The Journey From "i" To "thou"
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
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Object:
Introducing the Texts
How are we to move through the troubled waters of our time? Shall we shut down, tune out, and look out after number one? Just ask God to bless me, my wife, my son John, his wife -- us four no more? Or will we respond by drawing the circle of our lives larger? This is a hard time in which to live and a much harder time to be faithful. The challenge is as old as our faith -- to save our lives by losing our lives. Frederick Buechner writes: "To lend each other a hand when we are falling, perhaps that's the only work that matters in the end." All of this week's lections emerge from trying circumstances in the life of God's people. The wise in every age have found hope in the word God sent. Let's look this week at the word God still sends for our hard times.
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 deals with a transition time in the leadership of Israel. The great Elijah's work was finished. Who could possibly fill those big sandals? God's people must have wondered how they could go on without Elijah's wise direction. Second Kings reminds us that the faith of Israel transcended any personality cult. God prepared the unknown Elisha to be Israel's next prophet. We learn again from this old story that it really isn't about us or about our elected leaders. There is a larger purpose working, and that is the purpose of God.
Galatians 5:1, 13-25: Paul talks to the church about the ongoing struggle of freedom and slavery -- liberty and license. He tells the church they are not to misuse their freedom for self-indulgence. He turns them from their own little concerns outward toward love of neighbor. He contrasts the works of the flesh -- which are selfish concerns with the works of the Spirit -- which are all words of connection.
Luke 9:51-62 reports that the disciples were furious at the Samaritans' inhospitality toward Jesus. After all Jesus had done for them, they turned their backs on him. Jesus' disciples pushed him hard to destroy the village that had insulted him. Jesus adamantly refused. His purpose was greater than punishment for insult. He summarized his response in a parable where the church is reminded that obedience to God leads us beyond our own feelings to the common good.
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20 is the focus of this issue. In turning to the Psalter, the people of God are reminded once again that only as we move from our own concerns and lamentations to praise -- from I to Thou -- can we find a way through the wilderness of any age. What does it mean for us to journey from I to Thou? This is the question we struggle with this week.
The Journey from "I" to "Thou"
The great Methodist preacher Halford Luccock used to say that any good sermon begins in Jerusalem and ends on the street where we live. Or he reverses the order. Any really good sermon begins on the street where we live and ends in Jerusalem. We begin today on the street where we all live. Let us hope we will not stay there.
What is the name of the street where we find ourselves today? Robert D. Putnam, in Bowling Alone (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), has said that the street where we live today is a place where people bowl alone. The name of his book is a powerful metaphor for the collapse of community in America. We seem to have forgotten that connecting our lives with others is a whole lot more meaningful than living solitary lives -- bowling alone. Faith Popcorn in her book on trends and directions for the future, The Popcorn Report (New York: Harper Business, 1991), says that "we're hunkering down, we're holing up, we're hiding out under the covers ... we're home." She calls it cocooning. Everybody seems to be digging in. And if it were true in 1991 when her book was first published, what would she say about a post 9/11 world? She explains that cocooning is the impulse to go inside when it just gets too tough or scary outside. She writes that cocooning is about insulation and avoidance, peace and protection, coziness and control. We're ordering in more, buying more VCRs and tape rentals, buying more dogs and watching "This Old House" and "Extreme Makeover." Answering machines screen all our calls and gun ownership, security home systems and anti-snooping devices are all on the rise. Many church members stay only as long as their needs are met. We're voting less than any other time in our whole history. This is the street where we live.
"I" (Lamentation): Psalm 77:1-10
It is amazing how the first ten verses of Psalm 77 speak to the mood of our time. The psalmist's street is our street. Listen to his laments:
"I cry out to God," "In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord," "My soul refuses to be comforted," "I think of God and I moan," "My spirit faints," "I am so troubled that I cannot speak." (vv. 1-4)
But the writer goes on and on down through the ninth verse. Ten times in nine verses he uses the pronoun "I." And if that were not enough he uses the word "my" five times in these same verses.
Most scholars say that the crisis here was more than personal. The first ten verses are called a lament because they complain and cry out to God for help. The writer is so discouraged that his prayers seem to have no meaning. You might check the commentary on the Psalms by Clinton McCann Jr. in The New Interpreter's Bible (vol. 4, pp. 983f.) for a good exposition of these first ten verses. We do not know the nature of the trouble or distress alluded to here. Clinton McCann says that the psalmist voiced questions and doubts raised by the exile. Arthur Weiser (The Psalms [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962], pp. 530f.) says that the affliction of the writer's people has hit him so hard that he faced a crisis in his own faith. The trouble here has affected his whole life. He has had sleepless nights; he prays and feels his prayers go unanswered. He cannot see the hand of God anywhere in his present surroundings. This first section of the psalm is a part of a whole collection of psalms of lament or complaints lifted up to God.
You might remind your congregation that lamentation and lifting up one's doubts and wonderings to God is appropriate for worship. Remember the complaints that Tevye voiced in A Fiddler on the Roof. It was a time of great change for the Jewish people, and Tevye lifted up his rage to Almighty God. "We may be the chosen people -- but why don't you choose somebody else some time?" Walter Brueggemann in The Message of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984, pp. 51-122) talks about personal and communal laments. He calls these the "psalms of disorientation." Brueggemann says that all these psalms focus on the themes of disequilibrium, incoherence, and unrelieved pain. He says we might even call these the psalms of darkness. You might take these particular laments or parts of several others and weave them into some litany or prayer in next Sunday's worship service. Examples of personal laments are Psalms 13, 86, 35. Brueggemann identifies Psalms 74, 79, and 137 as examples of communal laments.
Remind the people that vibrant faith has no quarrel with bringing the hard things of life into their prayer life or the worship of the church. Some of these laments are individual and many are corporate. The church or preacher who fails to look at the psalms of lament ignores much of what is going on that street where most of us live. Like the Hebrews, let us bring the dark sides of their lives into the house of God.
Robert D. Putnam's book Bowling Alone is helpful in showing how our relationship to one another in groups and in community life has slowly deteriorated over the past two generations. He states that every aspect of society has been affected by our disengagement. We have become a nation of bystanders.
"Thou" (Praise): Psalm 77:11-20
Today's psalm teaches us that we do not stay on the street where we live. The psalmist turns toward Jerusalem. Brueggemann suggests that we find in the latter verses a movement from I to Thou: "I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord ... I will remember your wonders of old" (v. 11). Note the "you" (referring to God) in verses 11b, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. The I's are subsidiary to another word: You -- Thou. The psalmist comes to a new awareness of God's ways and God's will. This new understanding moved the writer beyond a solitary isolation (v. 6) to a connectedness with the community. In remembering the mighty acts of God, the psalmist realizes he is not only one of "your people" but one with God's people as well (vv. 15, 20). Clinton McCann Jr., in his commentary on the Psalms in The New Interpreter's Bible says that the psalmist is nurtured by the community's canonical memory (vol. 4, p. 985). In worship, along with fellow worshipers, the I gives way to Thou. The psalmist remembers the deeds, the wonders, the work of God. He remembers the long journey his people have traveled, he remembers the parting of the waters, and even when the world trembled God was there. He had come to know that even when God's footprints were unseen (v. 19) God was ever present.
Let the preacher begin on the street where he or she lives. It is a street of lamentation, of loneliness or disengagement. But, like the psalmist, move toward Jerusalem. Move toward mystery. People today in our world of too much reality TV and life itself are starved for mystery. They need a Thou -- a holy, holy in their lives.
It might be good to recall such movement leads us beyond ourselves to "the other." Paul talks about this in our Galatians passage:
"For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, 'You shall love you neighbor as yourself.' If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit ...." (Galatians 5:13-16a)
He follows this by contrasting the work of the flesh with the work of the Spirit (vv. 19-25). Every word he uses for living in the flesh breaks the ties with other folk and the community at large. Every fruit of the Spirit he mentions is a word of connection with other folk.
In the old Hasidic parable the rabbi asks his students, "How can we determine the hour of dawn, when the night ends and the day begins?" One responded, "When from a distance you can distinguish a dog from a sheep?" The rabbi shook his head. Another offered, "When one person can distinguish between a fig tree and a grape vine?" The rabbi said no. And so they asked him what the answer was. He said, "You know the hour of the dawn has come when you can look into the face of other human beings and recognize them as your brothers and sisters."
