Respect and the Twelve Steps

Sermon: (Genesis 24, Romans 7, Matthew 11)
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church 7-3-11

I am going to break the rules of good sermon writing today. A good sermon is supposed to be organized around a central theme and beat away at that theme. Well that’s not the case today. So many thoughts came to mind from the readings that I couldn’t fix on any one of them. So the title of this sermon is Various and Sundry Thoughts on Various Sunday Readings.

There’s a movie I saw several years ago and don’t ask me it’s name. In it an experienced older man is mentoring a teenage boy who is just beginning his dating career. He is very popular with the girls. It has something to do with his fancy car. He is trying to figure out which girls are the good ones that might make a future wife and which ones are shallow and self-centered and probably will stay that way. His mentor says “always be respectful of any young lady you ask out. Open the car door for her. All of them will expect that of you. Get her seated, walk around to your own door and see if she reaches across and unlatches it for you. The rare one who does that is a keeper. Don’t ever stop being respectful of her.”

So, in today’s reading from Genesis we see a scene like that. Abraham sends his servant back to his kinsfolk to find a wife for his beloved son Isaac and this after Isaac’s mother has died. The servant is instructed to ask young women at the well for a drink. The one who not only gives him the drink, but goes the extra step of also watering his camel is the one. That one was Rebekah who agreed to marry Isaac sight unseen and became the mother of Jacob known to us as Israel. All are ancestors of Jesus. The message: both men and women, young and old, think about going that extra step out of respect.

The next message from Romans is of a different sort. Think about some habit of yours that you have labeled bad, maybe it’s eating food that is not in your diet, or an addiction like smoking or a behavior of yours towards others that you find distasteful. None of these things you have been able to change. Paul in this famous passage describes the condition eloquently. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do the good I want. But I do the evil that I hate. He is describing an inner battle, a struggle of mind over body, if you will. My willpower will dominate. No, it will not. We always lose that battle. Paul, in desperation asks Wretched man that I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death? And his answer. Thanks be to God…through Jesus Christ Our Lord.

Well, sure Jesus is the answer, but how does He do it? How do I do it with Him? The best approach that I have experienced is in the 12 Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous and all the other programs dealing with intractable behaviors, that stem from it, Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, and Gamblers Anonymous, to name a few.

Let me over simplify those 12 steps like crazy. First we admit defeat; will power doesn’t work. Then we turn it over to the God of our understanding and ask His help to do the things we need to do so that we longer engage in the behavior. Those things are 1) working a positive spiritual program of our own and 2) making those changes in our lives that get us away from the temptations or triggers for our cravings or urges. For example, depending on your issue,don’t take the first drink, don’t light up the first cigarette, don’t take the first brownie or any dessert for that matter, don’t go to the casino or buy a single lottery ticket. Equally important, don’t hang around with those who do. If you are trying to keep a positive attitude and avoid mean behavior toward others, don’t hang around with those who are always complaining or blaming. Never are we ever going to make the changes needed if we see it as a battle that we have to win with superior will power.

As many undoubtedly know, the Twelve Steps have been appearing on the south side of our sign for several months, usually in pieces and snippets, because the sign isn’t big enough to fit a whole step. We are just now finishing the 11th step.

Is this an easy process? Only if it is spiritual. By that I mean only if we can give up the fight and let Him do it. We can take comfort from the Matthew reading. Come to me all you who are weary or are heavy burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.

Yoke refers that that wooden piece that ties two oxen together to which the weight they are pulling is attached. It can be very heavy. Jesus is saying “Let me take your yoke, your burden, your addiction, your harmful habit. I will deal with it. In exchange you take up my yoke, learn from me, follow my teachings. Your burden will be light. You are not pulling it alone.

Planet of Slums

Planet of Slums by Mike Davis is one book I have been reading lately. It has really caused me to think differently about Jesus’s command to Love My Neighbor. Davis describes a planet where the majority of people now live in the cities verses the rural areas of towns and farms. The majority of these city dwellers are found in huge mega-cities in the third world, the developing countries. Such cities have exploded in population during the last 60 years. Two examples are Mexico City and Seoul-Inchon, South Korea. In 1950 Mexico City had a population of 2.9 million; in 2004 it was 22.1 million. In 1950 Seoul-Inchon had a population of 1 million; in 2004 it had a population of 21.9 million. It is now seven years later. We can only imagine what those populations are currently.

Now here is the really bothersome part. A large number, maybe the majority, of those mega-city dwellers live in slums. They simply moved into unoccupied areas, fields or abandoned buildings, with no sanitary services and made a house of whatever they could find, be it discarded plywood, cardboard or mud. Why did they do this? The reasons are varied but one of the main reasons is they didn’t have enough food and came to the cities looking for work so they could buy food. They lived on or near farms and they couldn’t raise enough food to live on? No, because the land had been bought up by large corporations who paid them, if they found work, subsistence wages and shipped the food to the richer areas, including the United States, where the owners could make a bigger profit.

