Sermon for September 7, 2014

Peacemonger or Peacemaker?

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Matthew 18:15-20

Scott Peck noted that communities often pass through four stages of development. Peck called the most common, opening stage of building community “pseudocommunity.” In pseudocommunity, everyone pretends that they really know each other, even though they actually know very little about each other. In pseudocommunity, people assure themselves they have no conflicts. In pseudocommunity, people mind their manners no matter what they might be thinking behind a polite smile. Conversation stays general: “How’ve things been goin’ lately?” “Good, busy. And you?” “Yeah, me too.” Intense opinions aren’t shared publically, but at the “meeting after the meeting” in the parking lot. Pseudocommunity is a bland world of pretense where no one’s feelings get hurt in public. It’s a trade-off: some truth for a shallow peace.  It’s boring, but at least it feels safe.
Peudocommunity is the only stage of development that many communities will know – probably because the way to true community involves some pain. Peck says that the group must travel through chaos and emptiness to reach true community. On the journey, people need to know it’s safe to let go of their manners and blurt out their prejudices, opinions and judgments. It means people need to let go of what is not needed in order to make room for something new.

Matthew 18 is Jesus’ assault on pseudocommunity. Jesus knows that living together in true community means there needs to be conflict. Healthy conflict. Yes, there is such a thing! Healthy conflict is the responsible exploration of our differences. In fact, we can thrive on differences of opinion, differing approaches to life and different ways of thinking. It is possible to learn what makes us different from one another and then recognize how these differences can be used to serve God.
As we think about our core values here at CCC, we affirm that we are a congregation of people who want to listen attentively. We seek others’ opinions and understand that differing values do exist within our church family. We seek to deal with disagreements positively, communicating with others in direct, caring, and responsible ways. The good news for us today is that while disagreements can hurt, disagreements can also bring us together. Remember that next time you are locked in a conflict with someone. Conflict can be healthy.

We have all be taught certain methods of passive conflict resolution. For instance, do you have a problem with someone you know? Does this person have bad manners, bad hygiene, or annoying habits? How about those inconsiderate neighbors with noisy pets? Wouldn’t you love to tell off your tyrant boss without her knowing who did it? There used to be a website called SincereSuggestions.com. For $5, Sincere Suggestions would send a politely written letter to notify people about their problems while you will remain completely anonymous. The sender would just choose a topic, fill out the information and an anonymous letter would be sent right away.

I don’t recommend this approach, of course. If we have something to say about someone, than we should say it to that person’s face. But some of us were taught that direct confrontation might hurt another person’s feelings. So instead of being honest, we find a third person to do the hard work for us. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard a person say, “You know, I wish someone would trash talk me around town today. I wish someone would call me a crook, or a liar, or a weirdo behind my back because confrontation makes me uncomfortable.” So let’s do everyone a favor. If we have a problem with someone, we deal directly with that person alone. Many of the worst conflicts in churches happen because at some point someone had the opportunity to say, “Can we talk?” to another person, but they didn’t and now things are worse.

In today’s Gospel reading, we get some very practical advice on how to handle it when we think someone in the church sins against us. We should approach the person whose behavior hurt us directly, and if at all possible, privately. That way, the person you're speaking with has room to reconsider without losing face – and you have room to save face if the other person points out ways in which your behavior contributes to a negative situation. Jesus encourages quiet conversation between people. It’s not just a prelude to a juicy public drama. The first quality of conflict and communication is to face a person one-on-on without dragging others into the dispute. There may be time to involve others later. However, the initial confrontation is always personal, private, and sincere.

Sometimes we get mixed up and become peacemongers instead of peacemakers. That word – peacemonger – was used by Edwin Friedman who was a Rabbi and therapist in Bethesda.  Friedman said that what often passes for peacemaking is actually peacemongering.  Peacemongers are more concerned about good feelings than progress. They don’t want anyone to be upset. If something causes a person some degree of pain, peacmongers will change plans to try to make everyone happy. Peacemongers have no backbone.  They are not willing to endure pain — either their own or someone else’s.  They just want everyone to feel good. 

For example, suppose a family has decided to go out to eat dinner at a wonderful Mexican restaurant.  They are together in the car, all of them anticipating a great meal. Then, the six-year-old announces that he does not want to go there.  He wants to go to McDonald’s.  The parents try to reason with him. They explain to him that he can get something good at the Mexican place. The child escalates to energy and has a tantrum, shrieking because he doesn’t want to go to the Mexican place. In an attempt to compromise, the panicked parents say, "Let’s just go to KFC. There is a McDonald’s next door.  We can stop in for a Happy Meal on the way?" Now the entire evening is changed because the parents wanted to avoid the pain of dealing with a screaming child instead of going on to their original destination.

How many times have churches and other organizations altered and changed good things they were doing because a person complained and announced loudly that he or she was unhappy? How many times have we changed plan to feel at peace again? But there really is no peace. Speaking for myself, I resent it. When I modify plans in an attempt to satisfy a few unhappy people, they are usually not pleased with the new plan, either. When I go out of my way to make people happy, those I’m trying to please usually don’t notice it, don’t appreciate it and may actually feel like THEY are the victims. So, accommodating unhappy people does not make them happier. It just gives me a backache.
Peace-mongering does not solve anything. It certainly does not make unhappy people happier. Peace-mongering promotes anxiety. Peacemongering favors pseudocommunity. It rewards false harmony and good feelings over process and honesty.

Peacemakers are different.  Peacemakers love people who might complain, and they work hard to stay connected with people.  But, they do not limit growth because one person does not care for a particular program or project. In other words, Mexican food may not be your favorite. That’s OK. But, this is what we are going to do tonight. Let’s enjoy the evening and make the most of family time even though this is not your favorite place.

Let’s make this very practical. Here are the steps to deal with any conflicts we have here at CCC.

1. Look at yourself, first. Knowing that mutual forgiveness is the air we breathe, knowing that Christ gives the community the wisdom it needs to interpret Scripture, when someone wrongs us, I first look in the mirror and examine my motivations for wanting another person to change. I need to be in touch with my own brokenness before I ask someone to examine theirs.
2. Have a one-on-one. Instead of going behind a sister’s or brother’s back and complaining to others of what they have done or said, meet with the other person directly, privately, face to face. If we really intend to heal a relationship without giving a guilt trip, we might start with a simple, “Can we talk?”
3. Bring mediators. If that private talk doesn’t create a ceasefire, then Jesus advises that two witnesses be brought along for a second meeting. They are extra eyes and ears to help understand what is going on – mediators to help us see various degrees of right and wrong. And if those two or three discern that someone is in the wrong and refuses to make it right, the whole church may be brought in to discern and compassionately appeal for restoration.
4.  Stay Close. After all this has been tried, if there is no peace, Jesus says the offending sister or brother is to be treated like a Gentile or a tax collector. Some people interpret this to mean exclusion. Eliminate the offensive person. I don’t like that interpretation. I think it means stay close. It means the church treats people like Jesus treated people – people like Gentiles and tax collectors: giving them food, eating with them, helping their family members, and inviting them to be part of God’s new community of love and justice.

