|
Elaine Pagels is a distinguished
professor at Princeton University. She is not a seminary
professor. She is a humanities scholar who studies and knows
a lot about the human phenomenon of religion. Her specialty
is early Christianity, and she is widely respected for her
scholarly research and books. She is not particularly a
church person. She probably doesn’t consider herself a
believer. In fact, she had pretty much given up on the
church as an institution worthy of her time and attention,
not unlike a lot of thoughtful people. But she begins her
book, Beyond Belief, with an unusual—for
her—anecdote and a very powerful witness.
On a bright, cold Sunday morning in New
York, she interrupted her daily run by stopping in the
vestibule of an Episcopal church to get warm. Two days
earlier, her two-and-a-half-year-old son had been diagnosed
with an invariably fatal lung disease. I cannot even begin
to imagine how devastating that experience must be. She
writes:
Since I had not been in church for a long
time, I was startled by my response to the worship in
progress—the soaring harmonies of the choir singing with the
congregation; and the priest, a woman in bright gold and
white vestments, proclaiming the prayers in a clear,
resonant voice. As I stood watching, a thought came to me:
Here is a family that knows how to face death…
The day after we heard Mark’s
diagnosis—and that he had a few months to live, maybe a few
years—a team of doctors urged us to authorize a lung biopsy,
a painful and invasive procedure. How could this help? It
couldn’t, they explained; but the procedure would let them
see how far the disease had progressed. Mark was already
exhausted by the previous day’s ordeal. Holding him, I felt
that if more masked strangers poked needles into him in an
operating room, he might lose heart—literally—and die. We
refused the biopsy, gathered Mark’s blanket, clothes, and
Peter Rabbit, and carried him home.
Standing in the back of that church, I
recognized, uncomfortably, that I needed to be there. Here
was a place to weep without imposing tears upon a child; and
here was a heterogeneous community that had gathered to
sing, to celebrate, to acknowledge common needs, and to deal
with what we cannot control or imagine…Yet the celebration
in progress spoke of hope. Perhaps that is what made the
presence of death bearable.
“Here is a family that knows how to face
death.”
Death. It is something we all face. It is
something we all have to come to terms with. There is
nothing we can do about it; it’s going to come. One way or
another, death will have its day.
We struggle over the death of loved ones,
both friends and family alike. There is often an emptiness
that can never quite be filled after the death of someone
near and dear to us. We watch as our parents age, knowing
that the day will come when death will knock at their door.
Sometimes our illnesses and frailties—struggles with cancer,
heart disease or chronic pain—seem to bring death a little
closer than we are comfortable with.
But we experience the reality of death in
smaller ways each day as well, don’t we? Uncertain jobs,
meaningless employment, struggling marriages, estranged
relationships, depression, despair, grief, loneliness,
boredom, addictions, failures, disillusionment, pressure,
anxiety and disappointments are each little deaths we
experience. There are periods in our lives when we seem to
die a little bit each day.
And here is the worst part of these daily
little death experiences: we are supposed to pretend like
they are not happening. We are supposed to keep it all in.
We are supposed to put up a good front, act strong and put
on a happy face, all while there is a part of us that is
dying inside. We go through our days holding back the tears
and stifling the screams, unable to give voice to the parts
of us that are dying.
“Here is a family that knows how to face
death.” This quote from Pagels offers such hope, doesn’t it?
From the back of this little church she saw a group of
people she felt knew how to face death. They sang in the
midst of it. They celebrated in the midst of it. They were
open and honest with each other about it. They seemed not to
be afraid of it. They knew that they need not face it alone.
They were a family that knew how to face death.
His name was Bartimaeus. He lived his
entire life in isolation and darkness. Being blind, he was
consigned to a life of begging and abject poverty. But even
though he could not see, he could feel the scorn and pity of
those who stared and gawked at him by the side of the road.
He could feel it when people would ignore him or pretend not
to see him. And he could feel the judgment and contempt of
those who despised him, considering him a sinner, for why
else would such a malady befall him? Our suffering is always
our fault, you know? Make no mistake, Bartimaeus knew death.
He knew it in his body and felt it in his soul. Just because
he was blind didn’t mean he didn’t know what death looked
like.
But one day there was something different
in the air. He could sense it. It was as if the Spirit of
God had come among them and was passing him on the roadside.
Was this his chance to break free from the hell of
isolation? Was this his chance to be touched and comforted?
Was this his chance for healing? He could not contain
himself. He could no longer just sit there in his shame and
embarrassment. He broke his silence. “Jesus! Over here! Here
I am! Look at me, Jesus. Don’t pass me by. Reach out to me.
Touch me. Heal me.”
But what do the disciples, the religious
leaders, the nice church-going folks do when they hear
Bartimaeus crying out for healing? Do they run over to see
what is the matter? Do they circle around him and lay hands
on him for prayer? Do they pool their money to get him clean
clothes and a warm meal? No. They try to quiet him down.
“We’ll have none of this pain and suffering on display here.
Come on. Hush up. This is making us uncomfortable. Would you
just please show respect for Jesus and be quiet!”
Thank God for Jesus. Jesus hears the
cries of this suffering man above the attempts to quiet him.
He says to Bartimaeus, “Come here.” He asks him, “What’s the
matter? What do you need?” Jesus asks and Jesus listens.
Jesus touches and Jesus heals.
