Images Of Life
Sermon
Changing A Paradigm -- Or Two
Gospel Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (First Third) Cycle C
Images of life and death -- we are surrounded by them every day. One such image sat on the floor before me one day. He sat clutching all eight of his books to himself for fear of losing one or two to the two children who, like me, watched this image unfold before them. It was the waiting room of a car dealership, an unlikely spot for such an image, but maybe not so unlikely given the nature of human life.
My little, fearful image of death was about three. Mommy had brought along her knitting for the inevitable wait and books for her offspring-in-tow to look at. There were only a few of us in the room at first and my three-year-old illustration was fairly content to sit on the floor with the books scattered about him. After a while, another mother walked in with two children -- a boy about five and a toddler of about two. It was obvious that she was unprepared for the long wait -- no needlepoint, no knitting, no books, toys, or distractions for her children.
The image of life and death came to life in the quiet little drama that unfolded before me. Having up to this point ruled the floor, the three-year-old book magnate was now confronted with two sets of staring eyes that looked at him and then longingly at the books. Perceptive of a threat to his empire, the king of the floor quickly gathered all of his books together and tried desperately to protect them from the eager eyes that hoped he would share. But fear of loss to what we claim is ours runs deep and is somehow learned at an early age. So, I watched as an image of death took the place of a cute little boy as he tried to hold and protect eight slippery books from falling into someone else's hands.
It was, at first glance, a comic image and scene. With neither the physical coordination nor the size to manage eight books at one time, the little boy with little hands and arms kept dropping them -- from under the pile, over the pile. And when he'd stoop to gather those that fell, others would slip out and scatter farther.
I watched this scene for almost five minutes and in that time the comic element soon became lost, to be replaced by the sadness of tragedy and, without being melodramatic, an image of death. For now, instead of a content, happy youngster sitting peacefully on the floor before me enjoying himself, I saw a frightened, selfish child clutching desperately to himself what he claimed as his. There was the sadness of it all. The tragedy, the death, of it all was that these children could have been enjoying themselves in an opportunity to share and play together. But the power of possession, the "it's mine" attitude, reared its selfish head and the image I saw before me was of an obsessed child and of three isolated children of creation unable to relate and enjoy the serendipity of a moment in which they were brought together.
An ancient Rabbi once wrote: "We are born with our fists clenched and die with our hands wide open."1 Images of life and death for us to ponder this day.
We have all seen the tightly-curled fist of a newborn, and what parent or grandparent hasn't delighted in prying the little fingers open so that the precious little one can hold onto one of our fingers. Children grow up learning to hold onto things: fingers and hands of adults, a bottle, food, toys, playthings. We eagerly push things into a child's hands, hoping thereby to teach some lesson of control, some joy of possession and satisfaction at the correct and proper use of objects.
An infant grows up to extend the implications of his early training and reflexes. Soon, the child takes hold of everything in reach and coffee tables and end tables need to be child-proofed from quick, eager hands.
And attitudes soon develop and begin to surface -- attitudes that we may not like and that can quickly change to images of death. "It's mine!" "No, it's mine, I said." Fists close around objects and the power of possession is felt.
A child has a ball, and when Mom tries to play catch, the child grabs the ball and runs away. Then, he or she cries because Mom won't play. Somehow the lesson must be taught that if she clutches the ball she will play alone; only as she turns the ball loose does she stand a chance of playing catch with Mom or Dad.
The lesson extends into the playground and school. A child with a new bat and ball spends many hours fondling them -- they are his, and he dreams of one day hitting that game-winning homer at the bottom of the last inning. It is an image of life, if you will. But, if he is to play ball with other children, he has to open his hands and let go of what is his so that it becomes theirs as well.2 The option remains to hold on to what he owns, but he cannot belong to a group that way, nor can he do any more than dream, and an image of life quickly becomes an image of death. Think of the images of the three youngsters on the floor together, but very much apart.
The reality of real living, my friends in Christ, of life lived freely and responsively, of life lived in community, of life and not death images, is that it is in letting go, of opening up, of setting free that growth and joy and life are found. In raising children we learn that somewhere we must set them free, as painful and scary as that is. In a marriage, the dynamic of that relationship is found in the freedom to continue to grow as individuals, which enriches the life of the other. In the creative ventures of life, we open up and risk rejection and failure for the sake of the larger contribution one feels called to make. No artist, no writer, no performer can be creative and free without letting go of self-consciousness to risk self-expression, for all art is basically self-disclosure.