Jesus offers one last promise: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Jesus assures us that whenever we wrestle together with these things, whenever we struggle to determine how to follow community values with gracious love, Jesus will be there.
We humans are always going to be in conflict in some form or another. Our goal is to be peacemakers. Peacemaking is not the absence of conflict. Peacemaking is a way through conflict. Peacemaking is the presence of Christ in our midst. Peacemaking means addressing conflict and injustice actively – not running away from it – using nonviolent methods. So remember, words can hurt and words can heal. Disagreements can tear people apart, or they can help us work together for a shared future. The choice is up to us.

Sources:
http://www.faithandleadership.com/sermons/jeremy-troxler-the-tie-binds
http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Trip-Advisor-Comments-Aliyce-McKenzie-08-29-2011?offset=1&max=1
http://godhungry.org/2007/08/23/peacemaker-or-peace-monger/
http://onmovements.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Friedman-Summary.pdf
http://www.community4me.com/communitybldg1.html

Sermon for August 31, 2014

Laws for Living: #8 Peace with Love

Christ gave each one of us the special gift of grace, showing how generous he is. That is why it says in the Scriptures,
“When he went up to the heights,
    he led a parade of captives,
    and he gave gifts to people.” Psalm 68:18
When it says, “He went up,” what does it mean? It means that he first came down to the earth. So Jesus came down, and he is the same One who went up above all the heaven. Christ did that to fill everything with his presence. And Christ gave gifts to people—he made some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to go and tell the Good News, and some to have the work of caring for and teaching God’s people. Christ gave those gifts to prepare God’s holy people for the work of serving, to make the body of Christ stronger. This work must continue until we are all joined together in the same faith and in the same knowledge of the Son of God. We must become like a mature person, growing until we become like Christ and have his perfection. Then we will no longer be babies. We will not be tossed about like a ship that the waves carry one way and then another. We will not be influenced by every new teaching we hear from people who are trying to fool us. They make plans and try any kind of trick to fool people into following the wrong path. No! Speaking the truth with love, we will grow up in every way into Christ, who is the head. The whole body depends on Christ, and all the parts of the body are joined and held together. Each part does its own work to make the whole body grow and be strong with love. ~Ephesians 4:7-16

This is how author James Baldwin tells the story:

The joint, as Fats Waller would have said, was jumping. During the last set, the saxophone player took off on a terrific solo.  He was a kid from some insane place like Jersey City or Syracuse, but somewhere along the line he had discovered he could say it with a saxophone.  He stood there, wide legged, filling his barrel chest, shivering in the rags of his twenty-odd years, and screaming through the horn, “Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?” and again—“Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?”  The same phrase unbearably, endlessly, and variously repeated with all the force the kid had. The question was terrible and real.  The boy was blowing with his lungs and guts out of his own short past; and somewhere in the past, in gutters or gang fights…in the acrid room, under the smell in the precinct basement, he had received a blow from which he would never recover, and this no one wanted to believe. “Do you love me?  Do you love me?  Do you love me?”  The men on the stand stayed with him cool and at a little distance, adding and questioning. But each man knew that the boy was blowing for every one of them.

Just admit something. Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”

Yes, I mean you. Me, too. We all walk around with a big sign on our chests that asks, “Love Me?” No one really wants to hear this. It’s embarrassing. It’s humbling. So let’s cut right down to the reality of the matter: however mature we feel, however at home with ourselves we may believe ourselves to be, there is a little kid in us who never quite grew up and who waits for the slightest opportunity to squeeze some praise and acceptance from another person.

Just admit something. Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.” We want to prove ourselves. We want to be recognized. Esteemed. Valued. It’s a perfectly natural and valid desire. We hunger for adoration and need to be sated. We feel rejected and want to be acceptance for the unique and diverse individuals we really are. We want to be seen and heard, treasured and understood. Ultimately we want to be loved.

Admit something. Everyone you see, you say to them "Love me."

Those words actually come from the poet Hafiz. Hafiz was a Persian mystic and poet-seer who was known as “Tongue of the Invisible.” He lived from 1325 –1389. In Islam, hafiz means one who has memorized the entire Qur’an by heart. Throughout his lifetime, the poet Hafiz not only memorized the Qur’an, he also wrote about 5000 poems, which express a seekers longing for union with the divine. He wrote this:

Admit something. Everyone you see, you say to them "Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud; otherwise, someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full moon
     in each eye that is always saying ,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

Why is it that we sometimes struggle to acknowledge openly to the people who mean the most to us that we love them? Why do we hold back from letting others know we are happy in their presence, that our lives have more meaning when they are around, that we are better people when we are together? If we are honest with ourselves, we are often unable to love the people in ways we want to. And I’m not just talking about spouses and partners, kids and parents. I also mean the cashier who is taking too much time to ring out customers while chatting with the person in front of you at the checkout line. I also mean the driver who has grabbed the parking spot you were eyeing. I also mean the tech-support assistant in Bombay who doesn’t seem to understand your accent. Why can’t we say what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

Have you ever noticed the mood of people as you walk down a busy sidewalk? Sometimes people make lots of eye contact and offer friendly smiles. They nod hello. Strangers stop to chat. On other days no one offers eye contact at all. People look closed off and unavailable. I used to wonder what the difference was, why on some days people were open and friendly and other days they were cold and shut off. I finally noticed that my perception depended on me, my mood of the moment. When I felt happy, when I radiated positive energy, people responded in kind. When I closed down myself down, people closed themselves to me.

The poet Hafiz is always singing about love. But he does not mean love that the insecure child inside of us is begging for. That kind of love is need. The kind of love that interests Hafiz is that which can only begin when the wanting ceases. Of course we want to connect to each other – to touch and be touched, to offer and receive affection, to feel the warmth of another. We also want a love that connects beneath the words, beneath the skin, right down to our heart and soul. We want to know the taste of loving and being loved in our very essence.

So, when can we just get to it, and do what Jesus said, and love one another? How can we make peace with love?

Making peace with love has nothing to do with pampering your ego – taking bubble bath, getting a message, or reviewing positive affirmations before bed. I have no problem with any of those things, but they don’t help us make peace with love. The Apostle Paul’s school of thought puts suggests another way: We must become like a mature person, growing until we become like Christ … Speaking the truth with love, we will grow up in every way into Christ, who is the head. The whole body depends on Christ, and all the parts of the body are joined and held together. Each part does its own work to make the whole body grow and be strong with love. In other words, get in touch with your uniqueness. Celebrate the wonderful person you were created to be. But don’t let it stop there. You and I are not whole until each of us, with our unique gifts and personalities, come together to form an entire body, with Christ as the head. We are not complete without each other.

Now we know a body could never function well if the different parts didn’t like each other, right? In another of his letters, Paul reminds us that the body can’t work if different members go on strike. A physical body isn’t healthy if one part says it doesn’t need the others. The same is true for the body of Christ. We are not whole and healthy until we are unified. That is love.

