Sermon For FEBRUARY 6, 2000
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
JEWISH TESTAMENT: Walk and not Faint ~ Isaiah 40:21-31
CHRISTIAN GOSPEL: Reaching Out and Moving On ~ Mark 1:29-39
I remember the first time I took a close look at the Gospel story. I was a student minister and it was my turn to preach. I read how Jesus was going about healing people in the towns. More and more people were coming, larger and larger crowds. Then Jesus went out to pray and the next morning when the disciples wanted to get plans in place for healings of that day, he said, “No. We are moving on that I might go and teach in other towns, because that is why I came.” Now, if it were anyone but Jesus, we would be filled with amazement. “What do you mean, no, you are not going to do any healing today? What do you mean you are going on to the next town because you have other things to do? What about all of these people who are depending on you? All of these people who are in need? You can put your hand on them and their illness will be cured. A word from you and they will stand up and walk. What do you mean you are not doing any healing today?” What did the people think who were placing all of their hopes and expectations on their visit with Jesus? What words did they have to say about this messiah when they heard that he wasn’t there any longer, that he had taken off for the next town? There may have been more than one group who got together tar and feathers for the next time that they got hold of this guy. Jesus was dealing with expectations. No doubt his disciples thought that he should stay and heal these people. How could he claim to have some other calling, some other duty, when there were all of these people who were in need. We know what it means to live with expectations, we know what it means to live in a world of “shoulds”. From the time we were children we have heard that we should do this and we should do that. We live our lives chained down with the burden of should. There was a time not so long ago when the oldest son in a Corn Belt family knew that he would take over the family farm. Not so long ago the first born son of an Irish Catholic family knew that he was going to become a priest. Not so long ago almost any daughter in any family knew that what she should do was to find herself a good man and marry him, then stay home and raise the children. At the same time every man knew that he should be a good husband and father and a wonderful provider. There were countless men who lived their lives in despair because they were not able to be the providers that they knew they should be. I don’t know when things began to change, gradually probably, but the Civil Rights movement began to turn around our expectations, change our sense of should. Then closely on the heel, the Women’s Movement. Women began to move out into the work force. And as things began to change in their world of expectations things changed also for men. Men began to be able to look at who they really were and to live out their lives according to their own identity. The “shoulds” did not end there. New “shoulds” took the place of the old ones. From the Women’s movement now, not only should a woman be a good wife and good mother, good housekeeper, but she should also be educated. She should also excel on the job. She should also bring home a paycheck to help out the family. So countless women struggled to be super-women. Should. At the same time men who found themselves unchained from expectations of super-manhood, found themselves reacting to the expectations of the sensitive new-age guy. Understanding, helpful at home, a co-nurturer with their wife, all things to all people, husband and wife. Living in a world of should and expectations.
There was a book written just last year called Everything you know about money is wrong: Overcoming the financial myths keeping you from the life you want written by Karen Ramsey. She is a consultant in Seattle. The word myth is a problem because we use it in two different ways in the church. Sometimes when we use the word myth we are talking about things like the creation stories, or the stories about Noah, or the mothers and fathers of our faith. Then we say that these are myths, meaning that we don’t have to understand them in a literal way, that they are stories, but stories that have a deeper truth to them. Being a myth doesn’t make them untrue, in fact being a myth makes them super-true. At the same time we still carry that regular understanding of myth, that a myth is an untruth, a lie, an illusion. Ramsey is using myth in this way when she talks about the financial myths that rule our lives. She is really talking about the “shoulds” that keep us chained down. She has quite a few of them, but I’m going to share just three.
Myth Number 2 is “You shouldn’t talk about money.” Many of us would rather talk about anything else in our lives than money. Money is supposed to be a secret. Money is tied so closely to our self-worth, what we think of our selves, what we are able to provide for our families. We talk in general terms, “Oh, I think we can afford this.” Or “No, we can’t do that yet because we don’t have enough money.” But how often do we raise our children with little or no understanding of what finances are all about. How often do our children think that all you have to do is write out a piece of paper and you have money. Or put a plastic card into a machine and out come the bills. If you talk about money, children will learn about finances and be better prepared to make wise decisions about what they do with their money. If you talk about money, you might find out that some of the things you have hidden from yourself come to light. You might realize that you are spending a great deal of your money doing things that aren’t really that important to you. If you talk about money you provide someone else with the opportunity to help you learn and grow.