Remind your hearers that the journey from I to Thou runs through those people we meet every day. Jesus himself said that inasmuch as we do it unto the least of these we really do see his face.
Ann Weems has a little book titled Psalms of Lament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995). She tells how on August 14, 1982, her son Todd was killed less than an hour after his 21st birthday. She had an excruciatingly difficult grief, and she wondered if she would really ever live again. She said a whole network of friends helped her through that hard time. One of those friends was Old Testament professor Walter Brueggemann. One day he called and told her he was working on the Jeremiah passage that asks, Will Rachel be comforted? And he asked her what she thought her answer was to Jeremiah's question. Ann told him: Rachel would be comforted only when God wiped the tears from her eyes. Brueggemann suggested that Ann might try to write some lament psalms of her own to express her grief on paper. Several months later she had written five lament psalms. Brueggemann read them and asked her if he could share them with his class. She agreed. She writes that shortly thereafter people began to call and write. They had heard of her psalms or they had read some of her laments. Her grieving words had touched their hearts. At Brueggemann's encouragement she wrote more lament psalms and put them into a book.
In the preface to that book Ann Weems writes that as she wrote her laments the tears began to come and in time the alleluias would begin to come again. She ends her preface like this:
"In the godforsaken, obscene quicksand of life,
there is a deafening alleluia
rising from the souls
of those who weep,
and of those who weep with those who weep.
If you watch, you will see
the hand of God
putting the stars back in their skies
one by one." (p. xvii)
Brueggemann wrote the introduction to her book of laments. He writes: "Oddly enough, when the need, the hurt, the demand, and the venom are fully voiced, something unexpected happens in the psalm. The mood and tone of the psalm changes. Israel's anger and protest appear to be spent, and pain characteristically moves to a positive resolution. The speaker is, at the end, confident of being heard and 'dealt with bountifully,' and so ends in rejoicing and praise" (p. xi).
John Bunyan begins his classic, Pilgrim's Progress, with Christian walking along with a great burden on his back. His journey is twisting and winding. There were many dangers and many difficulties. The road seemed to be unending. He often wondered if the burden on his back would ever fall away. Finally he arrives at the New Jerusalem. The bells begin to ring. The bells toll over and over and over. His journey had finally ended and he writes: "Then I heard in my dream all he bells in the city rang again, for joy, and that it was said unto them, 'Enter ye into the joy of your Lord.' " (This is quoted in The Doubleday Devotional Classics, vol. 1; edited by Glenn Hinson [Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1978], pp. 325, 452.)
Begin on the street where you live move slowly toward Jerusalem. Or begin in Jerusalem and move toward the street where you live. It hardly matters which way you travel -- the "I" will give way to "Thou." Such is the great mystery of our faith.
Team Comments
Carter Shelley responds: Roger, I appreciate the work you have provided on Psalm 77. I am struck by the fact that at times of terrible grief, most Christians do appeal to God for (1) help, (2) an explanation, (3) a response, or (4) all of the above. What I like about your examination of the movement from I to Thou in this psalm is your recognition that for most of us the "Thou" comes to us in the form of other people who reach out to us in a caring and compassionate manner. At times of desperate heartache and sorrow, we need significant human contact to support us and help us make sense of our world along with ongoing seeking for God's presence and will.
What I love about the psalms of lament is the permission these psalms give us to rail against God, life, and great suffering within the context of belief. The psalmist(s) despair, yet still believe in God and seek God's support and consolation. There is so much in our world that is tragic and seemingly pitiless -- the beheading of Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia last Friday and the threatened beheading of the South Korean man on Monday; the massive numbers of desperate people seeking relief from the Congo and Rwanda as they try to cross boarders to safety. The ongoing losses of lives of Americans, British, and Iraqi people in the ongoing morass that is Iraq. In the context of war and terrorism, it's easy to explain human suffering as the result of human sinfulness. Yet, the fact that we human beings can't seem to evolve past war means God's ear must always be assaulted by the cries of pain, loss, waste, and outrage that war creates.
Brueggemann's suggestion is a splendid one, not just to talented Christian writers like Ann Weems but to anyone who needs to articulate the hurt, fear, isolation, and despair that can come upon us when we suffer or lose someone we love so. Just the act of writing out a lament to God forces one outside one's self and into a dialogue. When we get away from the divine I/Thou and focus upon our own I, we lose our way and lose our relationship, not only with God, but with one another.
The very act of praying, talking, or asking questions forces one outside one's self and into a larger world where both insight and support may occur. The words you share from Ann Weems' own terrible grief offers an excellent resource for others who have experienced similar losses. We all know how hollow the words, "I know just how you feel," sound when the speaker really doesn't know, but Weems does.
When God revealed God's self in the burning bush to Moses, established the Sinai Covenant with the liberated Hebrews, and appeared to Elijah in the still, small voice, God begins with an "I" far stronger than any we can set against it. "I am who I am." "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other God's before me."
Since there may be some readers who have not read Martin Buber's I and Thou (published in 1923), here are a few of its salient points. Martin Buber understands God to be the enabler of human "I"-"Thou" relationships. Such relationships exist on a variety of levels. The relationship one has with a favorite potted plant will not be the same as the relationship one has with one's beloved dog or even more beloved children. The most significant relationship of all is that of each individual with God. To have a relationship with God requires more than just thinking about God's existence or appreciating the beauty of God's world. The human "I" must actively meet God and address God as the "Thou."
Humans can have "I"-"Thou" relationships with other human beings, but as with God such relationships are likely to be singular, not multiple. For in a true "I"-"Thou" relationship the fullness of one's being is revealed and we don't hold anything (warts, neuroses, etc.) back from our God or the other person. Consequently, a human to human "I"-"Thou" relationship may be formed with a husband or a wife, or it may exist between friends who have known each other for a lifetime, but it does not exist usually with one's boss, work colleagues, or the local plumber. In those relationships, we only give ourselves partially, whereas with God or a spouse or best friend we give all.
Buber favored the creativity and immediacy of the human divine "I"-"Thou" relationship over organized religion with its laws, fixed beliefs and practices, and dogmas. He emigrated from Germany to Palestine/Israel at the age of sixty to escape Hitler and Germany. Unlike his Zionist neighbors, Buber did not endorse the usurping of Arab residents in Palestine in order to establish Israel. Buber hoped for a more friendly and mutual solution to problems of geography and ownership. This openness about Judaism, a chosen land, and the place of the Arabs in the Middle East reflected Buber's own openness and desire to not let old practices and bad relationships destroy the possibility of creating something new together. Thus, "an unprecedented event occurred at Buber's funeral, which was a high state function in Jerusalem. A delegate of the Arab Student Organization placed a wreath on the grave of one who strove mightily for peace between Israel's and Palestine's two people" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 2; Chicago, 2003, p. 991).
George Murphy responds: There's an interesting contrast, or at least tension, between Americans' emphasis on individualism and this country's fascination with big-time sports. Of course some sports -- most track and field events and golf, for example -- do involve just one individual pitted against others, and may the best man or woman win. But in the hugely popular sports like basketball or baseball, it's a different matter.
Sure, there are superstars -- names that everybody recognizes even if they don't pay attention to that sport. Shaq -- Shaquille O'Neal -- and Kobe Bryant are good examples, superstars who play basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers. (A lot of people have heard of Bryant because of the charge of rape that he's currently facing.) Karl Malone and Gary Payton aren't as well-known but, like Shaq and Kobe, they played for the Lakers in the season that ended recently are pretty good bets for the Hall of Fame when their playing days are over. Four future hall of famers playing for one team! More than that, they had a coach, Phil Jackson, who'd won nine NBA championships. Of course, they won it again this year, didn't they?
Wrong! In fact they were almost embarrassed, four games to one, by the Detroit Pistons, a team with an excellent coach and some good players but no real superstar. The Pistons were just a better team.
My purpose isn't just to exalt teamwork -- or to use a more theological term, community -- over the individual. An emphasis on community, if taken to extremes, can be as destructive as unchecked individualism, as the consequences of the fascist and communist movements of the twentieth century remind us. But since Americans do stress individualism so much, especially in religion, and today more than ever, as Roger reminds us, are tempted to shut themselves off from others, the value of community needs to be raised up.
With all of the more serious things that are going on in the world -- conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, a presidential election, concerns about the oil supply if things really go bad in Saudi Arabia and so on -- some preachers might feel a little guilty about focusing on a sports illustration like the NBA championship. Maybe sports do provide a kind of escapism, but it's a form that a lot of people in our pews indulge in, and we need to make contact with them.
