Sermon: Expansive Grace and Envious Grumbling

[ previous | index | next ]

Expansive Grace and Envious Grumbling ^[i]

By Charles Rush

May 17, 2009

[ Audio (mp3, 6.8Mb) ]

have been recently reading an interesting book on leadership by Richard Farson where he calls into question a number of platitudes about leadership and management.^[ii] One of them is the notion that we ‘learn from our mistakes' In fact, that is not true, despite the fact that we repeat this maxim over and over. Most of us continue to make the very same mistakes repeatedly throughout our life because the most characteristic mistakes are who we are in fact.

Conversely, the whole business of leadership training seminars is predicated on the notion that we learn from other people's success. That is why corporations spend top nickel for highly successful people to come tell their employees how they did it. After 30 years in the business, Farson has concluded that this is not true either. This is what he says that caught my attention, not only as a leader, but also especially as a Minister.

“While we may think we are motivated by hearing about the success of others, believe it or not, little is more encouraging or energizing that learning about or witnessing another's failure, especially if it is an expert. [Think, for example, the sheer joy that hack golfers exhibit, when Tiger Woods shanks one into the water]. But there is an even stronger reason why we can learn from the failures. It has to do with our ability as human beings to relate better to people in their failures than in their successes, and to learn more in the process.

“The psychologist Carl Rogers used to say that he didn't really know how to talk to people unless they were talking to him about a problem they had. At first I thought that was an unfortunate limitation in his personality. But then I came to realize that to some extent it was true for me too, that I related to people so much better when they were talking to me about their failures than about their successes. I have since noticed this is true of people generally. Very few of us are capable of responding to another's success with the same sensitivity and wholeheartedness that we extend to that person's failure. Few of us also have the insight or the honesty of author Gore Vidal, who remarked, ‘Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.' But it is more than that. Responding to failure seems to bring out something good in us. . It is less easy for us to share the experience of success than to share the experience of failure.

“Perhaps that's why gossip is such a unifying force. We attach to gossip the most derogatory terms, yet is probably the single most community-building and social-bonding experience we have. Gossip seldom revolves around the description of others' successes, however, because sharing stories of other's troubles is what brings us together.”

It is those hushed conversations around the lunch table at work, on the patio at the cocktail party, which is the glue that unites us.

This is curious fact and a spiritual insight worthy of highlighting. In our story this morning, we have what I think is one of Jesus' central teachings- the expansive character of grace and the envious character of grumbling. We have a group of workers grumbling at quitting time. Why? The first group was hired for a full day's wages at the beginning of the day. They were not ripped off or bargained down. The boss didn't get them on the cheap. He paid them union wage and benefit. And they happily agreed to go to work. In fact, they are probably happy all the day long, and why not be- they have work and a fair wage. They will come home with food for the children and maybe something special for the Mrs..

Then come people at noon and another group at 3 in the afternoon. At the end of the day. The owner is incredibly beneficent and simply pays them a full day's wage anyhow.

Now the first group grumbles. They are now unhappy. They do not say ‘Whoa good for you guys getting a full days wage. Maybe you'll buy a round of beer.' No. They say ‘it's not fair'. From the time we are 3 years old, we have developed this sense of justice. And from that time, we most often invoke the need for justice when we perceive that our needs are not being met. Now we invoke fairness. Now we need justice.

Take two four year olds at Nursery school. A kid is happily playing with a truck in the sandbox. Then he notices that Max has two trucks. Now he is unhappy and he goes to the teacher, voice shaking with emotion. “Kate, Max has two trucks and I only have one, it's not fair”. Kate will say “Now Noah, you have a wonderful truck and you love your truck. Why don't we just go over to this sandbox and you can have the whole sandbox to yourself?” And this is a real line from little Noah “Max has ruined all of my happiness”. Isn't that a great line ‘Max has ruined all of my happiness'?

