“Spanking lowers your IQ.” When I recently read that news headline, I thought to myself: “Gee, If it hadn’t been for my mother I could have been a genius!” How many “could have been” geniuses do we have attending church here today?
Seriously, according to the LA Times, this is what a new study from the University of New Hampshire declared in a conference on violence in San Diego. According to the study, American children in their study declined in IQ from 2.8 to 5 points when they were spanked. (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/09/spanking-iq.html).
I thought it was most interesting, however, that right after this study was discussed by experts on the Today Show, one of them made this rejoinder: Spanking is not the best discipline, but what this study does not address is what happens when there is no discipline at all” I guess you might think that having a little lower IQ could be better than having no sense at all.
No matter what you decide about spanking, there is a truth here that we need to grasp. One of the proven worse things a parent can do is let a child run free, unchecked, without limits or boundaries. We all need to reaffirm that discipline can be a very important healing virtue in our lives, as both children or as adults. Without developing reasonable limits, boundaries and without developing self-discipline, our lives can become sick, unhealthy, out of control and of course, detrimental not only to ourselves, but to others.
LIFE CAN HURT…A LOT MORE THAN YOU WANT TO THINK ABOUT
Today’s message gets right to the heart the healing virtue of discipline. The book of Hebrews is a sermon preached to people who were dealing with great hardship and hurt. Because of this, some Christians where drifting back to into Judaism. Others were neglecting their faith. Still others considered leaving the faith altogether. To them, it seemed much easier to surrender to the pressures around them and to give in to the weakness, rather than continue to endure and suffer for their new found faith in Jesus.
Maybe their thinking went something like this: “Why put my life through the additional pain, hurt and challenge of being Christian, when life hurts enough already.” I put it this way, because I think a lot of people consciously and unconsciously think that way today. I believe part of the decline in our churches today is not simply because people are denying Jesus or losing their faith, but I believe people are neglecting their faith, neglecting their salvation, neglecting assembling together because so many are preoccupied with their hurts and brokenness and can’t get through them.
If you are hurting today or you know someone who is dealing with great pain and hurt in their life, our Bible text teaches today teaches about the healing power that is found in the discipline it takes to keep going, to hang in there, to endure to the end, and to stick to it, no matter what comes to us. In fact, the very power we need to help us get through our pain and to heal from our hurts can be found at the very heart of the spiritual disciplines of our faith.
When we stop to consider our text in Hebrews 12, the first thing that surfaces is that this is a call for endurance and perseverance. Jesus is understood, as the both the “pioneer and prefector” of the faith because of what he disciplined himself to endure. In verse 2, the church is being encouraged to look to “Jesus (as) the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of1 the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”
You can’t miss the meaning of this verse. It sounds like it is textbook “delayed gratification” right out of a psychology class. Instead of living just for himself and instead of for the life of ease most people seek, Jesus took a different route. He delayed the joy so that he could do a great work---the greatest work of all—for our salvation.
But not so fast. There are a couple of words in this challenge that do more than speak of some nice regimen of positive thinking and self-discipline. We dare not take them lightly. These words, “cross” and “shame” speak of deliberate, disgraceful and even despicable pain. Something that borders on insanity rather than simple discipline. In fact, as you continue to read this passage, you’ll see words that sound even strange to our own lives that have been burdened down with brokenness and pain. Look at these words in verse 5 which seem down-right threatening to us: “My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him.”
God punishing us? Is that the kind of God we would want to follow? One who goes to the cross to die for us, and sits down in his joy in heaven, while we still suffer hardships? The image gets even worse: Jesus not only gets to his joy in heaven and sits down on is throne, but now he’s become judge over us, standing ready to punish us when we mess up and fail to take his path. Interpreting the Bible image this way, as some do, can make Jesus look cruel and crude, ready to zap us with some kind of pain and punishment; either a sickness, a death, a burden, or a curse---when we mess up. In fact, when I was researching this sermon, not a few people named their sermon on this text: God’s Woodshed!” (That title sounds like a sermon to try to control children and wayward people, rather than train them in the truth. Convenient, right?)
Figuring out how to interpret this text on discipline reminds me of something a counselor once taught me in school. He said, the approach to how we understand and accept discipline in our lives, how we relate to others, and even how we practice our faith might go all the way back to our potty training. He said that if our potty training was harsh, forced, and we were shamed a lot, then we could become rigid, legalistic and reactive in our own lives. We tend to become obsessed with the "negative" and see life through the half-empty glass. Then he said, if our potty training was respectful, patient, with lots of love, encouragement and praise, then we would become more understanding, compassionate, and much less reactive in our lives---focusing on the positive and seeing life through the glass half-full. Which way do you see your life?