A broken heart fills the entire body with throbbing loneliness. That’s love. A smile fills up the entire body with happiness. That’s love. One person’s joy makes the entire body ecstatic and another’s pain makes the entire body catch its breath. That’s love. Each one of us is vital to the well-being of the whole. Even when your particular uniqueness and gifts go unseen and unheralded, the whole body would suffer without you.

Love says, “I need your presence in my sorrow. I need your assurance when I am sick. I need your hope when I am discouraged. I need your warmth when the world grows cold. I need us, as members of a body, as a community, to find unity in our good and compassionate God.”               

What is every other eye in this world dying to hear? Can we meet the world’s insistent plea for love with bright orbs in our eyes and full moon language that speaks sweet words of belonging? Imagine, just imagine, what grace it would be, if we were able to mumble through trembling lips, what everyone we meet wants to hear: “You fit. I am not whole without you. I love you.”

Sources:
Baldwin, James quoted in Creative Brooding by Robert A. Raines.New York: Macmillan, 1966.  48
Housden, Roger. Ten Poems to Change Your Life, Again and Again. New York: Harmony, 2007. 107-117.
http://www.eagleharborchurch.org/?p=1600
https://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/Jesusneedsme/jnm1.htm
http://www.poetseers.org/the-poetseers/hafiz/

Sermon for August 27, 2014

Laws for Living: #7 Peace With Yourself

When the crowds heard him, they were astounded at his teaching. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40

At heart, I am a nice guy. And I can be sensitive, too. Sometimes I care too much what other people think. Sure, I have my moments of when I am unpleasant, but most of the time I like to relax, and laugh, and enjoy my time with others. I want people to feel at ease around me. I want to live the kind of life that the Dalai Lama speaks about. He says, “We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion, to do as much as we can. Then, whatever happens we will have no regrets.” How many of us can say we live like that – a life of peace with ourselves, a life with no regrets?

Of course, I can’t be the nice guy all the time. Then there are the times I just have to stand my ground on an issue. An ethical line has been crossed. A decision needs to be made and the buck has stopped with me. People look to me to make a tough leadership decision. No matter what, someone will be unhappy. Someone may feel hurt. And someone may think less of me. So much for getting to be the nice guy all the time. I can feel very ill at ease in these situations, because my values tell me to be kind, but others may perceive my actions as mean-spirited or inflexible.

Maybe you’ve let your anticipation of how a critic will speak about you keep you from fulfilling your dreams. Perhaps you’ve been quiet or inactive on important issues because you’ve cared too much about what other people think of you. Have you ever sacrificed your sense of inner authority to another person’s opinion of you?

Sometimes we can have a hard time owning our inner authority. We can feel intimidated by approaching critical people, especially those we see as powerful. Our tendency is to try to get someone else to do the difficult work of confronting those we perceive as controlling. For example, I feel angry with Janelle and I see her as controlling, so I share my anger not with Janelle but with my buddy Hal. Hopefully, Hal will share my anger with Janelle without mentioning my name so Janelle won’t be angry back at me. It’s a sure recipe for chaotic and destructive interpersonal relationships.

So here is what I propose for making peace with myself. It’s not original with me – the first time I came across this idea was in The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz. Here’s the proposal:

It’s none of my business what other people think of me

The truth is, most people don’t spend much time thinking about me at all. The same is true for you. Sorry. Few people have time in their schedules to think more than a brief second about us. When I do have time to get my thoughts straight, I’m too busy mulling over my own shortcomings to worry about yours. In the words of essayist David Foster Wallace, “You’ll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do.”   

It’s not none of my business what others think of me.

However, it is entirely my business what I think of me and how I nurture my sense of self-identity while staying connected in relationships. There is a fancy word that therapists and coaches use for this attitude. It’s called “self-differentiation.”

• Self-differentiation means being willing to say clearly who I am and who I want to be while others are trying to tell me who I am and who I should be.
• Self-differentiation means understanding that I can be distinct from others, without being distant from others.
• Self-differentiation means becoming responsible for my own life while being committed to growing closer to those I love.

When we can stop seeking validation from external sources and opinions, when we can stop living for others and begin living into our most authentic selves, then we can experience liberation from self-absorbing worry about what others think about us.

When I recognize my authority, I can say three very important statements: 

I know who I am,
I am who I am, and
I am good enough.

I get a sense of this in Matthew’s telling of Jesus and the greatest commandment. We read an episode about yet another attack on Jesus character and reputation by teachers and leaders of the established religion. I think the interrogation is about more than the religious authorities trying to catch Jesus in a theological mistake. Jesus is so threatening to the religious order, the questions are intended to pull him back into line.  It’s a way of saying, “Jesus, if you just change your ways and become like us again, you will have respectability and acceptance.” The Pharisee’s questions are about assimilation. Assimilation is one way to turn away criticism and dissent. Assimilation says, “Give up your self-identity and become like us, and we will all get along. Failure to do so will mean exclusion, and perhaps elimination.” We can see a similar pattern of assimilation and exclusion in immigration debates in America, by the way. We talk about the dream of an America that promotes a process of identity formation among diverse citizens who deliberate freely together. A free-thinking, diverse citizenry can feel so menacing to the majority, we create systems that domesticate or internally colonize the identities of those who don’t fit in. The majority says, “You must walk, talk, think, and act like us if you want to be like us.” Nations do it. Religions do it. Neighbors do it. Churches do it. The person or group in power demands that others sacrifice self-identity and self-reflection to keep a vague and tenuous peace.

Jesus doesn’t cave into the trap of compromising himself in order to help others feel at peace with him. For him it’s not about assimilation but self-differentiation. Jesus knows who he is. He senses where he begins and ends and he is at peace with himself. Because he is at peace, Jesus can confront the systems and empires he calls his followers to resist. Jesus is not influenced by the pain or pleasure associated with reputation. He is influenced by love. Love for God, love for neighbor, and love for self.

You and I will find it very difficult to fulfill God’s aims in the world when we shape our lives around a compulsive concern about respectability or winning the approval of critics. Church, this is not our calling and not our hope. We claim a different authority. We claim the authority of love.

Instead of assimilation, I want to be self differentiated.  It has to do with being a “self” or an “I” in the face of pressure by others or by systems to blend into, the “we.” To be differentiated is to know and act on one’s own mind, especially when one’s position is different from the group’s. My inner authority tells me that I am a loving person who is trying to live out the greatest commandments: love God, love others, love myself. I don't need the approval of others or the disapproval of others. Validation begins from inside me, not from others on the outside.

I love the self-differentiating imagery in Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Journey.”

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save

the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver reminds me to listen to my own voice and not the voices of everyone else around me telling me who to be and what to do and how to fix myself.

This is the most compassionate act you can do for anyone: to stand by the truth of your own life and live it as passionately and as fully as you are able.