Frequently, we would be perfectly content left to ourselves. It is only when we compare ourselves to others that the grumbling begins. As the saying goes. “Nothing depreciates a car faster than having a neighbor buy a new one.” Or we might update that for our town in the 90's “Nothing makes you feel so cramped in your domicile as the handsome addition on your neighbors home.” It has been said that you can divide the world into two groups of people, those who think there will be enough for everyone and those who are convinced that if others get more, somehow they will not get enough. Which camp are you in most of the time?

And it is not just about material things either. One time someone asked Henry Kissinger why the fights on the faculty at Harvard were so prolonged and intense. He had a great response. He said ‘because there is so little at stake'. Apparently Harvard Don's can hold a grudge far longer than Robert MacNamara or Nyung Din Thieu. I used to think that scholars ought to be the most generous class in society because if you take out the corrupting influence of power and the seduction of money, and you mix in a broad appreciation of the humanities, you should have true gentleman and ladies. And you do of course. There is often terrific wit and charm at lunch. But it is also the case, that when you take out power and money, all you have left is reputation. Bolstering reputation, guarding, promoting reputation can be full time work and can exercise the ego far more than the crass exploitation of power and money.

Plato and Xenephon were contemporaries. Both were students of Socrates. Both ran in the same circle of eminent Greek citizens. Both knew each other. Both were voluminous writers. And yet, neither one of them ever mentioned the other a single time in their work. They treated each other as if their reputation were of no regard. This may be the cruelest cut that envy can muster.

In this regard envy is not a productive by-product of competition. It has been said that envy is the consuming desire ‘to have everybody as unsuccessful as you are' (Fredrick Buechner). When it is full blown, envy is somewhat different from greed or competitiveness. ‘Unlike a greedy person, the person afflicted by envy (phthonos) does not necessarily want the goods they resent another having; they simply don't want others to have them. They differ from a competitive person in that their aim is not to win but to keep others from winning.' (Anchor Bible Dictionary, p. 529). The Germans used to call this condition ‘schadenfruede'. It is when you relish in the demise of your neighbor. And neighbor is not very helpful in our culture because we are too mobile. You are most likely to allow your imagination to have free rein with envious thoughts with colleagues, with siblings, with very close friends. These are people you are most likely to really measure your self-esteem against. [On the phone with your fantastically successful sister. “Oh dear, I'm so sorry your husband drove the Mercedes through the garage and into your living room… Just before the party… and just before the fundraiser for Mayor Bloomberg too… terrible. Maybe you can call your interior decorator and now you can trade in the Magenta curtains for something in chartreuse].

Envious grumbling is not about others and what they have. The real issue is about us. It is about our self-esteem and self-acceptance. This is fundamentally a spiritual issue as Jesus illustrates. It is about the anxious fear that we have that we are not measuring up, that we are not lovable, that we are not as cool as other people. It is about our fear that we are not going to be taken care of by others or by God. It is about our anxieties over our perceived deficiency and our fears that our deficiency is going to expose us in a vulnerable way. It is about allowing our fears to control us, unleashing negative spiritual emotions towards others as a defensive technique. As the Jewish proverb notes ‘Love is blind. Envy sees too much.' The poet Joan Didion is right. She says ‘to cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self.'

Jesus contrasts our envious grumbling with the expansive grace of God, which is the only real antidote. We have to experience the profound acceptance of God in our lives and know that we are okay just like we are. Grace has to get into us, into our very pores, not just cover the image that we carefully manage for others to see. Grace has to pour over all of us. We don't have to use competition with others for our sense of well being. We don't have to be motivated negatively, driven by our fears and anxieties. God offers us a positive spiritual center and a positive spiritual energy. Jesus tells us that God loves us and frees us to love one another.

I have come to realize that it takes a conversion of the heart before we can genuinely pull for each other. . It is not simple to sustain positive spiritual energy. But this is the message of Jesus. Jesus encourages us to draw on positive spiritual energy, to empower others and lift them up. This takes a conversion of the heart and mind. Others report that this was the magnetism of Mother Theresa, that when you were in her presence you were lifted up by her positive spiritual energy.

