Warning: the content of this week’s post may have some material that is difficult for some people to handle, but this is done in order to make what I believe to be a very important point.
Cliché:
a trite, stereotyped expression; a sentence or phrase,usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse. Example, “I’m taking it one day at a time.”
Platitude:
a flat, dull, or trite remark, especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound. Example, “Anything that doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger!”
I am hyper-sensitive to clichés and platitudes. Even though I catch myself using them every now and then I can’t stand them. In fact, I just used the same cliché about three times in a meeting, saying, “It all comes out in the wash.” There are two reasons for my deep aversion to all things trite.
The first reason comes from my background in creative writing. In creative writing workshops, let’s say short-story since that’s my favorite genre, we would hand out our story one week, everyone would read it and mark it up during the week, and then the next week in class the story would be dissected and reviewed. This process can be very brutal and the author doesn’t get to say anything. Just about the absolute worst thing you could hear about your story was, “It is filled with clichés,” or “this plot is so cliché.” This means that you are neither original nor talented. I learned to avoid cliché at all costs.
The second reason for my aversion to clichés comes from my ministry training. In areas of theology and especially in the area of pastoral care, we were warned repeatedly to avoid clichés. We were taught to be deeper and more real in our preaching than just filling it with clichés. When I hear a sermon filled with clichés I cringe and want to scream out, “Isn’t the Gospel more important than this!” A preacher should be above clichés in preaching and should always identify a cliché in a sermon as such. For instance, “This passage reminds me of that old cliché, ‘a bird in hand is better than two in the bush,’ but it means so much more than that.” While the avoidance of clichés and platitudes is extremely important in preaching, they are even more inappropriate in pastoral care situations. Professors taught us that we are never to use clichés in the service of being dismissive of someone else’s emotions.
Generally, in a pastoral care situation, clichés and platitudes are used by someone in order to avoid dealing with a difficult and often unexplainable situation. For instance, Darla says, “I can’t believe Bobby’s dead.” Steve responds, “He’s in a better place.” Now, it may be true that he’s in a better place, but that cliché used at that time is not helpful. In fact, it is dismissive, because Darla’s legitimate feelings are that the best place for Bobby is to be alive and to be by her side. Steve said, “He’s in a better place,” because Steve didn’t know what else to say. What Steve could have said that would have, perhaps, been more helpful is, “I can’t believe it either. I’m so sorry.” That statement validates Darla’s understandable emotions and shows empathy. We were told repeatedly never ever ever ever to say, “God needed him more than we did.” If the person who’s mourning wants to say that, then that’s their prerogative, but that cliché should never come out of someone else’s mouth. That’s the kind of stuff we were taught in regard to clichés.
Most of the time clichés are harmless, and we all use them frequently without even thinking about it. But there are times when clichés are not only inappropriate; they can be downright destructive. With some clichés, when you follow them to their eventual logical conclusions, you can see that this particular cliché is not so harmless, after all. For instance, I want to explore the possible results of using a cliché that is used all the time, very often in the church, almost always without bad intentions, but that can bring with it a whole world of negative consequences. Here it is: “Everything happens for a reason.” Most people love this cliché, but I absolutely abhor it. I hate it. Before you get mad at me and quit reading, let me explain.
An Olympic sprinter trips and finishes last. In the post-race interview, he says, “Hey, everything happens for a reason. This will make me better.” Whether he knows it or not, he’s using that as a crutch to help him ascribe some meaning to what just happened. He cannot fathom that after years of training, he just plain tripped. That’s harmless and it may actually make him a better sprinter in the future. Did God or an angel go out there and make him trip so that four years later he will set the World Record? Regardless of how he reacts to the fall—by working harder or giving up running altogether—he probably just tripped. This is similar to someone who loses her job and she says, “This is tough, but everything happens for a reason.”
Like I said, this kind of statement helps us to make some sense of the events, usually negative, that occur in our lives. Now this could be interpreted as simply a statement about the causal relationship between two events: “My shoe was loose so I tripped during the race. Everything happens for a reason.” That means that everything has a cause, which is true as far as we can tell. But that’s not how people use it. People use this phrase to mean, “What just happened occurred in order that I will reap some benefit or blessing from it in the future.” It puts the present at the service of the future. For those who think about it more deeply, it might be indicative of their view of something like karma, God’s providence, or even predestination. When a Christian says, “Everything happens for a reason,” it takes on the meaning of, “God caused this event to happen in order that there will be some future benefit or blessing, whether to me or someone else.” If people were to say, “Maybe this happened for a reason,” I wouldn’t have a problem with that. But to say, “Everything happens for a reason” is more problematic. Everything means everything. In my opinion, this platitude only works on a fairly superficial level. It may help us sleep at night and may even motivate us to greatness, but I think it is important for us at least to see how this platitude plays out as we try it in other areas, and see what it says about the character of God.
