You Can't Make Withdrawals From A Closed Account

Mike Tyson once said that it isn’t the hardest punch that takes you out. He said that the punch that takes you out is the one that you don’t see. I thought about that observation a few nights ago after I shared one of the defining moments of my life during our weekly Bible class. As many of you already know, I started Resurrection Church shortly after being fired as the Executive Pastor from another church. I can honestly say that getting fired is something that I never saw coming.  Me?  The honorable Pastor Joseph Carlos Robinson?  Get fired?  Never!  My self-concept was shaped by the philosophy of Beyoncé’s husband, one of my favorite rappers and fellow Brooklynite Sean Carter (aka Jay-Z) who said, "The Label don't fire me, I fire the label."    I had never been fired from anything in my life.  Getting fired was the punch that I never saw coming.  And yes--it hurt.  It was embarrassing. And it nearly took me out.

I was not psychologically, emotionally, or financially prepared for the tornado that is unexpected unemployment, and it was a struggle. But like most people, I did my very best to hide the fact that I was struggling. Miraculously and fortunately, a friend of mine saw through my facade and sent me an extremely generous financial gift. It was a pretty big check.  The only problem was that I could not cash it because all of my bank accounts were seriously overdrawn. 

Undeterred, I adopted the classic ghetto workaround: I put on my boots and my sweats and went deep into the hood looking for a check cashing place.  I eventually discovered an appropriately unknown institution far off the beaten path. I waited outside for several minutes to make sure I didn’t recognize anyone who might know me, and then went in. To guarantee my anonymity, I kept my hoodie slightly draped over my face, walked briskly to the window and began the choreography of the transaction.  I slowly took the check out of the envelope, signed it in front of the teller, pulled my drivers license out of my Louis Vuitton wallet, and slid the check and the license of under the slot at the bottom of the bulletproof glass window.  The teller looked at the check and then looked at me and then looked at the check again.  Then she looked at me again, and then looked at the check again, and said those words that always let you know trouble is coming: “I'll be right back.” 

She left for what seemed like an eternity. When she came back and said “I’m sorry Sir, but we can't cash this check. “Why?" I demanded, trying to tame my fury. “Unfortunately, she continued, “the amount is too large, and it is an out of state check.” Then, she offered some unsolicited advice. “Why don’t you just take it your bank.?”  When she said that I thought to myself “ummm if I could take it to my bank why do you think I'm in here?”  She slid the uncashed check and my license back to me and I hurriedly put both of them in my pocket.  As I turned to leave, she said “excuse me, sir can I ask you a question?”  I said yeah, more irritated than anything else.  She said Pastor Joe, is that you?  I forced a fake smile, nodded my head yes, and exited the premises with celerity.

The tone of her question was a cocktail of shock and surprise.  Beneath it lay an assumption that someone like me shouldn’t be transacting business in an establishment like that.  Pastor Joe is that you?  Aren’t you the guy who preaches to thousands of people?  Pastor Joe is that you?   Aren’t you the man they call Eagle 2 and are surrounded by seven security guards on your way to the bathroom? Pastor Joe is that you?   Aren’t you the fellow who moves in rarefied circles?

The more I have reflected on that day, the more I realized that her question was one of the best gifts that  God has ever given me.  That is the case for at least reasons.  First, her question finally forced me admit to myself that my circumstances had radically changed.  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross has written that the first response to loss is denial.  And I was in denial—big time.  I was thinking and acting as if nothing had changed, trying to convince myself and others that the impact of my termination was less than it was.  The truth was I was hurt, embarrassed, broke and on the verge of breaking down. Second, her question was a gift from God also because it forced me to look at myself for the first time in a very long time.  According to Plato, Socrates said that unexamined life is not worth living.  I had to examine what happened, why it happened, and what responsibility I bore because it happened.  Finally, her  question was a gift from God because it made me start asking some deeper, harder questions not just about what happened, but what it actually meant.  Pastor Joe is that you?  Was it me?  Who was I anyway?  And why was I there?  On one level, I was there to cash a check.  But on a deeper level, I was there because my bank account was overdrawn--it was in the negative.  And at the moment, my bank account was a metaphor for my life.  I was in the negative.  Not only was my back account in the negative, my self concept, my self esteem and my sense of calling all were in the negative as well.  And I had a pretty negative attitude to boot.

When an account is negative, it is because your withdrawals have exceeded your deposits.  And if the imbalance is not corrected, the account is eventually closed.  Wrestling with the question that the teller had asked me helped me realized that I was still trying to make withdrawals from an account that was closed.  That door was closed, along with the future that I had envisioned.  Whoever I was when I moved to California, that guy had died, and I didn't want to bury him.  On way my home from that check cashing place, I had a funeral.  I went ahead and buried all the negativity, the resentment, the entitlement, and the embarrassment that I felt, the vain hopes that I had I nursed, the need for closure that I desired, the vengeance that I wanted to exact, and the version of my life that I wanted to preserve.  I realized that even though I had been fired from a church, I had not been fired from the Kingdom.  I lost a job, but I didn't lose my calling and shouldn't lose my identity.  Pastor Joe is that you?  Yes, it was me.  But the me that walked into that check cashing place was a different me than the one who walked out.  

In Revelation 3:7, our Resurrected Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says to the angel of the church in Philadelphia that he has the key of David, and that “what he opens, no one can close; and what he closes, no one can open.” Sooner, or later, God will close some doors, some options, and some accounts in your life—as he did in mine. When he does, stop trying to make withdrawals.

Some accounts are closed.

Have the funeral.

And move on.