Takoma Park Baptist Church, Washington, DC September 14, 1986
Some weeks ago I told you that one of my principal projects in starting my service as your pastor would have to be spending time trying to learn my way around the city of Takoma Park. DC I can handle and Silver Spring is a breeze, but Takoma Park was evidently the creation of a blind surveyor who was drunk half the time and sleepy the other half. And so one day last week I struck out to visit somebody, consulted my maps and my memory, and bravely struck out to find a certain street. What I found, instead, was New Hampshire Avenue. So I turned around, had another run at it, steered blissfully west, and came out right there, on New Hampshire Avenue. Nothing to do but park and study the map and memorize the turns and twists, and then drive with one eye on the road and the other on the map on the seat beside me: right here, left there, U-turn now, here we come, this must be, no, no, I think this is, oh wow, New Hampshire Avenue. Now that's frustration. Frustration when you just can't get there from here; frustration when every plan and plot and stratagem you devise runs back to the same deadly place. Never did like New Hampshire Avenue all that much anyway. Frustration.
Frustration comes when you can't get where you need to go, you can't do what you need and want to do. Frustration is going with your son out to the highway where he has abandoned his worthless bucket of bolts to try to work on it, only to find that your socket wrench set, having both English and metric sizes in every conceivable shape and length and form, is missing only one piece – just one little socket, namely, the one you absolutely have to have the disconnect the flibbertgibbet from the whamfrazzle. Frustration.
Frustration, I say, is knowing what you want to do, even what you must do, and finding that no matter how you attack it, it can't be done. It just cannot be done. Frustration is that feeling of near panic you have when you have tried everything to accomplish what you know must be accomplished, yet it will not budge. Frustration must have been the feeling that surged up within actor Peter Sellers, for example, when over and over he called to his wife to ask her to bring him a cup of coffee, and either she couldn't hear or she wouldn't hear, and so in a few moments she was indeed startled to find a messenger at the front door with a telegram. "I'm in the den. Please bring coffee. Peter." You feminists, don't shoot me for telling that story, you have to admit it does illustrate what frustration is.
Now all of this sounds frivolous, I know, but it serves to point up that you and I at both surface and profound levels experience frustration. We face all kinds of situations, some of them inconsequential, sure, but many of them terribly important, in which what we feel, day after day, is frustration. There are so many things we know we want to do, but the barriers are up, the roadblocks are high, and we just can't get there from here. There may be a job you want to do, but you have a coworker or even a boss who just will not let you do it. They don't understand what you're after, they are dimwits who don't appreciate what you're trying to do, and you just can't get around them.
There may be a goal you're trying to reach professionally or in your education or in your family life, but nobody understands nobody sympathizes, nobody even seems to care. You need their help, you have to have their cooperation, but it never comes. Frustration. It's like trying to dance the proverbial tango; it takes, they say, two to tango (Baptist preachers are not certain about this subject, you know) – they say it takes two to tango, but you cannot find a partner, you cannot claim a soul-mate, nobody understands. Frustration.
Frustration when you want to do something, you must do it, it seems so right, but no one else sees it that way. And it gets worse yet when it's a matter of principle, when it's a matter of moral principle. You might even say, this thing I want to do, it's the will of God, it's what the Spirit of the Lord has led me to do. Now why can't the rest of you see that? Frustration.
There came a juncture in the life of the nation Israel when it was apparent there would have to be some sort of change in the structure of leadership. The prophet Samuel had ruled the people for many years, sometimes by showing them God's truth, sometimes bullying a little bit, sometimes just moving on sheer momentum; but rule he had. For many years they had trusted this prophet who had been called of God when he was but a child, but now Samuel was old. And Samuel's rule was no longer quite as effective as it had been, the creative edge was gone, and the people felt restless. Samuel, Samuel, you've been good for us, yes, we acknowledge that; but now that it's time for you to get on the rocking chair at the Old Prophet's Home, we'll tell you what we want. We want a King. We want a King. Just like Edom and Moab and just like the Amalekites and the Amorites, we want a king. We want to be like all the other nations, we're tired of being different, we're tired of this God says business. Give us a King.
Well, I can tell you that for Samuel KING spells frustration. All these years he had served, all these years he had taught these people to be proud of their distinctives, all the sermons and the speeches and the teaching and the energy that had gone into telling them that they were different from all the nations, and now what do they say? We don't want to be different, we want to be like all the nations. What a frustration! Any parent who has tried to buy the wrong lunchbox or the wrong jeans for schoolchildren this year will know in a small way what Samuel felt. Frustration galore. You want to be like all the people? But I have told you that God himself is your king. You need no earthly king.
