 Dr. William A. Ritter Senior Minister |
Not
Everything Is About You
Sermon:
Scripture: |
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Only
in Detroit would anyone understand the logic of linking the
lowly octopus and the lovely Karen Newman in the same
sentence. The common denominator, of course, being our beloved
Red Wings and their annual post-Easter pursuit of the Stanley
Cup. People throw octopi on the ice during the games, while
Karen Newman sings the National Anthem before the games. The
octopus has eight legs (tentacles) which once symbolized the
eight wins it took to claim Lord Stanley’s trophy. But times
have changed. Now it takes 16 wins, thereby requiring (I
suppose) two octopi. Nobody
throws Karen Newman onto the ice, although she was once
lowered from the rafters on a trapeze-like swing (with the
house lights off and the spotlights on) before taking her
position….center ice….to sing about the “rockets’ red
glare.” But she’s a fixture….nearly as important as
Stevie Yzerman. Still,
she almost didn’t make it this year. Because just six weeks
and two days ago, Karen Newman gave birth to twins. “So much
for glamour,” she said. “And so much for sleep. They’ve
turned my life upside down and my focus inside out.” Which
was followed by this. “It’s not about me anymore. It’s
no longer just about me.” Which, I suppose, is one way of
saying that while Karen Newman is still “center ice,” she
is no longer center stage. Her presence no longer dominates
the room. Her needs no longer arrange the day. It
takes a while to learn this, I suppose. When you are a child,
you live in a very small world. Many days, it would seem that
you are the only one in it. We’ve all watched it. Mother’s
busy. Father’s busy. Talking to each other. Talking with
friends. Talking on the phone. Kid interrupts with an
announcement or a request which, 89.6 percent of the time, is
trivial. And no matter how many times the child is told
“hold your horses”….“later on”….“in a
minute”….there is no backing down on the part of the
child. At that moment, everything is about them and they
expect the rest of the world to understand that and arrange
itself accordingly. It
changes a bit when kids become teenagers. They still think the
spotlight is on them. But they are not always certain they
like it. If they think their hair doesn’t look
right….their skin doesn’t look right….their shape
doesn’t look right….their clothing doesn’t look
right….just try telling them not to worry or obsess over it
(that nobody is going to notice and, even if they do, nobody
is going to care). Because they are certain that absolutely
everybody is going to notice, and be so critical in their
“noticing” that (from that day forward) the next several
months of their life will be ruined….absolutely ruined. I
remember feeling that, even as I applied gobs of
coffee-colored zit cream stuff to hide the blemishes on my
face before school, church, wherever. And if my mother had
said, “That goop looks worse than the zits you’re trying
to cover,” I wouldn’t have believed her. And if she had
said, “Nobody cares what you look like,” I would have
wondered what planet she lived on. And if she pointed out that
it was more than a little arrogant and self-centered of me to
assume that the whole world would stop what it was doing so as
to be attuned to my face, I would have wondered how anybody
who loved me could be so insensitive to my predicament. Not
too many moons ago, I encountered a troubled young bridesmaid
in the narthex. She was too old to be a junior bridesmaid, but
too young (really) for the big title. She was alternately
pouting and throwing hissy fits before her cousin’s wedding
because she didn’t like the dress….didn’t look good in
the dress….looked fat in the dress….and “who in their
right mind would pick such a stupid dress in the first
place.” First one person, then another, tried to calm her,
comfort her, assuage her, placate her….even to the point of
offering last-minute surgery with needle and thread to please
her….all the while trying to keep her out of the bride’s
line of vision, so as not to magnify the upset and shove
everybody over the edge. None
of which was working. In fact, I got the decided impression
that she was getting some perverse kind of pleasure out of the
attention she was getting….what with everybody doing this,
that and the other thing to make it right, and make her stop. Finally,
I asked her what the matter was (even though I knew full well
what the matter was). So she repeated her lament. In response
to which I said something like this:
And
she did. Sure, it was a risky approach. But what did I have to
lose? Nothing else was working. And give the kid a ton of
credit for recognizing the truth when she heard it….that
there are times when it’s not about you, I mean. Frankly,
this surfaces at weddings all the time….with people of all
ages. I run into people who aren’t going to come if somebody
else comes. Balanced by the people who are not going to come
unless somebody else comes (“What do you mean, don’t bring
my three year old?”). Even brides and grooms get weird on
occasion. Every time I hear “It’s our day and we can do
whatever we want,” the hairs on the back of my neck stand up
(even though I retain my outwardly-calm and
almost-always-charming demeanor). I want to tell them that
while love may be personal and private, weddings are public
expressions of that love. Which means that brides and grooms
have to be sensitive to the various “publics”
involved….either that, or tie their knots privately in my
office on Thursdays at noon. Not
everything is about you. Kids have to learn it. Wedding
participants have to learn it. Athletes….especially
athletes….have to learn it (thank you, Jerry Stackhouse).
