|
Thirty
years ago there wasn't a clergyman in Detroit who didn't know
Mrs. Cunningham. Hers was a walking tale of woe, polished
to a pathetic pitch. As a con artist, she had no peer. She
could get money out of the hardest of us. And, in those years,
I was far from the hardest. I was young and soft ... a perfect
patsy. The last few times I gave her food and money, she didn't
even need to come and see me. I made house calls.
As I remember
it, she lived on Lawton Avenue near Warren. Hers was the worst
house I ever entered until I saw one in Appalachia to rival
it. I have no doubt that she had more kids than pieces of
furniture. Were it not for the kids, I could have ignored
her pleas. I once recall putting food in her refrigerator
and finding nothing in it but beer. I never put food in her
cupboards but once ... because, to this day, my skin crawls
at the remembrance of the scurrying roaches. And she had a
couple of the ugliest dogs I had ever seen. They were big,
bony, and lived with the mistaken notion that the City of
Detroit had put a fire hydrant inside the living room rather
than out front by the curb.
But dominating
this wretched scene was a huge picture on the living room
wall. The subject was Jesus. He had an enlarged red heart
superimposed on his chest. The artist had painted several
drops of blood falling from Jesus' heart to a pool at the
bottom of the picture. Beneath the frame could be seen one
of those plaques, the kind you find in souvenir shops that
cater primarily to tourists. Etched into a knotty pine base,
(which was polished to a high gloss) were words which read:
"Christ is the Lord of this house."
I wonder
if he was! He could have been. Who am I to say? My cynicism
was always suspicious that both "sign" and "picture"
were there to make points with preachers. But maybe that says
more about me than it says about Mrs. Cunningham.
What does
it mean for Christ to be Lord of a house? I hear much glib
talk about "Christian homes." Well, what makes one?
Will a plaque do it? Or a picture? Or a statue of Jesus on
the lawn? For years, a relative of mine kept a crucifix hanging
on her bedroom wall. She was a Catholic. But I never once
recall her going to mass, or confession, or even praying.
Did the crucifix make her home "Christian?" I never
knew, and felt no need to make a judgment. But the question
won't go away. What constitutes a Christian home?
Or must
we have to begin with a more basic question than that. What
constitutes a home? Is it a mother, father and 2.6 children?
Is it a mother and 2.6 children who see their father on alternate
weekends? Is it a couple whose children have grown, and who
are quietly making plans to celebrate their forty-fifth wedding
anniversary? Is it two unmarried pre-med students who have
shared the same apartment through four years of internships
and residencies? Is it four elderly widows who live in adjoining
apartments at the same retirement village ... and who have
eaten lunch and dinner together every day for the last five
years? Is it a gay or lesbian duo who have lived in monogamous
fidelity for more than a decade? Or is it those occupants
who dwell in the same fraternity house, military barracks
or "group home"for the mentally and emotionally
handicapped?
I suppose
a home can be all of the above ... and more. Where 2 or 3
are gathered, a home is any living arrangement that finds
people sharing, not only space and square footage, but huge
pieces of each other's lives. And if you feel a need (which
I certainly don't) to settle on one definition, most of us
are going to call "home," that place where we feel
a greater sense of belonging than any other.
But what
makes a home Christian? Were I to divide you into discussion
groups, give you 20 minutes, a pad of newsprint and a fat,
juicy magic marker, you would come up with ideas numbering
into the hundreds ... all of which would be arguably correct.
Some would
call a home "Christian" if its occupants regularly
attend church. Regular church attendance does (I think) have
a demonstrable effect on family stability. Families that pray
together probably do stay together ... at least in higher
percentages than those who do not. Someday, I will preach
a sermon on why that is. To be sure, every rule has its exceptions.
And there are times when the issue of "church-going"
becomes, in itself, disruptive of family unity. But in virtually
all such cases of disruption, church-going is seldom the primary
problem. It is simply the arena in which some other problem
(which has nothing to do with going to church) is being played
out. Still, let the record show, that for most families ...
in most years ... doing the "church thing" is equated
with doing a good, right and highly beneficial thing.
