This past week, I’ve heard of two conversations – one involving
someone working at a bishops office (not here). Anyone working in a Bishops office has
access to the “behind-the-curtains” sort of stuff. You see not only the "glamour" (that's why some of us get into this line of work) of parish life,
but the reality behind it as well!
When pastors are having a hard time- sooner or later, the Bishop has to
get involved. So, this person saw the depression
and burn-out that clergy can often suffer from. They saw the life-issues that clergy
struggle with.
Then I heard of another story of a pastor who’s been in the
ministry for 35+ years, at the same church for perhaps 20+ years. This pastor started pretty idealistically,
full of the fire to change the world for Christ. Now this pastor feels like they don’t have
much left to give.
Recently a 50+ male member of the congregation came bursting
into this pastors office – “Why can’t you all help me do Jesus’s work?!?!” Well, I’m not exactly sure how the conversation
went, but basically this man – “Jason” – who sounded like a free-spirit, who
follows his own drummer, who for many years was suspicious of the church and
all its institutional issues, seemed to
have found a real home in this congregation.
He’d found his niche –he would take food and clothes to the homeless in
the big city the church was located near.
But he was also one who thought that if he had an idea of what God wanted
him to do, then by-golly, everyone should have that same idea and desire! And he couldn’t understand why others
weren’t as alive with the fire of ministry as he was.
The pastor tried to explain that it wasn’t as easy as that –
other’s had their ministries, their things they did in church; some do more
than others, and some don’t do anything at all. And others help maintain the building, or
pay bills, etc.
Well, for Jason, this wasn’t really cutting the Ministry
mustard! Not enough, not right, and
they are certainly not helping Jason with the “work of God”. Actually in Matthew 25 Jesus really does say
that feeding hungry people, and clothing naked people is fundamental to
following Christ. Well, this is NOT
lost on Jason!
Jason had a hard time accepting that others did not see ministry
as Jason did! Truth was, the pastor
really was trying to help Jason, but he also had to balance many other
interests and people and ministries as well.
But the deeper issue thing here is that Jason had uncovered a
real issue in the pastors life. Most of
the time, most of us are aware that some things in our lives are slowly moving
in not-good ways. Well, for the pastor,
Jason had brought all his ministry stuff to a head. The pastor recognized in this encounter that
they were very much like Jason back in the day.
They had real vigor for ministry – a heart for the work of the
Gospel. Like all careers and vocations,
there were ups and downs, but mostly there was a vision and call they
followed. But over the years, and
second marriage later, they recognized that they were struggling more with
institutional maintenance and organizational development than they were doing the “ministry of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ”.
They realized they did not have the spiritual and psychological
resources to deal with people’s demands and requests… on top of the
church-issues… any more! This encounter
with Jason made the pastor realize… they were running on “E”. Hurricane “Jason” came in like a freight
train, uncovering the issues this pastor had not been dealing with and/or
running from
Sometimes our psyches and souls WILL speak out! Sometimes the deeper voice of wisdom will
assert itself for our protection! And
it may present itself as a crisis!
Sometimes it will come out in other ways…
You may remember me telling this story about one of my previous
churches. I was an “associate pastor”
there, but it felt more like an internship… with very little voice or
control. In January of one of the years
I was there, I got strep throat – some antibiotics later.. and I was fixed. Then two months later- in March- I got Mono
(Epstien-Barr virus). The ONLY symptom
I got was a severe sore throat! Well,
because it was a virus, I had to wait it out… a long… long… week and a half.
Last Thanksgiving Day was the day I went to the Funeral Mass for
my mother in Chile. Earlier in the day,
I felt a twinge of pain on the outside of my left elbow. Just to beginning of tendonitis – I’d felt it
before so I knew what it was. Another
name for this pain is Tennis Elbow.
Then a few days later, I ended up getting a pain on the inside
of my right elbow. Never had pain like
this before… and a doctor friend of ours told me it’s tendonitis as well, called
Golf Elbow.
Karen here at church is taking some healing classes. In the classes, and the tradition this comes
from, they teach that the wrist represents those things we are handling. The shoulders represent those things we are
“shouldering”. And the elbows – in the middle
– represent the issues related to what we are handling and shouldering. AND… the right side of the body represents
the masculine or male, and the left side of the body represents the feminine or
the female.
So I suppose it could relate in my case – I’d lost my father a
year and a half prior (right side), and I was mourning the recent death of my mother (left side). That makes better sense to me since I
play neither tennis nor golf.
Last Sunday’s Gospel reading was Jesus’ famous encounter with
the possessed guy of Gerasene. As the
story goes, this man had been possessed by many demons (“My name is Legion, for
we are many”) for a long time. He would
run naked around in the cemetery, scream, act crazy, and basically do other strange things. And if things got very bad, the town
people would resort to chaining him down so he wouldn’t hurt himself or anyone else. But he would break free from the chains and
continue the whole drama off in the Cemetery again.
So Jesus shows up, and somehow meets up with this man. The story says Jesus was telling the demons
to come out of the man. And the demons
respond to his questions by saying – “What do you want with us, Jesus, son of
the Most High God? Please, don’t
torture us anymore!”
Finally, the name of the demon is revealed- “Legion, for we are
many.” So, Jesus sends the demons into
a herd of pigs grazing nearby (obviously
these are not animals owned by Jewish people) and they promptly run themselves
off the cliffs and into the water, and drown.
The herders see this and of course are amazed. And the people of the town hear about this…
they go find the (formerly) possessed man, see that he’s in his right mind
(says the text), clothed and normal!