What strikes me about Psalm 77 in this regard is the way in which a lament expressed in individual terms is answered by recalling God's saving work on behalf of the community. What seems to be the trouble of the individual in the first ten verses may in fact have to do with the condition of the community, for those aspects are never completely separable. Yet in this first part of the psalm we have the repeated I, I, I. But then "I" am comforted, not by a reminder of what God has done for "me" but by calling to mind God's saving actions on behalf of "us." It is in the fact that God has saved the community in the past that the psalmist finds some assurance that that divine care continues today.
While we're dealing with this psalm, another point is worth noting. Verses 14-20 speak of God's saving acts in the Exodus in dramatic terms -- thunder and lightning, the waters fled, etc. Hidden in there -- quite appropriately hidden -- are the words at the end of verse 19: "Yet your footsteps were unseen." With all of the spectacular natural phenomena, God himself was hidden from sight. If the Israelites had wanted to, they could have ascribed their salvation to some fortuitous events of the weather. That is the way God generally works -- as Isaiah 45:15 reminds us: "Truly, you are a God who hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior."
Related Illustrations
From Roger Lovette
Several years ago a writer was talking about his experiences on a well-known college campus. He teaches young people who have accepted the gains like affirmative action and the women's movement without at the same time producing the kind of commitment that created those gains. He asked his class what it would take to turn them on now. "Racial Injustice?" Dead silence. "Forty-four million without health insurance." Silence. "Gay bashing?" Not a word. In frustration he gave it one last try, "Have you not been outraged at the treatment of prisoners in Iraqi prisons?" Silence. In desperation, he said, "For God's sake, what would outrage you?" After a long pause a girl in the front row raised her hand and said, "Well, I'd be pretty mad if they bombed this school." This is a good example of someone living in an "I" world. If things go better with me, it does not matter what others have to do to tough it out.
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Susanne Langer uses a figure of speech about our connectedness to one another. She says a palm tree is formed by successive generations of fronds. Each waves in the wind for a time and then falls to the ground, leaving its stub to enlarge the tree. Each person is like that. He or she enjoys the full life of this world for a time and then is joined with those who have gone before. Yet, there remains behind the stub of that life: the influence on others, the shaping of institutions that endure, the changed contours of the land itself, the coloring of communal culture.
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"Life is like breath, if you save it, you lose it."
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"A nation that puts so much stress on getting ahead has a hard time dealing with those who fall behind. If you're successful, you seldom identify with failure. This is proved by the fact that integration of races has already resulted in an even great segregation by class. The so-called underclass has all the markings of a subordinate caste. In the long run, I believe, class will prove a tougher nut to crack than race."
-- William Coffin, Credo (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), p. 38
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"Here are some things you can do right after graduation: throw a baseball to a little girl; ask your teacher for his or her autograph ... ask your mother or father to a dance; throw a kiss to a little old lady; and take a walk in the woods with someone you love."
-- Art Buchwald, quoted in Onward! (New York: Scribner, 2000), p. 21
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Herman Melville wrote: "We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results."
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Marian Wright Edelman quotes Sojourner Truth in Onward! (p. 144). Sojourner Truth was a black slave woman who could neither read nor write. One heckler told Sojourner that he cared no more for her antislavery talk "than for an old fleabite." "Maybe not," was her answer, "but the Lord willing, I'll keep you scratching."
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Fred Craddock writes: "Since I've been at Chandler, I heard about a young man in his early twenties dying of that horrible, horrible, frightening, terrible AIDS in a hospital in Atlanta. He had no church connection, but someone said he had relatives who had been in the church, so they called a minister of that church, and the minister went to the hospital. The young man was almost dead, just gasping there, and the minister came to the hospital, stood out in the hall, and asked them to open the door. When they opened the door, he yelled in a prayer. Another minister there in south Atlanta, down around Forest Park, heard about it and rushed to the hospital, hoping that he was still alive. She got to the hospital, went into the room, went over by the bed, and pulled a chair by the bed. This minister lifted his head and cradled it in her arms. She sang. She quoted scripture. She prayed. She sang. She quoted scripture. She prayed. And he died. Some of the seminarians said, "Weren't you scared? He had AIDS!" She said, "Of course I was scared. I bet you I bathed sixty times." "Well then, why did you do it?" And she said, "I just imagined if Jesus had gotten the call, what he would've done. I had to go."
-- Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), p. 86
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From Carter Shelley, pertaining to emphasis upon the individual rather than upon the group or community:
Sharing of Children and Domestic Duties in Marriage
One of the early, idealistic models of feminism was to establish marriages in which all duties were shared equally. In such marriages, the husband and wife each was expected to keep a running tally of how many meals each cooked during the week, how many times each had helped children with homework, how many car trips each had made to soccer practices, doctor's appointments or the grocery store. The purpose of such scrupulous tallying of time was to keep the domestic responsibilities equal for both husband and wife. Couples soon discovered that a relationship cannot be based upon a mathematical record in which husband A owes wife A 7 hours and 35 minutes because he didn't do his fair share of housework his week.
Such self-interested accountings haven't worked well. Instead of turning loving marriages into partnerships such legalism about time tended to emphasize individual demands over against those of the couple or family. What works comes out of shared goals and shared effort where both husbands and wives agree that both will try to do what needs to be done to help the home run smoothly, ensure that work demands get met, and children are lovingly cared for. According to a two year old article from Newsweek magazine, the results of both parents working outside the home and both parents taking responsibility for home chores and children has led to somewhat messier, dirtier houses, but also to men who are far more involved in their children's lives, and have firsthand experience with the demands of meal preparation, laundry, cleaning, etc.
Political Decision-making Styles
President Jimmy Carter's leadership style was markedly different from that of Ronald Reagan. When Carter was President he would painstakingly pour over every page of every report given to him, leading to information overload, and slow, but thoughtful, decision-making. In contrast President Reagan almost never read an entire report. Instead, he would have his staff and Cabinet members read materials pertinent to their expertise and then have them tell him what he needed to know and what their recommendations would be. Our current President George W. Bush follows Reagan's model more than Carter's. President Bush will not look at anything that hasn't been summarized for him in a one-page memo. That sounds practical and efficient; however, such an approach can miss the nuances of a particular situation. Unlike Reagan and other previous presidents and Cabinets, the current administration prefers for decisions to be made within its own trusted circle. Consequently, our President and his advisors did not have a thorough grasp of the political, cultural, and religious complexities at work in Iraq. This unwillingness to engage in dialogue with experts in the fields most relevant to modern day Iraq's circumstances has meant the Administration was not prepared for the resistance and resentment Iraqis now feel toward the United States. The assumption seems to have been, "We'll get rid of Saddam Hussein. People will thank us for liberating them from a tyrant. Then we'll go home."
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Narcissism is often used to describe a person who is self-absorbed and selfish. It is also a term used by psychologists and psychiatrists to describe a particular kind of character disorder. Characteristics include an all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts. Five (or more) of the following criteria must be met:
* Feels grandiose and self-important (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
* Firmly convinced that he or she is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people (or institutions)
* Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation -- or, failing that, wishes to be feared and to be notorious (narcissistic supply)
* Feels entitled. Expects unreasonable or special and favorable priority treatment. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her expectations
* Devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with or acknowledge the feelings and needs of others
Some of the language in the criteria above is based on or summarized from American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM IV) (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1994). The text in italics is based on Sam Vaknin, Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited (Prague and Skopje: Narcissus Publication, 2001).
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While many narcissists often become that way as a way to survive childhood abuse or trauma, a person can literally become sick from being focused too entirely on his or her own needs, ambitions and wants. Such a person as a parent can seriously damage the lives of her children. Such a person can also never be satisfied. There is always a hunger for more.
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"It is not love we should have painted as blind, but self love."
-- Voltaire
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In books about affluence in America several authors have pointed out how unhealthy is our lifestyle based upon buying more things. The things we buy for pleasure and gratification cost so much that we have to work more and more to pay for them. As a result we have less time with our families and friends, less time for ourselves, less time for our God. We are depleted of time and interaction with others, and we lose out in both physical and emotional health.
As Barbara Streisand sang in Funny Girl, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world."
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The following information comes from Amazon.com's website. I am presenting it here because it's nice to have a few examples of ways to move from the singular "I" to the communal "Thou."
