Sunday, September 6, 1998
Rev. Jim Todhunter
"PUTTING THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE"
Jeremiah 18:1-11 Luke 14:25-33
On vacation in August, I visited my old haunts in Vermont, back in Norwich to celebrate the fiftieth wedding anniversary of my old pals, Fran and Bob Nye, a retired psychiatrist and medical school professor respectively. The Nyes have been political activists for many years: the nuclear freeze movement, Bridges for Peace, Central America, economic justice, the Iona community in Scotland, the local shelter, and many others, they’ve been there. Over dinner my first night with them in their old farmhouse next to the church on the green, Fran said "So what are they saying in Washington about ‘Abolition 2,000’?" "About what?" Fran’s eyes narrowed. I knew I was in for a scolding. I had been ready for questions about Monica and Bill, but what was "Abolition 2,000"? She left the table and returned, thrusting into my hands a new book by Jonathan Schell. "You should read this then." The book, she said, was galvanizing anti-nuclear activists all over the world with the message that now, with the cold war over, is a window of opportunity to abolish all nuclear weapons. The message was simple: the cold war with the Soviet Union was the reason for building and stockpiling such weapons. Now why keep them? I sheepishly promised to read the book. "You haven’t heard about our march across the state this month?" No. She shook her head sadly. Then I said, somewhat lamely "Nothing in the papers except Monica and Bill."
I’m not preaching about nuclear disarmament this morning, but I’ve been thinking since that visit a lot about what really is important and how we keep things in perspective in our lives. Historians tell us that what we are preoccupied with at any given point in time may be only a footnote in the history books. What really is important? In world issues? In our personal lives?
The struggle to put things in perspective usually involves some jolt to our every- day lives. Look at the headline grabbers this last August. The Clinton speech to the nation. I watched that with twenty-nine extended family vacationers in North Carolina. One could sense people re-thinking their political and personal allegiance to the President following that address. An important question is always not just "What did you think?" but "How did you feel?" Disillusioned? Reassured? Did you feel your perspective undergoing some seismic shift?
When I arrived at my New York in-laws’ house in White Plains, John (brother-in-law) began his conversation with "Did you hear that the stock market fell 300 points today?" The stock market made for much discussion. How did you and do you feel about the gyrations of the market? Speaking for myself (as a non-investor, but with some itsy-bitsy holdings), I realized that some of those expenditures that I had mentally made out of the money I had earned last July, weren’t going to happen. That didn’t feel good. I, who rarely read the Business Section of the Washington Post, have been interested to see how much print has been devoted to trying to put the market situation into perspective. One article last week was entitled "Lessons to Learn From the Market Turmoil." It really read like a sermon with such words of wisdom as: Trees don’t grow to the skies, Stocks go down as well as up, Globalization is a two-edged sword, and others like that. What is striking in this, of course, is how obvious this all is. What common sense! Yet look how far some have strayed from common sense. One commentator pointed out that there are many young stock traders on Wall Street who have never experienced a bear market. This reminds me of the well-fed turkey who has come to believe that everyday is a leisurely experience of waiting for breakfast and enjoying the comforts of the turkey farm. That is, until one day comes called Thanksgiving, which puts things into an entirely different perspective.
Putting things into perspective involves a jolt to our perceptions. It involves feeling bad, usually some sense of grief about loss. And it involves beginning to remind ourselves about what is really is most important. A new perspective means looking at things from a different vantage point. The scriptures this morning are both, in their own way, about this. The most powerful expressions of spiritual truth come to us in images. God leads Jeremiah to look at a potter at his wheel. If the potter’s creation doesn’t suit him, out it goes. The potter will do whatever he wants because he created it and it belongs to him. Period. God says to Jeremiah that his people have forgotten this basic truth. God says to them (and to us) "You are not the Creator. I am." When we begin to forget that God is our Creator, many very wrong and very dangerous assumptions begin to take hold. We begin to think we are in charge, we are in control. But we are not. It goes without saying that usually what gets us into big trouble in life is doing things based on such false assumptions.