Let’s be honest. We are a lot more like
the disciples in this story than we’d care to admit. We are
not sure what to do with our neighbors’ suffering. We don’t
know what to do when we learn of the diagnosis or get wind
of the divorce. We don’t know what to say when someone loses
their job or winds up in jail. We aren’t sure how to be
helpful when the grief is still so raw or when the anger is
still so real. We, like the disciples, sometimes subtly (and
sometimes not so subtly), silence those who are suffering in
our midst. We just don’t know what to do with it. We are not
always a family that knows how to face death.
We know that about our churches
sometimes, don’t we? We know that despite the fact that we
claim to believe in the One with a healing touch, our
churches are sometimes not a safe place when we are hurting
and wounded. I am not always sure why that it is. Maybe it
is because at church we are afraid we have to have it all
together, that a sign of weakness or doubt would be seen as
having a weak faith. Or maybe we think we are the only ones
in the church who are having a moment of weakness or
uncertainty—everyone else seems to have it all together. I
am not sure why it is, but church is not always the place
for one as vulnerable as Bartimaeus.
His name is Rob Bell. You have heard me
talk about him many times. He is young guy like me, and he
pastors Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, a church of nearly
10,000 members. In his book, Velvet Elvis, Rob tells
this story:
I could feel my car keys in my pocket,
and all I could think about was how far away I could be by
11 a.m. How much gas was in the tank? How fast could I
drive?
Sitting on a chair in a storage room, I
could hear the worship space filling up with people, and all
I wanted to do was leave. What do you do when you’re pastor
of a church, it’s Sunday morning, people are finding their
seats, you’re scheduled to preach, and you realize you have
nothing to say? How did it come to this? It started out so
great…
We were growing. House churches were
springing up, partnerships were beginning with other
churches around the world, and people who had never been a
part of a church were finding a home. Two years into it,
around 10,000 people were coming to the three gatherings on
Sundays. In the middle of all this chaos was me, superpastor,
doing weddings and funerals and giving spiritual direction
and going to meetings and teaching and dealing with crises
and visiting people in prison and at the hospital. It was
happening so fast…
And that is why I was sitting there
thinking about how far away I could be by 11 a.m. I escaped
to the storage closet to be alone. I was moments away from
leaving the whole thing. I just couldn’t do it anymore.
People were asking me to write books on how to grow a
progressive young church, and I wasn’t even sure I was a
Christian anymore. I didn’t know if I wanted to be a
Christian anymore. I was exhausted. Full of doubt. I had
nothing more to say.
And so I sat there with my keys in my
hand, turning them over and over, hearing the room getting
louder and louder and more and more full. At that moment I
made some decisions. Because without pain, we don’t change,
do we? But I realized that day that things were wrong with
the whole way I was living my life. If I didn’t
change, I was not going to make it. In that abyss I broke
down and got help…
I had no choice—I had to kill superpastor.
I had to take him out back and kill superpastor.
The superwhatever. So many of us have a
superwhatever rattling around in our heads: supermom,
superdad, superhusband, superwife, superboss,
super-fill-in-the-blank. We even struggle sometimes to be
superChristian. We have this image of this person we are
convinced we are supposed to be, and this superwhatever is
killing us. We have this image that we’ve picked up over the
years of how we are supposed to look and act and work and
play and talk. It’s like a voice that never stops shouting
in our ears, “You’re not enough.”
Churches that know how to face death are
places where people can be honest about what is killing
them. And if Rob is right, then it must include the pastors
as well. So here I go.
I was thirty years old and asked to join
the staff of the largest Methodist church in the state. In
addition to other responsibilities, I was given the
opportunity to lead their evening service, and I would be
preaching almost every week. I hadn’t yet graduated from
seminary. I didn’t have the little letters “Rev.” in front
of my name. I had a lot to prove. So I donned my red cape
and put a big yellow P on my chest and I set out to prove
myself.
I worked until 2:00 or 3:00 in the
morning two or three days a week. I hardly ever took a day
off. I hardly ever said no. I took every criticism too
personally. I didn’t sleep well. I had forgotten how to
pray. I gained at least 50 pounds. Then my wife had a
miscarriage and the house of cards came tumbling down. I was
a wreck, a complete mess. Consumed by guilt and grief, I ate
myself silly.
One afternoon the week after the
miscarriage, I collapsed exhausted in our easy chair, only
to awaken in the midst of a nightmare. In the dream, I had
fallen asleep at the wheel of the car, only to awake as the
car was spinning out of control. The car rolled off into the
ditch and I was thrown under it. Unable to move, I reached
for my cell phone. But as I lay there, I couldn’t remember
any of the numbers. I couldn’t reach anyone for help.
I woke from the nightmare with my heart
racing. The message was clear. My life was out of control
and I was too exhausted to be driving it safely. To keep
living the way I was living was to put myself and others in
danger. That evening I went over to the Runkel Chapel and I
knelt down, and like Bartimaeus I cried out, “Jesus! I don’t
even know if you are real anymore. But if you are—if you are
out there—then help me! I cannot do this on my own anymore!”
I made a 911 call. I called for help and
help came. I found my way into prayer groups and support
groups that would help me face death. I found people to help
me put superpastor to death.
That’s the thing about a 911 call. There
is always somebody on the other end of the line to listen
and offer assistance. If you need help, then why not make
the call tonight. |