Before I let you know how my potty training turned out, let’s affirm a simple truth that is understood within and behind this passage we are reading. Put very succinctly: This passage affirms a basic truth about life we one day will come to know well: Life hurts. We can’t miss that. Right is the center of everything in this passage is some very real pain. Jesus hurts---suffers shame and dies on a cross. Christians also hurt---and have to endure not only the hardship of life, but the extra hardship of trying to live right in a world gone wrong.
When I think about the pain of the cross, I can’t help but have Mel Gibson’s image the suffering Jesus in my mind. His movie contains unforgettable images of excruciating physical pain---perhaps to a fault. And the major objection many have had to Mel Gibson’s depiction of Jesus’ pain is not just that it was overdone physically (maybe reflecting his own pain), but Gibson’s movie can separate us too far from Jesus' other pain. What made the slapping, flogging, and crucifixion so cruel was Jesus' innocence and rejection by his own people, not the merely the force of the violence. Scripture points to the greatest pain Jesus endured when it says in John's gospel, that: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not….”
When the writer of Hebrews encourages his readers “not to lose heart” (vs. 3) the kind of pain and hurt is he talking about is not physical: “Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” Can you see that the kind of hurt and struggle against sin he means is the struggle against the world akin to something like the Helen Reedy song written about a single mother and a child which says: “It’s you and me against the world.” These Hebrew Christians are suffering emotionally, mentally, spiritually, but not yet physically, for their faith, their belief, and for their trust in Jesus. Hebrews is speaking directly about the hurt they have because the world that is against them. They are suffering in the same way Peter speaks of in his great letter, as a suffering for the "sake of righteousness.”
C.S. Lewis, in his classic work on “The Problem of Pain”, says that “mental pain” (emotional) is less dramatic (that’s why it gets less press in Gibson’s movie), but it is more common, and it is harder to bear.” What makes mental and emotional pain worse is that we can hide it. If you have a tooth ache, people see the pain written on your face and ask, what’s wrong, and then you answer, “My tooth aches.” But when you have a mental, or an emotional pain, like a “broken heart”, people can’t easily see that deeply, and you are more likely to hold it in and that make it hurt even more.
Most importantly, Lewis also contends that even though mental pain can be deep and hurt greatly, if even these, our deepest pains, are faced head on and if they are both accepted and shared, the conflict can strengthen us, even purify our character, and in most cases the pain will pass. He says, that sometimes the pains and hurts we face can produce a dreary state soul we can’t overcome, but some do overcome, and even in the presence of pain they still produce brilliant work and the pain has sharpened their character like tempered steel.” (C.S. Lewis, paraphrased from the book: “A Strange Freedom” its sermon on Suffering by Howard Thurman).
OUR HURTS RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT MEANING
Some people are able to live with their hurts and pains, and are even able to become better people, while others get lost in their pain and become bitter. The difference is made not on the kind or amount of pain a person faces, but the difference is based on the kind of person we are or we become, when we learn to deal with the hurts of our lives.
Interestingly, the word “discipline” comes from the same root as disciple and the most basic form of both words means “to learn.” When Hebrews calls upon his readers to “endure trials for the sake of discipline”, he means for the sake of learning something very important. He means that, if we are willing, if we are alert, if we are hopeful and have faith, and if we will hang in there---we can all learn something in and through our pain that we could never learn in our lives without it. He calls this learning the “discipline of the Lord” and we can rightly translate this the “learning from the Lord”.
We all know that pain can cause us to question life. When we hurt, the first thing we want is some kind of explanation, purpose or meaning. “Why me?" "Why is God doing this to me?" “Do I deserve this?” "Why?" We all ask these kinds of questions because our pain raises them up out of our soul. This is not all bad either. We might not even stop our busy lives to reflect and think at all---unless something happens that stops us in our tracks. When we stop we raise questions and when we raise questions, we start seeking answers and we also learn. We don't alway learn how to answer our questions, but we might learn something else even more important: How to learn to live with the questions we can't answer.
I remember right after I had my car wreck when I was 17, I was “favoring” my left leg and my good leg was taking on a lot of extra pressure. The way it started showing up was a ingrown toe nail. I went to the doctor at Baptist for an ingrown toenail. That was a mistake. Baptist Hospital doctors have a lot bigger fish to fry. They don’t
have much patience for ingrown toenails. But I was just a kid, I didn’t realize this. So, I go in to have my toenail looked at and the Doctor, looks and quickly says, “we can take care of that.” He turns, grabs his sterilized pliers and with one quick pull, off comes my toenail.
