How Sharp Are Your Knives?
Stories
Object:
Contents
"How Sharp Are Your Knives?" by C. David McKirachan
"The Requirement for Loving Others: Loving Yourself" by Lamar Massingill
* * * * * * * *
How Sharp Are Your Knives?
by C. David McKirachan
Hebrews 9:11-14
My ancestors were big on sacrifice. Most pagan priests were. It wasn't because they were blood thirsty. It was because they had the good of their people at heart. I think they were a lot like we are, worried about that lady in the hospital, about that couple trying to move beyond arguments and heartbreak to love, standing with the young guy who's unsure of who his is and how he's going to become what he could be. They didn't have psychology, they didn't have therapeutic categories, they had the wisdom of their elders and their own lives and their sense of presence of what lay beyond them. And their liturgy involved blood. I don't know how that helped. I'm not big on butchering. But something there spoke to the life we all share and the ultimate power of the wind of the gods.
Israel worshiped the same God that brought Jesus to us. And our Lord was very clear about his sense of self-sacrifice. But this priest/butcher who spoke of Jesus was very clear that he transcended any sacrifice that any priest could make. It was not because he was better, cleaner, or because he did the liturgy better. He did what no sacrifice could. He broke the barriers that have always stood between the god we worship and our small selves.
Blood had always been the fuel, the catalyst that offered a moment of communion and hope. In Jesus we see that no fuel or catalyst is needed. The technology hasn't been improved. We don't need a phone. God's here, Emmanuel.
Too often we focus on being "good," whatever that means. It's just another knife, another calf, another offering to make us worthy to be in the presence of the god. It's time we got beyond all that and began allowing the gift given from the giver of all good gifts to have the power it really has. It's time to believe in the gift. It's time to believe that the simple grace brought by the humble Christ is sufficient for any who need, including we humble priests called to follow our loving Lord.
Let's leave the knives in the kitchen. 'Bout time, don't you think?
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
The Requirement for Loving Others: Loving Yourself
by Lamar Massingill
Mark 12:28-34
The last part of verse 31 normally flies by us like the city of New Orleans on its way to Memphis: "... as you love yourself." It's sad that many of our churches prohibit us from doing for ourselves what we have been commanded to do for our neighbors, namely, to love. But it is one of the best kept secrets of New Testament scripture: the journey toward others begins with the journey into ourselves. We enter in order to exit. We begin the process of knowing ourselves before we can know others. Loving ourselves healthily is the first movement we make toward loving others healthily. We must make friends with all of who we are before we can be creative toward life and others. What I am suggesting is that the command of Jesus to love others as you love yourself is more than a moral imperative; it is a psychological reality. The fact is: we will love others exactly as we love ourselves. The way we relate to the most important person in our lives, ourselves, becomes the way we relate to others. If we see ourselves in a negative vein, then more than likely we will view others that way as well. On the other hand, if we view ourselves in a more positive, loving way, then we view life and others this way as well. The question is how do we come to love ourselves healthily?
We, like Jesus, must spend the necessary time to know and love ourselves before we can reach out to others with what C.S. Lewis called gift love: that love which is given with the expectation of nothing in return. This is the kind of love that Jesus gave. This is why I believe that before Jesus began his public ministry, he journeyed into the wilderness. I think that journey was an act of self-love in the richest sense. It was inevitable. He had to know himself and bless the gift of his own life before he could reach out and bless the lives of others. The problem we have in the church is that we put so much emphasis on loving others that we don't give ourselves channels that will enable us to love ourselves. Added to that, we confuse healthy self-love with narcissism, that is, an arrogant love of one's self. We live in a society and church that can't distinguish between healthy self-love and a narcissistic love of self.
We need to distinguish. In Greek literature, the Greek god Narcissus, you may remember, looked into a body of water, saw his own image, and fell in love with that image. So Narcissus fell in love, not with himself and his own gift of life, but with an image of himself. The difference between narcissism and self-love, then, is a matter of depth. The narcissist falls in love with the mask that culture expects him to wear. He sees himself through the eyes of others and changes his lifestyle to conform to what is admired by others. He tailors his behavior and his expression of feelings to what will please others. In short, narcissism has a love affair with images. It is an agreement to keep up appearances and never look beneath the surface, which is the heart, the spirit, the soul, the way one feels on the inside.
Self-love, on the other hand is positive. It cares nothing about propping up the images of culture. It dares the journey beneath the surface, in order to embrace all that the self is, good and bad. It proceeds on the assumption that, if indeed grace and mercy is enough to care for our lives, then we are liberated to know ourselves and to make friends with all of who we are. Such freedom allows us to go into our own wilderness. We can face our void. We can welcome the pain of our darkness and emerge from our wildernesses less intimidated by our demons.
