The Lost Art of Coping
Mark 6: 30-44
February 19, 1984
No moment in the life of a parent is more awesome than when a child leaves home for the first time.. As you watch them walk away, you wonder, have I prepared this one adequately for all he will face? Will she be able to manage in the harsh world?’ Because none of us does the parenting task perfectly, it is not unusual that sooner or later those same children come back and ask, Why did you not tell me about all those problems? Why did you not warn me about all the difficulties ahead? Why didn’t you prepare me for all those crunches ?
This happens to clergy as well as parents. Oftentimes, we will run across people who have grown up in the Church, and they will be saying much the same thing. “I thought, ” they will say, “that if we were Christians, hard times would be avoided. Why didn’t you caution us?” 0r “I was told that faith would remove all obstacles. It hasn’t been so. Why didn’t you warn me?’
Today, I would like to speak to those people and present to you a pattern for coping with crises, which might help to avoid the frustrations that we often encounter. Predictably, I would turn to Scripture for my model, and I would focus our attention on the person of Jesus and suggest, as we watch our Lord handle a typical crisis, that we may learn something about coping .
The setting for our reading this morning was the eastern shore of Galilee, but it could have happened on the western slope of the Catalinas. Jesus had been teaching all afternoon, and the multitudes were beginning to get restive. They were hungry and tired and a long way from home. The disciples, who were quite sensitive to public opinion, suggested that it might be smart to wind things up and dismiss the people before the crowds got out of hand.
But this was contrary to the style of Jesus. He said, in effect, ‘We are involved in this event. In fact, I am partly responsible, and silently pulling up one’s tent is not a helpful way to cope. ” It is clear that for Jesus, the way out was always to face into a situation. Jesus never looked for comforting or tempering relief; facing the harsh realities was for him the first step in coping.
Once when the bottom dropped out of my life, I went to see a friend who was a top-notch counselor. “I’m feeling miserable, I said. Good! He answered . Can you stay with that feeling? I was shocked; I thought I had come for comfort, or at least a tranquilizer. He thought I had come to face reality, no matter how painful.
Fortunately, he won. He made me face my misery and not try to escape. And I learned something about coping. As I got up to leave, my friend pulled out of his wallet one of those Salada tea bags, with sayings written on it. He said he kept it around just for people like me. This is what it said: Don’t complain about the way the ball bounces if you are the one who dropped the ball.
Facing reality – it may not solve all your problems, but unless you face them, there is nothing much that can be done . This we can learn from Jesus.
It is interesting to note that the incident of feeding the five thousand must have made a deep impression on the disciples; it is the only story recorded in all four Gospels. And I think it is so prominent because of the valuable learnings the second understanding we might gain from the story is really in terms of what is not said. And one thing we can observe is that Jesus does not blame anyone else for the crisis. He leaves out any recrimination.
A great temptation for all of us when we are faced with difficulties is to pass the buck on to others. Can’t you just imagine the disciples saying, “If only the Roman government had done a better job of food distribution. If only the foolish multitudes had stayed nearer home, we would not be faced with this horrendous situation. It’s their own fault.
While some choose to cope, others choose to mope , and a favorite trick of mopers is to press the paranoid button. Every one of us carries around a little paranoid button, and whenever we get into a rough situation, we press it and begin to blame others for our troubles.
Many years ago I bought a helpful book called “Psycho-therapy and a Christian View of Man”, In it David Roberts, the author, describes the tendency we all have to fix the blame for circumstances on outside elements. He states that this can keep us from mobilizing our coping potential. Here is part of what Roberts says :
When an individual is not aware of the seriousness of his conflicts, this may be due to the fact that he has projected them onto people and circumstances outside himself. Then the trouble always lies, in his opinion, with the wife, the boss, the world situation, the Jews, the Communists. And if these external annoyances were straightened out, he assumes, everything inside himself would form a serene harmony.
Not so , Dr Roberts points out. Those outside forces are simply ways to avoid facing one’s own inner reality. When difficulties overwhelm us, it is easier to poke at windmills rather than to face our own inner struggles. I do it all the time, and I am sure you do. Where would we be without our enemies?
Finally, one last learning from the story: As we focus our attention on Jesus, we can see that the climactic step in the process of coping comes when he takes the available resources and begins to meet the needs of the situation. It sounds so simple to say Jesus began to do the best he could with what he had – – and yet this is the bottom line of the whole story
Most of us , when faced with difficult
circumstances, become totally immobilized (i . Anxiety and fear become the dominant emotions, and we begin to focus on how ill-prepared we are. Jesus copes by using whatever God-given resources can be found at hand. Hope replaces fear, and action drives away immobility by taking that first step.
A problem for Christians is the interpretation of Gospel events. Many people look at the loaves-and-fishes story as an example of a miracle, a miraculous multiplication of resources. If we use that interpretation, it is easy to conclude that Jesus was some kind of cosmic magician – a cosmic magician who, instead of pulling rabbits from a hat, pulls food.
But suppose you put aside this magical thinking. Suppose, rather than seeing the story as an example of divine intervention, suppose you see it as Jesus 1 using what is at hand. And the real miracle is how others were encouraged to share their own small amounts, and how it multiplied.
This interpretation is important, not only for giving us a substantial clue to coping, but also for helping to clarify our theology. Understanding Jesus’ humanity does not depend on our regarding him as a magician. Only if we can see that Jesus became in all things like us can we identify with him. And only in his humanity can we understand our potential. If our theology speaks of a distant God who comes in from somewhere out there and from time to time saves a rough situation, we have something less than the Incarnation. Only if Jesus is truly human can we use him as a model for coping . Only If he uses the given resources can we learn to use our own.
We move back to where we began, when a youngster or oldster comes and says, But you never told me how tough things would be! My answer is always the same: No one ever promised you a rose garden. ” All we can offer you is reality; yet it is blindness to imagine any situation without some positive resources. There are always five loaves and two small fishes in the midst of every problem – if only we have the eyes to see.
And finally, I would tell that person: Look to Jesus, and then that crisis, that difficulty, that impossible situation will become nothing more than the moment to begin.
Take our minds and think through them. Take our lives and speak through them. And take our hearts and set them on fire
So that a few loaves and two fish will feed the multitude
Amen