But there is a deeper level still to the images of life and death confronting us today as we consider the work of our hands. Theologian Paul Tillich has said it the most concisely: "Religion is first an open hand to receive a gift and second, an acting hand to distribute gifts."
For those created in the image of God and who know life as Christ lived it for us know that all of life is a gift from the gracious and loving hand of God. We can claim nothing for our own. God, the author, redeemer, sustainer of all that is, has given us life and all that surrounds us as a trust. We are stewards, those who are accountable for what God has given us, and we really only manage things jointly with our God, we never own them outright. The true image of life, the reality of real living, is the realization that we participate in life only by the grace of God. All that we are, all that we have, all that is, is God's. And when we finally know that in our minds and hearts, then we can begin to live in the image of life he set before us in his Son, Jesus; then we can begin to hold onto life not with closed fists, but with open hands, grateful to receive what God gives us in his love, and eager to share in love what God gives us as good stewards, secure in the faith that God's graciousness knows no limits or bounds and never runs out.
The Scriptures are filled with these images of life and death: stories of people who learned to hold onto life with open hands, those who gained by turning loose that which they foolishly claimed was "theirs" in a gesture of "ours." The Gospel Lesson of the woman who Simon the Pharisee claims is a sinner is but one example. Rejected by the good folks of her community, she was ritually unclean. Her hands, if they touched you, had the power to make you unclean as well, so the Pharisees contended. She had clutched life to her and managed to survive in that place of death in fear and rejection. But Jesus forgave her her sin, and opened up her life to a whole new world of freedom and joy. His gift to her resulted in the dramatic scene of life we read moments ago -- precious and expensive ointment poured out in love and gratitude and devotion to the one who had freed her from the prison of death to which the world and her community had banished her. Her encounter with Jesus was a freeing of all the good which had been locked tightly inside her because of fear. In her tears and humility and devotion she displayed an image of life that had joy and gratitude at its center. She placed herself in the open hands of the Christ, and there found her peace and a new life to live.
And notice, she never says a word in the whole encounter. She is forgiven, and she responds with her every gesture to that grace. As Blair Gilmer Meeks has written in his commentary of this scene: "Her actions, not her sin, are to be remembered wherever the gospel is proclaimed; in washing his feet, she has done for Jesus what Jesus will do for his disciples as a final act before the crucifixion."3
I believe that we all know these images of life and death, even if we never stop to think about them in any profound way. We know that we hold on to loved ones only as we let them go and grow; we keep our talents only if we permit a good teacher to guide and direct us in using them for the good of the community and world; our work is never satisfactory until we learn to let go of self-conscious caution and become free in our self-expression; and, we can only receive from God as we open our hands and hearts to him and for each other. We live in death if we live our lives by grabbing and clutching and holding to ourselves that which isn't really ours in the first place.
Milton Erickson was a creative and imaginative psychologist. One of his many famous case histories is of a woman in Milwaukee who had been depressed for nine months. The woman was very religious, independently wealthy, and lived like a recluse because of her illness. She was, for all practical purposes, living her death. Erickson was asked to pay her a visit and he went to see her. He asked her to take him on a tour of her house, hoping to find something to use to help her out of her depression, which was robbing her of life.
"In looking around," he wrote, "I saw she was a very wealthy woman living alone, idle, attending church but keeping to herself ... and I saw three African violet plants and a potting pot with a leaf in it being sprouted as a new plant. So, I knew what I had to do for her in the way of therapy."4
Erickson told the woman to buy a couple hundred gift pots for African violets. He told her that she was to grow new African violets, and that whenever there was an announcement of a child's birth in her church she was to send an African violet. She was to do the same for every baptism, for every engagement, for every wedding, for every sickness, for every death.
How long to you think the therapy took to move this woman from death to life? Within six months she was written up in the newspaper as the African Violet Queen of Milwaukee. She had created endless new friends, and, no surprise to Erickson, her depression was gone.
We have had images and stories of life and death before us this morning. A closed fist and an open hand; a little boy clutching books unable to laugh and share and play; a woman filled with gratitude for the forgiveness she needed to live a new life; a woman too depressed to see beyond her world suddenly alive again by the gesture of giving flowers with an open hand. Some things to think about, wouldn't you say, as we try to live in the Spirit of Christ. Amen.
____________
1. Thomas D. Peterson, Doing Something By Doing Nothing (Lima: CSS Publishing Co., Inc., 1985), p. 53.
2. Ibid., pp. 53-55.
3. Blair Gilmer Meeks, Homily Service, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Silver Spring: The Liturgical Conference, Inc., 1998), p. 21.