William Slone Coffin once said of his preaching professor in Divinity School, Browne Barr that he had made friends with all his hostilities and is now intimidated by none of them. This is what a healthy self-love seeks to do: To make friends with what good gifts we have as well as the wounds and sins we have and realize we have that freedom because of one reality, namely, we are forgiven, therefore given this wonderful privilege to grow by realizing and celebrating both our gifts and wounds. By doing this, our gifts grow stronger and our wounds grow lighter and easier to deal with.
One of our church fathers, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, realized this as far back as the thirteenth century, and he arranged what he called the stages of Christian maturity. I was not really surprised at the first three. I knew that life begins with what he calls "love of self for self's sake." This is the infantile stage, when one is consumed with nothing but self-concern. But this does not usually last.
Even a child realizes he must have outside resources to survive, so the "love of God for self's sake" is Bernard's second stage. This is when God is seen primarily as a means to an end and prayer is little more than give me this, help me with that, protect me, bless me, and so forth. However, even such a selfish appropriation of God can lead to something better, for one may come to realize that God has value and is worthy to be praised. This is the third stage that Bernard calls "the love of God for God's sake." There was a time I would have named this as the pinnacle of Christian maturity: To lose oneself in wonder, awe, and praise and to forget oneself before the mystery of God.
But Bernard doesn't stop there. He cites yet a forth stage as the climax of Christian maturity, and do you know what it is? "The love of self for God's sake." That was a shock to me at first but as I reflected on it I realized the medieval saint was exactly right. The hardest thing about God to love is the fact that he made me and to accept this as a gift and cherish this is the greatest challenge facing most of us. To get to the place where we can look on the event of our creation and say, "It is good, it is good, it is very, very good," that calls for love of the most profound sort.
Listen, we do not have to be perfect to be good and compared with never having been at all, whatever one has been dealt in the act of creation is worthy of celebration. We are loved. And we can love ourselves and others. Far from trying to be arrogant or selfish, it means loving ourselves and our gifts, the very essence of what we are, and affirming it as a good gift from God. It's the only way we can love as the church of Jesus. And if we fail in love, we fail in all things.
The Rev. Lamar Massingill, a former Southern Baptist pastor, and also long time minister at the historic United Methodist Church in Port Gibson, Mississippi (1988-1999), is now Religion Editor for the Magnolia Gazette (magnoliagazette.com), for which he writes a weekly column. Massingill has traveled nationally and internationally and has lectured widely on the interaction between religion and psychology. He recently retired from the parish church after thirty years of pastoral ministry.
*****************************************
StoryShare, November 4, 2012, issue.
Copyright 2012 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. 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., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"How Sharp Are Your Knives?" by C. David McKirachan
"The Requirement for Loving Others: Loving Yourself" by Lamar Massingill
* * * * * * * *
How Sharp Are Your Knives?
by C. David McKirachan
Hebrews 9:11-14
My ancestors were big on sacrifice. Most pagan priests were. It wasn't because they were blood thirsty. It was because they had the good of their people at heart. I think they were a lot like we are, worried about that lady in the hospital, about that couple trying to move beyond arguments and heartbreak to love, standing with the young guy who's unsure of who his is and how he's going to become what he could be. They didn't have psychology, they didn't have therapeutic categories, they had the wisdom of their elders and their own lives and their sense of presence of what lay beyond them. And their liturgy involved blood. I don't know how that helped. I'm not big on butchering. But something there spoke to the life we all share and the ultimate power of the wind of the gods.
Israel worshiped the same God that brought Jesus to us. And our Lord was very clear about his sense of self-sacrifice. But this priest/butcher who spoke of Jesus was very clear that he transcended any sacrifice that any priest could make. It was not because he was better, cleaner, or because he did the liturgy better. He did what no sacrifice could. He broke the barriers that have always stood between the god we worship and our small selves.
Blood had always been the fuel, the catalyst that offered a moment of communion and hope. In Jesus we see that no fuel or catalyst is needed. The technology hasn't been improved. We don't need a phone. God's here, Emmanuel.
Too often we focus on being "good," whatever that means. It's just another knife, another calf, another offering to make us worthy to be in the presence of the god. It's time we got beyond all that and began allowing the gift given from the giver of all good gifts to have the power it really has. It's time to believe in the gift. It's time to believe that the simple grace brought by the humble Christ is sufficient for any who need, including we humble priests called to follow our loving Lord.
Let's leave the knives in the kitchen. 'Bout time, don't you think?
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
The Requirement for Loving Others: Loving Yourself
by Lamar Massingill
Mark 12:28-34
The last part of verse 31 normally flies by us like the city of New Orleans on its way to Memphis: "... as you love yourself." It's sad that many of our churches prohibit us from doing for ourselves what we have been commanded to do for our neighbors, namely, to love. But it is one of the best kept secrets of New Testament scripture: the journey toward others begins with the journey into ourselves. We enter in order to exit. We begin the process of knowing ourselves before we can know others. Loving ourselves healthily is the first movement we make toward loving others healthily. We must make friends with all of who we are before we can be creative toward life and others. What I am suggesting is that the command of Jesus to love others as you love yourself is more than a moral imperative; it is a psychological reality. The fact is: we will love others exactly as we love ourselves. The way we relate to the most important person in our lives, ourselves, becomes the way we relate to others. If we see ourselves in a negative vein, then more than likely we will view others that way as well. On the other hand, if we view ourselves in a more positive, loving way, then we view life and others this way as well. The question is how do we come to love ourselves healthily?
