Moving From Negativity to Creativity (Part 2)

Genesis 12:1-3

Ephesians 4:29-32

I posted on Twitter and Facebook Friday: “Presbyterians should pray that I can find 4 decent pages in the 12 I’ve written for Sunday’s sermon.”

My friend and colleague, Alex Knott, pastor of First Presbyterian in Parsons, responded with the comment, “I’ll take the 8 you don’t use.”  But the rest of the comments were a showcase of negativity.

My wife Stephanie commented, “We may want to fast and pray.”  My brother Jordan commented, “Make it 2 or 3 pages, no one will care.”  Craig Campbell offered this snark, “You’re preaching two weeks in a row?”  And that sesspool of negativity Phil Hammons suggested, “Why don’t you use one of Gordon Zimmerman’s old sermons?  Surely it would be more timely and informative.”

So I considered responding to these negative attacks.  But I decided simply to preach all 12 pages as an act of revenge.

Last week we started a conversation about moving from negativity to creativity.  And we focused first on dealing with the negativity within ourselves.  Today we’ll focus on dealing with the negativity of others, the negativity around us.  (This is a pretty artificial distinction, of course, because the negativity around us has a way of worming its way inside of us!).

By “creativity” I just mean the ability to solve problems and meet challenges in ways that contribute to our health and growth as human beings loved by God.

You can see this creative problem solving at work all around you.  I think of Larry Thompson.  Larry has been through a series of medical challenges that made it impossible for him to go back to his job.  And he has responded to that difficult challenge by spending more time helping others.  He was tremendously helpful in preparing for the garage sale.

I think of Otie Thomas who had the challenge of responding to the loss of his spouse.  And he has found a way to move forward, staying productive, enjoying friendships, and volunteering and making a difference in our congregation and youth group.  And many of you have moved past negativity to the beauty and creativity of making a difference.

The reason I know a little something about negativity is that I experience it in myself.  But God is helping me work through it.  And what has made the difference for me is simply allowing God’s goodness to settle deeper into my heart.  God has not been a griping, complaining presence in my life.  God is not primarily interested in all that’s wrong with me.  God has treated me as if I’m capable of loving and being loved, and has gently invited me forward into an experience of that newness.  And I have found this life of grace intoxicating.  Now that I’ve tasted it I want nothing else.

The stakes today are very high.  If you do not find a way to deal with the negativity around you, it will ruin your life.  But if you can find in yourself the gracious, hopeful energy of God’s Spirit, you will save not only your own life but maybe the lives of others.

Our reading from Genesis 12 is one of the most important episodes in all the Hebrew Bible.  God calls Abram to gather his family and leave his father’s home in Haran to set off for a land called Canaan.  And God promises to bless Abram.  This is the most primary and basic picture of who God is.  God is a blessing God.  God blesses, enriches, enhances, energizes, and shines on all things so they can flourish. 

Notice, though, that God’s way of blessing us is also the model for they way we relate to ourselves, to one another, to the community, and to the earth.

“I will bless you,” says God to Abram.  “And you will be a blessing.”  “I will bless you,” God says to Abram, “and all people on earth will be blessed through you.”

This circulation of blessing is what God wants. God relates to all things as the source of blessing.  And this blessing never stops or loses energy.  It keeps circulating among and between all that God has made.  It is a blessing that supports, encourages, builds up, and strengthens.  And wherever this blessing fails, or gets blocked, Scripture calls “sin.”  And I’m using the word “negativity.”

This way of “blessing” stands in sharp contrast to the violence conveyed by Cain’s killing of his brother Abel in Genesis 4.  To choose against the way of blessing is to choose the worst kind of life. To turn away from the source of blessing is really a kind of death-spiral for all involved. 

Jesus lived out this way of blessing.  He lived with hope in the face of danger and despair.  He believed in the best possibilities of God’s kingdom of love even in the face of his own death.  And he calls us to live with this same hope. 

So if God is a God of blessing, why is it that we experience so much negativity around us?  Where does all this negativity come from?  What feeds and sustains it? 