This is the point where my New Englandy, puritan congregational roots kick in. My inner Calvinist says, “Isn’t what you are saying idolatry? Aren’t you putting self-love above love for God? How are vanity and self-absorption going to help anything?” I think sometimes we get scared about self-love and self-esteem talk because it can sound pathological. If we love ourselves, we will turn into irrepressible narcissists. There’s a difference between self esteem and narcissism. Self-esteem represents an attitude built on accomplishments we've mastered, values we've adhered to, and care we've shown toward others. Narcissism is often based on a fear of failure or weakness. It’s an unhealthy drive to be seen as the best, and a deep-seated insecurity and underlying feeling of inadequacy. Narcissism has to do with what others think of you. Healthy self-love has to do with what you think of you.

What I’m talking about is making peace with yourself by nurturing a sense of self-identity while staying connected in relationships. Here is an exercise I am working with. I was inspired by an article I read on the Website Tiny Buddha.

• Look in the mirror and say “I love you.”
• Immediately, the judgmental thoughts might begin. “But I’m fat. I’m ugly. I’m stupid. I’m afraid.”
• Let those thoughts come and go. Don’t judge. Just notice.
• Look again in the mirror and say “I love you.”
• The judgmental thoughts may come again. “But you don’t understand, I did something terrible. People are angry at me. I’ve made mistakes. I’m unlovable”
• Look in the mirror and say “I love you.”
• Here come those thoughts again. “No really, listen, I’m damaged and I’m damaging.”
• Look in the mirror and say, “Yes. And I love you.”

Keep at it. Practice until compassionate love for yourself becomes an involuntary reflex, like a breath or a heartbeat.

Believe me, it takes some time. I’m still learning. I hear perseverance is the trick. I believe that practicing how to love myself, and not the perceived image others have of me, is worth the risk and the pain.

Sources:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/compassion-matters/201206/self-esteem-versus-narcissism
Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-stop-beating-yourself-up-over-mistakes/
http://www.difficultrelationships.com/2006/03/25/bowen-differentiation/
http://blog.chron.com/thepeacepastor/2013/06/jesus-and-the-differentiation-of-self/
 

Sermon for August 19, 2014

Laws for Living: #6 Peace with the Ordinary

1 Samuel 16:14-23
Philippians 4:11-13
Tao Te Ching 8

The major difference between athletes who win Olympic medals and those who don’t is not talent. It is more mundane. Gregory Jones, dean of Duke University, coaches a basketball team of 9 to 11 year old boys. “They never want to practice,” he says. “They want to scrimmage so they can show off their three-pointers or their spectacular moves.” It is difficult to help them understand a pro basketball player’s commitment to the mundane tasks of repetition discipline and practice. We learn from other excellent athletes, performers and artists about the centrality of repetition, habit, and doing ordinary things day by day. The major difference between athletes who win Olympic medals and those who don’t is not talent; it is, rather, the ability to engage in the mundane activities of free throw after free throw, of laps in the pool hour after hour, day after day that hone the skills that give them the edge.

I’m wondering whether it’s also true of faith. Is the life of faith developed by tending to the mundane? Is it in the routine and the everyday moments of life where we find the possibilities for the greatest transformation? Sometimes we trick ourselves into thinking that the life of faith is more about showing off our spiritual sills, about proving ourselves to God and others, about correct belief. But, what if it’s really more about engaging in the daily routine that opens us to God’s grace? What if having strong faith is related to our ability to find grace in the grit of life?

Does it feel like a wasted day when all you do is tie the kids’ shoes, wipe a snotty nose, answer the best you can the “whys?” of inquisitive minds, referee spats, dry tears, kiss scraped knees and wounded egos? Living in partnership with someone and making a home together is not so much about falling in love and living happily ever after as it is eating together, fighting fairly, putting the toilet seat down, squeezing the toothpaste at the right end, and accepting each other at their worst. Can we live that reality with acceptance, or do we carry the fear that there might be something more exciting – less ordinary – with someone else? I know there are some rotten relationships out there. I know people are abused and neglected. I’m not talking about those relationships. I’m talking about couples for whom the romance may have faded, but who nurture a deep sense of loving commitment through the mundane minutia of daily living. Quite often, couples don’t realize what practice and attention in their relationship means until one of them is no longer here.

Commitment to the little things is what the life of faith is about. It is not about what we achieve or what we accomplish, or whether we do things better than someone else, or how much we impress God, but rather the attitude that informs our daily routine.

Throughout the New Testament we find Jesus transforming people through daily, ordinary interactions. He sits by a well when a woman comes along that engages him in conversation. He seeks a little rest, and he sees a crowd of hungry people. He sets off on a journey to do one thing and gets sidetracked by people who are disabled, disfigured or dying. We get the sense that he is living life for as long as he has it. When he meets those who are paralyzed, either in body or by circumstance, he shows them another way. Jesus is someone to follow, not just because he did great things, but also because he did small things in great ways.

We get a sense of this in today’s first reading from 1 Samuel. We overhear a conversation in the court of King Saul, a troubled and paranoid ruler. He hears about someone who can play music that will bring peace to his spirit -- a keeper of sheep and virtuoso with the harp. David gets called to court. I don’t get the sense that David had royal aspirations. Becoming King was not on his bucket list. David did not lie or manipulate people to achieve his political ambitions. As far as I can tell, he simply practiced some rather ordinary tasks for his day: feeding sheep, protecting his herd from enemies, and plucking music in the fields where no one was even around to hear him. The story is not about his talent but about his dedication to things he does naturally.  David develops the skills to be Israel’s greatest king in the fields, doing small things in great ways.

What might our lives look like if we approached the mundane tasks of the day as opportunities to develop faith, and stretch our imaginations, and engage us as people of integrity? What might happen if we were to make peace with the ordinary?

Some of you know the story of Brother Lawrence. He was named Nicholas Herman by his parents, living in the region of Lorraine in eastern France. He received a revelation from God at the age of 18. In the deep of winter, Herman looked at a barren tree, stripped of leaves and fruit, waiting silently and patiently for the sure hope of summer abundance. For the first time, Herman understood the extravagance of God's love. Like a tree in winter, he himself was seemingly dead, but God had life waiting for him. At that moment, he said, that leafless tree captured an image of the love for God that never after ceased to influence him. He eventually entered a monastery in Paris as a lay brother, not having the education necessary to become a priest. He took the religious name Lawrence of the Resurrection. He spent almost all of the rest of his life within the walls of the priory, working in the kitchen for most of his life, and as a repairer of sandals in his later years. Yet despite, or perhaps because of, his somewhat lowly position, his character attracted many to him. He was known for his profound peace and many came to seek spiritual guidance from him. People collected his wisdom and saying, and it became a spiritual classic entitled The Practice of the Presence of God.

For Brother Lawrence, "common business," no matter how mundane or routine, was the medium of God's love. The issue was not the sacredness or worldly status of the task but the motivation behind it. He said,

“We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of [God], and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before [God], who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God."

Do you want to make peace with the ordinary? Then learn to draw water from the kitchen sink with a sense of awe for what water means to our lives, giving thanks for the privilege of having clean, drinkable water at your finger tips. Tend to your work, your study, your worship, your family, your community, doing small things in great ways.

