How do we respond to challenging 'gifts' of rejection?
By Bishop Woodie W. White
Rejection! To discard. Throw away as worthless, or of any use. To discount. To pass over, rebuff.
I suppose it happens to most of us in the course of life. The engagement ring is returned. A hoped-for life together ends before it begins. One partner determines the other is not the one after all. It's over! Devastated, the rejected one wonders about the future, even one's own worthiness.
The pastor actually declares that there is only one congregation in the entire conference worthy of his gifts and faith perspective - thus rejecting a host of God's people. Or the Pastor Parish Relations Committee informs the Bishop and Cabinet the selected pastor is not the one appropriate for the congregation. The rejected pastor tries to understand while nursing a bruised ego.
Anxious graduating high school students receive the feared letter of Rejection from the college they desired to attend. Such rejection seems all-defining of worth.
It is a common experience, rejection. Sometimes it is temporary, so much so that the pain is muted. The rejection is slight, not of great import. In other instances it is permanent, non-reversible. Some rejection is appropriate and deserved. Some unfair, callous and capricious.
There is the rejection of ideas. A proposal, perspective or proposition is presented. To the presenter it is altogether clear, logical and reasonable — but it seems none of these to the Committee, Council, or Board. The proposition is turned down.
There is the rejection of persons. Being, not doing. When one is found unacceptable not for ideas or thoughts, conduct or behavior, but because of who they are, being itself. Non-corrective, not changeable, non-reversible. God-originated. Yet deemed unacceptable!
I've known rejection of every description. Deserved and undeserved. Temporary and permanent. Ideas and being. But I have learned much and I am still learning from rejection. I've learned some rejection was God's "No." Sometimes it was "Wait."
There was the rejection that prepared me for yet a greater opportunity. Momentary disappointment — even a sense of utter failure — in time gave way to a preferred future, a future I could not glimpse at the time of overwhelming defeat. The present could not reveal the future's unfolding.
Rejection will find all of us eventually. Some will not be life-altering. But there is a level of rejection that can be faith-challenging. It can leave one bitter, cynical, pessimistic about life and even the human family. The future.
But rejection can be transformative, even redemptive. It can be a great Teacher, even character building. It depends of course, how we choose to meet it, what we will do with it, rather than what we allow it to do to us. Is it too Pollyanna to suggest that some rejection might be gift? I think not.
I am reminded of Our Lord. He was rejected, and despised. This One who knew no wrong. Whose essence was good, whose will was at one with God. Not even he could escape rejection. There is, then, an inevitability of rejection. Not if, but when. The question life puts to us is how will we respond when it finds us? And find you it will!
Copyright 2005 United Methodist Reporter. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Retired United Methodist Bishop Woodie W. White currently serves as bishop-in-resident at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Ga.