What about the bad stuff?

What About the Bad Stuff? The Dover Church
November 7, 2010 –24th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture: Psalm 145, Job 19:23-27a

When I hiked the pilgrim Camino de Santiago de Compostello this summer, I was told: take regular breaks, drink lots of water and eat lots of fruit and nuts, don’t push it too hard on any one day because you’ll have to get up the next day and do it again, and take good care of your feet by changing your socks several times every day and treating blisters before they form. I followed this advice scrupulously, until the third day…when I met Kevin.
I didn’t know Kevin’s name at the time. I only knew him as the smallish, older man with trecking poles in both hands and a big floppy hat on his head, who always seemed to be making extraordinary time. In other words, I noticed him as he went zooming by me. I don’t know how he kept ending up behind me so that he could go zooming by, but there he would be, several times every day, walking briskly by me.
We finally ended up together just as we came to a steep, thousand meter climb out of a river valley. I greeted him in French, to which he responded, “Terribly sorry, mate, but I don’t speak French.” To which I answer, “neither do I, buddy. I’m an American.” With a pleasant smile, he looked me up and down, I was a good foot taller and maybe 60 pounds heavier than him, and said, “That you are, mate. With those great, big, long legs of yours you must just breeze up these hills, eh? What’s say we go on up to the top?” And so we did, in the matter of about half an hour, which is a pretty brisk pace to climb 3000 feet or so with a full pack.
About half way up, I could feel both my feet burning from the incline: blisters. Very bad. I hadn’t stopped to change my socks before starting the climb. Every time I thought about calling a halt, there would be Kevin’s cheerful face, chatting away. I couldn’t let this little Englishman, who had to be at least 65 if was a day, walk me into the ground.
And so, I allowed my ego to get the better of me and I destroyed my feet. I didn’t say a word of my pain to Kevin, but when he saw a goat tangled in a barbed wire fence across a field and said that he was going to go untangle it, I told him that I wanted to have a drink of water, look at the map, and would surely see him down the road. Off he went through the tall grass, while I sat down on a boulder, took off my boots, and found the worst: both feet shredded with blood and blisters, white and gooey like they had been sitting in water overnight. Three toe nails were bruised and would eventually fall off. What was I going to do? I had three more days to walk! I had 15 more miles to go that day! So I aired my feet, drank some water, wrapped the mess in duct tape, put on fresh socks, laced my boots up extra tight, shouldered my pack, and hit the trail. I never did run into Kevin again. I sort of hoped that the goat had got him, but he sent me a delighted e-mail a month ago in which he described the rest of his glorious hike.
That afternoon and the next day were tough: 40 miles on ruined feet. At times, every step sent a jolt of pain up my legs and spine right into the back of my skull. After an hour or so my feet went numb and I made good time, but whenever I stopped and unlaced my boots, it felt like someone was hitting my feet with a hammer. For two days I staggered through some absolutely glorious country called the Aubrac, high plains like Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado, without the mountains in the back ground, but the view was dulled by my desire to reach my goal, my fear of failure, and the pain.
On the fifth day, I woke up, laced up my boots, and started out. The first few miles were another climb, which really aggravated my destroyed heels. When I got to the top, I was almost in tears. What am I doing? This is supposed to be an adventure, not a nightmare. In the midst of my misery, I missed a turn in the trail and got lost. I ended up tottering along on sheep paths for a couple of hours, knowing I was lost and feeling a little desperate because the countryside was quite deserted, when I came to a village named Puy. The cathedral city I had set out from four and half days earlier was named Le Puy-en-Velay. “Ah! This must be a sign,’ I thought. “THE END! STOP! GO NO FURTHER!” I’m going home. Easier said than done. The nearest main road was an hour’s hike away, and when I arrived there that too seemed deserted. I staggered along until I heard the first car coming my way. Sticking out my thumb, the driver stopped. I put my pack in the back, climbed in, and asked, “CAN YOU TAKE ME TO THE NEAREST BUS STATION?” Actually I didn’t do that. I said it in passable French and man took me.