If this line of reasoning is accurate, and I think it is, then our standard of living which includes food from many parts of the world is at the expense of slum dwellers and other people dispossessed of the land they live on. Actually, we don’t have to look to third world countries to see this process in action. The family farm is close to extinction in this country as the large corporations buy up or rent existing farmland. Not long ago the surplus of food raised by American farmers was an embarrassment. Not so any longer.

How does Love Your Neighbor come into play here? Is it time to support world-wide revolution? One less flamboyant approach that more and more people are following is to buy produce and other foodstuffs from those who actually raise or produce them. Another suggestion which becomes more necessary as the price of food goes up, right along with the price of gas, is to live more simply, to eat wholesomely but not extravagantly and to consume less energy. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the connection between corn being used to fuel our cars and the high price of beef.

Spirituality isn’t just praying. As we know, it is caring for each other as well as ourselves. It is sharing in more equal amounts the produce of God’s good earth. Can we bring nutrition and sanitation to the slums of Mumbai? Not all by ourselves. There is no excuse for not doing our part, however.

I have also been reading the wisdom of the beloved Jewish Rabbi, Abraham Heschel. The following quote of his applies here:

Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society some are guilty but all are responsible.

Citations: Planet of Slums by Mike Davis, Verso, 2007.
“Abraham Heschel: Militant Mystic” by Victor M. Parachin in Spiritual
Life, Summer, 2011.

Don't Sell That Cow

Sermon: St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Pentecost,  6-12-11

(Acts 2:1-21, 1 Cor 12:3b-13, Jn 20:19-23)

“Your sons and daughters shall prophesy.  Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.”  1 Cor. 2:17

The wise Mother Superior was dying.  The nuns gathered around her bed, trying to make her comfortable.  They gave her some warm milk to drink, but she refused it.  Then one sister took the glass back to the kitchen.  Remembering a bottle of whiskey the convent received as a gift the previous Christmas, she opened it and poured a generous amount into the warm milk.  Back at Mother’s bed, she held the glass to her Superior’s lips.  Mother drank a little, then a little more.  Then, before they knew it, she had drunk the whole glass of milk down to the last drop.  “Mother, Mother,” the nuns cried, “give us some wisdom before you die.”  She raised herself up out of bed with a pious look on her face, and pointing out the window, she exclaimed.  “Don’t sell that cow!”

The message is “don’t sell the Holy Spirit.”  We need the Holy Spirit and He is just as available as the bottle of whiskey that most households have.  It is no surprise that on the first Pentecost when the apostles, full of the Holy Spirit, found their courage and their tongue, or should I say tongues, they were accused of being drunk on new wine.  Alcohol and the Spirit have been associated down through the ages.  In fact, the word spirits is an alternative word for alcoholic beverages.  The word spirituality comes from the word “spirit,” which means breath or wind.  We ask the Holy Spirit to breathe new life into us, light our fire, to help us speak as we have never spoken before.  And when the Holy Spirit breathes on us and in us that wind may lead us to dream of things that never were and to have the courage to pursue them, to sing our hearts out and to dance before the altar of the Lord as did King David.

Oh yes, alcohol and some other drugs (alcohol is a drug) in small amounts may do some of these things for some people.  We do serve sacramental wine in our Communion, but basically it’s a false substitute for the real thing.  Some folks should not take it even in small amounts because it takes them, through no fault of their own.  The real thing is God, the Holy Spirit, who not only enables our young people to see visions and our old people to dream dreams, but enables all of us to realize those dreams.

Let me ask you this.  When you were younger did you have some dreams, some goals you wanted to accomplish, some far off places to visit, perhaps a college degree to finish, a reunion with alienated loved ones.  These dreams got postponed for any number of good reasons and you just kind of gave up and forgot about them.  Think about it.  What was your vision for your life?.  What is that vision now?  Is that vision totally unrealistic?  Maybe some adjustments are needed in the dream, but it might not be impossible to attain.    

When my father retired and became a recluse my mother stayed home with him even though she had wishes and plans she had hoped to realize.  When we would say, come on up to Michigan and visit us, she would say, I can’t leave your father.  He can’t get along without me.  When she was close to death she regretted she had not pursued her dreams.  After she died my father did not lack for ladies to care for him.

If you are young, get in touch with your bliss.  What are your visions?  Don’t give up on them.  It is really easy to become discouraged now because of the economy and lack of jobs, but times will improve.  Do you want a better world for everybody? Then look for opportunities to contribute to that.  Robert Kennedy before he died was quoting someone, I don’t know who, with the words.  “Some people see what is and ask why, I dream of things that never were and ask why not.”  The Apostles were not drunk on new wine that first Pentecost. They were on fire with the Holy Spirit and look what they accomplished, things that never were.

Look what we have been able to accomplish here at St. Stephens, because people had visions and then got a group to support them. And by golly it happened and will continue to happen.

