Pentecost 15B2018
Getting Stuck And Moving On
Fr. Dale
Matson
My homily is based on our Old Testament reading for Sunday.
"Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the
judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and
possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you.” (Deuteronomy
4:1)
As we mature, we hopefully gain a sense of mastery and self-efficacy.
Whether we like it or not, there is a sorting
process we are thrown into about the time we enter elementary school. We
quickly find in our neighborhood and in our school, who is the smartest, fastest,
strongest, prettiest, most artistic and most popular. When baseball teams are
formed in gym, we know who will be picked first and who will be picked last. We
also learn early on, who is trustworthy and who is a tramp. From these early
experiences we know by the 6th grade, where we stand on the social
ladder.
In my case, I learned
that I was ordinary in every way. I don’t want to brag but I am extraordinarily ordinary. From a developmental standpoint, we grow
in many domains including intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual.
There are certain necessary developmental end points to almost all our developmental
domains such as limits on physical growth. But there is no end point for our potential
spiritual growth. Our spiritual growth is like a fish. A fish grows until it
dies.
As fluid
intelligence diminishes, we compensate with acquired knowledge. Acquired
knowledge is also referred to as crystalized
intelligence. As an older adult I know that the American flag I pledged allegiance
to in grade school only had 48 stars. Most children don’t know that fact. Am I
smarter? No, children have more fluid intelligence which means if both of us
face a novel task, a task neither of us has seen before, the child will figure
it out first.
Spiritually, we develop our entire lives. The Christian
lives in the present with eyes looking toward the future. The three theological
virtues of faith, hope and love do
not look back. They do not dwell in the past.
My sadness and pain is for those I know who have become
mired down and live in the past. They have established a developmental
beachhead or benchmark by which they orient their lives. Folks who suffer from Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PSTD) are often stuck developmentally at the point of some
major trauma. They have not learned to view the experience through God’s eyes.
They are like Humpty Dumpty who had a great fall off the wall and all the
kings’ horses and all the kings’ men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together
again. They have circled the wagons and ended
their development. They have chosen a life of victimhood. They are bitter and
angry. They are hyper reflective and increasingly isolated. They self-medicate
with alcohol, drugs, and gambling, illicit relationships other addictions and
generally lead the passive life of a spectator.
They have chosen the path of death.
It may be death on the installment plan but it is surely death. This is a no
risk, no gain, dried up, and stuck existence. Sentences begin with, “I suppose
I should have done this or done that but…. [fill in the blank]” The point of
orientation for their lives is in the past. The gravitational pull toward the
past is a seemingly irresistible force. Like many Israelites, they have
returned to the captivity of the past in Egypt. They are no longer pilgrims,
they are refugees.
By the senior year of high school some folks have hit the
peak of their lives. Our class president of 1962 simply disappeared and was
never heard from again. Our valedictorian was hitting a tennis ball against the
gymnasium wall when the senior awards were handed out. He never made it through
his first year of college at Yale because he committed suicide in his parents’
house during semester break.
I’m certain you folks know people like this from your
experience. They had so much promise and they gave themselves over to the dying
process. The dying process is the default ever since original sin. The late
Karl Menninger, a Christian Psychiatrist wrote the book, “Man Against Himself”.
St. Paul talks about this struggle in Romans Chapter Seven. “I have the desire
to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For
I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on
doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no
longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” (18b-20)
Each person on this earth is either committed to life or
committed to death. Scripture states in the 30th chapter of
Deuteronomy (verse19) “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses
against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.
Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”
I have been both places, seeking life and seeking death. I
used to plan my life around alcohol and always made sure there was enough
around to get the job done. While I never drank at work, I had a string of jobs
over the years where I fouled my own nest over time. I was stuck. I wasn’t moving on. I had been stuck for a long time.
God in His grace can even reach into the heart of the
active unrepentant addict. Having nowhere else to turn, the 8-year-old child
that accepted Jesus as his savior in Sunday School 30 years before, got back on
his knees and cried out to God for help. I signed up for an adult bible study
called “Life With God” in the local Lutheran Church. It was actually an adult
catechism course. I was so spiritually hungry I attended the next three sixteen-week
sessions in a row. I went to church on Sunday and mid-week too. I absolutely
loved the adult Bible study. I had nearly starved to death spiritually and didn’t
know it. The crucial question for me was the same one Christ posed to Peter.
“Who do you say that I am?” To see Christ as God opened the door for my return.
I began attending Bible class between services and enjoyed the experience
immensely. I came to love my spiritual mentor Jim Bolling as a father. Jim was
the first of many men and women God placed by my side. The Holy Spirit spoke
words of instruction, correction and comfort through them.