Watching the entire countryside it had taken me 12 hours to stagger through flash by the window in what seemed like maybe a half an hour, made me feel like a stupid failure and a wimp to boot. Imagine my chagrin at the station when I discovered that walking with only Teva sandals was relatively painless. “Hey! I could just hitch hike back to where I left off and finish the hike.” I decided against it, but ride home on the bus and trains was filled with a mixture of excitement to see my family and knawing frustration, a sense of stupidity, failure and weakness.
My friends, this is a true story. I have not even come close to exaggeration. If anything, I have understated and glossed over the physical and emotional pain I felt. While it is true, it is also a parable about the bad stuff in life, about the bad stuff that happens in our lives. Where is God in all of that? How are we to be thankful when things seem quite bad? How can we have the faith of Job who looks for our Redeemer in the midst of disaster?
Everyone I know has had bad times in their lives: serious setbacks, losses, disappointments, illness, abandonment, death, betrayal. Everyone I know has felt the real sadness, despair, anxiety, and fear which the bad stuff brings with it. Maybe it hasn’t gotten this far for any of you, but I have had times when, if even for the briefest moment, I have thought to myself, “Well, that's it. It's done, finished. Nothing is possible there anymore. I’ve hit a dead end.” Like me in the Aubrac, but with a career, relationships, family, health, the serious stuff.
Have any of you ever tried to connect the dots of how you came back from the bad stuff? Of how you got from that bad place to the good, or least better, place you are in right now? Maybe you are in a bad place right now. Having been in that bad place with all those negative thoughts and feelings, and being now in this better physical and emotional place, how did everything change for you? What was it that enabled you to get out of the hole and get going? Obviously something happened for you in your life if once you were there and now you are here, right?
Here comes to Good News. Having known bad stuff in my that makes a pair of beaten up feet look like kid’s stuff, I now live the
Resurrection. All the bad stuff was not the end of the story. Everything that had seemed bad at the time was indeed bad at the time, but it also turned out to be the beginning of the new and abundant life I love now. If those things had not happened, I would not be the person I am today and I would not have the life I love today. All of the negative thoughts and feelings were appropriate at the time. The losses were real. The old life as I had known and loved it was over. My problem was that I allowed all the bad stuff to define me. I did not let go of it when it's time was past, which kept me from seeing the real opportunities which I am now living. Imagine me going through life thinking I was the stupid, failure of a wimp just because of my ruined feet in France. Yet isn’t it true that we allow other, more significant things, to do just that to us.
God in Jesus Christ sets before each of us and all of us new and abundant life, no matter how bleak and grim the situation might seem. God in Jesus Christ brings life out of death. A faithful life is one that opens to life, all of life, the good and, perhaps most especially, the bad. Why “perhaps most especially, the bad”? Because it is the bad that closes us off from life. It is the bad that makes us give up on life. It is the bad that keeps us regretting the past, tentative with the present, and fearful of the future. It is the bad that puts us in the pot of our negative thoughts and feelings and slow cooks us in our own juices.
No matter where you are, no matter how bad things might seem, no matter how conclusive and overwhelming the bad might seem in any situation, God is in there, offering each of us opportunities to walk forward into new life. You will have your hearts broken in life. If they are broken open to new life rather than just broken to pieces, it will make all the difference. Imagine being Job, able to praise and thank God in the midst of disaster? Our world needs people like that right now. Our community, workplaces and families need people like that right now. Whenever I am reeling from something, I get down on my knees and ask God, “Where is the new life in all of this? Help me stay in this place until you come along and show me the way.”
So what about the bad stuff? It's bad and it hurts. In faith and in time, give thanks for the new life that is sure to spring forth. I can assure you it has made all the difference in my life. Where was the new life in my ruined feet this summer, you might ask? Well, I have so much more to tell you, but I will just say that I am going back to the Aubrac with gentler boots and less ego and pick up where God left off with me. For all of you? Maybe this sermon has been a little bit of new life if it sets something free in you. May it be so. Amen.