“Having Confidence In A Single
Path” Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – May 13,
2018 Centenary United Methodist Church
Psalm 1; John 17:6-19
Mother's Day This morning's Gospel lesson is an interesting one for Mother's
Day. Even though this prayer is
one of the most complicated and awkward
passages in the Gospels that is attributed to Jesus, it speaks
of an aspect of motherhood. Jesus was showing signs of being like
a worried mother as he was
praying to God for the spiritual
welfare of his disciples. One of the mysteries
of parenting is when moms and dads conclude that they have little
understanding of what to do when it comes to rearing their children to
be productive, creative, and useful individuals.
Parents often worry at the birth of their first baby that they
are suddenly surrounded by responsibilities that require skills they
fear they may not have. To this day, I cannot remember any of my mom or dad's parenting
skills. I do not recall any career shaping guidance coming from either
of them. However, what I do
remember is that the four of us children were surrounded by two
individuals who were emotionally stable.
Our parents had a great sense of humor, positive attitudes, and a
spiritual orientation toward life. God was always a part of our family.
We children acted-out
non-verbally in numerous ways, like rolling our eyes, when our Dad
insisted on ending each supper-time meal by leading our family in
devotions. After all, he
was the pastor of a large United Methodist congregation as well as one
of our family's spiritual mentors.
Perhaps this was all that our mom and dad needed to do in order
to send the four of us in a direction where we could figure out how best
to live the rest of our lives.
All that they were doing
was faithfully following their own individual path filled with their
attitudes, values, and lots of laughter.
Who they were becoming in their
adult years was rubbing off
on the four of us. Once while visiting a mother with a newborn, she said, "My six
year old has a mouth on her that is embarrassing.
She is critical of everyone and her perceptions are razor sharp."
I said, "Someone is teaching those attitudes." She said, "Who
would do that?" I asked,
"Do you ever share your thoughts about other people while on the phone?"
She closed her eyes and answered, "All the time."
I asked, "Do you think that Becky could be listening to your
phone conversations from another room?"
What a wake-up call that her attitudes were
rubbing off on a very
impressionable Becky. Who
we are becoming influences others in ways we cannot imagine. In our lesson this morning, Jesus knew that his life was coming
to an end. He also realized
that what he had done during his last three years would only survive if
his disciples became teachers in their own right. Jesus knew that his
disciples were flawed and weak.
He was asking God to keep them safe and to protect them from
falling prey to their own fears. (John 17:16) Jesus had to face the reality that he would not be there to
prompt them when they missed the mark. (Luke 9:54)
He
hoped that the
truth he gave them was
powerful enough to carry them into the world to share what they had
learned. In prehistoric times, people learned a lot of their parenting
skills by watching how animals and insects conducted their lives. Think
of the caterpillars that had no idea what was in store for their
futures. They crawled
around eating leaves and were probably bored out of their minds.
Then one day, they mysteriously found themselves in a violent
struggle to free themselves from cocoons that they may not have
remembered spinning around themselves.
The caterpillar's parents knew that they could not teach
their babies anything. In
fact, their children would
have been terrified had they approached them. The parents had already
become butterflies. You can almost fantasize the communication between the children.
"What are those gigantic things?
Do you suppose they bite?" How could mom and dad possibly teach
caterpillars that such an enormous transformation was in their future.
Animals and insects
instinctively knew that their
babies had everything they need inside of them to live a normal,
productive life. Some well-meaning parents try to establish
a path for their children
that will insure for them a financially rewarding future. Dad or mom
picks up the phone and finds them a job after their formal education is
finished. Suppose those
parents were placing their off-spring's ladder against the wrong wall?
Suppose the imaginations of their children have something else in
their minds that will take them into another universe from working in
someone's accounting office? Perhaps what worries parents more than anything is when they find
their children struggling with fundamental questions.
"Who am I?
What am I doing here? Where am I going?
What do I want to do for the rest of my life?"
As it turns out, what is good for caterpillars is also an
excellent experience for young adults.
Why do we grow so concerned when
we find people struggling?
When a mother bird nudges her off-springs out of the nest, the
young birds do not feel abandoned nor do they feel that mom is
a mean, old
witch because
she pushed us out of the nest.
The tiny birds struggle
until each of them discovers a skill they did not realize they had.
They have been wired to fly.
Once in the air, soaring through tree branches, they never look back.
There is an infinite world to explore, food to find, and mates to
attract. Struggling is a part of
life for all of us.
Struggling makes us stronger and builds character.
Struggling gives us wings
to fly over all the pitfalls
and traps in life that capture so many people. Struggling is actually a
necessary step in our growth from dependency to autonomy.
This process leads to our ability to take responsibility for our
responses to everything that awaits us.
We need to allow this
process to unfold as it was designed to do. Each one of us is well-equipped to deal with who we are, even
though initially we may be filled with doubts, fears, and insecurities.
Such feelings are natural and come from primitive urges because
most of our practical education is still ahead of us. We have to
experience on-the-job-training to get to our futures that are waiting
for us. Just as a caterpillar develops wings from its struggle, so do our
lives unfold in front of us as we build skills, personality traits, and
develop the individual components of our character and knowledge.
