|
Sermons at St. John’s Presbyterian Church Perseverance Produces Character and Character, Hope St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705 Telephone 510-845-6830 Fax 510-845-6837 office@stjohns.presbychurch.net http://www.stjohns.presbychurch.net M. Scott Peck writes in The
Road Less Traveled: “The inclination to ignore problems is a simple
manifestation of an unwillingness to delay gratification. Confronting problems
is painful. To willingly confront a problem early, before we are forced to
confront it by circumstances, means to put aside something pleasant or less
painful for something more painful. It is choosing to suffer now in the hope of
future gratification rather than choosing to continue present gratification in
the hope that future suffering will not be necessary. P. 31. Object relations theory in psychology
tells us, because of the total dependence of the child on those who make up the
world around them, as a child becomes aware that there is a world separate from
the self, anxiety arises when a desired object, like the mother’s breast, is
withdrawn. If the love object is unavailable for too long, the child’s life is
viewed as precarious and unmanageable. They may want to demonstrate control or
power over the object by destroying it, (for instance with biting) or they may
become desperate to consume all they can while they have it, to drink it up.
Then the child may come to feel that it is their drinking it all up that causes
it to go away. They may come to feel guilt that their need and desire to hold
or consume is the source of destruction or separation and then ironically
reject the object before it is used up or abandons the child. Parenting that is thin on love and
caring, or unpredictable, leads to all sorts of pathology. It may lead us to
cling desperately to our relationships, or to break off and push away. It leads
to an attempt to be excessively controlling, angry or violent towards ourselves
or others. We may come to think that we are somehow guilty and do not deserve
love or pleasure, or think that we are somehow guilty and do not deserve love
or pleasure, or feel we need aggressively to take and use up what we want.
Obviously two paragraphs doesn’t do the topic of human pathology justice, but
my point is that children who suffer from a lack of love and care have a tough
time developing into healthy, happy human beings. But the opposite is also the case. A
child whose parent jumps at every whimper and never gives their child any
distance will also develop problems with life and relationship. When the parent
leaves for a little while, the child suffers the fear of loss of the object it
depends on. But when the parent comes back, and this process is repeated, the
child learns it can survive being alone or without and while it cannot dictate
how others in the world will behave, the child will gather the knowledge that
there is a pretty good chance he or she will survive with enough love. Parents
who are too responsive inhibit their children from developing an independent
self apart from the parent, and in lay language the child becomes spoiled,
expecting the world to respond to their every whim. They have a poorly
developed capacity for discomfort or standing on their own, or for taking
responsibility for their own actions. They may have a low tolerance for
difference or change. One of the hardest things Feliciana
and I have ever done as parents was deciding, after five months or waking every
two hours, that it was time for us to sleep through the night. We didn’t do it
all at once. We agreed not to respond immediately to Nick’s cries, to hold each
other in bed, for gradually longer periods before we went to get him. The first
night we waited five minutes, the second ten and so on. It started out feeling
like pure torture, for ourselves and Nicholas, and then surprisingly, at around
a half an hour, something clicked and he started sleeping through the night. Every
once in a while he would wake up and we would go get him, but it was no longer
a consistent hassle, and he didn’t often scream like it was the end of the
world. And we all got more sleep. Now we all have, and all are, complex
and imperfect parents; we are all also a jumbled mix of varied degrees of
pathology; we are all nuts to some degree. And I have been in the ministry long
enough to know that parental fate can switch in a blink of an eye, so I do not
mean to claim myself as a role model. But the simple point is, even a good life
is filled with fear, doubt, suffering, and learning to endure is fundamental to
enjoying it with honor and strength. Paul just nails this fundamental
aspect of life here in Romans 5. As we experience real love in life, as Jesus
insists on loving, even through suffering, keeps showing up to do the loving
thing, we gain faith that the love he has shown us will last. It will return
and keep returning. He is a well of living water. As I said, to greater or lesser
degrees, we are all nuts. We have learned twisted ways of reacting, adapting,
avoiding and explaining suffering. Maybe your parents were less than adequate,
not quite good enough. And you grew up feeling unworthy or guilty, or feeling
like you didn’t deserve to be loved and cared for, that you are better off
running or pushing away, or when love finally comes you want to grab and hold
on for dear life. Or maybe you find yourself searching for scapegoats, or
whining when things aren’t just so. Even still I believe every human being
has the capacity to know deep within his or her heart, despite our
relationships, despite our parents mistakes, despite broken relationships in
love and business, despite prejudice and fear, despite our own sins and
mistakes, God loves us, for God is love. Still, our sense of separation and
alienation begins as soon as we begin to differentiate between ourselves and
the world. As we become conscious we become conscious of our alienation, of our
weakness, or our sin. We are kicked out of the garden, so to speak. We find
ourselves trying to work our way back in, to earn the love we so desperately
need, to know the connection and warmth of the womb once again. We devise all
sorts of rules and laws and norms to determine who would be in and who is out.