So, on this great feast of Pentecost let’s look at our cup as half full rather than half empty, or maybe as full of milk, fortified milk at that.  Let’s continue to sing with gusto and today, like King David, dance before the Lord.  You are invited to dance your way out of church today.   The recessional hymn is “Lord of the Dance.”  Instead of stopping at the back door I am going to keep going and dance into the daylight.  Would every able bodied person please follow me and dance before the Lord in your own style.  You don’t have to dance the Macarena, but at least move a couple of body parts you don’t usually move.  John Jawing

Fundamental Joy

It was a gathering of people with a common interest, recovery from addiction!!!  They were hospital administrators, program directors, nurses, a former student, counselors, intervention specialists, author/reporter from the Boston Globe who earlier in the evening had made a presention on the dangers of psychiatric medications.  The discussion around the dinner table was lively and happy.  God was at work, certainly in my psyche, as people focused in on what was most important.  I felt I was in the presence of spiritual giants, all of whom would be quick to deny the appelation had I uttered it.  Some people had recovery of 20, 30 years, that much time with no alcohol or other durgs, one day at a time.  Their laughter from the gut was real.  Their bond transcended age, gender, religion, economic level.  I remembered how in the past this kind of camaraderie seemed like what the spirit in the early Christian community must have been like.  I have missed this fundamental joy.  It was good to be home.  John Jawing    

Ascending from the Canyon

Sermon: Acts 1:6-14, Jn 17:1-11

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Sun. after Ascension, 6-5-11

Today we’re at a transition point, a thrust-forward point, if you will, in the church year as we follow in the readings the life of Jesus and of the young church.  Jesus has completed his work on earth.  He has taught a new way of life and performed the signs to validate His message.  He has given up His life according to the prophesies and risen from the dead.  Now He says goodbye to his disciples and tells them He will send a Helper. Then He ascends into the clouds.   While they are there, these country boys, gaping into the sky two angels tell them to go home.  They return to the upper room where so much has happened.  They wait and pray for the coming of the Helper.  They probably felt lost, abandoned, as sometimes we do when confronted with a new stage in life, a transition.   The big transition here is that the disciples up until that time had Jesus to do it all.  They just needed to ask and He would perform the miracle, save the day.  Now He is gone, at least visibly.  It feels like they are on their own.  But of course they are not.  He will be present through His Spirit, the Helper, whose coming we celebrate next Sunday on Pentecost.  

So, too, we may feel abandoned by Jesus.  He is not around to work the miracle.  His spirit is with us to help us do the work, not do it for us.  We have to do it.  The Christian life involves two things, as the disciples learned: we pray, we do.  Not one without the other, but both.  First the disciples prayed,  the Spirit came and then they did.  It was quite a transformation.  We are called to that kind of transformation.

We can err in both extremes.  We can just pray and expect God to  fix us, get us out of this jam or whatever, without doing anything for ourselves.  Or we can try to do it all by ourselves, no help asked from other people or from God.  One the one hand let us not underestimate the power of prayer and on the other hand let us not forget what we can do with the right kind of help.

I heard this story recently about the power of prayer.  It seems in this particular conservative mid-western town, there had not been a pub, until an entrepreneur moved in to build one. The grand opening was fast approaching and one of the churches started an all-out campaign of prayer and petitions to block it.  No den of iniquity in our town.  Just before the opening it was struck by lightning and burned to the ground.  The church members were seen walking around town with smug looks on their faces, until the bar owner sued them for bringing about the destruction of his business.  In court the church members denied any connection to the lightning bolt. The judge was quoted as saying. “I don’t know how I am going to decide this, but it appears we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and an entire church congregation that doesn’t.”

All joking aside, prayer is a powerful resource.  Then, of course, at the other extreme are those rugged individualists who insist they can do it all by themselves.  The movie “127 Hours” portrays such a life.  This academy award-nominated film starring James Franco  is the true story of Aron Ralston, a bright young mountain climber, who got pinned by a boulder in the mountains of Utah.  Many of you know his story because he is quite famous.  After five days (127 hours) he was able to extricate himself (I shall not go into the gory details.), having already carved his death date into the walls of the canyon.  This loner, self-sufficient guy began his transformation in the canyon as he repented of not telling anyone where he had gone.  He videotaped messages to his parents apologizing for not answering his mother’s phone calls and telling them how much he loved them.  He was able to get himself out of the canyon using all the ingenuity of both head and heart, but he undoubtedly would have died then in the wilderness had his mother not sent a helicopter to look for him.

Aron returned to mountain climbing with a prosthetic forearm but his transformation into a human being who realized he needed both God and his fellow man continued.  He is now married and has the  son that he believes he saw in his delirious state in the canyon.

We are called to transformation.  Some of us come to it with an overreliance on God and others, expecting Him and them to do it all, to save us from our own laziness and foolishness.  Others come at it from the other extreme, with an overreliance on ourselves, believing we have the world by the tail.

It took a big boulder to jolt Aron Ralston into beginning his transformation.  He recognizes today that it was the love of others, his relationship with his family and friends that came through for him. He says, “For me it was to go through this and to realize, well, God is love and love is what kept me alive and love is what got me out of here.”  John Jawing

Citations: Movie: “127 Hours” directed by Danny Boyle, 2010.

                 Book: “Between a Rock and Hard Place” by Aron                              

                              Ralston