By Dr. Terry Swicegood\u00a0
March 17 2019\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The problem of being bullied goes back to the dawn of human history.\u00a0 It is found in our Bible.\u00a0 The Psalmist (Number 102) writes:\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All day long my enemies taunt me;\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 those who rail against me use my name as a curse.
Bullying is always evil because it strips another person of his or her worth and dignity.\u00a0 It reduces them to a punchline, replaces a name with a label.\u00a0\u00a0
Bullying is always evil becuse it preys on easy targets, the weak and powerless\u2013precisely the same people Jesus told us to reach out to in his name.\u00a0\u00a0
And Jesus himself was a victim of bullying.\u00a0 He began his public ministry in his hometown of Nazareth.\u00a0 He went to the synagogue, read from the prophet Isaiah and brought a short message about what the scripture meant.\u00a0 Some of his listeners warmed to his message.\u00a0 But others didn\u2019t.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s just a carpenter, Mary\u2019s boy.\u00a0 How did he get so wise all of a sudden?\u00a0 He\u2019s too big for his britches.
It was common knowledge in Jesus\u2019 hometown that he had been conceived before Mary was married to Joseph.\u00a0 A bastard child.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Have you ever been put down? Teased mercilessly, or either punched or shoved by a bigger kid? This was how Jesus was treated. In Luke 23 we read: \u201cthe mean who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded Him and demanded, \u2018Prophesy! Who hit You?\u2019
We think of bullying when we think what our children and grandchildren have to undergo in school. But it also affects us as adults. Let me tell you a couple of true stories.
The first story is about sixteen year old Sladjana,
At her funeral the bullies laughed over her casket and made fun of her looks. Sladjana, whose family moved to Ohio from Bosnia
in hopes of a better life for their children;
Sladjana, who loved to dance, whose father \u2013 in his broken English \u2013
describes her by saying, \u201cNonstop smile. Nonstop music.\u201d
Sladjana, who was an easy target for bullies
because of her foreign family and her foreign accent and her foreign name \u2013
who was teased, called \u2018Slutty Jana,\u201d
pushed down the stairs, smacked in the face,
Sladjana, who received phone calls in the middle of the night
telling her to go back to Croatia,
that she\u2019d be found dead in the morning,
that they\u2019d find her body after school.
Sladjana, who stood up for herself for as long as she could\u2026
until she couldn\u2019t take it any more.
Her sister found her body.
And her father laments, \u201cToday, no music. No smile.\u201d Not any more.
Or let me tell you about Eric. According to his friends, Eric was full of life \u2013a flamboyant young man, who just happened to like the color pink. You know the type: the one who gets picked out and picked on, called fag, homo, queer.
It didn\u2019t matter that Eric wasn\u2019t gay. He was still an easy target, because he refused to compromise who he was. Bullies called him names, knocked his books down the stairs, flicked him in the head, and mocked him relentlessly. A friend who stood up for Eric was suspended as a result. The school authorities were unwilling or unable to identify and punish the bullies. And when Eric shot himself, his parents asked the coroner to file, under cause of death, \u201cbullicide.\u201d
The Washington Post had an article this last week, thoroughly examining teen suicide. The number one cause of the cascading number of suicides is\u2013you guessed it\u2013being bullied.
One more story, this one about an adult. Mary– not her real name– works in a large Protestant church as an associate pastor. She is kind, and competent. Her boss is a bully to her and to his staff, but not, not to th congregation. He is so solicitous to them because he instinctively knows if he pulls the tricks on them he pulls on his staff he will soon be stocking shelves as Walmart.
Mary has arthritis which has flares up under stress. Facing constant attacks from her boss, her health has deteriorated. When she was scheduled for her monthly meeting with the senior minister not long ago she cried all the way from home to the church. Even when he says to her unexpectedly, \u201cCould I have a word with you,\u201d her anxiety spikes. Somehow or another we have concluded that bullying is a strategy used against youth and teenagers. But it extends to adults as well. If you\u2019ve been bullied as an adult, as have I, you know the anger and fear that you feel.
I want to lay out before you this morning eight Biblical strategies for surviving bullying.
1. Ignore the bully and walk away. Bullies survive on the reaction they get. If we walk away, if we ignore the text messages and hurtful comments we get, we are telling the bully that we don\u2019t care. Reaction on our part escalates bullying. No reaction diminishes it.
2. Hold our anger. It\u2019s natural to want to strike out when we are struck. Bullies love to think they have power over us and our emotions. Getting angry plays right into their hands. Staying cool is confusing to the bully.
3. Don\u2019t get physical. Some people believe that aggressive physical responses is the only way to shut bullies up and shut them down. But as Gandhi once pointed out, \u201cIf everyone insists on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, the whole world will becomeblind and toothless.\u201d
4. Be kind to them. Kill them with kindness, we\u2019ve heard. Bullies aren\u2019t expecting this. Jesus loved his enemies and tells us to do the same. Cosmetics founder Mary Kay Ash said, \u201cPretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, \u2018Made me feel important\u2019\u201d We never know when something kind we say or do changes another person\u2019s life.
5. Deal with your own self-worth. When we know we are worth something, when we are dead certain we are precious children of God, no buffeting on the outside can change our insides.\u201d We are created in the image. I belong to God and my identify and self-worth ae in Chist alone. My value is never what other people think about me or say about me.
6. Take charge of your life with the truth about yourself. Words do have the power to hurt us. \u201cYou\u2019re fat. You\u2019re ugly. You\u2019re dumb.\u201d It\u2019s so easy to believe these words in a culture where appearance and achievement are so highly rated. We have a choice. We can go along with the lies which other people utter about us or with what our Savior Christ has said about us: \u201cIf you follow me you will find the truth and the truth will set you free.\u201d (John 8:30-32)
7. Talk it out with someone you trust. The words and actions of other people can make a big impression on our soul. When we talk out the fears and self-doubts that arise from bullying are allayed. Maybe that person is seek out a teacher, or counselor, or a dear friend. When we stuff our feelings they always surface in a negative way. Hearing a friend say to us, \u201cI know you and I know what they are saying about you is a vicious lie. So don\u2019t pay any attention to it.\u201d That really helps.
8. Pray about it. We need to remember that Jesus faced what we are facing today. Again and again we see in the gospels Jesus going aside for long intervals of prayer. Two verses to memorize are Luke 16:33 \u201cIn this world you will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome the world.\u201d And Philippians 4:13: \u201cI can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.\u201d
When it\u2019s all said and done we probably do not have the power to change bullies or their behavior toward us. We only have the power to change ourselves.
None of us can go back and make a new beginning. But all of us can begin now and make a new ending. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Dr. Terry Swicegood\u00a0March 17 2019\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The problem of being bullied goes back to the dawn of human history.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-sermon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoriapresbyterianchurch.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoriapresbyterianchurch.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoriapresbyterianchurch.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoriapresbyterianchurch.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoriapresbyterianchurch.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peoriapresbyterianchurch.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29,"href":"https:\/\/peoriapresbyterianchurch.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoriapresbyterianchurch.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoriapresbyterianchurch.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoriapresbyterianchurch.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}