Sorry, Samuel, our minds are made up. Give us a King. Frustration for God's prophet, a sadness of the soul which burdens him and shapes the rest of his career. But I want you to see that Samuel handled that frustration, he brought his frustration to his relationship with the Living God, and that made a difference. Watch with me and learn with me how we might, like this prophet, pray through our frustrations.
I
The first thing we ought to notice is that often frustration gets its power over us because we are insecure, because we feel personal rejection, even when it isn't there. What the people said was, “You are old and your sons are not suitable, so we want a King.” That's what the people said, but what Samuel heard was more like, "You're not fit anymore. You can't handle it. You're a failure, a flop." And frustration comes out of that insecurity, that anxiety that wells up in us when we feel personally rejected. The people wanted a change in the political order that Samuel had labored so carefully to build, and he could not escape the notion that he himself had lost their confidence.
But now here is where praying through our frustrations begins to pay off for us. Samuel took this frustration, this sense of rejection, to his God. And God's answer for Samuel set the whole issue in proper perspective: "They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being King over them." Samuel, don't you see, they have not rejected you as a person, they have not told you that you are worthless; no, what they have rejected is God as king, they have rejected your idea, they have turned their back on your dream. But that's not the same thing as devaluing you.
My Father-in-law, as some of you know, is a Britisher and a retired professor. When he came to this country to teach some 34 years ago, he says that he quickly discovered that if you challenge an American student's idea, if you criticize his thinking, then he takes it as a personal insult. My father-in- law found that, unlike Europeans, Americans tend to get their ideas and their opinions, their projects and their hopes, all bound up and confused with their personhood. And so if someone says to one of us, “I think you are wrong, I think you are mistaken,” we get all insulted and torn up inside and feeling rejected.
Well, that's where Samuel was, exactly. But as he worked through his rejection in his prayer, the Lord who sees and knows all things in their true perspective showed him another way of thinking, offered him another way to feel. “Take it easy, Samuel, they have not rejected you; no, they have rejected your idea, your concept, they have rejected me from being King over you.” Samuel, Samuel, don't misplace your anger; they have rejected God. That ought to make you angry. That's what you should feel some tension about. But Samuel, what you really feel is shame and disappointment, you've taken this thing personally; and God shows Samuel, God shows us, if we will but use the perspective power of prayer, what the true dimensions of our frustrations are.
II
Now I also want you to see, as we follow Samuel's dialogue with Israel, and as we trace his communication with the Father, that his frustration was deepened because he had to deal with other people. He had to convince and to communicate, and it wasn't working. Frustration is all the more intense when the thing that blocks your path is the will of others, or, we could say, the misunderstanding of others.
Poor old Samuel; he had taught and preached and convinced and argued, but it seems they would not understand. He argued himself blue in the face, as they say, without success. Anyone of you who has tried to teach somebody else to do something will know what Samuel faced. You show them and you tell them and you guide them and you urge them, and they still do it wrong. Frustration, intensified because what you want to do and need to do depends on someone else learning it and accepting it, but they just will not. They don't understand.
Pity the poor preacher for a moment. Can you guess what it feels like when I'm standing at that back door, having preached a most persuasive and powerful, poignant and pungent point, only to have someone say, “I enjoyed that, because …” and then go on to make a comment that is diametrically opposed to what I really did say? No, Sam, I'm not talking about you, you always get it right. But can you imagine the frustration?
Now that's where Samuel was. All of his career had been invested in one great lesson: God is your king, you need no other. You are different; you, Israel, are distinctive. And what do they say? “We don’t want to be different. We want a king.”
By the way, every parent here can identify with one aspect of the Samuel story. Nothing is more frustrating in this business of leading people than to discover that your own flesh and blood are slow to understand. Did you catch those plaintive words about Samuel's sons? “His sons did not walk in his ways.” His sons did not walk in his ways; how sharper than a serpent's tooth an ungrateful child: But surely this increased Samuel's frustration; if he could not communicate with his own sons, if his own offspring did not share his values, how could he even begin to expect that the people would share them?
What is my point? Frustration is deepened and intensified when you are dealing with people, when what you want to do and have to do is blocked by people who simply have not caught the vision.
Now what happens when Samuel takes that dimension of his frustration to the Lord in his prayer? What does our God offer to his prophet, now not only an anointed prophet but also a very much annoyed prophet?