That’s step one. Step two of making peace with the ordinary takes us deeper. Because life is not just about practicing the presence of God in the mundane tasks. Life is also about dealing with pain and distraction. Pain is quite commonplace, really. Pain is part of that ordinary landscape of what it means to be human. I appreciate how Marie Howe describes it in her poem “What the Living Do”. She writes:

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

Don’t you just know that feeling, when sink has been clogged for a week and you just don’t have time to call the plumber? Or the toilets back up on overflow onto your new carpets? Or just when you thought you caught up financially, something knocks you right back down?  Have you ever thought, “Wouldn’t life be so much better if things just worked, if people listened, if I could get through the day without something unexpected or uncalled-for getting in the way?” But no, life happens. And pain happens, especially in little ways. We drop our groceries in the parking lot. Our coffee spills down our wrist and stains the shirt sleeve we just had laundered yesterday.

We tend to think ordinary means interruptions like these don’t happen. But actually, this IS the ordinary. This is what the living do. It’s quite normal for things to fall apart and not quite work. This is what the living do. It’s a built-in element of life itself. It’s part of the package of being alive. The imperfections of the day are the very things that make us human.

To find God in that which is imperfect is not something that comes easily to some of us. In Japan, there is an entire worldview that appreciates that which is imperfect, unfinished, and ordinary. It’s called wabi-sabi. Wabi comes from a root word referring to harmony, tranquility, and balance. Wabi has come to mean simple, un-materialistic, humble by choice, and in tune with nature. It reminds me of the words of the Tao that I printed in the bulletin. Lao Tzu talks about someone who is content to be simply one’s self without need to compare or compete -- someone who is perfectly herself and never craves to be anything else. Such a person would be described as wabi.

Sabi by itself means "the bloom of time." It indicates tarnish and rust. Sabi things carry the burden of their years with dignity and grace: the chilly, mottled surface of an oxidized silver bowl, the yielding gray of weathered wood, the elegant withering of a bereft autumn tree, an old car left in a field to rust as it transforms from an eyesore into a part of the landscape, an abandoned barn as it collapses in on itself. There's an aching poetry in things that carry this patina.

So now we have wabi, which is humble and simple, and sabi, which is rusty and weathered. Together, wabi-sabi has to do with taking pleasure in what might first appear to be mistakes and imperfections.

What might it mean to cherish the ordinariness of the life you’ve been given – the life that is not built to last, the life that demonstrates a weathered elegance, the life that remains tranquil when it falls apart? What would it mean to love life filled with clogged sinks and spilled coffee – to know that, as aggravating as it is, it is all well and good? It’s all worth it, because it means we are here. We are alive. And God is with is.

So, praise the ordinary.

Praise the tedium of an ordinary day;
    Getting up in the morning,
    Spreading butter on bread,
    Dishes to wash and laundry to fold,
    Bickering children with beautiful, faces that need a wash cloth.
Praise the busyness of jobs;
    Meetings and emails,
    Papers to write,
    Sticky notes to stick and desks to dust.
Praise the familiarity of friends,
    the faithfulness of pets,
    the tedious requests of people who want something from you.
Praise the ordinary at Christ Congregational church;
    The usual faces and the habitual greetings,
    Good moods and bad,
    Grumbling about this or admiring that,
    Yielding to the familiar rhythms of worship.
Praise, praise the monotony of an ordinary day.

It is what the living do.

Sources:
Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Change Your Life Again and Again, 71-78.
http://newenglandchurch.org/sermons/020310gm.htm
http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lawrence
http://thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com/2010/11/poetry-friday-ordinary.html

Sermon for August 3, 3014

Laws for Living: #5 Peace with Happiness
No one is in charge of your happiness, except you

I bless God every chance I get; my lungs expand with God’s praise.
I live and breathe God; if things aren’t going well, hear this and be happy:
Join me in spreading the news; together let’s get the word out.
God met me more than halfway, God freed me from my anxious fears.
Look at God and give warmest smile. Never hide your feelings.
When I was desperate, I called out, and God got me out of a tight spot.
God’s angel sets up a circle of protection around us while we pray.
Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see— how good God is.
Blessed are you who run to God.
Worship God if you want the best; worship opens doors to all God’s goodness.
Is anyone crying for help? God is listening, ready to rescue you.
If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there;
if you’re kicked in the gut, God will help you catch your breath.
Disciples so often get into trouble; still, God is there every time.
God is your bodyguard, shielding every bone; not even a finger gets broken.
Psalm 34:1-9; 17-20

I read once that the average child laughs 400 times a day while the average adult laughs only 7 times a day. It turns out, this is only half correct. If a child was awake 12 hours per day would, that child would be laughing at least once every 1-2 minutes from sunrise till sunset. But for adults, the number may be closer to the truth. I notice a lot of adults will purposely hold back smiles and laughter during certain hilarious situations out of fear of seeming "childish.”  Or they will be too afraid to ask questions that are on their mind because they worry that asking lots of questions the way that a child does might make them feel less intelligent. In other words, we adults are good at putting on a mask – a persona – presenting an image to others of how we want to be perceived.

I’ve also noticed that sometimes, we fool ourselves into thinking the mask we wear is really who we are. Some people trick themselves into thinking we were created to be serious, solemn, and somber people. We can hide our divine light. What might happen if we trained ourselves to see beyond our cracks to the shimmering beauty that lies beneath? Might we let ourselves be content? Might we make peace with happiness?

Imagine yourself at costume party.  Everyone at the party is role playing the character they dressed up as. Except instead of dressing in a set of clothes, everyone’s costume is his or her wearing their personality. The guests come to the party wearing all their beliefs about what they are, who should be, who they shouldn’t be, what should do, and they shouldn’t do. You wear one, too. Your personality mask is a set of agreements about yourself.

Sometimes, we play the same personality role at the party of life keeps for years . . . sometimes a whole life time. Sometimes we completely throw ourselves into the role of our costumed personality. On one level, we seriously believe everything we’ve told ourselves about who we are and how we present ourselves to others. On another level,  another part of their consciousness knows it is all just made up.

What I want to know is this: Does this costume party make you happy? After all the striving to look a certain way, after all the efforts to act a certain way, after all the attempts to direct others into perceiving you a certain way . . . all things considered, are you satisfied? Are you content? Are you happy? If not, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Sometimes, in a moment of enlightenment, we look at ourselves and others and we are able to see beyond the masquerade. We sense the image of God behind the personality mask. We realize that this person is a glory-producing likeness of the Divine who us pretending to be someone else. Sometimes, in a moment of enlightenment, we flirt with happiness. And it feels good.

Social Science literature points to three factors that contribute to greater happiness:
Circumstances, personality, and intentional change. Let’s think about these for a moment.

1. Circumstances. The conditions of your life contribute to your happiness, but much less than you might think. Want to guess how much? Only around 10 – 12% total. That’s right: the things most people chase in search of happiness – money, experiences, relationships, and material stuff – all that stuff together makes up only around a tenth of our happiness level. Changing your circumstances tends to make only a short-term difference to your happiness. We might want to remind ourselves of this next time we think a sports car or a pair of awesome new boots will change life for the better.