Likewise
the cultivation of certain holy habits may enhance the possibility
of a home being "Christian." Praying over the meat
and potatoes, reading a daily devotional, or lighting a ceremonial
candle often become simple repetitive acts which point beyond
themselves to helpful realities. There is a lot that can be
said for habits. Kissing one's spouse, for example, is a good
habit to get into. Sure, some kisses are hurried. Some kisses
are perfunctory. Some kisses miss more of the face than they
hit. But some are dynamite. And the habit of kissing is a
ritual that keeps the door open for the dynamite. You can't
always predict when explosions will occur. So it is with praying,
reading the Bible, lighting candles, or even going to church.
They are habits that keep the door open for occasional bursts
of dynamite.
And I
am equally certain that Christian homes have something to
do with what values are affirmed there, what behaviors are
exhibited there, what needs are met there, and what sensitivities
are demonstrated there. Christian homes are places where such
criteria are defined and honored. But as I began to list some
of the the criteria that I thought were important, my list
soon exceeded two legal-sized pages. I thought to myself:
"Ritter, you can't preach on all that. It'll take forever.
Corsages will wither. Kids will grow old before your eyes.
Nobody will get mother to brunch. There's got to be some way
to focus all this." That's when I thought about the dinner
table.
The dinner
table is a marvelous paradigm for Christian homes and marriages.
For it has been used to symbolize so much that is so very
right, and so much that is so very wrong, with the relationships
that are at the very core of our lives.
Critics
have always joked about how church people like to eat. We
eat on occasions that are primarily social or ceremonial.
We eat with church friends because we like them. And we eat
with strangers so that they will become friends. We eat after
weddings and funerals. We eat after study and worship. Sometimes
we eat before church. Sometimes we eat after church. And five
or six times a year we eat in the middle of church. All of
this eating is not by accident. It must mean something.
So it
is in our homes. We are told that time around the dinner table
ought to be sacred. We are told that the symbol of familial
schizophrenia ... the symbol of our splitness ... is that
nobody eats together anymore. Well, it's hard. I know how
hard it is. Everybody has a different need. Everybody is the
slave of a different schedule. Microwaves and McDonalds wouldn't
exist if there were no need for them. Life in the fast lane
demands food to match. And that's not only the way it is,
it's also the choice we make. It could be different. But few
of us are willing to make the concessions that would have
to be made, were we to unify schedules and give priority to
meals.
My point
is not to make us feel guilty about that. We already feel
guilty enough. I am simply noting a paradox. If we say that
eating and community have something intrinsic to do with each
other ... and, at the same time, do less and less of it ...
what is it we are saying?
I'll never
ever forget the pain in the voices of my clergy friend and
his wife ... (two of the loveliest, most family-centered people
you could ever hope to meet) ... when they acknowledged to
Kris and myself that there was a period of two whole years
when their middle daughter refused to eat at the family table.
Ever!
Eating
together is difficult. And for some, dangerous. Eating together
sometimes exposes the fragility of the family, the brokenness
of community, and the absence of genuine relationship. Tom
Mullen, (a Quaker) who teaches at Earlham College, has a delightful
piece about mealtime togetherness, suggesting that whoever
said that every dinner table should become a Sacrament of
Holy Communion in miniature, never had a quartet of children
ranging in age from four to thirteen. What sacrament, he asks,
begins with a prayer filibuster, when the eight-year-old chosen
to pray implores God's blessing upon every member of the family,
every item on the table, and every child in the third grade
(by name), along with other various and sundry recipients
of prayerful intercession, including three sick guppies and
a garter snake who was last seen in the laundry room seven
weeks ago?
And what
sacrament, he asks, ever had to survive somebody hitting somebody,
calling somebody a name, teasing somebody unmercifully, taking
something too personally and starting to cry, not liking something
on the plate, not eating anything on the plate, questioning
the sanity of the menu-planner by saying "Yuk,"
or disappearing into the bathroom.
The "bathroom
bit" can be understood, of course, if the meal is being
eaten in someone else's home or in a public restaurant. One
of the first curiosities we humans exhibit after the age of
two, is a fascination with strange bathrooms and what they
look like. That fascination never goes away. Listen to a group
of women in a public restaurant, as one of them says to the
others: "Let's go check out the restroom." But why
do we feel a need to do it at home? Especially at mealtime?
Modern psychology has no answer, so we are left to assume
that it is a demonic plot to destroy family togetherness.
But there
is one more rule that governs the behavior of families at
mealtimes. Mullen suggests that it is perhaps the most universal
rule of all. "Where two or three are gathered together,
someone spills his milk." Well, he's right. Someone does.