Better Together: Restoring the American Community, by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein, with Don Cohen (New York: Simon & Schuster; September 10, 2003)
In his national best-seller Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam decried the collapse of America's social institutions. But while traveling to promote the book, one question came up at every appearance: what can we do to end the atrophy of America's civic vitality. What can bring us together again? Seeking an answer to this question, Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, with the assistance of co-author Lewis Feldstein, who has a long and distinguished career in civic activism, visited places across the country where individuals and groups are engaged in unusual forms of social activism and civic renewal. These are people who are renewing their communities and investing in new forms of "social capital." Better Together describes a dozen innovative organizations from east to west and north to south that are re-weaving the social fabric of our country, and brings the hopeful news that our civic institutions are taking new forms to adapt to new times and new needs.
Examples:
* A mentoring and reading program in Philadelphia that brings together retirees and elementary school children to the benefit of both -- the children get help reading and the retirees have a richer, more purposeful life
* A group of sixth-grade activists in a small Wisconsin town who managed to persuade local authorities to improve safety at a railroad crossing and in doing so learned a valuable lesson in civic activism
* A neighborhood in Boston that has been revitalized by a civic association that overcame ethnic differences and now plays an ongoing role in the neighborhood
* A community effort in the impoverished Rio Grande Valley, one of the poorest regions in the U.S., that brought such basic services as electricity, roads, and health care to the mostly Spanish-speaking residents
* A successful small business initiative in Tupelo, Mississippi, that began sixty years ago with the purchase of a prize bull
* Chicago public libraries that have broadened their mission and have become true community centers
* Two huge and rapidly growing churches in Los Angeles that are making people feel connected to other church members and their community
* The city of Portland, Oregon, where the anti-war movement of the sixties actually changed the institutions so that now there is a remarkably high level of civic engagement in government and politics (more so than in other cities, even other cities on the west coast).
All across America such organizations are starting up and thriving, giving hope that the message of Bowling Alone has reached people and that our civic institutions are improving and adapting to the changing world around us. And the timing of Better Together could not be more perfect -- in the wake of 9/11 the subjects of civic spirit, community renewal, and social capital have been high on everyone's agenda as Americans ask again what makes us uniquely American and what values do we want to pass on to the next generations.
Worship Resources
by George Reed
OPENING
Music
Hymns
"The God of Abraham Praise." WORDS: From The Yigdal of Daniel ben Judah, ca. 1400; para by Thomas Olivers, 1760; alt. MUSIC: Hebrew melody, Sacred Harmony, 1780; harm. from Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1875, alt. Public domain.
"To God Be the Glory." WORDS: Fanny J. Crosby, 1875. MUSIC: William H. Doane, 1875. Public domain. As found in UMH 98.
"O Worship the King." WORDS: Robert Grant, 1833. MUSIC: Attr. to Johann Michael Haydn; arr. by William Gardiner, 1815. Public domain. As found in UMH 73.
"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." WORDS: Martin Luther. MUSIC: Martin Luther. Public domain. As found in UMH 110.
Songs
"I Will Call upon the Lord." WORDS and MUSIC: Michael O'Shields. (c) 1981 Sound II and All Nations Music. As found in CCB 9.
"The Steadfast Love of the Lord." WORDS: Edith McNeill. MUSIC: Edith McNeill; arr. by J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1974 Celebrations. As found in CCB 28.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: Call to mind the deeds of God;
People: We will remember the God's wonders.
Leader: Meditate on all God's works.
People: We will reflect on God's mighty deeds.
Leader: God is the One who works wonders.
People: We have seen God's might among us
COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER
O God, who is known to us in the ultimate community of Trinity: Grant us the grace to seek you in the community of our sisters and brothers; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
We gather with one another out of our separateness, O God, to share our joys and our sorrows, our triumphs and our failures. We bring our lives and share them together before you knowing that you have been at work in our lives and will continue to work and live in us. Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"All Praise to Our Redeeming Lord." WORDS: Charles Wesley, 1747. MUSIC: Sylvanus B. Pond, 1836; harm. by Austin C. Lovelace, 1963. Harm (c) 1964 Abingdon Press. As found in UMH 554.
"Jesus, United by Thy Grace." WORDS: Charles Wesley. MUSIC: John B. Dykes, 1866. Public domain. As found in UMH 561.
"Help Us Accept Each Other." WORDS: Fred Kaan, 1974. MUSIC: John Ness Beck, 1977. Words (c) 1975 Hope Publishing Co.; music (c) 1977 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 560.
"O Church of God, United." WORDS: Frederick B. Morley, 1953. MUSIC: Gesangbuch der H. W. k. Hofkappelle, 1784, alt. Words (c) 1954, renewed 1982 The Hymn Society of America. As found in UMH 547.
"When Our Confidence Is Shaken." WORDS: Fred Pratt Green, 1971. MUSIC: From Chants Ordinares de l'office divin, 1881; harm. from The English Hymnal, 1906. Words (c) 1971 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 505.
Songs
"Through It All." WORDS and MUSIC: Andrae Crouch. (c) 1971 Manna Music, Inc. As found in CCB 61.
"Unity." WORDS: Time Reynolds. MUSIC: Tim Reynolds; arr. by J. Michael Bryan. Arr. (c) 1996 Abingdon Press. As found in CCB 59.
"Cars Chorus." WORDS and MUSIC: Kelly Willard. (c) 1978 Maranatha! Music. As found in CCB 53.
GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.
We worship and adore you, the God who desires community. From the beginning when you said, "Let us make humankind in our image" until the day you shall gather in the nations from the four corners of the earth, you are the one who invites us to come together in you.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
Even as we gather as a congregation, we are aware that we live our very separate lives. We do not know our neighbors, even some of those who sit beside us in worship. We look out for our concerns and hope that others are able to take care of themselves. We forget that we are your family, both as congregation and as world. We forget, when our story gets discouraging, that you are always with us and that you often reveal yourself in the midst of community. Open our eyes to one another and to you.
We thank you that you never forsake us nor leave us alone. You are our constant companion that walks through the deep waters with us and through the searing flame. In good days and bad, you are with us.
(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We share with you the hurts of our world. Some of them touch us deeply and we feel the pain; some are distant and we are unaware of how much we are harmed by their hurts. In the midst of all the tears of life we know that you feel all our pain and cry our tears.
Grant that as the Church, we may be the sign to the world that you are with us, that your story of salvation and healing will come to fruition.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray saying, "Our Father ...."
***
N.b.: All copyright information is given from the first cited place where found. Some copyright information may differ in other sources due to adaptations, etc.
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
A Children's Sermon
By Wesley T. Runk
Hoe Jesus' Row
Text: Luke 9:51-62 -- Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." (v. 62)
Object: a garden hoe
Good morning, boys and girls. Today we are going to learn something about farming or having a garden, and while we are doing this, we hope to learn something about the kingdom of God. Let's see if we can do this.
I brought a hoe with me this morning. How many of you have ever used a hoe? (let them answer) If you have used one, then tell me how to use it. (let someone explain or demonstrate the way that he or she uses it) You must be a very good farmer. If you use a hoe like this, you should not have any weeds in your garden, and your plants should be growing very well. Sometimes you must use a hoe to plant a garden, and that means having straight rows. Have you ever seen someone try to make a straight row with a hoe? (let them answer)
I am going to show you two ways to use a hoe, and I want you to tell me which way is the best way to have a straight row. (demonstrate lining up the hoe with a supposed marker straight ahead, and then hoe by looking back over your shoulder; as you walk, you should make it fairly obvious that looking over your shoulder produces a crooked path) Which way seems best to you? (let them answer) That's right; the best way is to look straight ahead so that you know where you have been, if you want to keep on going in a straight line. If you look over your shoulder, you will make a crooked path.
The same thing is true about being a member of God's kingdom. Jesus knew that there were some people who wanted to be a part of the group who believed in Jesus, but that they also wanted things to be like they used to be for them. In other words, they liked what Jesus said and did, and hoped that it would happen to them, but they did not want to give up some of their sins. They always wanted to be able to go back and do the things that they used to do, like telling a lie if they needed to, instead of telling the truth. Jesus said you can't be a part of God's world one day and wish you were part of the other way another day. That won't work. You can't have it both ways. It is like hoeing your garden and looking over your shoulder; you never get to the place that you want to be, and instead you always get somewhere where you don't want to be. If you make up your mind that you want to be a Christian, then you must forget about the other things, and just keep looking forward to the time when you shall be with God in God's world.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 27, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
How are we to move through the troubled waters of our time? Shall we shut down, tune out, and look out after number one? Just ask God to bless me, my wife, my son John, his wife -- us four no more? Or will we respond by drawing the circle of our lives larger? This is a hard time in which to live and a much harder time to be faithful. The challenge is as old as our faith -- to save our lives by losing our lives. Frederick Buechner writes: "To lend each other a hand when we are falling, perhaps that's the only work that matters in the end." All of this week's lections emerge from trying circumstances in the life of God's people. The wise in every age have found hope in the word God sent. Let's look this week at the word God still sends for our hard times.
