Today’s Scripture Reading (May 22,
2016): Psalm 87 & 88
Dr. Guy
Winch wrote an article for Psychology Today in 2013 entitled “10 Surprising
Facts about Rejection.” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201307/10-surprising-facts-about-rejection)
Here is Winch’s Top Ten List. 1.
Rejection piggybacks on physical pain pathways in the brain. In other
words, when you are rejected, the pain that is produced feels like it is
physical and it is real. Rejection hurts the same way as breaking your arm
hurts – you feel the pain. That being true, maybe Winch’s second point shouldn’t
surprise us – 2. Tylenol reduces the
emotional pain that rejection produces. Because the pain of rejection
mimics physical pain, Tylenol actually works. Maybe that is part of the reason
why the misuse of painkillers is so high
in our culture.
Winch also
asserts that 3. Rejection served a vital
function in our evolutionary past. The truth is that it wasn’t all that
long ago when existence alone just wasn’t possible. And because we experience
rejection as pain, we learned quickly to avoid the things that caused it. And
rejection is held longer in our memories – 4.
We can relive and re-experience social pain more vividly than we can physical
pain. Just try to remember an old pain in your life, maybe the last time
you hit your finger with a hammer. We remember it, but we really usually don’t
relive the moment. That is not true for social pain. When you remember someone
rejecting you, you relive the pain as if is it is happening to you right now.
5. Rejection destabilizes our “Need
to Belong.” We can
actually begin to think that we don’t need other people. We are alone and we
become comfortable in being alone – even though that is not really true. 6. Rejection creates surges of anger and aggression.
There is a huge warning here for those of us who believe that Muslims
should be segregated or barred from membership in our society. All such action
will likely accomplish is to increase the violence. School shootings over the
past few years should have taught us that lesson very clearly.
7. Rejection sends us on a mission to seek and destroy our self-esteem. We are the reason for the rejection.
We might pretend that is not the case, but it really is just pretending. And
somehow the more we pretend the more fragile our self-esteem becomes. 8. Rejection temporarily lowers our IQ. Yep,
it is now official. Being on the receiving end of rejection makes us stupid.
9. Rejection does not respond to
reason. So the next
time you try to tell someone that they are “just being emotional,” you are
completely right. And you should know that there is very little that you can
say that will change that – and there is definitely no rational argument that
is going to have any effect. So please don’t bother telling them to “just get
over it.”
Winch’s last
point is that 10. There are ways to
treat the psychological wounds that rejection inflicts. But that way is not
in ignoring what happened. Just like an infection needs to be treated, so
rejection needs to be acknowledged and treated. Going around pretending that
the pain isn’t real; isn’t going to help. We have to be willing to confront the
pain.
So what does
all this have to do with this Psalm? Psalm 88 has been called the saddest Psalm
in the Psalter. It is a lament of extreme distress. It is a description of
ultimate rejection. And yet, my first question as I read through the Psalm is
to question whether God is really the one who has rejected the Psalmist. I have
been brought up to believe that God is the balm that soothes my rejection and
not the cause of it.
Yet Winch
reminds me that rejection is not logical. If it feels to the Psalmist that the
rejection has come from God then, because rejection is not logical, the
rejection must have come from God. (Some scholars actually place this psalm
much later than we have it here and stress that the words and the idea of being
rejected by God fits much better into the time period dominated by the exile of
Israel into Babylon, but any date for the Psalm is just guesswork, we just
really don’t know when it was written.)
Maybe my
takeaway from Psalm 88 is simply this – as a church we play a role in how the
world sees God, and we cannot allow rejection to be part of that vision. The stakes
are too high and the real pain caused by rejection is too great. Maybe this is
precisely why Paul warned the Ephesians to -
… not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is
helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit
those who listen. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with
whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger,
brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate
to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you
(Ephesians 4:29-32).
Because rejection from us could be seen as God’s rejection. And that pain might be more real and lasting than any
other.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 50
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