We, like Jesus, must spend the necessary time to know and love ourselves before we can reach out to others with what C.S. Lewis called gift love: that love which is given with the expectation of nothing in return. This is the kind of love that Jesus gave. This is why I believe that before Jesus began his public ministry, he journeyed into the wilderness. I think that journey was an act of self-love in the richest sense. It was inevitable. He had to know himself and bless the gift of his own life before he could reach out and bless the lives of others. The problem we have in the church is that we put so much emphasis on loving others that we don't give ourselves channels that will enable us to love ourselves. Added to that, we confuse healthy self-love with narcissism, that is, an arrogant love of one's self. We live in a society and church that can't distinguish between healthy self-love and a narcissistic love of self.
We need to distinguish. In Greek literature, the Greek god Narcissus, you may remember, looked into a body of water, saw his own image, and fell in love with that image. So Narcissus fell in love, not with himself and his own gift of life, but with an image of himself. The difference between narcissism and self-love, then, is a matter of depth. The narcissist falls in love with the mask that culture expects him to wear. He sees himself through the eyes of others and changes his lifestyle to conform to what is admired by others. He tailors his behavior and his expression of feelings to what will please others. In short, narcissism has a love affair with images. It is an agreement to keep up appearances and never look beneath the surface, which is the heart, the spirit, the soul, the way one feels on the inside.
Self-love, on the other hand is positive. It cares nothing about propping up the images of culture. It dares the journey beneath the surface, in order to embrace all that the self is, good and bad. It proceeds on the assumption that, if indeed grace and mercy is enough to care for our lives, then we are liberated to know ourselves and to make friends with all of who we are. Such freedom allows us to go into our own wilderness. We can face our void. We can welcome the pain of our darkness and emerge from our wildernesses less intimidated by our demons.
William Slone Coffin once said of his preaching professor in Divinity School, Browne Barr that he had made friends with all his hostilities and is now intimidated by none of them. This is what a healthy self-love seeks to do: To make friends with what good gifts we have as well as the wounds and sins we have and realize we have that freedom because of one reality, namely, we are forgiven, therefore given this wonderful privilege to grow by realizing and celebrating both our gifts and wounds. By doing this, our gifts grow stronger and our wounds grow lighter and easier to deal with.
One of our church fathers, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, realized this as far back as the thirteenth century, and he arranged what he called the stages of Christian maturity. I was not really surprised at the first three. I knew that life begins with what he calls "love of self for self's sake." This is the infantile stage, when one is consumed with nothing but self-concern. But this does not usually last.
Even a child realizes he must have outside resources to survive, so the "love of God for self's sake" is Bernard's second stage. This is when God is seen primarily as a means to an end and prayer is little more than give me this, help me with that, protect me, bless me, and so forth. However, even such a selfish appropriation of God can lead to something better, for one may come to realize that God has value and is worthy to be praised. This is the third stage that Bernard calls "the love of God for God's sake." There was a time I would have named this as the pinnacle of Christian maturity: To lose oneself in wonder, awe, and praise and to forget oneself before the mystery of God.
But Bernard doesn't stop there. He cites yet a forth stage as the climax of Christian maturity, and do you know what it is? "The love of self for God's sake." That was a shock to me at first but as I reflected on it I realized the medieval saint was exactly right. The hardest thing about God to love is the fact that he made me and to accept this as a gift and cherish this is the greatest challenge facing most of us. To get to the place where we can look on the event of our creation and say, "It is good, it is good, it is very, very good," that calls for love of the most profound sort.
Listen, we do not have to be perfect to be good and compared with never having been at all, whatever one has been dealt in the act of creation is worthy of celebration. We are loved. And we can love ourselves and others. Far from trying to be arrogant or selfish, it means loving ourselves and our gifts, the very essence of what we are, and affirming it as a good gift from God. It's the only way we can love as the church of Jesus. And if we fail in love, we fail in all things.
The Rev. Lamar Massingill, a former Southern Baptist pastor, and also long time minister at the historic United Methodist Church in Port Gibson, Mississippi (1988-1999), is now Religion Editor for the Magnolia Gazette (magnoliagazette.com), for which he writes a weekly column. Massingill has traveled nationally and internationally and has lectured widely on the interaction between religion and psychology. He recently retired from the parish church after thirty years of pastoral ministry.
*****************************************
StoryShare, November 4, 2012, issue.
Copyright 2012 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. 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., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
