| June 24, 2007
You are welcome to reflect on this message
If David was the Psalmist who wrote“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that lies within me,” he knew what he’s talking about, because there’s an awful lot “within us.” And the less we’re aware of what’s on the inside, the worse we do on the outside. And the deadly sin of self-delusion, reverses the credence attached to the old saying: “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” What we don’t know will hurt us. Ask Jesus. “Father forgive them for they don’t know...” Ignorance crucified the Son of God! There’s no excuse for it. And anybody who tries to deny “all that’s within us,” is not going to get themselves off their hands. Until we do that, we’re not going to do much of anything for anybody else.
I am not just I, but I and me; liberated yet bound, free-thinking, but with prejudices; saint and savage, trying to manage life, but preferring to control it. “All that lies within us” -- locked into a forced companionship. No matter how hard we try or how far we go, I can never get away from me. I can get away from you; from here, in a geographical sense. But I can never get away from my self. That’s relational. We live as a unit from which there’s no divorce court. And mastering ourselves is not just what church is about, but it’s the deepest problem of being human.
Weekends are noisy in the city. It gets bad around two a.m., as the bars close. It’s just somebody trying to drink themselves off their hands. Others get stoned; and drop by the church to prop up a bad habit. The rich and famous pre-occupy themselves with trivialities. It’s the I, trying to anesthetize the pursuing me. Workaholism is more socially acceptable. Ignoring the Sabbath. Staying busy, busy; things to do, places to go, so I don’t have time to think about me. But nothing external works. The only sure way to get your self off your hands is suicide. And that just puts you in somebody else’s hands.
On the other hand, the great ones were great because they got themselves off their hands. David the king might not have been a lot of things, but he was “a man after God’s own heart,” mostly because he did. Likewise you could summarize Jesus’ life in 3 words: “I consecrate myself.” So. “I and myself!” Even Jesus was aware of what went on between them. But that didn’t keep him from thinking of others, because “it was for their sakes ... that he consecrated himself.” Jesus bumped into his “I and me,” at the temple as a 12 year old, caught between his mother’s love and his father’s business. In the wilderness, when tempted to be a militant messiah instead of a servant messiah. In the Garden, he struggled between his will and God’s.
And we too have-to do something with ourselves or else we’ll do nothing worth remembering. This is not optional. So many things in life have no have-to’s. You don’t have-to graduate from college. You don’t have-to go to church. You don’t have-to get married. Or have kids. But you have-to die. There’s no getting around that. And if you wanta live before you die, you’re going to have-to get your self off your hands. It’s mandatory for everyone who wants to live a life that matters. And part of coming to church is about coming to grips with this internal necessity, before we become somebody else’s problem. Our mental and penal institutions, and churches are full of folks who never got themselves off their hands. When Jesus said “I consecrate myself for their sakes.” But he couldn’t have done it unless he got himself off his hands.
I’ve seen people do just about anything, once they got themselves dealt with. Veterans come home from war missing both legs, just glad to be alive. You can’t be a veteran and think of yourself. Homes break apart and the pain of that, yet surviving divorce, rebuilding life. Unemployment, physical illness...we can do it, if we know how to manage ourselves, which is doable, instead of trying to be in control, which is impossible.
I took a motorbike trip to Canada once, and came to a road above the frost line, broken up by the winter. The boulders made it difficult to navigate but some wag put a sign up that read: “Be careful which rut you choose, ‘cause you’re gonna be in it for the next 25 miles!” I want to say that to somebody this morning. A popular preacher told a story about a guy who wanted to go to Chicago. But he bought a bus ticket to Detroit. When he got off the bus that’s where he was. To get to Chicago, you’ve got to get on the bus that goes to Chicago, else you’ll end up in Detroit. “Take care what you do with your self, you’re going to be doing it for the next 25 years!”
Unless ... you “dedicate yourself for their sakes.” What a wonderful alternative, because it lets you live while you’re alive! You’ve got to go to church to hear much about it these days of “me, myself & I.” You won’t hear it over at Waterfire. “For my sake, get all you can as long as you can.” That’s the tenor of our time. Think of the “for their sakes” in your life. Anybody for whom the most important thing you’ll do is whether you get yourself off your hands or not. You know who they are. What about “their sakes?” What you do for them carries more destiny than anything else in the world. “For their sakes” what is I doing with me? Ah there’s a lot of things we’ll never be able to do in life. Because if you just hang around long enough, you’re gonna get old. And that’s mean! What happens when a dream dies? But we all have the opportunity to get ourselves off our hands. And if you don’t accomplish anything else with your days and nights on this earth, at least you can do that.