2. Personality. Experts say about half of your happiness level is related to genes and personality. According to some research, we can blame human evolution for our desire to focus more strongly on the bad over the good. Throughout our evolutionary history, organisms that were aware of bad things were more likely to survive threats. Humans have also evolved the capacity to examine why these threats happen to us. We want to learn what happened so we can avoid going there again.

Beyond biology, we may get something out of holding on to negativity.

• žDo you have some sort of stake in holding on to criticisms and misconceptions?
• žDo you ever find yourself dwelling on and obsessing about the ways you feel you’ve been wronged
• Do you ever let disapproval from others keep you up at night, fantasizing about how you will put the critics down and triumph over their meanness?
• žHave you ever told sad stories from the past as a way to avoid judgment or win approval?
• Have you ever believed that everything would be better if the world or other people would change?
• Sometimes, ways we get attached to the very condition we say we don't want. We can have a hard time letting go.

3. Intentional Change.  Intentional factors make a sizable contribution to our happiness – up to 40%. These are all factors that we can change – the thinking and actions that we have control over.

We can change behaviors by doing things like exercising regularly or engaging in a productive hobby.

We can change our thinking. For instance, in our worship service today, we took time to count our blessing – to make gratitude a mindful act. It’s an act of intention. We can make an effort to recognize and appreciate the good that we have, celebrating each small success, being thankful for health, and having gratitude for the support of others. If you want an exercise to help you out here, take a cue from marriage therapist John Gottman. He says there is proven ratio needed to increase the happiness in relationships:

5:1

Positive and good interactions must outnumber the negative and bad ones by at least five to one. In other words, bad events are five times more powerful than good events. Negative events are so much more powerful than good ones, we must ensure that the good outnumber the bad in order to prevail.

We can also change our will or volition. We can do things like striving for a new goal or working on a skill. If you are stuck on this one, try doing some community service. Go out and surprise yourself with how awesome and amazing you are. Do a bike ride for charity. Sign up for a 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk. Raise money for an important cause close to your heart. Learn to play the saxophone. Take a tap dancing class. Volunteer at Shepherd’s Table. Deliver meals on wheels. Write that novel you've always dreamed of writing. Be someone who inspires happiness in others.

Bottom line: Theoretically, it is possible to be happy no matter what the external circumstance. It is useful to think of the ability to control your emotional responses to events as a muscle; just as your biceps become stronger only when you exercise them using the appropriate weights, your ability to control your emotional response to events gains strength when you take on challenges that correspond to your current ability. If you are someone who lets relatively minor events, like an encounter with a rude waitress, spoil your mood, how can you expect to maintain your happiness when a more extreme event, like a week-long visit from a unpleasant relative, unfolds? Change your thoughts if you wish to change your circumstances. Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts, only you can change them. Since you alone are responsible for your happiness, then it’s within your power to be happy. We can all be happier. We can do it by focusing more on intentional factors and paying less attention to the other stuff.

In our Christian tradition, there is another factor at play when it comes to making peace with happiness. What I am about to say may seem to contradict everything else I’ve aid up to this point. So hear me out. It’s called the surrender mindset. Taking personal responsibility for your happiness involves adopting a surrender mindset, which refers to the willingness to fully and unquestioningly accept the outcomes you are dealt in life.

Surrendering isn't the same as capitulating, by the way. In other words, a person with a surrender mindset is not a weak, rudderless individual who has "checked out" from this world. A person with the surrender mindset may dream of breaking the world record in the 100-meter dash, but if she were to discover a physical condition that prevents her from achieving this dream, she will be able to re-imagine her dream and move on to other goals without hesitation. When many of us moan when our favored outcomes don't unfold, the person with a surrender mindset is able to move on.

One effective way to develop the mindset involves faith in a larger intelligence or force. Some research says that those who believe in a good force larger than oneself will find it easier to surrender. Here is the contradiction. I just told you that nothing external to you can make you happy. Now I am telling you that there is something external that can influence your happiness. The reason for this is straightforward: if you believe that the Universe is shaped by a force more powerful than you, and that this force has your best interests at heart, then you will find it much easier to make peace with the circumstances you are given. Instead of trying to make yourself happy by purchasing a new gadget or looking for other people’s approval, the surrender mindset helps us learn to be content with any situation. It helps us realize that we may not be able to change what happens around us, but we can always change how we relate to those events. Or, if you are convinced God is always dealing you a bad hand, you are more likely to ruminate about the past than to move forward into a new future.

The author of Psalm 34 has this surrender mindset.  Listen again to the words the author uses to describe a relationship with a God who has our good in mind:

I bless God, I live and breathe God; God freed me from my anxious fears.
Look at God and give warmest smile. Never hide your feelings.
When I was desperate, I called out, and God got me out of a tight spot.
Worship God if you want the best. God is listening, ready to rescue you.
God is there every time.

Ultimately then, surrendering has to do with trust. Trusting that God is taking care of you is crucial for being happy. If we want to take personal responsibility for our own happiness, then we do something that seems illogical: we trust in the Good. We take responsibility for our own happiness by surrendering our happiness. Strange, huh?  When we figure this one out, we go enter into new types of relationships based on honesty, responsibility, courage, and wisdom.

We can be happy. In that spirit, I offer these affirmations:

Beginning with the early dawn, I will radiate my cheer to everyone I meet today. I will be the mental sunshine for all who cross my path this day.

I form new habits of thinking by seeing the good everywhere, and by beholding all things as the perfect idea of God made manifest.

I will make up my mind to be happy within myself right now, where I am today.

Sources:
http://www.getorganizedwizard.com/blog/2013/03/theres-only-one-way-to-be-happier-and-this-is-it/#ixzz393DP9aGx
http://www.carlsonschool.umn.edu/Assets/71516.pdf
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/how-to-build-a-happier-brain/280752/
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200403/marriage-math
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sapient-nature/201112/taking-personal-responsibility-your-happiness
http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com/enlightenment.htm

Sermon for July 20, 2014

Laws for Living: #4 Peace with Uncertainty

You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm. I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living. Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man when he cries for help in his distress. Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor? Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness. The churning inside me never stops; days of suffering confront me. Job 30:21-27

It’s one of the oldest stories in existence. His children are dead. His wealth, obliterated. His wife walked out on him. Now he is sick, covered with skin blisters and rashes. His friends don’t really know how to console him. God doesn’t answer his prayers. He suffers. He complains. Confusion and doubt consume him. It just doesn’t make sense. He is a good man, a righteous man. His name is Job, and he did not do anything to deserve such suffering.

Centuries upon centuries later, we still ask the same questions. If God is good and all-powerful, why is there evil? Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? Why doesn’t God stop wars and genocides? Why does God allow my loved ones to suffer? If God is near, why doesn’t God answer my prayers? In the play J.B. by Archibald McLeish, Job comes to this conclusion: “If god is god, he is not good. If god is good, he is not god.”

We learned from childhood that when we do wrong we get punished. Disobey, and you get in trouble. Do something good, you’ll get a reward. Is that what’s happening here? Is God punishing humanity for sin? I doubt it. Sometimes, well-meaning people will offer fast and loose Scripture quotes to give you an explanation. They tell us: If we obey God, and live moral and wholesome lives, we will be healthy and wealthy. If we suffer, God must want to teach us something. Suffering is the only way God can get our attention. It all sounds so true. But then we begin to wonder, “If this is true, why is it we feel worse instead of better?”