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 deals with a transition time in the leadership of Israel. The great Elijah's work was finished. Who could possibly fill those big sandals? God's people must have wondered how they could go on without Elijah's wise direction. Second Kings reminds us that the faith of Israel transcended any personality cult. God prepared the unknown Elisha to be Israel's next prophet. We learn again from this old story that it really isn't about us or about our elected leaders. There is a larger purpose working, and that is the purpose of God.
Galatians 5:1, 13-25: Paul talks to the church about the ongoing struggle of freedom and slavery -- liberty and license. He tells the church they are not to misuse their freedom for self-indulgence. He turns them from their own little concerns outward toward love of neighbor. He contrasts the works of the flesh -- which are selfish concerns with the works of the Spirit -- which are all words of connection.
Luke 9:51-62 reports that the disciples were furious at the Samaritans' inhospitality toward Jesus. After all Jesus had done for them, they turned their backs on him. Jesus' disciples pushed him hard to destroy the village that had insulted him. Jesus adamantly refused. His purpose was greater than punishment for insult. He summarized his response in a parable where the church is reminded that obedience to God leads us beyond our own feelings to the common good.
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20 is the focus of this issue. In turning to the Psalter, the people of God are reminded once again that only as we move from our own concerns and lamentations to praise -- from I to Thou -- can we find a way through the wilderness of any age. What does it mean for us to journey from I to Thou? This is the question we struggle with this week.
The Journey from "I" to "Thou"
The great Methodist preacher Halford Luccock used to say that any good sermon begins in Jerusalem and ends on the street where we live. Or he reverses the order. Any really good sermon begins on the street where we live and ends in Jerusalem. We begin today on the street where we all live. Let us hope we will not stay there.
What is the name of the street where we find ourselves today? Robert D. Putnam, in Bowling Alone (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), has said that the street where we live today is a place where people bowl alone. The name of his book is a powerful metaphor for the collapse of community in America. We seem to have forgotten that connecting our lives with others is a whole lot more meaningful than living solitary lives -- bowling alone. Faith Popcorn in her book on trends and directions for the future, The Popcorn Report (New York: Harper Business, 1991), says that "we're hunkering down, we're holing up, we're hiding out under the covers ... we're home." She calls it cocooning. Everybody seems to be digging in. And if it were true in 1991 when her book was first published, what would she say about a post 9/11 world? She explains that cocooning is the impulse to go inside when it just gets too tough or scary outside. She writes that cocooning is about insulation and avoidance, peace and protection, coziness and control. We're ordering in more, buying more VCRs and tape rentals, buying more dogs and watching "This Old House" and "Extreme Makeover." Answering machines screen all our calls and gun ownership, security home systems and anti-snooping devices are all on the rise. Many church members stay only as long as their needs are met. We're voting less than any other time in our whole history. This is the street where we live.
"I" (Lamentation): Psalm 77:1-10
It is amazing how the first ten verses of Psalm 77 speak to the mood of our time. The psalmist's street is our street. Listen to his laments:
"I cry out to God," "In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord," "My soul refuses to be comforted," "I think of God and I moan," "My spirit faints," "I am so troubled that I cannot speak." (vv. 1-4)
But the writer goes on and on down through the ninth verse. Ten times in nine verses he uses the pronoun "I." And if that were not enough he uses the word "my" five times in these same verses.
Most scholars say that the crisis here was more than personal. The first ten verses are called a lament because they complain and cry out to God for help. The writer is so discouraged that his prayers seem to have no meaning. You might check the commentary on the Psalms by Clinton McCann Jr. in The New Interpreter's Bible (vol. 4, pp. 983f.) for a good exposition of these first ten verses. We do not know the nature of the trouble or distress alluded to here. Clinton McCann says that the psalmist voiced questions and doubts raised by the exile. Arthur Weiser (The Psalms [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962], pp. 530f.) says that the affliction of the writer's people has hit him so hard that he faced a crisis in his own faith. The trouble here has affected his whole life. He has had sleepless nights; he prays and feels his prayers go unanswered. He cannot see the hand of God anywhere in his present surroundings. This first section of the psalm is a part of a whole collection of psalms of lament or complaints lifted up to God.
You might remind your congregation that lamentation and lifting up one's doubts and wonderings to God is appropriate for worship. Remember the complaints that Tevye voiced in A Fiddler on the Roof. It was a time of great change for the Jewish people, and Tevye lifted up his rage to Almighty God. "We may be the chosen people -- but why don't you choose somebody else some time?" Walter Brueggemann in The Message of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984, pp. 51-122) talks about personal and communal laments. He calls these the "psalms of disorientation." Brueggemann says that all these psalms focus on the themes of disequilibrium, incoherence, and unrelieved pain. He says we might even call these the psalms of darkness. You might take these particular laments or parts of several others and weave them into some litany or prayer in next Sunday's worship service. Examples of personal laments are Psalms 13, 86, 35. Brueggemann identifies Psalms 74, 79, and 137 as examples of communal laments.
Remind the people that vibrant faith has no quarrel with bringing the hard things of life into their prayer life or the worship of the church. Some of these laments are individual and many are corporate. The church or preacher who fails to look at the psalms of lament ignores much of what is going on that street where most of us live. Like the Hebrews, let us bring the dark sides of their lives into the house of God.
Robert D. Putnam's book Bowling Alone is helpful in showing how our relationship to one another in groups and in community life has slowly deteriorated over the past two generations. He states that every aspect of society has been affected by our disengagement. We have become a nation of bystanders.
"Thou" (Praise): Psalm 77:11-20
Today's psalm teaches us that we do not stay on the street where we live. The psalmist turns toward Jerusalem. Brueggemann suggests that we find in the latter verses a movement from I to Thou: "I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord ... I will remember your wonders of old" (v. 11). Note the "you" (referring to God) in verses 11b, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. The I's are subsidiary to another word: You -- Thou. The psalmist comes to a new awareness of God's ways and God's will. This new understanding moved the writer beyond a solitary isolation (v. 6) to a connectedness with the community. In remembering the mighty acts of God, the psalmist realizes he is not only one of "your people" but one with God's people as well (vv. 15, 20). Clinton McCann Jr., in his commentary on the Psalms in The New Interpreter's Bible says that the psalmist is nurtured by the community's canonical memory (vol. 4, p. 985). In worship, along with fellow worshipers, the I gives way to Thou. The psalmist remembers the deeds, the wonders, the work of God. He remembers the long journey his people have traveled, he remembers the parting of the waters, and even when the world trembled God was there. He had come to know that even when God's footprints were unseen (v. 19) God was ever present.
Let the preacher begin on the street where he or she lives. It is a street of lamentation, of loneliness or disengagement. But, like the psalmist, move toward Jerusalem. Move toward mystery. People today in our world of too much reality TV and life itself are starved for mystery. They need a Thou -- a holy, holy in their lives.
It might be good to recall such movement leads us beyond ourselves to "the other." Paul talks about this in our Galatians passage:
"For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, 'You shall love you neighbor as yourself.' If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit ...." (Galatians 5:13-16a)
He follows this by contrasting the work of the flesh with the work of the Spirit (vv. 19-25). Every word he uses for living in the flesh breaks the ties with other folk and the community at large. Every fruit of the Spirit he mentions is a word of connection with other folk.
In the old Hasidic parable the rabbi asks his students, "How can we determine the hour of dawn, when the night ends and the day begins?" One responded, "When from a distance you can distinguish a dog from a sheep?" The rabbi shook his head. Another offered, "When one person can distinguish between a fig tree and a grape vine?" The rabbi said no. And so they asked him what the answer was. He said, "You know the hour of the dawn has come when you can look into the face of other human beings and recognize them as your brothers and sisters."
Remind your hearers that the journey from I to Thou runs through those people we meet every day. Jesus himself said that inasmuch as we do it unto the least of these we really do see his face.
