The Darkness Of Despair And Depression?
Sermon
I remember, many years ago, attending a most extraordinary Parochial Church Council meeting. A PCC member, who was fairly new both to the church and the PCC and who had started a junior choir, suddenly burst out into a diatribe against the church. He claimed he'd had no support from the church for anything he'd attempted, and after several minutes of violent haranguing, he stormed out in disgust.
The PCC were stunned and bewildered by this unexpected attack, for his claims were quite untrue. Amongst other things, the church had financed the new choir, and ladies from the church had spent hours sewing smart new uniforms for them.
A few weeks later, the man was taken into hospital suffering from a breakdown, and all became clear. The choir venture had been too much for him, on top of the many other pressures in his life at that moment. Pressures about which the church knew nothing.
It seems to be at times of stress that we humans can suddenly burst out with unexpectedly harsh words, which often take other people by surprise. Sometimes blame is heaped upon people who are actually blameless, apart from not spotting the build-up of stress. But a torrent of biting words does sometimes seem to relieve the pressure for a while, like releasing steam from a pressure cooker. The trouble is, that such a torrent often causes hurt and damages relationships, sometimes beyond repair.
I find the words of Jesus related by St. Luke in today's reading, a real shock. This isn't the gentle and long-suffering and peaceful and approachable Jesus I know and love! This sounds like a harsh, despairing outburst from someone near the end of his tether. Listen again to the words, and notice how right at the end, the people are suddenly blamed because the response to his work hasn't been quite what Jesus expected:
"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress (my italics) I am under until it is completed!
The baptism he mentions is thought to be a reference to his coming suffering and death. Perhaps he's spelling it out for them, because they've failed to notice the build-up of stress in him. He goes on:
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law." He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? (Luke 12:49-56 - NRSV).
After reading that, I feel helpless. I feel a little anxious, because it paints such a dark picture, and because history has proved it true. Religion has been the cause of many wars and conflicts, and has divided families. In Northern Ireland, it still goes on.
I also feel a little guilty, because I'm incapable of interpreting the signs of the times.
I experience all those negative feelings to some extent, yet I'm reading it in translation, from a different culture, and over a time span of 2000 years. I wonder how the listeners felt? Perhaps very guilty and anxious and helpless and battered.
And yet I find it comforting that Jesus not only knew what stress was, but that he responded to it in exactly the way human beings have always responded to it. Despite his regular habit of going into lonely places to pray and to restore his own space and equilibrium, he still experienced stress and tiredness and perhaps a degree of depression, and he reacted to it.
From this distance of time and space, and from seeing Jesus as divine, as God become human, it isn't always easy to realise how his chosen way of life, his mission, must have got Jesus down at times.
I mostly tend to think of him as being above the effects of stress and tiredness. He so often seems to go on and on and on giving of himself, when all lesser mortals would have long given up and gone home to bed. And that's what I expect from this God-Man, this superhuman being. But here in today's reading is a very human glimpse of a very human being. Someone who's exhausted, frustrated, and who suddenly erupts in an angry outburst.
We have two little people being baptised this morning, being offered to God for his blessing on their lives, and becoming members of the Christian church. Their parents have brought them to church today because they want the very best for their children, and they want the best possible start. As far as they're able, those parents are determined to be as perfect as they can in raising their children. But anybody who has ever been a parent or a child will know that despite all their best intentions to be perfect, parents are subject at times to outbursts of anger against their children.
Here in church we see two innocent babies, but almost before you can blink they'll have become toddlers, who may be difficult, and who will require constant supervision and constant attention. And those toddlers will be growing into individuals, with their own feelings and needs, their own likes and dislikes. Small wonder that along with the joy and delight at the gift of children, goes an increase in stress and tension within the family.
Anger, from time to time, is an inevitable part of family life, whether it's a small family of Mum and Dad with one or two children, or the larger family of the church. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, for the expression of anger allows the release of built-up pressure.
The problem with anger is that it can be very damaging, if the violence felt in anger is directed either physically or emotionally against another person. So perhaps we all need to explore ways of expressing anger, of releasing that build-up of pressure, ways which don't damage other people.
It's interesting that Luke places Jesus' anger and distress in the middle of his book. Jesus had finished his mission in Galilee, in the country around his home, and had set out for Jerusalem, the big city. He'd trained 72 evangelists, who had had a very successful mission, and had come back full of it. But after that, things seem to have become more difficult, and these two or three chapters in the middle of Jesus' ministry are full of doom and gloom.
It's often in the middle that things are difficult. Teenagers, in the middle between childhood and adulthood, are notoriously difficult to understand and to handle. (Believe me, no parents are ever right for their teenage children!) The middle years of a college course are often the low spot of the course where people are tempted to pack it in. The middle years of any parliament are accepted as the most difficult for the government.
The secret is to hang in there until things improve, for improve they will. Despite the despair and anger shown in today's reading, Jesus was still there for his friends and for those who needed him. He didn't run away at the first signs of difficulty, he stayed alongside his friends and worked through it with them. The relationships held, they didn't break under stress. And for Jesus, things lightened again. The doom and gloom disappeared and we soon have those lovely human stories of the prodigal son and the lost sheep and the dishonest steward.