4. John Bradshaw, Creating Love (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), p. 136.
My little, fearful image of death was about three. Mommy had brought along her knitting for the inevitable wait and books for her offspring-in-tow to look at. There were only a few of us in the room at first and my three-year-old illustration was fairly content to sit on the floor with the books scattered about him. After a while, another mother walked in with two children -- a boy about five and a toddler of about two. It was obvious that she was unprepared for the long wait -- no needlepoint, no knitting, no books, toys, or distractions for her children.
The image of life and death came to life in the quiet little drama that unfolded before me. Having up to this point ruled the floor, the three-year-old book magnate was now confronted with two sets of staring eyes that looked at him and then longingly at the books. Perceptive of a threat to his empire, the king of the floor quickly gathered all of his books together and tried desperately to protect them from the eager eyes that hoped he would share. But fear of loss to what we claim is ours runs deep and is somehow learned at an early age. So, I watched as an image of death took the place of a cute little boy as he tried to hold and protect eight slippery books from falling into someone else's hands.
It was, at first glance, a comic image and scene. With neither the physical coordination nor the size to manage eight books at one time, the little boy with little hands and arms kept dropping them -- from under the pile, over the pile. And when he'd stoop to gather those that fell, others would slip out and scatter farther.
I watched this scene for almost five minutes and in that time the comic element soon became lost, to be replaced by the sadness of tragedy and, without being melodramatic, an image of death. For now, instead of a content, happy youngster sitting peacefully on the floor before me enjoying himself, I saw a frightened, selfish child clutching desperately to himself what he claimed as his. There was the sadness of it all. The tragedy, the death, of it all was that these children could have been enjoying themselves in an opportunity to share and play together. But the power of possession, the "it's mine" attitude, reared its selfish head and the image I saw before me was of an obsessed child and of three isolated children of creation unable to relate and enjoy the serendipity of a moment in which they were brought together.
An ancient Rabbi once wrote: "We are born with our fists clenched and die with our hands wide open."1 Images of life and death for us to ponder this day.
We have all seen the tightly-curled fist of a newborn, and what parent or grandparent hasn't delighted in prying the little fingers open so that the precious little one can hold onto one of our fingers. Children grow up learning to hold onto things: fingers and hands of adults, a bottle, food, toys, playthings. We eagerly push things into a child's hands, hoping thereby to teach some lesson of control, some joy of possession and satisfaction at the correct and proper use of objects.
An infant grows up to extend the implications of his early training and reflexes. Soon, the child takes hold of everything in reach and coffee tables and end tables need to be child-proofed from quick, eager hands.
And attitudes soon develop and begin to surface -- attitudes that we may not like and that can quickly change to images of death. "It's mine!" "No, it's mine, I said." Fists close around objects and the power of possession is felt.
A child has a ball, and when Mom tries to play catch, the child grabs the ball and runs away. Then, he or she cries because Mom won't play. Somehow the lesson must be taught that if she clutches the ball she will play alone; only as she turns the ball loose does she stand a chance of playing catch with Mom or Dad.
The lesson extends into the playground and school. A child with a new bat and ball spends many hours fondling them -- they are his, and he dreams of one day hitting that game-winning homer at the bottom of the last inning. It is an image of life, if you will. But, if he is to play ball with other children, he has to open his hands and let go of what is his so that it becomes theirs as well.2 The option remains to hold on to what he owns, but he cannot belong to a group that way, nor can he do any more than dream, and an image of life quickly becomes an image of death. Think of the images of the three youngsters on the floor together, but very much apart.
The reality of real living, my friends in Christ, of life lived freely and responsively, of life lived in community, of life and not death images, is that it is in letting go, of opening up, of setting free that growth and joy and life are found. In raising children we learn that somewhere we must set them free, as painful and scary as that is. In a marriage, the dynamic of that relationship is found in the freedom to continue to grow as individuals, which enriches the life of the other. In the creative ventures of life, we open up and risk rejection and failure for the sake of the larger contribution one feels called to make. No artist, no writer, no performer can be creative and free without letting go of self-consciousness to risk self-expression, for all art is basically self-disclosure.
But there is a deeper level still to the images of life and death confronting us today as we consider the work of our hands. Theologian Paul Tillich has said it the most concisely: "Religion is first an open hand to receive a gift and second, an acting hand to distribute gifts."