Ann Weems has a little book titled Psalms of Lament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995). She tells how on August 14, 1982, her son Todd was killed less than an hour after his 21st birthday. She had an excruciatingly difficult grief, and she wondered if she would really ever live again. She said a whole network of friends helped her through that hard time. One of those friends was Old Testament professor Walter Brueggemann. One day he called and told her he was working on the Jeremiah passage that asks, Will Rachel be comforted? And he asked her what she thought her answer was to Jeremiah's question. Ann told him: Rachel would be comforted only when God wiped the tears from her eyes. Brueggemann suggested that Ann might try to write some lament psalms of her own to express her grief on paper. Several months later she had written five lament psalms. Brueggemann read them and asked her if he could share them with his class. She agreed. She writes that shortly thereafter people began to call and write. They had heard of her psalms or they had read some of her laments. Her grieving words had touched their hearts. At Brueggemann's encouragement she wrote more lament psalms and put them into a book.
In the preface to that book Ann Weems writes that as she wrote her laments the tears began to come and in time the alleluias would begin to come again. She ends her preface like this:
"In the godforsaken, obscene quicksand of life,
there is a deafening alleluia
rising from the souls
of those who weep,
and of those who weep with those who weep.
If you watch, you will see
the hand of God
putting the stars back in their skies
one by one." (p. xvii)
Brueggemann wrote the introduction to her book of laments. He writes: "Oddly enough, when the need, the hurt, the demand, and the venom are fully voiced, something unexpected happens in the psalm. The mood and tone of the psalm changes. Israel's anger and protest appear to be spent, and pain characteristically moves to a positive resolution. The speaker is, at the end, confident of being heard and 'dealt with bountifully,' and so ends in rejoicing and praise" (p. xi).
John Bunyan begins his classic, Pilgrim's Progress, with Christian walking along with a great burden on his back. His journey is twisting and winding. There were many dangers and many difficulties. The road seemed to be unending. He often wondered if the burden on his back would ever fall away. Finally he arrives at the New Jerusalem. The bells begin to ring. The bells toll over and over and over. His journey had finally ended and he writes: "Then I heard in my dream all he bells in the city rang again, for joy, and that it was said unto them, 'Enter ye into the joy of your Lord.' " (This is quoted in The Doubleday Devotional Classics, vol. 1; edited by Glenn Hinson [Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1978], pp. 325, 452.)
Begin on the street where you live move slowly toward Jerusalem. Or begin in Jerusalem and move toward the street where you live. It hardly matters which way you travel -- the "I" will give way to "Thou." Such is the great mystery of our faith.
Team Comments
Carter Shelley responds: Roger, I appreciate the work you have provided on Psalm 77. I am struck by the fact that at times of terrible grief, most Christians do appeal to God for (1) help, (2) an explanation, (3) a response, or (4) all of the above. What I like about your examination of the movement from I to Thou in this psalm is your recognition that for most of us the "Thou" comes to us in the form of other people who reach out to us in a caring and compassionate manner. At times of desperate heartache and sorrow, we need significant human contact to support us and help us make sense of our world along with ongoing seeking for God's presence and will.
What I love about the psalms of lament is the permission these psalms give us to rail against God, life, and great suffering within the context of belief. The psalmist(s) despair, yet still believe in God and seek God's support and consolation. There is so much in our world that is tragic and seemingly pitiless -- the beheading of Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia last Friday and the threatened beheading of the South Korean man on Monday; the massive numbers of desperate people seeking relief from the Congo and Rwanda as they try to cross boarders to safety. The ongoing losses of lives of Americans, British, and Iraqi people in the ongoing morass that is Iraq. In the context of war and terrorism, it's easy to explain human suffering as the result of human sinfulness. Yet, the fact that we human beings can't seem to evolve past war means God's ear must always be assaulted by the cries of pain, loss, waste, and outrage that war creates.
Brueggemann's suggestion is a splendid one, not just to talented Christian writers like Ann Weems but to anyone who needs to articulate the hurt, fear, isolation, and despair that can come upon us when we suffer or lose someone we love so. Just the act of writing out a lament to God forces one outside one's self and into a dialogue. When we get away from the divine I/Thou and focus upon our own I, we lose our way and lose our relationship, not only with God, but with one another.
The very act of praying, talking, or asking questions forces one outside one's self and into a larger world where both insight and support may occur. The words you share from Ann Weems' own terrible grief offers an excellent resource for others who have experienced similar losses. We all know how hollow the words, "I know just how you feel," sound when the speaker really doesn't know, but Weems does.
When God revealed God's self in the burning bush to Moses, established the Sinai Covenant with the liberated Hebrews, and appeared to Elijah in the still, small voice, God begins with an "I" far stronger than any we can set against it. "I am who I am." "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other God's before me."
Since there may be some readers who have not read Martin Buber's I and Thou (published in 1923), here are a few of its salient points. Martin Buber understands God to be the enabler of human "I"-"Thou" relationships. Such relationships exist on a variety of levels. The relationship one has with a favorite potted plant will not be the same as the relationship one has with one's beloved dog or even more beloved children. The most significant relationship of all is that of each individual with God. To have a relationship with God requires more than just thinking about God's existence or appreciating the beauty of God's world. The human "I" must actively meet God and address God as the "Thou."
Humans can have "I"-"Thou" relationships with other human beings, but as with God such relationships are likely to be singular, not multiple. For in a true "I"-"Thou" relationship the fullness of one's being is revealed and we don't hold anything (warts, neuroses, etc.) back from our God or the other person. Consequently, a human to human "I"-"Thou" relationship may be formed with a husband or a wife, or it may exist between friends who have known each other for a lifetime, but it does not exist usually with one's boss, work colleagues, or the local plumber. In those relationships, we only give ourselves partially, whereas with God or a spouse or best friend we give all.
Buber favored the creativity and immediacy of the human divine "I"-"Thou" relationship over organized religion with its laws, fixed beliefs and practices, and dogmas. He emigrated from Germany to Palestine/Israel at the age of sixty to escape Hitler and Germany. Unlike his Zionist neighbors, Buber did not endorse the usurping of Arab residents in Palestine in order to establish Israel. Buber hoped for a more friendly and mutual solution to problems of geography and ownership. This openness about Judaism, a chosen land, and the place of the Arabs in the Middle East reflected Buber's own openness and desire to not let old practices and bad relationships destroy the possibility of creating something new together. Thus, "an unprecedented event occurred at Buber's funeral, which was a high state function in Jerusalem. A delegate of the Arab Student Organization placed a wreath on the grave of one who strove mightily for peace between Israel's and Palestine's two people" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 2; Chicago, 2003, p. 991).
George Murphy responds: There's an interesting contrast, or at least tension, between Americans' emphasis on individualism and this country's fascination with big-time sports. Of course some sports -- most track and field events and golf, for example -- do involve just one individual pitted against others, and may the best man or woman win. But in the hugely popular sports like basketball or baseball, it's a different matter.
Sure, there are superstars -- names that everybody recognizes even if they don't pay attention to that sport. Shaq -- Shaquille O'Neal -- and Kobe Bryant are good examples, superstars who play basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers. (A lot of people have heard of Bryant because of the charge of rape that he's currently facing.) Karl Malone and Gary Payton aren't as well-known but, like Shaq and Kobe, they played for the Lakers in the season that ended recently are pretty good bets for the Hall of Fame when their playing days are over. Four future hall of famers playing for one team! More than that, they had a coach, Phil Jackson, who'd won nine NBA championships. Of course, they won it again this year, didn't they?
Wrong! In fact they were almost embarrassed, four games to one, by the Detroit Pistons, a team with an excellent coach and some good players but no real superstar. The Pistons were just a better team.
My purpose isn't just to exalt teamwork -- or to use a more theological term, community -- over the individual. An emphasis on community, if taken to extremes, can be as destructive as unchecked individualism, as the consequences of the fascist and communist movements of the twentieth century remind us. But since Americans do stress individualism so much, especially in religion, and today more than ever, as Roger reminds us, are tempted to shut themselves off from others, the value of community needs to be raised up.
With all of the more serious things that are going on in the world -- conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, a presidential election, concerns about the oil supply if things really go bad in Saudi Arabia and so on -- some preachers might feel a little guilty about focusing on a sports illustration like the NBA championship. Maybe sports do provide a kind of escapism, but it's a form that a lot of people in our pews indulge in, and we need to make contact with them.