God’s will is not initially heavy but the cumulative
effect is a rod of iron. I gradually became aware following my adult baptism
that there was no turning back. I remember the thought that came to me before I
walked down the aisle for my baptism. “You are throwing your life away for this
Jesus”. The statement by Satan, like all his statements was both the truth and
a lie. It was true but the life I was throwing away wasn’t worth living. I was now another ambassador of God’s Kingdom
and as an ambassador; it was not fitting for me to be a drunk or a smoker. At
one time, I actually believed Satan’s truthful lie that I would die if I quit
drinking. That drunk man did die. I prayed about this and was delivered from
the need to drink. I was trustworthy
again. I had to pray for two more years to get the desire to quit smoking and
when I quit on January 10th 1983, I never smoked again. This is my
36th year without a cigarette. I believe there can be conversion
from addiction.
What is the remedy for such a wretched life headed toward
death? Why do so many people seem stuck at some point in their life and not
able to move on? For example, if the child is repeatedly told by his parents
that he or she is a loser and will never amount to anything, it can become an
identity that would find ways to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. He
could later be the person who would enter a job interview and in so many ways,
tell the interviewers not to hire him. He really knew the outcome because he
helped make it happen. Tom, one of my best friends from college was an absolute
genius. When he was a child, he heard his father talking to his mother one
night saying, “I wish I had never had the S.O.B.” Tom has never recovered, he
remains stuck at age 75. He suffers from chronic depression and retired as a
custodian. He has rejected God and will not reconcile.
Unlike the schizophrenic who struggles to establish an
identity, stuck people establish a negative
identity. They allow a negative self-concept to defeat their natural
giftedness. This scenario is actually more common than the Peter Principle.
They are the reverse of the Peter Principle. The “Peter Principle” states that
people are promoted one step beyond their ability level.
Stuck people do not become who they could be because
frankly, they feel they don’t deserve success. It would not fit the unconscious
template in their brain. They are like the famous Marx Brothers line, “I would
not belong to any country club that would have someone like me as a member.”
But in Christ, we are born anew.
Are we moving on, seeking life or stuck seeking death? With
Christ, we have become new creatures. We have a second chance. We have a fresh
start. In 2nd Peter, it states, “But you are not like that, for you
are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, and God’s very own possession. As a result,
you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of the darkness
into his wonderful light.” Why are we God’s own possession? We were purchased
by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with His very own blood.
St. Paul often used
the race as a metaphor for life. Each race however requires training,
self-discipline, and incremental
stages of progress. Training is “goal specific”. Muscle development is task
specific. You cannot swim a mile by running a marathon and you cannot run a
marathon without incrementally increasing a long run. Training for a goal is future oriented. It pulls us forward. This
is not just true in the physical domain. It is also true in the other domains
of life as well. Completing an interrupted college degree can be a new point, a
benchmark for the future. Goals given us
by our Lord are our pillar of cloud by day and our pillar of fire by night.
Have you or someone you knew lost a great deal of weight
and are no longer obese? This is how God intended us to be. He gave us a heart,
lungs, organs and bones for our skeletal frame. As a backpacker, I am
continually reminded how much extra weight I used to carry when I was
overweight. I used to weigh 230 pounds. I weighed in yesterday at weight
watchers at 162 pounds. On our recent trip to the Sierra Nevada, Fr. Carlos had
a pack that weighed about 50 pounds. Imagine me putting on his pack and adding
another 18 pounds and that was how overweight I was. I need trekking poles and
two knee braces to go downhill on the steep mountain trails because of the
extra weight of a backpack. Our joints simply break down sooner with the
enormous weight. Having a goal of weight loss can set a waypoint in our future
which will become a new benchmark. It is getting unstuck. It is moving on. It
will make us forward looking but this too must be an incremental goal. I am now
70 pounds lighter than I was before I was an ambassador for Christ. God understands
incremental preparation for the future. Incremental means one step at a time.
Yes, David faced Goliath but before that he had killed
both a lion and a bear. God had prepared David for the moment he faced Goliath.
There are few goals beyond the ordinary
person who applies disciplined training. “I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)
It is the realization and desire to employ the talents
given us by God. If we remain stuck, we have buried the talent God has given
us. It is a decision to leave the past hurts behind and to continue the
pilgrimage. Rivers of living water are to come from the belly of the Christian.
We are streams not stagnant ponds with no inlet and no outlet. God calls us
forward and it is a call to life not death. Also seek the leading of God the
Holy Spirit on this. It is a way out of
the misery of the past and a way toward the Kingdom. It is time to get unstuck!
Each day the choice is ours. Now is the acceptable time. Chose life! Amen.
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