Pastor's Column March 2005

Our Theology of Failure

At church, the loser appears right above the altar. Success was not on his list of things to do.
Barbara Brown Taylor

I was taught many things growing up. One lesson that was left out—for me and for many of us—was how to fail.

Not that there weren't plenty of failure opportunities all around us. I can remember at least one spectacular failure that left me with nowhere to hide. Nowhere except the church. So that's where I went.

That didn't strike me as strange at the time. Church seemed to be the one place in my young, strange life where failing really didn't matter very much.

How do we fail in a culture that's hardwired for success? How do we lose when winning matters? How, when we're expected to ‘take it all on,' do we give it all up?

What I learned at church was that there is a way to lose—not gracefully, but in such a way to be left wide open to grace. And I learned it, of course, the first Good Friday I was vulnerable enough and unguarded enough to pay attention. The first time I really listened to the message of the crucifixion. The first time I really heard about the loser from Nazareth.

Christianity is full of the tension between Friday failure and Sunday success. Not that the failure fails or the success is successful in the ways we think. The opportunity we have is to fail spectacularly enough to be open to the grace and possibility of Easter.