The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost-Rev Melanie Lemburg
The Very Rev. Melanie Dickson Lemburg
8th
Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 10B
July 14, 2024
This week, as I was working out on the
E-gym machines at the Y, I noticed the woman on the machines next to meet kept
drinking from her water bottle. As we
made the circuit, it bothered me more and more.
You see, there’s a rule that we’re not supposed to drink anything on the
machines; there’s even a big sign that says that right by the entrance to the
machines. But this woman was openly
defying the rule and drinking her water in front of God and everyone. As I made the circuit and contemplated my
potential action or continued inaction, I began focusing more on myself and
what I was feeling. In a moment of clarity, I was able to peel back the layers
of righteous indignation to see what was below; and below it was
resentment.
In our readings for today we have two
different pictures of resentment and its destructive power. Our gospel reading tells us of John the
Baptist’s grisly demise at the hands of the machinations of Herod’s wife Herodias. Mark tells us that John had been telling
Herod that it wasn’t lawful for him to marry Herodias, who was his brother’s
wife, and so “Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him.” She sees an opportunity, and she takes it,
and as a result of Herodias’s resentment of John (and Herod’s weakness), John the
Baptist’s head ends up on a platter.
In the Old Testament reading, we have
one line that gives us a glimpse into resentment: “As the ark of the Lord came
into the city of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and
saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her
heart.” Now, as you might imagine, there is so much more to this story. It starts way back in 1 Samuel 18. Michal is Saul’s daughter, and she loves David. Saul is working really hard to hold onto his
kingship after he has lost both God’s and the people’s favor, and David is his
chief rival for that. Saul decides to
offer his daughter Michal to David as his wife to try to bring David under his
influence. He even makes it easy for
David by only asking as a bride price of 100 specifically graphic severed body
parts of their common enemy the Philistines.
(If you want to know what body part, then you’re going to have to google
it. I’m not saying it from the
pulpit. But let’s just say it rhymes
with “storefins”) Yep, 100. David and
Michal marry and because Michal loves David, she becomes a part of team David
instead of team Saul. At one point, Saul
sends assassins to murder David, and Michal helps lower David out the window
and then places an idol with a shock of goatshair in the bed and tells her
father’s people that David isn’t well. But
then David goes on the run, and at some point, Saul reclaims Michal and marries
her off to someone else—a guy named Palti son of Laish. And they are happy. But then Saul dies, and David is working to
solidify his claim to the kingship, and someone tells David he will only talk
to David about being king if Michal, as a member of Saul’s family, is
present. So David reaches out to Michal’s
brother, who goes and gets Michal and returns her to David, and Michal’s
husband Paltiel follows her crying until they tell him to go home.
In
our reading for today, David is king, and he has worked to bring the Ark of the
Covenant home to his city Jerusalem. It
is a huge victory for him and his people after years of war and scheming. So, he dances before the ark as it comes into
the city. And Michal despises him in her
heart. She is understandably resentful. (Later on in this same chapter, we hear
Michal’s comment to David about his behavior implying that he’s not dignified
enough to be king. She says, “How the
king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes
of his servants’ maids, as any vulgar fellow might shamelessly uncover himself!”)
But because of her understandable
resentment, she misses experiencing this moment of joy when the Ark of God
containing the 10 commandments is brought home.
It’s a powerful symbol of God’s relationship with God’s people, and she can’t
fully experience it because of her resentment toward David.
So, let’s talk about resentment. Can you think of a time when you were
resentful? How did it feel? How did it impact your relationship with that
person? With God? This week, I’ve been thinking about how
resentment feels to me like a piece of popcorn kernel that is wedged in my
teeth, maybe even up under my gum, and can’t be dislodged. It’s hard, and it’s nagging, and it feels so
much bigger than it actually is, and it can be inaccessible to the ordinary ways
of knocking it loose. Many folks feel
shame around feeling resentment. I mean,
neither Michal or Herodias are people we would ever want to emulate. Their resentment makes them unattractive to
us.
In her book about human emotions titled An
Atlas of the Heart, sociologist Brene Brown writes about her life-long
battle with resentment. She writes about
how she always thought that resentment was an extension of anger, but a friend
and emotions researcher corrected her and told her that resentment is actually
a part of envy. This was an epiphany for
her as she began to now examine her resentment through the lens of envy. Brene Brown writes, “Now when I start to feel
resentful, instead of thinking, What is that person doing wrong? Or What should
they be doing? I think, What do I need but am afraid to ask for? While resentment is definitely an emotion, I
normally recognize it by a familiar thought pattern: What mean and critical thing am I rehearsing saying
to this person?”
And here’s Brown’s definition on
resentment: “Resentment is the feeling
of frustration, judgement, anger, ‘better than’ and/or hidden envy related to
perceived unfairness or injustice. It’s
an emotion that we often experience when we fail to set boundaries or ask for
what we need, or when expectations let us down because they were based on
things we can’t control, like what other people think, what they feel, or how
they’re going to react.”[i]
Our Wednesday congregation talked about
resentments, about how they are burdensome, how they can be much more toxic to
us than to the people whom we resent, but also how resentments make us do crazy
things, shameful things that we will probably regret latter on (maybe, like
asking for someone’s head on a platter!).
We talked about how it’s important to recognize and process resentment
as soon as possible, before it can take root and fester and run amuck, and we
identified two tools to combatting resentment.
The first is forgiveness. We have
to forgive the person or situation that has inspired our resentment. And the second is to recognize our common
humanity in a person toward whom we are resentful. That’s empathy.
I was thinking about Brown’s definition of
resentment as envy as I was working the circuit on those e-fitness machines at
the Y, and I took a step back from my seething resentment and righteous
indignation to ask myself Brene’ Brown’s question: “What do I need but am
afraid to ask for?” And y’all, I
realized that I was thirsty! When I dug
down deep into why I resented her having her water bottle against the rules, I
realized I was thirsty, so I got myself up in between sets and went and got a
good long drink of water, and then I no longer cared that she wasn’t’ following
the rules.
Now, we all know it’s not always that
easy or that simple. It was certainly
much more complex for Michal who had been consistently used as a pawn in her
father’s and husband’s political machinations.
But the tools to combat resentfulness are sound and can be employed in a
variety of situations.
So, your invitation for this week: Can you think of a time when you were
resentful? How did it feel? How did it impact your relationship with that
person? With God? If the resentment is still stuck in your soul
like a piece of popcorn kernel, then consider offering it to God in prayer and
ask God to help you see the person or situation with empathetic eyes and to
help you begin to forgive.
[i] Brown,
Brene. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the
Language of Human Experience. Random House:
New York, 2021, pp30-33.
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