Disillusionment when it comes can feel terrible. Awful. But it can be an opportunity. I had a very moving conversation last week with someone who is really quite good at her profession. But she was experiencing this kind of, call it mid-life, realization that she really knows less than she had thought, feels really out of control, and has begun to wonder if she was really a fraud and has fooled people into thinking otherwise. Her pain in this was very real. What was sinking in was how hard her job really is, how the first flush of success may have given her unrealistic expectations of what she could do, and how stupid and inadequate she feels. But in the midst of that disillusionment I felt the beauty of this person: her determination not to give up, her sense of the importance of her tasks, her willingness to experience the pain it takes to continue learning and growing. In other words, her humility.
When we realize that we are not God, how can we be anything but humble. God s, sometimes has to smack us with disillusionment to get through to us. God says "You don’t have to know everything. You don’t have to run the entire show. Stop trying to be in charge of everything. I am in charge. You just do what you are called to do. I will provide you with what you need when you need it. Just trust me."
We bade farewell to our long time treasurer Bob Petzold last week at a moving memorial service. I thought I knew Bob pretty well, but as always happens on such occasions, I learn more and put things into better perspective. With the words of his two brothers I saw Bob in the new perspective of big brother in a growing depression family. There were many heartfelt words of appreciation as only brothers can express. He cared about them. Took care of them. They looked up to Bob. Bob Petzold’s spiritual genius, as many of you know, was his absolute devotion to the tasks he had taken on. In this way he was a servant in the best biblical sense. He did his job in the vineyard as agreed to. When the master returned and found everything faithfully accomplished he could say "Well done, good and faithful servant." That was Bob’s perspective on life and I would guess that it came to him early and he never wavered in it.
When I read the scripture from Luke about counting the costs before undertaking a major project, it gets me shaking in my boots a little. Is God telling us something we should know before we embark on a major building program? Maybe. Maybe such nervousness is a good thing. But the scripture isn’t saying that we shouldn’t face into great challenges. The scripture is about understanding what we need to let go of in order to receive what is most important. It is saying that we just had better know what we are getting into and that great challenges remind us that God is God and we aren’t. It is important to study, consult, and make plans. You can’t live life without some kind of plan. But the plan is ultimately in God’s hands. The reality of living is that we must plan for our futures, and we must expect those plans to be reshaped or even thrown out by what the future brings. Our futures are in God’s hands and not our own. At some level that may strike terror in our hearts. But at a deeper level it is an invitation to let go and truly trust God, to truly believe that, no matter what, all will be well.
Last week I sat with Joey in her hospital room at Georgetown Hospital where she had been briefly admitted. We talked and laughed and prayed and wept together. And so many things came to me. One is how much I love this person, this my colleague of eleven years. I think we have been a pretty good team. And how appreciative and blessed I feel in that. And, as I sat there, I experienced how utterly helpless I feel in the face of her suffering. How wrong and unfair it is. Yes, I know the scripture she frequently quotes about how suffering is but for an short time and joy comes in the morning. But, frankly, I am not there yet. I am still in the suffering. I am still in the worry about what she is going through and what the future will bring. I am still with the pain I know she feels about the struggle between loving her work and facing the limits her illness imposes. I don’t have any answer to this. I don’t have a clear perspective other than recognizing how terrible it feels. Add to this the importance of so many of the challenges the church is undertaking, and then I really struggle for perspective. How does all this fit together? Can it really? What is important in all this? I don’t know. I don’t know. But I think I know that God knows and that God will help us sort it through. I want to believe that. Yes, I do believe that, but help Thou my unbelief. And yes, I want to make it happen. Somehow I feel like I am supposed to be in charge. I feel responsible. But how stupid that really is, because the whole point of the church and its ministry is that it doesn’t belong to me. It doesn’t belong to Joey. It doesn’t belong to anybody here. It belongs to God. God will lead. God will provide. God will see things through and God has said "You just be faithful to your tasks and leave the rest to me, and all will be well." All God wants is for us to trust that. What needs to get taken care of, what needs to be healed, what needs to be grieved and what needs to be celebrated will get taken care of, in God’s time, not ours.
"Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so you are in my hand," says God. So we are upheld by the invisible, everlasting arms. No matter what. Amen.
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