Still in shock and in excruciating pain, I’m grab my toe and shouted at him, “You could have warned me first!” After I started taking control of myself, I then asked him, “How can I keep you from ever doing that again!” His prescription was simple and sure. He said, “When you feel like it’s getting ingrown, don’t ignore it, but take a little piece of cotton and push is under your nail and it will heal.” If you don’t want the bigger pain again, don’t ignore the little pain, learn from it, and deal with it early before it gets worse.”
There was a lot of pain in that moment, but there was also a great lesson that has enabled me to self-cure all my ingrown toenails and I’ve even helped a few other people with theirs. Interestingly, I've learned the great lesson in pain is not just about curing toenails. The lesson from the toenail taught me to deal with the little pains and hurts now and I can prevent or learn to deal with the bigger pains latter.”
THE HURT THAT CAN BRING HEALING
Hebrews teaches us about pain by giving an incredible answer to the "why" of our pain, if we ready for it. But let me warn you. This is not a simple answer. It can be a very complex one. And it can be also be easily misunderstood. What is most often misunderstood is that Hebrew’s answer is to the specific emotional hurt of suffering for Jesus in this world and it is not an answer to all our pains and hurts. It is an answer to those who are willing to dare stay with Jesus and to suffer for righteousness’ sake in a world that can be very unrighteousness and cruel.
For example: When you speak of “enduring trials as the “Lord’s” discipline” this is so easily used by others as a scare tactic to imply that our God is some kind of controlling God who automatically whips up on his people when they sin. The truth is that God set the world up in a way that sin can eventually do its own whipping (ask David Letterman or Bernie Maddoff) with or without God’s help. As a matter of face, in this text God's people are already being whipped around by the sins and pains of the world and the writer Hebrews is looking for God in the midst of the pain. The point is not how God spanks us when we are sinful, but the point of the text is how God's love has not abandoned us even when we have to deal with the hurts and pains of being faithful to Jesus. It is not the "bad" they have done, which brought the Hebrews great pain, but it is the "good" they need to continuing doing by not neglecting their faith and their salvation. If you miss this truth behind the text, you will miss the whole point of the text.
The intent of this text is not to scare us into submission by a God who spanks, but it a God who loves us, teaches us, and trains us, even through the hardest, most difficult moments of life we can ever face. Look how this “training of love’ now what comes out of this parental picture of discipline in the remainder of the text: Consider what he says in verse 9: “Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness. 11 Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
I can’t say enough how hard it is for some people to read this text. Some of us can’t read anything about pain being used for good because we are still dealing some deep hurts in our lives that are still unresolved. Some can only imagine a God who whips up on us in cruel ways. What we need to see, rather than a whipping post God, is a God who is working in the pain---working in and behind the pain to bring something good out of it.
I especially like the final words of this text in Hebrews 12: 12-13 because it speaks directly to those of us who might think it better to go another way, or even take the easy way, and avoid the pain, the hurt, or to resist the discipline we need, and run from the pain instead of resolving to face it and to look for the love behind it.
So here is the final lesson from Hebrews. Here is what we must be learn: In our struggle against the evil and hurt of this world and you feel as if life itself is giving you a whipping, especially when you've tried to do what is right---when this happens to you, also picture this: Know that love has not abandoned you. Know that behind all the pain you feel, God is there like a loving Father, who has taken the rod of hurt away from dark powers of this world and he has turned the worse you can feel into a tool of love, healing and grace. Because God is this loving Father who is right there with you---making sure you when you hurt, you don’t hurt alone---making sure that when you hurt for nothing, you still have a reason to carry on—and making sure, like a good Father does, that you don’t have more on you than you can bear----and of course, making sure that when it hurts you the most, you know it’s hurting him too. God is like a Father who stands with us and when you look at him, you don’t look into the devil’s eyes anymore, but you look straight into the eyes of a loving Father’s eyes, which are filled with tears of love, because he is weeping for you and with you, both when the world tumbles in or even when you have brought this upon yourself. “Therefore”… since we know that even in the worst pain, that love is there, our loving Father, “therefore”, he says…. are you ready? “Lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
The image is clear. If you give into your hurt and pain and stop moving, your life can shut down. Just like a body shuts down, so can your soul shut down. I don’t think any of could keep going very long, if love wasn’t behind it all. This is what the gospel says. Love is behind it… God’s love. Hebrews says because God’s love is even there in the hurts, we don’t have to walk through the pains of life with lame souls. Just as the physically lame can learn not to have their life put out of joint because of their physical ailments, so to can we learn to face the mental and emotional stress we are under. We can find the strength, and the discipline which can bring healing to deepest hurts, if we will discover for ourselves, the love that is behind it. Amen.
© 2009 All rights reserved Charles J. Tomlin, B.A., M.Div. D.Min.
© 2009 All rights reserved Charles J. Tomlin, B.A., M.Div. D.Min.
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