One of the most powerful and simple things that we can do to release positive spiritual energy for one another is to bless each other. You can begin with your children. Parents should single out their kids, lay your hands on them and pray together that God will bless them with wisdom, character, compassion, understanding, grace, and love. And your spouse… you should bless them often. Dionne Warwick's wonderful song ‘Each morning I wake up/ before I put on my make up/ I say a little prayer for you.'

From time to time, someone in the congregation will pop into my head reasons I can't always articulate. And I have learned to take a moment and stop. I hold the image of them in my mind for a moment and I ask God to bless them with grace.

I know that each of us is surrounded by negative emotions and negative spiritual impulses by our jobs and the values of the marketplace which impact us directly and indirectly. I know that we are periodically swamped with challenges and frustrations that give an opening for the release of our negative side. So I stop from time to time and pray for positive spirituality to engulf you. You ought to try this too. As you go through the day at work, pray for a blessing on your colleagues. When you are having a difficult negotiation, pray for the release of positive spiritual energy. For your loved ones, pray God's blessing on them.

I think of it as opening a channel. Jesus suggests that there is a reciprocal relationship between our praying and our activity towards others. Each week we pray ‘forgive us (horizontal) as we forgive others'. We open the channel of divine love as we love one another. We open the flow of grace as we bless others and ask God's grace upon them.

And here is another phenomenon about grumbling. It doesn't necessarily end when our needs are met. A lot of you are thinking ‘well if I just had enough power, if I just had a big pile of money' I wouldn't grumble. Not exactly.

“Psychologist Abraham Maslow… advised mangers to listen not for the presence or absence of complaints, but rather to what people were complaining about- that is the quality or level of complaint. He called them grumbles. In the least healthy organizations, Maslow said, you can expect to hear low-order grumbles-complaints about working conditions, about what he called ‘deficiency needs.' For example ‘I don't get paid enough' or ‘It's too hot in here.'

“In a healthier organization, Maslow said, there would be high-order grumbles- complaints that extend beyond the self to more altruistic concerns: ‘did you hear what happened to the people over in Plant Two? They really got cheated.' Or ‘We need better safety standards around here'. But in a very healthy organization, there would be ‘metagrumbles'- complaints having to so with needs for self-actualization: ‘I don't feel that my talents are being fully utilized'. Or, ‘I don't feel that I'm in on things enough around here.”

The great irony, of course, is that it is only when people's talents are being used and when they are being included that it ever occurs to them that this is an issue to complain about.

Likewise, we tendency towards envious grumbling does not necessarily disappear when our lower order needs are met. If anything, the temptation is magnified. Think of marriage. On the whole, the institution of marriage has been getting better and better throughout the 20th century. In the beginning part of the century, the divorce rate was low and hardly anyone went for counseling. They just gutted it out. As our marriages got better and better, people began to expect more from marriage and when a number of the remedial needs were met, they began to seek out counseling in order to achieve deeper intimacy, trust, and love. Today, the divorce rate is higher and people grumble more about their marriages than they did in 1920, in part, because they are so much better and we expect so much more fulfillment out of marriage than they did then.

As with marriage, so with so many other areas of our lives. We have a rising standard of expectation which means that the temptation to grumbling increases as we have more. It doesn't go away. And the very root anxieties about our selves, our fears about not being acceptable, increase. They do not decrease.

Jesus calls us to a manner of living where we consciously stand against the negative spiritual energy that anxiety releases. Jesus calls us to release the expansive spirit of grace in our midst, to build one another up, to bless one another. This doesn't mean that we have no criticism of each other or that it is all sweet gushy butter. No. But it does mean that we regularly lift each other up and say “I want the best for you. I want you to be all that God has in store for you”. We are the people that release blessing on each other. Amen.

[i] A version of this sermon was preached by Rev Rush on Oct 12, 1997.

[ii] Farson, Richard. The Management of the Absurd (New York: Touchstone Press)