As we get older, we often realize that there is no real correlation between the amount of wrong we commit and the amount of pain we experience. In fact, sometimes the opposite is true. We do the right thing and still get knocked down. We do the best we are capable of doing, and just as we are reaching out to receive our reward we are hit upside the head and sent spinning. This is the suffering that bewilders and outrages us. This is the kind of suffering that bewilders and outrages Job. Job does everything right, but everything goes so wrong. Job outright rejects the kind of well-meaning advice that provides glib explanations for every painful condition. Job suffers. And Job doubts God.

Is that OK? Is it alright to have doubts? After all, some studies show that rejecting one’s previously held beliefs can lead to shame and guilt. Paul’s Letter to the Romans in our New Testament clearly states, “... those who doubts are condemned.” Feelings of guilt and shame can erode a person's sense of self-worth As the famous Protestant theologian Karl Barth wrote, “No one should flirt with his unbelief or with his doubt. The theologian should only be sincerely ashamed of it.” Thank you Dr. Barth! Now I not only have doubts. I ashamed, too.

Barth and Paul do not get the last word. There are wise people who tell us it’s OK to doubt. Consider an ancient Zen saying: “Great Doubt: great awakening. Little Doubt: little awakening. No Doubt: no awakening.”

Some people come from religious traditions where there is a system of dogma, canon law, or a corpus of right beliefs to guide the believer in the spiritual journey. Some traditions rely on creeds and catechisms to be the most faithful interpreters of Scripture. In the UCC, we take a different approach. And sometimes our approach gives people heartburn. Our covenantal tradition means there is no centralized authority or hierarchy to impose any doctrine or form of worship on its members. We seek a balance between freedom of conscience and accountability to the historic faith. The UCC therefore accepts the historic creeds and confessions of our ancestors as testimonies of faith, but not tests of the faith. Non-creedal does not mean anything goes. It means that we are a Protestant Christian church which does not require members to recite the Apostle’s Creed, or any other statement of faith in order to be members of the church.

It also means that we arrive at greater truths through a process of questioning, sharing, journeying, and yes, even doubting together. In some ways, you could say that the UCC preserves the individual’s freedom of doubt. For those who want to know the rules and follow them to the letter, you can see how this can be frustrating.

Remember Renee Descartes, the “I think therefore I am” guy? We use that phrase to sum up his rationalistic philosophy. Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I exist. There is actually an expanded version of his philosophy that does not get repeated much: Dubito ergo cogito. Cogito ergo sum. "Since I doubt, I think; since I think I exist." Descartes believed that doubt was essential for learning the truth. More specifically, Descartes believed that a person can grasp the truth only by doubting and calling into question everything one knows. He said, “I am a thinking (conscious) thing, that is, a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows a few objects, and is ignorant of many.”

Doubt has now become a modern phenomenon. We now live in an age where we have the luxury of being able to question matters of faith. In some ways, we are all skeptics, believer and unbeliever alike. The general view of our day is that there is no longer one true faith evident in all times and all places. Every religion is one among many. The clear lines of orthodoxy are made crooked by our experience. God is no longer thought to be the center of the cosmos. In our day, the individual and the material world have become the centers of meaning-making. I would say that if we allow ourselves to think about it for a while, most modern Westerners feel adrift and cast into a cold, anonymous, dark and infinitely large universe that is ultimately unknowable and un-mappable.

That puts us in a place where we have choices to make. Some religious traditions claim that the modern way of thinking requires people of faith to bring back and live out medieval moral codes. They will call it getting back to the spirit of the New Testament Church, but what they really want is an enchanted, spiritual worldview charged with presences like the Spirit, or angels and devils -- unnatural presences who come upon and enter into an open, vulnerable individual. In the medieval mindset, to be human meant to be open to an outside force, whether good or evil, open to blessing or curse, open to possession or grace. Some religious traditions seek to preserve that way of being. Others religious traditions say the universe is not really like that. The world doesn’t work that way. There is no longer a distinction between sacred and profane, or between sanctified and secular. Like it or not, we have to deal with our doubts as those who live our lives individually, yet in community, before the face of God. In the words of the novelist Flannery O’Connor,

“There are some of us who have to pay for our faith every step of the way and who have to work out dramatically what it would be like without it and if being without it would ultimately be possible or not.”

C.S. Lewis, a great Christian writer and theologian, believed that doubts were good part of our spiritual development because they make us examine our faith. He wrote,

“If ours is an examined faith we should be unafraid to doubt. If doubt is eventually justified, then we were believing that which was not worth believing. But if doubt is answered, our faith has grown stronger . . .”

This from a man who started his faith journey as an atheist. When Lewis gave himself permission to explore of his doubts, after years of searching and struggling, he became one of the most powerful and insightful writers about Christianity.

Some say that doubt is part of our psychological development. A psychologist named James Fowler has studied faith development in Christians. Fowler thinks that when people hit their 30s and 40s, they enter a time of anxiety and struggle as they face difficult questions about who they are and what they believe. Perhaps for the first time, a person takes responsibility for her beliefs and feelings. Where once a person accepted what religious authorities said without any questions, she now re-examines what she’s been told. Nothing feels certain anymore. Disillusionment reigns. This stage is not a comfortable place to be in. Most people, after entering this stage, sense that the world is far more complex than they previously thought.

I can speak from experience and say that when I am in those times of doubt, when I am journeying in those dark nights of the soul, when it seems that God has moved or that the box I was trying to trap God in was exploding, these are the times I grow the most.

Doubt is an important quality to have if you are a spiritual seeker. Perhaps we need to alter Descartes’ formula a little bit. He said, “I doubt, therefore I think; I think therefore I am.”  Maybe it should go more like this: “We are, therefore we think; we think, therefore we doubt.” To be human is to think. To think is to doubt, otherwise we’re just parroting what we've been told, and that's not thought at all.

Doubt can motivate us to study and learn. Doubt can help us question counterfeit beliefs that have crept into our faith. Doubt can humble our arrogance. Doubt can give us patience and compassion with other doubters. Doubt can remind us of how much truth matters. Authentic faith must be as open to questions as it is receptive of answers.

If this is not a place where tears are understood, where can we go to cry?
If this is not a place where our questions can be asked, where can we go to seek?
If this is not a place where our heart cries can be heard, where shall we go to find comfort?

May this church be such a place for all of us—a place where our questions, and even our doubts, are always welcome.

Sermon for July 13, 2014

Laws for Living: #3 Peace with Others

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces." (Matthew 7:1-6)

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~e.e. cummings

Jake’s emotional outburst was legendary. Infamous. Seven years after that fateful meeting when Jake’s temper spewed the hot ash of anger, seven years after Jake had left the church, seven years after the congregation’s minister had also resigned and moved far away, members of the church still talked about Jake’s roaring, vulcanian tantrum.

