are heard by me.

Our Father speaks a beautiful language. It a language that understands when we repeat ourselves, when we go over and over the same things. When we say embarrassing things, when we cry, when we feel like we can’t make another day, when we don’t make sense, when we are angry, scared or alone..

He doesn’t treat our voice with contempt, thinking that He is better than us. Or, with distraction being permanently busy with other things or with indifference that says, “I don’t care enough.” God says, “Speak to me my beloved child, keep talking. Tell me the silly little details that you think matter only to you. These things matter to me.”

John 9: 37-38 – After healing the blind man. Where do you see the Son of Man?

37 Jesus said, “You’re looking right at him. Don’t you recognize my voice?”

38 “Master, I believe,” the man said, and worshiped him.

Then Jesus told the story in the Bible reading we had about the sheep and contrasting His voice with the voice of the Pharisees. The Pharisees showed a mix of contempt for Jesus, distraction with their relationship with God (the law got in the way), and indifference to the truth of the message Jesus brought.

“and they follow him because they know his voice”.

Once we know His voice, then we can speak with new confidence, with authority and with power, because we know we have been heard; and that God and our lives now bear witness to Eternity’s breath speaking through us.

This section concludes with John 10:10: here is my voice. I have come that you may have life, eternal life. Recognize this and make it your voice too. Speak the words of eternity.

Eternity’s Breath

Eternity’s breath whispers life,

It’s gentle rhythm beating,

With the sounds of,

Loves eternal longing,

That beats in all our hearts,

None is forgotten,

All creation is heard,

Restoring loving, kindness,

The voice of love whispers,

Time to turn to me.

Life’s transitions remind us,

With their constant call,

Of what we seek to ignore,

Reminders in the din,

That our heartbeat is eternal,

One day we’ll meet again,

We’re not forgotten,

Each life is eternity,

The voice of love whispers,

You belong to me.

What voice will be heard,

As we yearn to understand,

What is needed,

As we seek to hear again,

The melody of life,

Can play its tune once more,

Creating a new song

That can be heard by all.

The voice of love whispers

You child are heard by me.

 

Chris Gribble