Our identity automatically forms during our moments of
struggling. During his prayer in our lesson, Jesus could not see the future.
He found himself asking God to protect his disciples.
Would God watch over Jesus' disciples, clearing the way for their
early successes? Would God
open doors for them in just the right time for them to spread Jesus'
truth? Or,
did Jesus' message spread world-wide because it came from an inspiration
whose time had come? Since all the disciples but John were martyred, perhaps the
second question was what propelled Jesus' message to begin its
circulation. People were
hungry for
a new spiritual story-line
that would provide them with an infrastructure that would give to their
lives purpose and meaning. Jesus' message was correctly taught but with the passage of time,
it was incorrectly learned thousands of times.
Every group's
ego caused them to feel
special and thus superior to everyone else.
The
faithful said, "We are God's chosen people." Others claimed the
mantra, "Believe in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ and you
will be saved." Still
others said, "There are no beliefs that will save anyone. What saves
people from the illusions of this world is
the spirit by which they
live." These conflicting messages from so many Christian groups muted
their effectiveness. Why should
anyone become one of them if Christians were so divided among themselves
about what they were teaching? People everywhere became more enchanted with cultivating an
economic, political, and social orientation toward life.
These illusions
provided most people with enough allure to sustain a purpose and meaning
that became very instrumental for their material successes.
Many people today lack any substantive background in matters of
spirit until they fall prey to greed, building
palaces, owning expensive
toys, driving cars that very few people can afford, developing a name
and reputation that is respected internationally, and discovering how
easy it is for social drinking to become a compulsive addiction.
Yes, the world
can be a very
dangerous place for the uninitiated.
This is why Jesus was asking God to assist his disciples since
Jesus' influence was coming to an end.
Many of Jesus' teachings could be followed in order to please God. Materially successful people can learn to love God, neighbors, and many of their detractors with whom they have to work. People of means can become generous. They can develop flawless characters that are the envy of others. These characteristics were also ones that the Pharisees displayed every day during Jesus' ministry. They were wearing a mask, a veneer that disguised hidden feelings, thoughts, and appetites. Moms and dads have the ability to instill inner confidence in
their children without ever realizing that they are doing so.
They may not verbally teach any specifics but they model plenty
of them. Children who grow
up with kind, compassionate, and thoughtful parents cannot help but
model what was invisibly being imprinted in their spirits with which
each of them live. This is what
Jesus had to rely on for the future of his chosen disciples since God is
not in the business of protecting anyone from being in harm's way.
God did not answer Jesus' prayer.
Again, all the disciples but John were killed because of what
they were teaching. Can
we name one single path that is universal and will work for everyone?
We can do that! Jesus taught his disciples how each of them must
polish their own stone.
An automatic process unfolds when we recognize that all of the
harsh abrasives that we will encounter along the way can be interpreted
as stepping
stones to get across the
rapid currents of life. Loving energy creates such responses. Polishing one's own stone comes from transforming all
challenging, and often toxic relationships into
rungs of a ladder allowing us
to climb to higher levels of awareness. Again, loving energy like
forgiveness, patience, and acceptance can motivate such responses.
However,
loving energy is the result of our doing our own homework with each
struggle we encounter.
Growth is automatic if we
accept struggling as an integral part of the process of growing our
independent spirits. God does not create
archangels out of any of us.
As with Jesus' disciples, all of them were given at their birth
the potential to become one.
God has given all of us the same potential.
Let all of us do the very best we can to polish our own stones.
Let us also release all our attachments to what we hope
will happen through our living and let God do the rest.
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER Thank you, God, for having such compassion for us.
We marvel at how your spirit equally accepts
the powerful
and the lowly as
your children.
You have called us to be your family when
we often
separate each other by ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, and
economic boundaries. Many people are lost in the
storylines of their lives and
have no awareness of the infinite spirit that lies within them.
Stir us, O God, to understand that awakening others is why Jesus
came into our world.
He
asked those of us that are spiritually awake to help others find the
same gift of understanding within them.
Thank you for this mission and privilege.
Amen.
PASTORAL PRAYER Ever faithful and loving God, this
morning we come filled with thanksgiving for your creating us with such
wonderful abilities to care for and nurture each other. You have
given us the capacity to share guidance for how others can develop
thoughtful attitudes and creative spirits. The mystery of life continues
to unfold around us as many of our yet to be discovered talents remain
dormant until more challenging experiences require their use. Today, we celebrate the life of the
woman who carried us within her body during the miracle of our
development prior to our birth. This morning, we honor the woman who
sang and read to us, who stood vigil until our fevers broke, who offered
us guidance, and who attempted to imprint on us the values that had
worked in her life.
Many
times during the search for our identities, we listened but did not hear
and we looked but did not see. During those moments we may have
perceived her with less than loving attitudes. She knew that life
becomes more complicated if we are not equipped with values, goals, and
a spirit that will serve us during all circumstances.
May each of us learn to radiate the
quality of love that does not count the cost, that does not look at
itself as sacrificial, and that does not give so that rewards will come.
This morning we thank you for Jesus who came to show us how to become
the people that you created us to be. It is through his spirit
that we now pray the prayer he taught his disciples to say . . . |