What strikes me about Psalm 77 in this regard is the way in which a lament expressed in individual terms is answered by recalling God's saving work on behalf of the community. What seems to be the trouble of the individual in the first ten verses may in fact have to do with the condition of the community, for those aspects are never completely separable. Yet in this first part of the psalm we have the repeated I, I, I. But then "I" am comforted, not by a reminder of what God has done for "me" but by calling to mind God's saving actions on behalf of "us." It is in the fact that God has saved the community in the past that the psalmist finds some assurance that that divine care continues today.
While we're dealing with this psalm, another point is worth noting. Verses 14-20 speak of God's saving acts in the Exodus in dramatic terms -- thunder and lightning, the waters fled, etc. Hidden in there -- quite appropriately hidden -- are the words at the end of verse 19: "Yet your footsteps were unseen." With all of the spectacular natural phenomena, God himself was hidden from sight. If the Israelites had wanted to, they could have ascribed their salvation to some fortuitous events of the weather. That is the way God generally works -- as Isaiah 45:15 reminds us: "Truly, you are a God who hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior."
Related Illustrations
From Roger Lovette
Several years ago a writer was talking about his experiences on a well-known college campus. He teaches young people who have accepted the gains like affirmative action and the women's movement without at the same time producing the kind of commitment that created those gains. He asked his class what it would take to turn them on now. "Racial Injustice?" Dead silence. "Forty-four million without health insurance." Silence. "Gay bashing?" Not a word. In frustration he gave it one last try, "Have you not been outraged at the treatment of prisoners in Iraqi prisons?" Silence. In desperation, he said, "For God's sake, what would outrage you?" After a long pause a girl in the front row raised her hand and said, "Well, I'd be pretty mad if they bombed this school." This is a good example of someone living in an "I" world. If things go better with me, it does not matter what others have to do to tough it out.
***
Susanne Langer uses a figure of speech about our connectedness to one another. She says a palm tree is formed by successive generations of fronds. Each waves in the wind for a time and then falls to the ground, leaving its stub to enlarge the tree. Each person is like that. He or she enjoys the full life of this world for a time and then is joined with those who have gone before. Yet, there remains behind the stub of that life: the influence on others, the shaping of institutions that endure, the changed contours of the land itself, the coloring of communal culture.
***
"Life is like breath, if you save it, you lose it."
***
"A nation that puts so much stress on getting ahead has a hard time dealing with those who fall behind. If you're successful, you seldom identify with failure. This is proved by the fact that integration of races has already resulted in an even great segregation by class. The so-called underclass has all the markings of a subordinate caste. In the long run, I believe, class will prove a tougher nut to crack than race."
-- William Coffin, Credo (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), p. 38
***
"Here are some things you can do right after graduation: throw a baseball to a little girl; ask your teacher for his or her autograph ... ask your mother or father to a dance; throw a kiss to a little old lady; and take a walk in the woods with someone you love."
-- Art Buchwald, quoted in Onward! (New York: Scribner, 2000), p. 21
***
Herman Melville wrote: "We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results."
***
Marian Wright Edelman quotes Sojourner Truth in Onward! (p. 144). Sojourner Truth was a black slave woman who could neither read nor write. One heckler told Sojourner that he cared no more for her antislavery talk "than for an old fleabite." "Maybe not," was her answer, "but the Lord willing, I'll keep you scratching."
***
Fred Craddock writes: "Since I've been at Chandler, I heard about a young man in his early twenties dying of that horrible, horrible, frightening, terrible AIDS in a hospital in Atlanta. He had no church connection, but someone said he had relatives who had been in the church, so they called a minister of that church, and the minister went to the hospital. The young man was almost dead, just gasping there, and the minister came to the hospital, stood out in the hall, and asked them to open the door. When they opened the door, he yelled in a prayer. Another minister there in south Atlanta, down around Forest Park, heard about it and rushed to the hospital, hoping that he was still alive. She got to the hospital, went into the room, went over by the bed, and pulled a chair by the bed. This minister lifted his head and cradled it in her arms. She sang. She quoted scripture. She prayed. She sang. She quoted scripture. She prayed. And he died. Some of the seminarians said, "Weren't you scared? He had AIDS!" She said, "Of course I was scared. I bet you I bathed sixty times." "Well then, why did you do it?" And she said, "I just imagined if Jesus had gotten the call, what he would've done. I had to go."
-- Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), p. 86
***
From Carter Shelley, pertaining to emphasis upon the individual rather than upon the group or community:
Sharing of Children and Domestic Duties in Marriage
One of the early, idealistic models of feminism was to establish marriages in which all duties were shared equally. In such marriages, the husband and wife each was expected to keep a running tally of how many meals each cooked during the week, how many times each had helped children with homework, how many car trips each had made to soccer practices, doctor's appointments or the grocery store. The purpose of such scrupulous tallying of time was to keep the domestic responsibilities equal for both husband and wife. Couples soon discovered that a relationship cannot be based upon a mathematical record in which husband A owes wife A 7 hours and 35 minutes because he didn't do his fair share of housework his week.
Such self-interested accountings haven't worked well. Instead of turning loving marriages into partnerships such legalism about time tended to emphasize individual demands over against those of the couple or family. What works comes out of shared goals and shared effort where both husbands and wives agree that both will try to do what needs to be done to help the home run smoothly, ensure that work demands get met, and children are lovingly cared for. According to a two year old article from Newsweek magazine, the results of both parents working outside the home and both parents taking responsibility for home chores and children has led to somewhat messier, dirtier houses, but also to men who are far more involved in their children's lives, and have firsthand experience with the demands of meal preparation, laundry, cleaning, etc.
Political Decision-making Styles
President Jimmy Carter's leadership style was markedly different from that of Ronald Reagan. When Carter was President he would painstakingly pour over every page of every report given to him, leading to information overload, and slow, but thoughtful, decision-making. In contrast President Reagan almost never read an entire report. Instead, he would have his staff and Cabinet members read materials pertinent to their expertise and then have them tell him what he needed to know and what their recommendations would be. Our current President George W. Bush follows Reagan's model more than Carter's. President Bush will not look at anything that hasn't been summarized for him in a one-page memo. That sounds practical and efficient; however, such an approach can miss the nuances of a particular situation. Unlike Reagan and other previous presidents and Cabinets, the current administration prefers for decisions to be made within its own trusted circle. Consequently, our President and his advisors did not have a thorough grasp of the political, cultural, and religious complexities at work in Iraq. This unwillingness to engage in dialogue with experts in the fields most relevant to modern day Iraq's circumstances has meant the Administration was not prepared for the resistance and resentment Iraqis now feel toward the United States. The assumption seems to have been, "We'll get rid of Saddam Hussein. People will thank us for liberating them from a tyrant. Then we'll go home."
***
Narcissism is often used to describe a person who is self-absorbed and selfish. It is also a term used by psychologists and psychiatrists to describe a particular kind of character disorder. Characteristics include an all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts. Five (or more) of the following criteria must be met:
* Feels grandiose and self-important (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
* Firmly convinced that he or she is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people (or institutions)
* Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation -- or, failing that, wishes to be feared and to be notorious (narcissistic supply)
* Feels entitled. Expects unreasonable or special and favorable priority treatment. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her expectations
* Devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with or acknowledge the feelings and needs of others
Some of the language in the criteria above is based on or summarized from American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM IV) (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1994). The text in italics is based on Sam Vaknin, Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited (Prague and Skopje: Narcissus Publication, 2001).
***
While many narcissists often become that way as a way to survive childhood abuse or trauma, a person can literally become sick from being focused too entirely on his or her own needs, ambitions and wants. Such a person as a parent can seriously damage the lives of her children. Such a person can also never be satisfied. There is always a hunger for more.
***
"It is not love we should have painted as blind, but self love."
-- Voltaire
***
In books about affluence in America several authors have pointed out how unhealthy is our lifestyle based upon buying more things. The things we buy for pleasure and gratification cost so much that we have to work more and more to pay for them. As a result we have less time with our families and friends, less time for ourselves, less time for our God. We are depleted of time and interaction with others, and we lose out in both physical and emotional health.
As Barbara Streisand sang in Funny Girl, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world."
***
The following information comes from Amazon.com's website. I am presenting it here because it's nice to have a few examples of ways to move from the singular "I" to the communal "Thou."