And Christians have to learn it, too. I can’t begin to tell
you how many fires I’ve tried to hose down in 37 years of
church work because somebody didn’t get enough attention,
enough deference, enough limelight, enough love. This is true
of staff members as well as congregants. It is also true of
yours truly (mea culpa). There is none of us without guilt,
here. As
church issues go, I believe that maybe ten percent are about
theology (what is believed). Another ten percent are about
strategies of implementation (who is served). A third ten
percent are about politics and protocol (how things get done).
The other seventy percent are about “How much do you love
me?” Maybe that’s high. But not by much. If
you’re wondering where all this is coming from, you need go
no further back than a couple of Wednesdays when my “crack
of dawn” men’s group was discussing the word
“idolatry” in Kathleen Norris’ prize-winning glossary
entitled Amazing Grace. The
Old Testament is big on idolatry (as in being against it, not
for it). The Ten Commandments were given to guard against it.
No other gods. No graven images. No bowing down before
anything of any kind, fashioned by anybody for any reason.
The goal being to keep a proper perspective on things.
God in the center. Everything else relating to the
center….taking cues from the center….giving deference to
the center….paying homage to the center….drawing power
from the center. But,
in our time, when we think of idolatry we make a pair of
errors. The first error assumes that idols are always coveted
objects. I’m talking statues, here….icons, books,
pictures. We love that Old Testament story where the
Israelites got tired of waiting for a new word from God
(don’t we all) and said: “While we’re waiting, why
don’t we all take off our gold chains, our gold bracelets,
our gold necklaces, along with those gold studs and hoops that
we shove into the holes in our ears that we made with an ice
pick. Then let’s throw them all into the campfire and see
what comes out.” Which, as you will remember, turned out to
be a golden calf (“Wow, where’d that come from?”). But
what makes that story so likeable is that we can all chortle
and say: “Hey, we never did that.” And
the second error we make is to assume that idols, rather than
coveted objects, are coveted statuses. Getting rich. Getting
power. Getting recognition. Getting elevation (for me and
mine, us and ours). “My brother and I want big time jobs in
your cabinet, Jesus,” said Jimmy and John. About which
we’ve talked before. But what we’ve not noted before is
the fact that the other ten were (how does the Bible say it?)
“indignant” at the greedy two. Not, scholars say, because
James and John asked. But because they asked first. But
could it be (asks Kathleen Norris) that idols are not so much
external to us, but intrinsic in us….that we (ourselves)
assume idol-like status, by assuming that the world really
does revolve around us and, to whatever degree it doesn’t,
it should. To
which Jesus says: “Look, that’s all well and good, but
don’t fool yourself. You are not likely to find your life
until you lose it. No, you’re not likely to find it at
all.” Interesting,
isn’t it, that almost all our associations with the word
“loss” are negative. None of us wants to be
lost….geographically or spiritually. Few of us want to admit
we are lost (“If we just drive around a while, I am sure I
will recognize one of these streets sooner or later”). Most
of us would fight someone who told us to “get lost.” And
all of us feel the pain in the Ernie Harwell’s voice when he
is forced to report another game in the loss column. But
all of these images pale in comparison with the phrase
“He’s losing it”….“She’s losing
it”…..“You’re losing it”….“I’m losing it.”
That’s pretty much the worst thing you can say about
anybody. Or to anybody. But Jesus says: “You know, you
probably won’t get anywhere in life until you do….lose it,
I mean.” So
what does that mean? Well, one thing it means is that not
everything is about you. Moreover, you are going to do better,
be happier and maybe even live longer when you get yourself
out of the center. Which is hard to do. Because you can’t
surrender a self you haven’t found. So some navel-gazing and
mirror-peering is both permissible and essential. But it can
become an obsession, don’t you see. One
of the more interesting authors I have read in recent years is
Dan Wakefield who, after years as a Hollywood screenwriter,
has taken to writing spiritual memoirs such as Returning
and How Do We Know
When It’s God? While Wakefield’s books aren’t great,
they are good….and brutally honest. After decades of atheism
and hard living, Wakefield wandered into a church in
Boston’s Back Bay one Christmas Eve. And everything he has
written since chronicles his subsequent journey.
As testimonies go, his is not a hugely-ascending
success story. But it’s an illuminating story….an
instructive story….and (for those of us well acquainted with
our own personal demons and detours) an inspiring story. What
interests me this morning is his recollection of a salvation
moment. It occurred in a soup kitchen in East Harlem. No, he
wasn’t eating. He was serving. Money was never that big an
object. Although, when he reached the point in his
psychoanalysis in midtown Manhattan that he was going three
hours a week, he was going through money as fast as he was
going through memory. Which is no knock on analysis. He needed it. He sought it. He benefited from it. But he crossed the line in the advanced stages of it where he became so consumed with probing his life, that one day he walked out of his analyst’s office and realized he no longer had one. A life, I mean. And if you can’t understand that, then I fear you can’t understand the Gospel, either. So where did he find his life? Spooning soup in East Harlem, that’s where he found his life. Where, for the first time in a long time in his life, he realized it wasn’t about him.
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