The members of this established, oldline church tiptoed around conflict in the weeks leading up to Jake’s explosion. The congregational temperature rose due to a number of issues including financial pressure and shrinking membership, the grief of impermanence and no place to vent worry. Blame increased. Some people faulted the long-tenured pastor, whom several members thought had stayed past his usefulness. While some devotees united around the minister, another group called for his retirement. The factions kept their anxiety just under the boiling point until Jake erupted on that critical meeting night. After Jake’s emotional explosion, the church could no longer manage the heat of conflict.

Seven years later, I met Jake at a denominational event. He was confident and approachable. We hit it off over dinner. Finding an opening to hear his version of the story, I asked him, cautiously, what happened at that meeting. With evaporating poise, gazing down at the floor, hands folded in front of him, he said,   “That was a terrible night. There’s no doubt about it. I lost my temper. I know everyone blames me for what went wrong at the church. But do you know what I wish? I wish just one person would have called to see if everything was alright.  No one ever talked me after that. No one ever reached out to see if I was OK. If they had, I would have told them about how I came home from work that night, right before leaving for the church meeting, and my wife told me she wanted a divorce. I was so upset. So angry and confused. I went to church that night even though my world had turned upside down. Looking back, I shouldn’t have gone to the meeting. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I’m sorry. But still, I wish someone had bothered to ask.”

When people act badly, I try to remember Jake’s story. We don’t often know what happened during someone’s day before we see them. One person could be having a lovely day while another may be feeling terrible. When someone snaps at me, I tend to take it personally. I may choose to be offended. I can also choose to marginalize or disparage the person by whom I fee attacked. I can criticize. I can gossip. I can fault. I can judge. Or, I can choose another reaction. I can choose not to take it personally.

I can choose to follow the words of Christ from the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not judge. Take the log out of your own eye before you examine the speck in someone else’s.” It sounds straight forward to me.

We tend to think that Jesus is talking about the self-righteous kind of judgment – those opinions of ourselves that put us in a one-up position over another. There’s another kind of judgment I want to talk about today. It’s what happens when you look at another person and judge the other to be more competent than you. What happens when you look around and others are always smarter, faster, thinner, wealthier, happier, nicer, luckier and more talented than you?  It’s a double judgment, really.

The first judgy thing you are doing is comparing yourself to another person – haunted by the specter of self-judgment. The second piece, however, is that you are really making assumptions about the other. You are deciding for yourself that the other person must have it better than you – the other person is better than you.

Have you ever delighted in the downfall of someone whom you perceive as better than you? Have you ever been in rivalry with another person, but the other person has no idea?  Psychologists have a world to describe this phenomenon:  projection.  Projection involves taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing them to other people. For example, if you have a strong dislike for someone, you might start believing that she or he does not like you. Projection is an unconscious fantasy that we are able to rid ourselves of some part of our thinking by splitting it off and putting it outside ourselves, usually into somebody else. 

In church language, we have another word for this behavior: Envy. Envy is a feeling of unhappiness at the blessing and fortune of others. It’s a projection of an idealized fantasy. In others words, instead of dealing with my own unhappiness, I make up a story about how great the life of another person is, convince myself to believe it, and then resent the person I made up the story about. Instead of taking responsibility for my unhappiness, I make up a reason why someone else is responsible for making me unhappy. In the words of one ancient theologian, envy is sorrow for another’s good. It’s the painful and often resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by someone else. Envy and rivalry are poison to true community. When envy takes root, we are constantly on edge, competing with each other and throwing elbows over the smallest advantage.

So, when Jesus says, “Do not judge others or you to will be judged,” the intent may be deeper than just confronting our tendency to look down on others. J.B. Phillips paraphrases Matthew 7:1 like this: "Don't criticize people, and you will not be criticized." In The Message, Eugene H. Peterson paraphrases it, "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults -- unless, of course, you want the same treatment."

The English theological and scholar John Stott prefers the word censoriousness. It means, “marked by or given to censure;” not  an objective, discerning judgment, but the harshness of one who is a fault-finder, a blamer, one who puts the worst possible interpretation on the motivations of others.

Part of the problem with envy and judgment, with projection and censoriousness, is that they are based on false perceptions. Whatever we are thinking about another person is probably not true. We don’t know what pains the other person bears. We don’t really know how another person is doing behind the veneer of success. We don’t know what that person faced before he came into a meeting and exploded unexpectedly.

And yet, many of us have a tendency to compare ourselves with others—over and over again. Demoralizing and useless as it is, we keep doing it. 

Think about it. What does your status, your value, your worth have to do with anyone else’s?  What does the size of my body have to do with anyone else’s?  How is my self worth any different if I say it should be equal to or greater than someone else’s?  Comparing myself to others does not change a thing about me in reality. I am what I am. Right now.  And that’s the reality.  Or, as one anonymous commentator said, “Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you than you.”

What might happen if we stop mentally assessing our worth by comparing it to others?

What might happen if we can make peace with others by making peace with ourselves?

Here is your homework, if you choose to accept it. It’s called “Flip the Focus.” The next time you find yourself being judgmental, envious, or censorious, identify something positive that you have —a trait, a possession, a relationship, a value— something that you can feel good about. It has nothing to do with any other person.  We are done comparing ourselves with others, so this so there’s no need to try to ‘one up’ someone else in your mind.

For example, the next time I wish I had a big vacation house on the shore, I can flip the focus and remember: I may not have a vacation house, but I do have a loving family to share my time with.

If I find myself comparing my body to another person’s, I can flip my focus and remind myself of how well my body has served me all these years.  And I can remind myself of other positive traits—I’m a generous friend, a loving partner, a talented cook, and a funny person.

Let’s move away from devaluing ourselves and others. Choose to move away from feeling bad about yourself for not being like someone else. Flip your focus and remind yourself of all that you are instead of focusing on what you think you aren’t.

Over time, you will see a change. You will find yourself looking for the good in everyone, including yourself. Instead of always finding ways that we don’t measure up, you will find ways to celebrate the parts of you that make you unique.

It’s OK to be easy on yourself with this. We are all caught up in this problem together. But do you know what? As Christians, we are also caught up together in Jesus Christ.  We are caught up together by the Spirit, and together we can be set free.

I do not need to envy my neighbor’s success. I do not need to bring another down by judging her in my mind. I am not defined by the blessings of others. I am defined by the grace of God. I can make peace with others by refusing to measure myself by a false standard. I can resist the compulsive and relentless urge to compete with everyone under the sun (especially those who are called to do the same things that I am). I can put away malicious dreams about the downfall and failure of others by savoring the sure knowledge that God is lavish in grace and that she has promised to graciously, freely, and abundantly give to me, and to them, God’s all-consuming love.

Sources:
http://www.hopeingod.org/sermon/winning-war-against-envy-and-rivalry
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/stop-making-comparisons-start-valuing-yourself/
http://dbhamill.wordpress.com/2010/10/30/a-tale-of-two-liturgies-last-weeks-sermon/
http://www.afterpsychotherapy.com/how-to-tell-if-youre-projecting/