And if it hasn't happened yet, it will. It's universal. I
spill milk. You spill milk. All God's children spill milk.
Only sometimes,
when we get older and more sophisticated, it's not milk that
we spill. Sometimes we spill other things at the table. Sometimes
we spill feelings, such as anger, hostility and frustration.
Other times we spill words that jibe and cut, slur and slam.
Sometimes we spill history, choosing the table as a place
for bringing up past failures, ancient grievances and painful
embarrassments. Sometimes we just spill silence ... with the
wordlessness creating such an eloquent background, that every
touch of fork to plate sounds amplified and stereophonic.
Sometimes, where two or three are gathered together, someone
spills tears ... and nobody knows where to find enough napkins
to soak up the pain. And occasionally, people spill footsteps,
as they leave the table prematurely ... or permanently.
It is
hard to pretend that things are wonderful when family members
are spilling things. And the spillages, of course, are a combination
of many factors. They are a combination of our accidents and
awkwardness, as well as our mistakes and our sins. No table
is spill-proof. No home is spill-proof. No family. No marriage.
Why? I'll tell you why. Because we are sloppy people, that's
why. Oh, we clean up well when the occasion demands it. Notice
how good we look this morning, for example. But the people
we live with know better. For whatever else a home is, it
is that place where, from time to time, we all get sloppy.
We say the wrong things. We do the wrong things. And even
if we manage to avoid saying and doing the wrong things, some
of us never get around to very many of the right things. Like
I said, we get sloppy. And "sloppy" runs the entire
gamut from "careless" to "cruel." I spill
milk. You spill milk. All God's children spill milk.
But the
thing that separates Christian homes from the pretenders is
what happens when people spill things. In some homes, spilled
milk is screamed at. The spillers are denounced ... judged
... castigated. They are called "stupid" and singled
out for embarrassment. They are made to feel as if no one
has ever soiled the family linen until precisely that moment.
"Everything was perfect until now, and you had to go
destroy it."
In other
homes, spilled milk is cried over. And cried over. And cried
over. And cried over. People dwell on the spills. They go
over and over them, until spills are the only thing anybody
can remember ... or think to talk about.
But in
Christian homes, spilled milk is cleaned up. If there are
screams and tears, they are momentary. If there are sharp
rebukes and calls for future caution, they are accompanied
by towels and spot remover. For the work of a Christian home
is clean-up work. It is the work of forgiveness, which embraces
everything from repentance to reconciliation. This is the
kind of thing that happens in Christian homes. To be sure,
habits and values are important. But if we cannot find in
a home, people who try to love each other like Jesus loved
people, sooner or later we will make our home elsewhere.
I know
that sounds simplistic. I know you have heard it before. Such
an obvious equation. People sin. People forgive. People go
on. But you didn't finish each sentence. People sin ... infinitely.
People forgive ... finitely (which means until they get tired,
frustrated, or run out of patience.) And if people sin infinitely,
but forgive only finitely, that's a crippled equation. And
on that crippled equation, people cannot go on. Left to draw
from a finite pool of forgiveness, even the best home, the
best family, the best marriage cannot make it. Sooner or later
our human capacity to spill stuff will exhaust the stamina
of even the most long-suffering, clean-up squad. Then someone
will say: "There's a limit. I can only take so much.
I'm only human. I quit."
"Unless
(says Walter Wangerin) that home ... that family ... that
marriage ... can draw upon Christ, whose capacity to forgive
outlasts and exhausts our propensity to sin, spill, and screw
up; and who said to his friends, with whom he made his home,
try loving each other like this."
Can we
draw on Christ that much, in order that we might learn to
do that which is not in our nature to do? I suppose this is
the question a lot of you are trying to answer this morning.
If only it wasn't so darn hard . If only forgiveness were
easy. If only we could get it right the first time and didn't
have to keep at it. But, as Tom Mullen once said of marriages:
"The good ones aren't made in heaven. They come in kits
and we have to put the pieces together." The same is
true of homes. They come in kits, complete with lots of pieces.
I spill
milk. You spill milk. All God's children spill milk. Which
makes some people scream ... some people cry ... and other
people reach for towels. Let me urge you to reach for towels.
Because if you don't clean up the pieces when the spilling
occurs, they get all sticky and sour. Then they never will
go together.
And if
memory serves me correct,
Amen.
|