Examples of this negativity are not hard to find . . . that spouse or parent who finds the worst in everything; that friend who is always auditioning for a role as Debbie Downer; that coworker who gossips and complains about everyone; that person who labels every new idea stupid but never seems to offer any creative alternatives.  Where does this negativity get its power?  The negativity around us usually comes from one of three places, or a combination.

1.     Personal Pain – Jesus teaches in Mark 7 that the most important marker of a life is not the food that goes into your mouth but what flows out of your heart.  What’s deep in each person’s life gets played out eventually.  It might seep out slowly over a lifetime, or it might explode at some point.  Like I said last week, those who are most negative are people who do not like themselves.  Show me a person who is negative about others, about their community, about new ideas, and I will show you a person who hates some part of themselves.  But the road to life-change is very difficult.  And one way we avoid taking responsibility for our lives is to direct our negativity toward our surroundings and those around us.

2.     Grinding Poverty – Research has shown that poverty involves a kind of stress that rewires the brain.  Being poor means that most of your mental energy goes into survival. Financial stress absorbs your attention in a way that makes it difficult to give attention to other things; if you’re hungry you can’t focus or plan or set goals; if your life is chaotic and unplanned you will focus only on the moment; you will not trust others; you will be susceptible to feelings of meaninglessness and worthlessness; you will have a hard time imagining a good future.  Our community faces real economic challenges.  And there’s no getting around the reality that poverty makes it difficult to be hopeful.

3.     Harmful Storytelling – It is not natural to feel negative about your own life or the place you live.  Someone has to teach that to you.  Someone has to play the role of storyteller.  And most forms of media are designed to make you feel negative about your life and the place where you live.  Magazines, TV shows, films, and websites make us discontent by drawing our attention to important people who live in important places.  And the message sent to the rest of us is that you are not very important and you should be ashamed of the place where you live. 

My point here is not to overwhelm us with the power of negativity.  My point is rather to say that these demons are no less real than the demons Jesus cast out of people during his ministry.  And God is still at work giving people like us freedom from these destructive powers in our lives.

Do you see what an amazing opportunity we have to make a difference?  If we can identify and begin dealing with the fear and anger and shame in our own hearts, we can make a huge difference in ministry to others.  There is an enormous need here in our community for people trained to model a new way to live.  The potential is exciting and potentially transforming not just for us, but for our neighbors, friends, and workplaces; and for the wider community.

I want to offer a little practical guidance for those of you in close relationships with negative people . . .   

Remember that the most negative people you know are absolutely miserable.  So as best you can, be merciful.  Someone has taught them to hate themselves.  And no one has helped them process that internal negativity in healthy ways.  And so they are blindly spraying it outward as a way of distracting themselves from the hard work that it takes for every single one of us to become the people we want to be.

Remember that God is in the heart-changing business, and that your presence in their lives might be part of God’s beautiful plan to slowly and gradually lure them to a more hopeful kind of life.  So see it as a leadership opportunity for yourself (but don’t fall into the trap of having a messianic complex and feeling like it’s your job to fix everyone). 

But if over time you find that this poison is leeching its way into you, then you will need to consider either reducing the closeness of the relationship or cutting it off altogether.  If you find that some of your significant relationships are with negative people, you have some hard decisions to make.  But the worst decision you can make is to stay in that relationship passively and let its negativity continue to affect you. 

You cannot fix anyone else.  All you can do is to live with hope and relate to others in the way of blessing.  Our reading from Ephesians 4 teaches that we are to regulate our speech so that all way say is a source of blessing. 

In the language of Ephesians, it looks like this, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (4:31).  But these aren’t pencil scribblings in our lives that can be erased.  These aren’t computer files that can simply be dragged into the trash and deleted with a mouse click.  These are deeply entrenched, habitual grooves that have a grip on us.  This is a death-dealing way of life that has pulled us into a deep pit.

But there is hope.  Look at what has already begun happening in the center of you, in your heart: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (4:32).  Ah, now here we can see how this happens.  People who move past negativity to creativity are people who find deep connections with God’s love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ. That is, people who learn to live with hope and kindness and good energy are people who live from their hearts.

You have tremendous power as a human being.  When we use words to encourage and build the goodness in others and in our congregation and community, we begin to share in God’s work of blessing all things.  The power of negativity is considerable.  But the power of hope and creativity and love is much, much stronger.