Below the video is the sermon script. I have come to believe, and observe, that validation is at the heart of our ministry to others, and God’s ministry to us. It’s a simple question really, “Do I feel validated? When? How? Why not” – sorry, plural, simple questions.
Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Church, Goldsboro, NC
by The Reverend Alan Neale on Sunday January 10th 2021
“Validation”
Mark 1:11 ““You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Or as the Message Translation reads, “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”
From 1978 to 1989 Edward Irving Koch (pr. Kotch) (better known as Ed) was Mayor of New York City. The man was given to quips and witticisms, bon mots and catch-phrases – the best of which was probably “How’m I doing?”. Walking down the street, riding public transport – asked of everybody and anybody – this was the perpetual question, “How’m I doing?”. In fact Mayor Koch once wrote, “You know how I always ask everybody how am I doing? Well, today I asked myself, and the answer was, ‘Terrific.’ ”
“How’m I doing?” – this throwaway remark, perhaps considered by some glib, by a few insincere – this actually belies for the Mayor and for us all (yes, each of us) a most human, primal search… the search for affirmation and validation.
You all know the practice of car parking validation, around shops or hospitals or other institutions. You take the parking ticket to the desk and ask, “Please can you validate me?”. I believe this is a primal, inherent, instinctual questions by all who enter church, “Please can I be validated?”
Affirmation – its need, its source, its effect.
The need for affirmation. Friends, do not be duped nor scammed by the apparently self-sufficient friend or colleague who declares in word or deed, “I need no affirmation – that’s for emotional cripples, that’s for pathetic losers”. They are in denial or despair!
Consider Jesus in today’s Gospel from Mark. On the very brink of his public ministry (after years of seductive silence), Jesus is afforded divine affirmation and validation. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Or as the Message Translation reads, “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”
Later, in Mark 9, just before the entrance into Jerusalem and the final days of humiliation, physical and psychic pain… before all this, Jesus again hears and receives the same words of affirmation and validation.
I believe that the humanity of Jesus was so profound, present and persuasive that he, even he, had need for affirmation – and if him, what complicated cobweb of deceit have we spun in order to deny our selfsame need?
The source of affirmation. In his wonderful book about Australia (In a Sunburned Country) Bill Bryson writes of the illicit commerce that took place amongst the early transported criminals. “Arrived convicts were sold maps showing them how they could walk to China. Up to sixty at a time fled their captivity in the belief that magically accommodating land lay just the other side of a vaguely distant river”. There are many who spend some, most, of their lives trying to find affirmation in the most surprising and, ultimately, futile of places… a magically accommodating land… just the other side of a vaguely distant river.
Parents, partners, priests, teachers, employers, colleagues… the list is endless. In our primal, human quest for affirmation and validation we will with flailing arms thrash around for someone, anyone, to meet our need, slake our thirst, quench our appetite for affirmation and validation… but then, if we are blessed, we come to realize that those around us (if we are blessed) will do their best but they cannot be “the sole supplier” and then, in a revelation of wisdom, we know (we simply come to know) that our Creator is also the source of what we most deeply need…
I saw recently that for $14.99 “positive affirmations” will be sent to my ‘phone for three months… two or three a week. Or… I can turn to God! Truly… how much time do I need to make that decision!?
It is to his Father God, that Jesus turns for this most fundamental need… especially when those closest to him have failed because of spiritual or physical lassitude.
Isaiah 43:3-4 “I paid a huge price for you: all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in! That’s how much you mean to me! That’s how much I love you! I’d sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.”
Affirmation – the need, the source and the effect.
The effect of affirmation. I have seen a miracle so very often in those I am privileged to counsel, with those I am able to share the powerful words of God’s love and acceptance and grace and affirmation – for with the experience of divine affirmation comes empowerment and confidence! In the book Netherland, Hans writes of the experience of coming to know his friend (soon-to-be wife) Rachel. “In due course I came to rely on Rachel as a human flashlight. She illuminated things I’d thought perfectly well illuminated.” This is how it is when I, when you, come to integrate in our deepest beings the profound truth of God’s affirmation and validation… things seem illuminated, they begin to glow!
The effect of divine affirmation is that we shed isolation and loneliness, we enjoy confidence and hope, we are wounded but never destroyed. From the Message Translation again (Isaiah 43: “ I’ve called your name. You’re mine. When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down. When you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end.”
One year, while serving in Philadelphia, I was celebrating Eucharist on Christmas Eve. The place was packed, thank God with many visitors. One couple there, for the first time, was Terry and Gary. Just before Communion I said, as always, “Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, you are welcome at this, the Lord’s table.” Later, after they had become members of the church, Terry told me that when she heard these words she turned to her husband and said, “But, he doesn’t mean me!”. Through what process of ignoring, dismissing, demeaning had she passed that caused her to say, “But, he doesn’t mean me!!!”
Friends, these words of affirmation are meant for you, for me! We ask sometimes boldly, sometimes plaintively “How’m I doing?”. And God our Father with abundant, never-exhausted love says, “My daughter, my son… you are precious to me… you are doing well!”.
Oh… thanks be to God. Amen