Pastors E-Letter 1/29/21
My earliest memory of failure comes from 1st grade. I had been in 1st grade for a few months and was accustomed to getting papers back with a “smiley” face stamped on it – meaning I had done a good job. Up until this point in my educational career – I had only seen “smiley” faces. But this day was different. I remember getting a paperback where I had very carefully practiced writing the letter “N” all the way across and down the paper, on every line. I must say, they were beautiful “N”s. Very neat. Very consistent. But there was one problem. They were all backward. So, instead of seeing the “smiley” face stamp on the paper, there was a “straight face”, meaning it wasn’t a frown face (thank goodness), but it also wasn’t smiley. It was somewhere in between. It was the teacher’s way of acknowledging that though my work was carefully executed, it wasn’t accurate.
I took one look at the “straight face” and was crushed. I’ll never forget the feeling of “shame” that rose in me, and no doubt spread across my face. I couldn’t have named the feeling as shame at the time, but I know now that shame is what I felt. In my little first grade mind, I was a complete failure. And I made up my mind, on the spot, that I would never be guilty again of the tragic mistake of making my “N”s backward.
You can see from that story that even as I child, I was not wired as one who would easily embrace and endure failure. In fact, that experience of shame in response to failure would become a pattern in my life that for many years drove me to work and work and work in the hope of avoiding failure and the possibility of the shame that might follow in its wake.
But somewhere along the way, no doubt due to the work of God’s grace in me, I ever so slowly began to discover that failure could lead to more than just shame. Over time, I began to discover that failure, when viewed through the light and love of God and the grace of Jesus, could be transformative in my life. I might still be embarrassed or feel some shame in the wake of failure. But I also discovered that God could use the experience of failure in my life to teach me things that I needed to learn, to grow my heart, and to enable me to walk alongside others in the wake of their failures.
This week in worship, we will continue in our message series, “The Healing Practice of Celebration”, shining the light on the experience of failure and the ways that God is present with us to lead us from shame and regret to growth and even gratitude. We will be using the story of Jesus’ call of Levi, the tax collector, found in Luke 5:27-32. There we discover that Jesus came to call not the righteous, not the folks that have never known failure or regret, not the folks who always have it all together, but sinners, and failures, and misfits. And in the call of Jesus, we can discover the grace that forgives us, heals us, and moves us past our failures and flops and into a life of service, meaning, and purpose where no experience is wasted and where God can work again and again for our good. This is good news! This is news worth celebrating!
I pray you will join us in worship this week, either online or in person. And be prepared to make some noise as we celebrate and give thanks to God for the power of Christ to lead us from failure to hope, to life, to joy!
Grace and Peace,
Annette