Better Together: Restoring the American Community, by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein, with Don Cohen (New York: Simon & Schuster; September 10, 2003)
In his national best-seller Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam decried the collapse of America's social institutions. But while traveling to promote the book, one question came up at every appearance: what can we do to end the atrophy of America's civic vitality. What can bring us together again? Seeking an answer to this question, Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, with the assistance of co-author Lewis Feldstein, who has a long and distinguished career in civic activism, visited places across the country where individuals and groups are engaged in unusual forms of social activism and civic renewal. These are people who are renewing their communities and investing in new forms of "social capital." Better Together describes a dozen innovative organizations from east to west and north to south that are re-weaving the social fabric of our country, and brings the hopeful news that our civic institutions are taking new forms to adapt to new times and new needs.
Examples:
* A mentoring and reading program in Philadelphia that brings together retirees and elementary school children to the benefit of both -- the children get help reading and the retirees have a richer, more purposeful life
* A group of sixth-grade activists in a small Wisconsin town who managed to persuade local authorities to improve safety at a railroad crossing and in doing so learned a valuable lesson in civic activism
* A neighborhood in Boston that has been revitalized by a civic association that overcame ethnic differences and now plays an ongoing role in the neighborhood
* A community effort in the impoverished Rio Grande Valley, one of the poorest regions in the U.S., that brought such basic services as electricity, roads, and health care to the mostly Spanish-speaking residents
* A successful small business initiative in Tupelo, Mississippi, that began sixty years ago with the purchase of a prize bull
* Chicago public libraries that have broadened their mission and have become true community centers
* Two huge and rapidly growing churches in Los Angeles that are making people feel connected to other church members and their community
* The city of Portland, Oregon, where the anti-war movement of the sixties actually changed the institutions so that now there is a remarkably high level of civic engagement in government and politics (more so than in other cities, even other cities on the west coast).
All across America such organizations are starting up and thriving, giving hope that the message of Bowling Alone has reached people and that our civic institutions are improving and adapting to the changing world around us. And the timing of Better Together could not be more perfect -- in the wake of 9/11 the subjects of civic spirit, community renewal, and social capital have been high on everyone's agenda as Americans ask again what makes us uniquely American and what values do we want to pass on to the next generations.
Worship Resources
by George Reed
OPENING
Music
Hymns
"The God of Abraham Praise." WORDS: From The Yigdal of Daniel ben Judah, ca. 1400; para by Thomas Olivers, 1760; alt. MUSIC: Hebrew melody, Sacred Harmony, 1780; harm. from Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1875, alt. Public domain.
"To God Be the Glory." WORDS: Fanny J. Crosby, 1875. MUSIC: William H. Doane, 1875. Public domain. As found in UMH 98.
"O Worship the King." WORDS: Robert Grant, 1833. MUSIC: Attr. to Johann Michael Haydn; arr. by William Gardiner, 1815. Public domain. As found in UMH 73.
"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." WORDS: Martin Luther. MUSIC: Martin Luther. Public domain. As found in UMH 110.
Songs
"I Will Call upon the Lord." WORDS and MUSIC: Michael O'Shields. (c) 1981 Sound II and All Nations Music. As found in CCB 9.
"The Steadfast Love of the Lord." WORDS: Edith McNeill. MUSIC: Edith McNeill; arr. by J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1974 Celebrations. As found in CCB 28.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: Call to mind the deeds of God;
People: We will remember the God's wonders.
Leader: Meditate on all God's works.
People: We will reflect on God's mighty deeds.
Leader: God is the One who works wonders.
People: We have seen God's might among us
COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER
O God, who is known to us in the ultimate community of Trinity: Grant us the grace to seek you in the community of our sisters and brothers; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
We gather with one another out of our separateness, O God, to share our joys and our sorrows, our triumphs and our failures. We bring our lives and share them together before you knowing that you have been at work in our lives and will continue to work and live in us. Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"All Praise to Our Redeeming Lord." WORDS: Charles Wesley, 1747. MUSIC: Sylvanus B. Pond, 1836; harm. by Austin C. Lovelace, 1963. Harm (c) 1964 Abingdon Press. As found in UMH 554.
"Jesus, United by Thy Grace." WORDS: Charles Wesley. MUSIC: John B. Dykes, 1866. Public domain. As found in UMH 561.
"Help Us Accept Each Other." WORDS: Fred Kaan, 1974. MUSIC: John Ness Beck, 1977. Words (c) 1975 Hope Publishing Co.; music (c) 1977 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 560.
"O Church of God, United." WORDS: Frederick B. Morley, 1953. MUSIC: Gesangbuch der H. W. k. Hofkappelle, 1784, alt. Words (c) 1954, renewed 1982 The Hymn Society of America. As found in UMH 547.
"When Our Confidence Is Shaken." WORDS: Fred Pratt Green, 1971. MUSIC: From Chants Ordinares de l'office divin, 1881; harm. from The English Hymnal, 1906. Words (c) 1971 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 505.
Songs
"Through It All." WORDS and MUSIC: Andrae Crouch. (c) 1971 Manna Music, Inc. As found in CCB 61.
"Unity." WORDS: Time Reynolds. MUSIC: Tim Reynolds; arr. by J. Michael Bryan. Arr. (c) 1996 Abingdon Press. As found in CCB 59.
"Cars Chorus." WORDS and MUSIC: Kelly Willard. (c) 1978 Maranatha! Music. As found in CCB 53.
GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.
We worship and adore you, the God who desires community. From the beginning when you said, "Let us make humankind in our image" until the day you shall gather in the nations from the four corners of the earth, you are the one who invites us to come together in you.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
Even as we gather as a congregation, we are aware that we live our very separate lives. We do not know our neighbors, even some of those who sit beside us in worship. We look out for our concerns and hope that others are able to take care of themselves. We forget that we are your family, both as congregation and as world. We forget, when our story gets discouraging, that you are always with us and that you often reveal yourself in the midst of community. Open our eyes to one another and to you.
We thank you that you never forsake us nor leave us alone. You are our constant companion that walks through the deep waters with us and through the searing flame. In good days and bad, you are with us.
(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We share with you the hurts of our world. Some of them touch us deeply and we feel the pain; some are distant and we are unaware of how much we are harmed by their hurts. In the midst of all the tears of life we know that you feel all our pain and cry our tears.
Grant that as the Church, we may be the sign to the world that you are with us, that your story of salvation and healing will come to fruition.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray saying, "Our Father ...."
***
N.b.: All copyright information is given from the first cited place where found. Some copyright information may differ in other sources due to adaptations, etc.
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
A Children's Sermon
By Wesley T. Runk
Hoe Jesus' Row
Text: Luke 9:51-62 -- Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." (v. 62)
Object: a garden hoe
Good morning, boys and girls. Today we are going to learn something about farming or having a garden, and while we are doing this, we hope to learn something about the kingdom of God. Let's see if we can do this.
I brought a hoe with me this morning. How many of you have ever used a hoe? (let them answer) If you have used one, then tell me how to use it. (let someone explain or demonstrate the way that he or she uses it) You must be a very good farmer. If you use a hoe like this, you should not have any weeds in your garden, and your plants should be growing very well. Sometimes you must use a hoe to plant a garden, and that means having straight rows. Have you ever seen someone try to make a straight row with a hoe? (let them answer)
I am going to show you two ways to use a hoe, and I want you to tell me which way is the best way to have a straight row. (demonstrate lining up the hoe with a supposed marker straight ahead, and then hoe by looking back over your shoulder; as you walk, you should make it fairly obvious that looking over your shoulder produces a crooked path) Which way seems best to you? (let them answer) That's right; the best way is to look straight ahead so that you know where you have been, if you want to keep on going in a straight line. If you look over your shoulder, you will make a crooked path.
The same thing is true about being a member of God's kingdom. Jesus knew that there were some people who wanted to be a part of the group who believed in Jesus, but that they also wanted things to be like they used to be for them. In other words, they liked what Jesus said and did, and hoped that it would happen to them, but they did not want to give up some of their sins. They always wanted to be able to go back and do the things that they used to do, like telling a lie if they needed to, instead of telling the truth. Jesus said you can't be a part of God's world one day and wish you were part of the other way another day. That won't work. You can't have it both ways. It is like hoeing your garden and looking over your shoulder; you never get to the place that you want to be, and instead you always get somewhere where you don't want to be. If you make up your mind that you want to be a Christian, then you must forget about the other things, and just keep looking forward to the time when you shall be with God in God's world.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 27, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