And they are scared! Scared
enough to tell Jesus to go away!
The man wants to go with Jesus, but Jesus tells him to go back
home to tell his family what God has done for him. The man does, but he also seems to want to
tell pretty much the whole town as well.
The formerly possessed man is very grateful – but the villagers
are not! I found it very interesting
that the villagers wanted Jesus to go away.
It struck me – better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
Maybe the villagers didn’t want change?
Maybe the demons represented something all of them should have been
dealing with… but they just didn’t want to.
Instead, they dealt more easily with the effects of the demon – something
safer – the possessed man.
But Jesus actually names the demon(s). He calls them out, and deals with it. And then they (the demons) leave. Well, I don’t suppose it was that easy of
course, but basically that was the Readers Digest version.
How easy is it for us to name the demons?
Let me ask you a question: What are some things/issues in life that
REALLY push your buttons? Some things
in life that you react to?
·
Guns/Gun control?
· Politics in general?
· President Obama in specific?
· Abortion?
· Homosexuality?
There are so many more, but you get the idea.
I know some otherwise pretty understanding people, well balanced
overall, centered… who viscerally react to some issues. Sometimes they lash out with anger, with little respect for others... all very uncharacteristically of them.
How about this question:
What are some issues you will not face, or look at, or name even? Well if you don’t want to look at it, how
would you know it’s there, but still you get the idea. To steal from Secretary Rumsfeld, these are the
known unknowns.
· Sexuality is a big one here
· Family issues are also pretty big
· Things dealing with our health of mind/body or Spirit
Either we don’t want to deal with some things, or due to our
evolution…we can’t deal with these things.
Sometimes it’s easier to deal with the drama in our lives than
it is to deal with the deeper issues causing the drama. We’d rather chain the “possessed person” down
than name the demon. We’re the villagers: “Go away Jesus!”
Truth be told, usually we DON’T want change! Is this a surprise?
Imagine yourself a Jew in Germany in the early 30’s. Your country just voted a firebrand Adolf
Hitler into office as Chancellor, under constitutional powers. His power is balanced by a legislature – you
know, checks and balances, so he can’t, on his own, make sweeping changes to a constitutional
republic – as the Weimar republic claimed to be. This was Germany after all, where liberty
and freedom were held in high regard.
Hitler’s platform rested on restoring Germany’s rightful place
in the world again, especially after the humiliating effects of the end of
WWI. But part of his platform is to demonize and
blame some people – which can make his sound scary.
Only a few months after Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of
Germany, the Reichstag burns down – this would be the equivalent of our Capital
building. And he blames the Communists…
and of course the Jews. The following day,
Hitler asks special powers of control from President Hindenberg, and is granted them: Certain constitutional rights are suspended to deal with this terrible assault on the nation of Germany. He then continues gaining more powers than normal
situations would have allowed.
As the
years go by, you see Hitler gaining more and more power, and abusing it more
and more… you see the ethnic and religious cleansings coming! You see it coming!
Do you leave Germany?
Would you, as a German Jew, leave Germany?
Most people today here in the US say – “Absolutely!
Yes, I would have left!”
The thing is, it’s not that easy when you’re living in the situation.
Most German Jews DID NOT leave Germany…
and most of those paid the price with their lives. But why didn’t they leave???? They saw it coming after all!!!!
Well, it’s not as easy as it looks! Leaving would have meant becoming a
refugee. Leaving would have meant leaving
everything you know; your job, your house, your friends, everything. It would have meant starting over in a
whole new place, with a whole new life.
And you might NOT have known that if you stayed it would mean your
death. Or at least you might not have wanted
to see it that way.
Change usually does not come easily. The more the change means in terms of life,
situations, etc., the harder it is to accept and embrace change.
I’ve said this before… the movie “Jacobs Ladder” really speaks
to this. The movie has to do with an American soldier
in Vietnam who is almost mortally wounded in a fire-fight. He’s in the aid station – on the operating
table – as the surgeons try and save his life.
Well, they end up saving him, but he’s sent back to the US a civilian,
no longer in the “fight”.
He gets back to the US, and at this point he begins to see what
look to him like demons. He begins to question
his mental state. Another significant
character in the movie – his chiropractor, who plays the sage in the movie – tells
him that sometimes demons are really angels who are trying to tell us
something. If we’re not ready to hear
what they have to tell us, they seem like demons and devils. But when we’re ready to hear their message, we
can see them for what they are, angels trying to free us from something.
Sometimes we say – “Jesus, heal me!” But what we don’t say, but include in this
prayer is: “But don’t make me deal with
my stuff!!”
Jesus might say: “But healing may mean uncovering things… things
you may need to see”
Usually we think that miracles, grace, blessing, healing, means…
“Ah, life is good!” No effort, no
struggle, no issues… just a blessed gift from God. God has come to my rescue! Thank you, God! Basically we want the blessings and grace with
no change on our parts.
Sometimes – however – healing means we have to name the demons
first. What we’d RATHER do is chain down the possessed
person and deal with the drama! Oh,
we DON’T want change – especially if it means it has to do with OUR change!
It’s so hard trust God, isn’t it!?
Hard to trust God????
Does this sound
right?
Normally, would you ever let this statement come out of your
mouth? “It’s hard to trust God!”
Well, dealing with OUR changing ISN’T normal now is it!
“Yeah, but… I have too much skin in this game!”
Hard to trust God???? We’ll
only get better!
Even though the promise of New Life lies on the other side of “naming
the Demon”… it’s still very hard to
trust God – that’s the truth.
Lord, help us to trust you.. and let go
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