It could be a religious law like the Ten Commandments, or social norm, like
thou shalt keep up with the Jones’s, or thou shalt speak like this, or look
like that. Or maybe the law is to know your place in the hierarchy. But the rules just seem to demarcate
the division, our alienation all the more. What we see in Jesus is not someone
who is loving because it is payment, not because it is the law, not because it
will justify or gain approval of others, but simply because love is who he is.
To choose not to be loving would be to choose not to be him. That doesn’t mean
he is not challenging or never asks us to delay gratification. Love is the
source of joy and peace. If Jesus is God, then we know God is love; we know God
is gracious. And we have faith, faith despite our
childhood, despite our inability to be perfect parents, despite the hardships
and persecutions we may have to endure, we know this love is the beginning and
the end, the alpha and the omega of life, of our life. This faith gives us peace in the
present tense and hope for the future glory of God. Not only so, but we also
rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces
perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not
disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts through the
Holy Spirit whom he has given us. Of course, Paul is not just focusing
on individual personal relationships like a therapist. For the early Christians
are under considerable social pressure and even persecution, not only within
their families but also from a religious, cultural and political perspective.
The grace in which we stand gives us glimpses of the truth, glimpses of God's
love, water from a rock in the wilderness, a foretaste of the way it will be. This
foretaste gives us the strength to love and work for a more loving and just
society even as we endure suffering and hardship. Last week you read the Letter from
Birmingham Jail, the greatest testimony to the loving non-violence outside the
Gospels. What a great testimony to the joy and peace available to the people of
God who remain buoyed up by the love of God, even as they endure institutional
discrimination, hatred, violence and fear. "Aren't you tired of
walking?" some one asked the 72- year old woman during the Montgomery bus
boycott. And she responded, "My feet is tired, but my soul is
rested." Faith, endurance, character, hope. As we look back to the long slow gains
of this nation toward racial and gender equality, and forward to this Tuesday, we
can say that indeed, hope does not disappoint. There is water in the
wilderness. Not that we have arrived. I actually had someone say to me, "I
don't think America is ready for a black president." Why do we always jump to pacify that
whining baby? It certainly is not my job to tell you how to vote, but it is my
job to speak about the timing for a black president. If we are Christian and
there remains within us a residue of prejudice, which if we are American and
human we most surely have, then we should ask the Holy Spirit within to forgive
us, and then, in the grace in which we find ourselves standing, cast our vote,
not on the color of skin or reproductive hardware, but on the content of
character. As Christians that is the least we can expect of ourselves, that is
the least we can hope for ourselves. Personally, I have a conversation with
multiple parts or personalities within myself. You could say that before I cast
my one vote, multiple votes have been cast inside my mind and heart. And until
that day when prejudice stops casting votes against a person or persons, there
is another part of me that will cast up a vote for no other reason than to
cancel out the vote of prejudice. Call it a vote for love, a vote for equality,
a vote for the hope that one day we parents of prejudice will let that baby cry
itself to sleep, and begin that slow journey of realizing that though we are
not the center of the universe, the God who is, loves us still. |