For those created in the image of God and who know life as Christ lived it for us know that all of life is a gift from the gracious and loving hand of God. We can claim nothing for our own. God, the author, redeemer, sustainer of all that is, has given us life and all that surrounds us as a trust. We are stewards, those who are accountable for what God has given us, and we really only manage things jointly with our God, we never own them outright. The true image of life, the reality of real living, is the realization that we participate in life only by the grace of God. All that we are, all that we have, all that is, is God's. And when we finally know that in our minds and hearts, then we can begin to live in the image of life he set before us in his Son, Jesus; then we can begin to hold onto life not with closed fists, but with open hands, grateful to receive what God gives us in his love, and eager to share in love what God gives us as good stewards, secure in the faith that God's graciousness knows no limits or bounds and never runs out.
The Scriptures are filled with these images of life and death: stories of people who learned to hold onto life with open hands, those who gained by turning loose that which they foolishly claimed was "theirs" in a gesture of "ours." The Gospel Lesson of the woman who Simon the Pharisee claims is a sinner is but one example. Rejected by the good folks of her community, she was ritually unclean. Her hands, if they touched you, had the power to make you unclean as well, so the Pharisees contended. She had clutched life to her and managed to survive in that place of death in fear and rejection. But Jesus forgave her her sin, and opened up her life to a whole new world of freedom and joy. His gift to her resulted in the dramatic scene of life we read moments ago -- precious and expensive ointment poured out in love and gratitude and devotion to the one who had freed her from the prison of death to which the world and her community had banished her. Her encounter with Jesus was a freeing of all the good which had been locked tightly inside her because of fear. In her tears and humility and devotion she displayed an image of life that had joy and gratitude at its center. She placed herself in the open hands of the Christ, and there found her peace and a new life to live.
And notice, she never says a word in the whole encounter. She is forgiven, and she responds with her every gesture to that grace. As Blair Gilmer Meeks has written in his commentary of this scene: "Her actions, not her sin, are to be remembered wherever the gospel is proclaimed; in washing his feet, she has done for Jesus what Jesus will do for his disciples as a final act before the crucifixion."3
I believe that we all know these images of life and death, even if we never stop to think about them in any profound way. We know that we hold on to loved ones only as we let them go and grow; we keep our talents only if we permit a good teacher to guide and direct us in using them for the good of the community and world; our work is never satisfactory until we learn to let go of self-conscious caution and become free in our self-expression; and, we can only receive from God as we open our hands and hearts to him and for each other. We live in death if we live our lives by grabbing and clutching and holding to ourselves that which isn't really ours in the first place.
Milton Erickson was a creative and imaginative psychologist. One of his many famous case histories is of a woman in Milwaukee who had been depressed for nine months. The woman was very religious, independently wealthy, and lived like a recluse because of her illness. She was, for all practical purposes, living her death. Erickson was asked to pay her a visit and he went to see her. He asked her to take him on a tour of her house, hoping to find something to use to help her out of her depression, which was robbing her of life.
"In looking around," he wrote, "I saw she was a very wealthy woman living alone, idle, attending church but keeping to herself ... and I saw three African violet plants and a potting pot with a leaf in it being sprouted as a new plant. So, I knew what I had to do for her in the way of therapy."4
Erickson told the woman to buy a couple hundred gift pots for African violets. He told her that she was to grow new African violets, and that whenever there was an announcement of a child's birth in her church she was to send an African violet. She was to do the same for every baptism, for every engagement, for every wedding, for every sickness, for every death.
How long to you think the therapy took to move this woman from death to life? Within six months she was written up in the newspaper as the African Violet Queen of Milwaukee. She had created endless new friends, and, no surprise to Erickson, her depression was gone.
We have had images and stories of life and death before us this morning. A closed fist and an open hand; a little boy clutching books unable to laugh and share and play; a woman filled with gratitude for the forgiveness she needed to live a new life; a woman too depressed to see beyond her world suddenly alive again by the gesture of giving flowers with an open hand. Some things to think about, wouldn't you say, as we try to live in the Spirit of Christ. Amen.
____________
1. Thomas D. Peterson, Doing Something By Doing Nothing (Lima: CSS Publishing Co., Inc., 1985), p. 53.
2. Ibid., pp. 53-55.
3. Blair Gilmer Meeks, Homily Service, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Silver Spring: The Liturgical Conference, Inc., 1998), p. 21.
4. John Bradshaw, Creating Love (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), p. 136.