For instance, a couple has been trying for years to conceive a child. Finally they are able to conceive and they are so excited that they prepare the nursery and pick out a name. They have photos of the ultrasound on the fridge and folks can't wait to celebrate the birth of this child. What a miracle! But then there are complications and the baby is lost very late in the pregnancy. The couple is leveled. Everything happens for a reason! Really? Now, that couple may take that experience and, with God’s help, bring something good out of it by, let’s say, adopting a child from foster care who would have never had a home had that couple’s biological child survived. Yes, that can, and often does, happen. But did their baby die so that the foster child could have a home? Was there some cosmic trade? One lost baby for a foster child to-be-named later? Did God take the life of one child to offer a future benefit or blessing to another child?
Here’s another example: today on the front page of our local paper there is an article reporting a horrendous crime—that a man allegedly sexually abused a mentally handicappped man repeatedly. If that crime did happen, then a severely mentally disabled person was raped again and again. Everything happens for a reason! Really? This mentally disabled person was brutalized and violated repeatedly in order that he or someone else may reap some future benefit or blessing? From a Christian perspective, was this reprehensible act done by the will of God to help God fulfill God’s plan? What kind of God is it that needs this kind of thing to happen to work out His plan? Here’s another one: a ten year old girl in Thailand is lured from her home with the promise of work in the city. Her parents don’t know where she is. She is being held in a dank unsanitary basement with eleven other girls. Men take turns paying the girls’ “owners” to rape her. Everything happens for a reason! Really?
There have been a couple of things that I have witnessed in my life that have made it impossible for me to believe or to ever say the cliche “everything happens for a reason.” The first of them happened when I was in the sixth grade. I had just moved from one neighborhood to another. In my old neighborhood I had been very good friends with a girl who was a grade above me. We’d been friends since I was three years old. Not long after I moved, our family was watching the news and we couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw that this little girl was missing. Authorities and volunteers searched for a couple of days. We all hoped for the best. A couple of days later they found her twelve-year-old body naked and ravaged, and her underwear stuffed down her throat to the point of suffocation. Later it was found out that two teenage boys had decided to “have a little fun with her” and it “got out of hand.” Everything happens for a reason? That happened to her in order that other people might love their own kids more or so that some other benefit might be gleaned? God willed this to help fulfill God’s plan for the world? Do you get my point about how destructive a saying like, “Everything happens for a reason,” can be?
The second thing that I witnessed was during my internship at St. David’s Episcopal Hospital when I was in seminary. A baby was born with severe birth defects. It would only live for a couple of days. The young parents were completely devastated and inconsolable. They could not bring themselves to even visit the baby. As chaplain interns we took turns sitting by the baby until he died. In our debrief about the situation, one of the other interns started to talk about how everything happens for a reason so we just need to look for whatever lesson God wanted to teach the rest of us through this experience. I got absolutely irate. Our supervisor could see me about to explode so she asked me to speak. “Experience?!” I screamed. “Lessons? Who gives a rip about the rest of us? What about that baby? Who cares if the parents learn a lesson or the nurses learn a lesson or if you and I learn a lesson? Is that what it’s all about? What about that baby? Why would God sacrifice a baby and destroy a young couple so that you and I might appreciate our lives more. How egocentric of you! What about the baby?!” I started to cry. (I should also mention that at that time Danielle was pregnant with Wyatt). Afterwards, our main supervisor, who was a leather-skinned old Episcopal priest who rode her Harley Davidson to the hospital every day for thirty years, pulled me aside. I thought I was in trouble. All she said was, “When I’m dying, I want you as my chaplain.” I was surprised and validated by her statement. Platitudes and clichés are pure poison when the dark side of life and death is taken into account.
In the book What Not to Say: Avoiding the Common Mistakes That Can Sink Your Sermon, the authors write, “Many of the pastorally damaging messages we send from the pulpit are the result of our attempts to ascribe everything that happens, in the wider world and in our own little world, to the direct will and action of God.” A main example that is explored is our old friend, “Everything happens for a reason.” About this platitude and those like it, the authors exhort pastors by saying, “This kind of theological self-medication is what people are already administering to themselves. We need to confiscate it, not confirm it.” The authors offer this alternative theological viewpoint—“God’s ultimate purposes will be achieved, despite all obstacles.” This doesn’t blame God for the severely handicapped man’s savage rape, but it does say that this kind of act and the evil, sin, and godlessness that caused it will not win in the end.
I know that most people never think about clichés on this level, but as Christians we need to be speakers of truth, and while sometimes things may happen for a reason, if we truly believe in a loving and merciful God then everything cannot happen for a reason. So we need to be careful in making that claim. I just want us to think about that… okay?
Well, now that I’ve ruined your day, I think I’ll stop and go have my afternoon can of Dr. Pepper 10. Have a good week. I can't wait to worship the Lord with you on this upcoming Lord's Day.
Grace and Peace,
Everett