Life is full of ups and downs, and nobody should feel they're not Christian, or they're failing in some way just because they have moments of depression or they react under stress. Jesus himself felt like that from time to time. However we feel, and whatever happens, God is still there for us, just as he was for Jesus. He will go on loving these two babies throughout their entire lives, and he'll go on loving all of us like that too.
The PCC were stunned and bewildered by this unexpected attack, for his claims were quite untrue. Amongst other things, the church had financed the new choir, and ladies from the church had spent hours sewing smart new uniforms for them.
A few weeks later, the man was taken into hospital suffering from a breakdown, and all became clear. The choir venture had been too much for him, on top of the many other pressures in his life at that moment. Pressures about which the church knew nothing.
It seems to be at times of stress that we humans can suddenly burst out with unexpectedly harsh words, which often take other people by surprise. Sometimes blame is heaped upon people who are actually blameless, apart from not spotting the build-up of stress. But a torrent of biting words does sometimes seem to relieve the pressure for a while, like releasing steam from a pressure cooker. The trouble is, that such a torrent often causes hurt and damages relationships, sometimes beyond repair.
I find the words of Jesus related by St. Luke in today's reading, a real shock. This isn't the gentle and long-suffering and peaceful and approachable Jesus I know and love! This sounds like a harsh, despairing outburst from someone near the end of his tether. Listen again to the words, and notice how right at the end, the people are suddenly blamed because the response to his work hasn't been quite what Jesus expected:
"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress (my italics) I am under until it is completed!
The baptism he mentions is thought to be a reference to his coming suffering and death. Perhaps he's spelling it out for them, because they've failed to notice the build-up of stress in him. He goes on:
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law." He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? (Luke 12:49-56 - NRSV).
After reading that, I feel helpless. I feel a little anxious, because it paints such a dark picture, and because history has proved it true. Religion has been the cause of many wars and conflicts, and has divided families. In Northern Ireland, it still goes on.
I also feel a little guilty, because I'm incapable of interpreting the signs of the times.
I experience all those negative feelings to some extent, yet I'm reading it in translation, from a different culture, and over a time span of 2000 years. I wonder how the listeners felt? Perhaps very guilty and anxious and helpless and battered.
And yet I find it comforting that Jesus not only knew what stress was, but that he responded to it in exactly the way human beings have always responded to it. Despite his regular habit of going into lonely places to pray and to restore his own space and equilibrium, he still experienced stress and tiredness and perhaps a degree of depression, and he reacted to it.
From this distance of time and space, and from seeing Jesus as divine, as God become human, it isn't always easy to realise how his chosen way of life, his mission, must have got Jesus down at times.
I mostly tend to think of him as being above the effects of stress and tiredness. He so often seems to go on and on and on giving of himself, when all lesser mortals would have long given up and gone home to bed. And that's what I expect from this God-Man, this superhuman being. But here in today's reading is a very human glimpse of a very human being. Someone who's exhausted, frustrated, and who suddenly erupts in an angry outburst.
We have two little people being baptised this morning, being offered to God for his blessing on their lives, and becoming members of the Christian church. Their parents have brought them to church today because they want the very best for their children, and they want the best possible start. As far as they're able, those parents are determined to be as perfect as they can in raising their children. But anybody who has ever been a parent or a child will know that despite all their best intentions to be perfect, parents are subject at times to outbursts of anger against their children.
Here in church we see two innocent babies, but almost before you can blink they'll have become toddlers, who may be difficult, and who will require constant supervision and constant attention. And those toddlers will be growing into individuals, with their own feelings and needs, their own likes and dislikes. Small wonder that along with the joy and delight at the gift of children, goes an increase in stress and tension within the family.
Anger, from time to time, is an inevitable part of family life, whether it's a small family of Mum and Dad with one or two children, or the larger family of the church. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, for the expression of anger allows the release of built-up pressure.
The problem with anger is that it can be very damaging, if the violence felt in anger is directed either physically or emotionally against another person. So perhaps we all need to explore ways of expressing anger, of releasing that build-up of pressure, ways which don't damage other people.
It's interesting that Luke places Jesus' anger and distress in the middle of his book. Jesus had finished his mission in Galilee, in the country around his home, and had set out for Jerusalem, the big city. He'd trained 72 evangelists, who had had a very successful mission, and had come back full of it. But after that, things seem to have become more difficult, and these two or three chapters in the middle of Jesus' ministry are full of doom and gloom.
It's often in the middle that things are difficult. Teenagers, in the middle between childhood and adulthood, are notoriously difficult to understand and to handle. (Believe me, no parents are ever right for their teenage children!) The middle years of a college course are often the low spot of the course where people are tempted to pack it in. The middle years of any parliament are accepted as the most difficult for the government.
The secret is to hang in there until things improve, for improve they will. Despite the despair and anger shown in today's reading, Jesus was still there for his friends and for those who needed him. He didn't run away at the first signs of difficulty, he stayed alongside his friends and worked through it with them. The relationships held, they didn't break under stress. And for Jesus, things lightened again. The doom and gloom disappeared and we soon have those lovely human stories of the prodigal son and the lost sheep and the dishonest steward.
Life is full of ups and downs, and nobody should feel they're not Christian, or they're failing in some way just because they have moments of depression or they react under stress. Jesus himself felt like that from time to time. However we feel, and whatever happens, God is still there for us, just as he was for Jesus. He will go on loving these two babies throughout their entire lives, and he'll go on loving all of us like that too.
