Dealing with the Expectation of Rejection

I’ve moved 12 times in 12 years. I’ve experienced the pain of making and losing friends over and over again. At times I’ve been rejected outright. Other times, people have just faded away. It has made connection and vulnerability a tricky thing when I expect people be gone from my life after a year or two.

Rejection is hard for anyone. But for me it’s become quite the sore spot and a topic of a lot of thought. This year, I’m settling into a place that could be home for the rest of my life. Yet I still see people through the strained eyes of a traveler. In the last month, I’ve gently put my weight down on 2 or 3 relationships here and found safety and acceptance. But it’s strange and uncomfortable and I don’t trust it yet.

There’s something deep and wonderful about the way Jesus deals with the expectation of rejection. I’ve been watching him carefully through the course of Mark 14, his last evening with his disciples. He acknowledges, “You will all fall away.” Yet I hear the tone of that evening (John 13-17), and I don’t think, “this is a conversation between people who are about to be alienated from each other.” The feeling is vulnerable, intimate, and hushed.

Here are a few highlights of Jesus’ reaction that leave me scratching my head:

-He does not deflect his pain, but expresses it. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death”

-He expresses his disappointment in them. “Could you not keep watch for one hour?”

-He expresses a sense of deep personal worthiness. “Woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man.”

-He is earnest, not cynical.

-He chooses to be vulnerable and intimate, washing their feet. He even seems to ramp up the vulnerability at the end.

-Yet he does NOT try to change their minds or win them back.

-He sees PAST the rejection. “I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”

-He carries a deep sense of purpose. “The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him.”

What I see in Jesus isn’t masochism. But he allows his friends to be his friends up to the last moment. He doesn’t check out of the relationship prematurely. He gives them a choice even though he knows what they will choose. If it were me... I couldn’t do that.

I’m really trying these days to give people a choice to either accept or reject me, even if past experience tells me it’s a forgone conclusion. Sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised. Sometimes my fears come true.

But there’s something cathartic even in realizing my worst fears and then waking up the next day. Because in all the worst case scenarios in my head, there IS no “tomorrow". Just... game over. But I’m discovering that win or lose, there IS something cool about showing up to play the game. Somehow it feels that the risk itself makes vulnerability worth my while. Maybe Jesus knew that too.

There’s so much I DON’T grasp about Jesus’ friendship with the 12. But it feels profoundly (big G) Good. One more reason I’m happy to call myself one of His followers.