"Hearken to their voice.” (That is the voice of the people; hearken to their voice). However, “however you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them." Samuel, here is what you must do: give them what they want, accept reality, deal with reality; but at the same time keep your conscience clean. Tell them the truth, Samuel, tell them the whole truth; and then do what you must. Yes, let them have the king they so foolishly desire, because you really can't do anything else; but speak your mind, open your heart, and speak the truth.
And what an amazing counsel this is! How much on target the Spirit of wisdom and counsel is with Samuel and with us! When you find yourself deadlocked, when you find yourself in a struggle with someone, and you know you are right, you are certain you are right, you might even claim that what you want is the will of God – still, I believe, if you pray through your frustration you are likely to hear God saying to you, “Accept what must be. Accept it and move ahead with it. Accept reality, and by all means, don't turn tail and run. Don't run out on your responsibility. If you have a complaint, say so, but don't run away.” No, when you are frustrated and when it seems you just can't get through to that blockhead you have to deal with, then listen to the voice of the Lord as you pray. Listen and see whether he does not say to you as He said to Samuel: “Go ahead; go ahead and give them what they insist on having.” But first of all, stay with it, don’t run off and leave them, stay with it. And second, speak the truth, tell them what will happen if they go this direction. Clear your own conscience. But speak the truth.
What do I keep telling you is my favorite and primary verse of Scripture? What do I keep on holding up around here as the principle we need above all others in the life of this church? It comes from the Ephesian letter, anybody know what I’m talking about? "Speaking the truth in love.” “Speaking the truth in love” – when you deal with one another, do it lovingly, of course, do it tactfully; but for the sake of the kingdom and of the Gospel, do it in truth too. Speak the truth in love.
Now that’s what God says to Samuel as be struggles with the frustration of trying to communicate with folks who just do not, will not understand the principles he had fought for. Give them what they will have; you can It help that. But warn them, tell them what will happen. And your level of discomfort will be eased, the sense of frustration you feel will be dissipated. Praying through frustration helps us come to grips with reality, with what is inevitable, and also with being responsible enough to tell the truth.
III
Now still we need to look at the inner side, at the God-side meaning of such a prayer. I would want us not to miss the fact that Samuel's first instinct, at the moment of his disappointment, was to turn to the discipline of prayer. Catch these sentences out of the text: “The thing displeased Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to govern us.’ And Samuel prayed to the Lord.” Samuel felt displeasure; Samuel prayed. And right there, I tell you, there is a key that we too often fail to use.
You see, my trouble is that when I feel displeasure, I turn to me and get tense and knotted up and angry. Or if I feel displeasure and disappointment, I may turn to somebody else and just dump garbage all over them. Worst of all, I may even carry it all home and unload it on unsuspecting wife and children, who don’t even have the slightest idea what I’m talking about. Frustration turned to the wrong place takes strange forms.
But again I say, in the moment of frustration we want to turn to our own resources, we want to command somebody else, we want to marshal everyone to do our own things; but what happens when instead we turn to prayer? What happens when as with Samuel, displeasure leads to prayer?
Usually it leads to a better way, a more loving way, a more caring way. God, you see, always has a Plan B. So they want a king, well then, give them a king, but I will work through that and with that, says our God. God always has a Plan B. Indeed, you and I must know that Jesus Christ is God's great Plan B! He created us, as Genesis tells us, in his image and after his likeness, good, very good. But we sinned. We fell. We rejected God's plan for us. If you like, we have frustrated God's expectations. But in Jesus Christ he has answered the prayers of his own heart, he has offered another way. And it is not God's weakness that leads him to do this, it is not God compromising, it is not God taking the easy way. Far from it. The cross of the Lord Christ is God's response to man's frustration. The cross of the Lord Christ is God's way of saying, I will deal with their wrongness, I will encounter their misunderstanding, and it will cost me, but I will not be stopped. I will find a way.
And so, when we pray through our frustrations, when we lay open our anxieties to the Father (and after all, an infinite God is surely big enough to absorb all my woes and hostilities), we begin to see that in every circumstance of life, however awkward, however frustrating, God works yet to find a new way, to open up another avenue.
It is sometimes said that when you and I pray, God’s answers to our prayers may be either Yes or No or Wait. May I suggest a fourth possibility? God may answer Yes or No or Wait or “Let’s try something else.” “Let’s try something else; they will learn something.”
Pray through the frustrations, and pray in the spirit of the prayer attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:
God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. Amen