Star athletes and beauty queens have a hard time getting themselves off their hands. As does anyone who equates what they do with who they are. Facing retirement or aging; change, life as-they-know-it dwindling away? If there’s nothing on the inside, how can anybody “get themselves off their hands.” Yeah life will ambush you! But what life does to us, depends on what it finds in us.
Biblical characters abound who struggle with their humanity, including Jesus in Gethsemane. In the 16th Chapter of the Gospel of Luke there’s a hellacious story about a poor man named Lazarus starving outside a rich man’s gate, who was so selfish, he wouldn’t share from his bounty. Yeah we can be as well-off as Dives or unhappy as hell if we don’t master our desires. Ol’ Job is having a dreadful time with himself. And I feel for him. St. Paul is like a walking civil-war in Romans: “The good I want to do, I do not do.” This is not a dilemma of a bad person, but the honest struggle of a good man, who’s desire to do good was tainted by something else at work inside of him to prevent it. Like a Dr. who can describe a disease but powerless to prescribe a cure … without help.
Simon Peter boasts, “All the others may betray you, but not me.” We know the rest of the story: overestimating himself, underestimating the power of evil, not relying upon God. Sometimes you step on the gas and the tank’s empty! Being in control’s a joke. Willpower gets you nowhere. The strain of living will drag you down when I is helpless to quell me.
That’s what church is for. Where the resources exist that can help us manage any situation, but control none. So none of us needs to stay the way we are. Church is where you hear about that Guy who said “For their sakes I consecrate myself;” where you get in touch with a power bigger than you. Try that apart from a community of faith and see how far you get.
So if you want to do something with your life, get yourself off your hands. Join with a tolerant church community that understands that; and accepts you as you are and encourages you to grow. Like...our place! When on the hills of Galilee Jesus first said “I dedicate myself,” he was thinking about the world. And the world still needs thinking about. Alexander the Great thought about it. And it made him sad at the age of 33, with “no more worlds to conquer.” Alexander wasn’t the first to find it easier to conquer the world than to conquer himself. And he won’t be the last. Because no public gain can make up for this inward lack.
Some poet said: “To thine own self be true, so you’ll not be false to anybody else.” Jesus said “For their sakes, I consecrate myself, that they may also be consecrated in truth.” There’s no better way to get your self off your hands than to consecrate it “for their sakes.” Religion is like a bar of soap. It isn’t any good unless you use it. Coming to church ought to improve our characters. We ought to know more about the Bible than we did a year ago. We ought to be better than we were a month ago. We ought to give more to the church than we did last week. Like “Irish Spring.” Use it! Speaking of soap, I used to dread my Saturday night bath as a kid, because my Mom would always clean “behind my ears!” I don’t know what it was about “behind the ears” because there’s lots of other places to wash. But she had this behind-the-ear-thing. Now church won’t clean behind your ears. But it can wash out your soul and make you clean on the inside where it really counts. A church is the only institution I can think of whose calling is to give itself away, the living embodiment of that wonderful phrase of Jesus: “For their sakes I consecrate myself.” Use your church. That’s what its here for.
Even the church has to “get itself off its hands.” Otherwise it becomes idolatry. Church is not about survival but integrity. All I know is those willing to give everything away are the ones with anything worth keeping. Those willing to stare death down are the ones who have a life worth living, because of a self worth having. If the church does what it’s supposed to do, its survivability will always be in question. Didn’t Jesus say “Find your life by losing it.” What would our church look like if we pooled our efforts to make the world a better place instead of a better place for ourselves, like everybody does?
St. Paul wrote that up and down, self-emptying passage in Philippians, about Christ giving up heavenly status for earthly existence, “taking the form of a servant, being obedient to the point of his own dissolution” – the big hurt, death before his time (Phil 2:5-8). "Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing. Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he; Lord Sabaoth his name, from age to age the same, and he must win the battle." “A Mighty Fortress” (v. 2). Still stubbornly delivering resources for living well to those who need it most ... in full trust that God will never leave his church without all it needs to survive. Back |