Myth Number 9: “I should buy the very best for my children.” Who would argue with that? Don’t we all want the very best for our children? Don’t we want to provide every opportunity that we can for them? Don’t we want them to go to college? Don’t we want them to have clothes that will help contribute to their popularity? Don’t we want them to be able to take lessons and have educational advantages? Don’t we want them to have the very best of things? Ramsey says that too often we are trying to shove things on the children that they neither need nor want. Perhaps the simplest example is to think back to Christmases that we have known, and trees surrounded with piles of beautiful gifts. Toys, wonderful toys, toys that are being marketed on television and magazines, but our children open them and push them aside and play with favorite old toys. Or we find them having fun with the boxes the toys came in. How difficult it is for us to really do what we know is the best thing inside ourselves. To not burden them more toys than they can deal with, but instead to give them gifts that are enough for them. That will help them learn and grow. How many parents expect that they need to send their children through college, the very best college, not just any college, but the very best college? How many parents strive for Harvard or Stanford thinking that if their child can go to that very best college that they will then have life by the tail?
Should Number 13: “I should buy expensive gifts, because it shows that I love that person all the more.” I know that some of you have been there before. Christmas is coming. You still haven’t gotten everything for the people on your list. You still haven’t gotten everything for your husband or your wife. The time comes close, you can’t find exactly what you want, but you know that you have to give something decent. So you spend more money than you wanted to, to get something that he or she probably doesn’t need. But it will be impressive wrapped up and under the tree. How often do you feel that if you don’t spend a lot of money on a present, it’s really not going to be well received? It’s really not going to be appreciated?
There are financial “shoulds”. There are lifestyle “shoulds”. Robert Fulgum, in the book All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, (this really isn’t the only book that I read, but I was looking at it recently. In fact I was paging through looking for something for Holy Humor Sunday, but in order to get to it I had to page through each of the earlier books. As is often the case it was in the last of the four books that I paged through) there was this “should”. Fulgum says:
A man I know found out last year that he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. He knew about dying. He didn’t want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him, so he kept it secret, and died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and did not tell anybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn’t need them. That he didn’t trust their strength. It hurt that he didn’t say good bye.
You have lived your life in the land of “shoulds”. What “shoulds” come to mind? What chains have you carried? What chains have you seen other people carrying? Anything you would like to share? (Congregation share comments) “I should loose weight.” That’s a good one. Any other “shoulds”? “I shouldn’t complain because life is good.” “I should be a better parent.” “I should read all those books I was supposed to read in college English class.” So there were “shoulds” back then and there are still “shoulds” now. “They are still on the shelf, I feel guilty getting rid of them.” “I should get more exercise.” Some of the financial ones I felt were part of the baby boomer generation, maybe weren’t part of your “shoulds”, but there may be some other “shoulds” that you recalled as I was sharing. There was one sad one I have shared with some of you from the first congregation I served. There was the “should” that the oldest sister should get married first. There were, at the time that we knew them, three sisters in the family and one brother. They were all in the 70’s and 80’s. They lived together on the family farm. Many years ago the youngest of the three girls fell in love with a musician, a trombone player. The parents said, “Your older sister should get married first.” So Irene let go of her musician and she never did marry. A should that she lived with her whole life.
What was Jesus’ response to the “shoulds” of his life? He stepped outside of things. He spent time in prayer and reflection. He sought to discern what God was calling him to do. Not what the disciples thought he should do. Not what the people of the town thought he should do. But what God was calling him to do. When I shared the financial “shoulds” the myths from Ramsey, I want to say that the answer isn’t always the same for each of family. One family might make their son or daughter pay for every single dime of college, so that they will have earned it and will feel good about it. Another family might say “I will go 50/50 with you.” Or another family might decide to pay all the tuition, making it possible for that student to devote time to studies. There is not necessarily one single right answer to all of the “shoulds” of life, but we need to recognize when we are acting on what someone else says we should do or when we are acting on what we believe God is calling us to do in our lives. It is not an easy thing to decide. But it is a critical skill for us as Christians and as modern people, because we most defiantly live our lives in a land of “shoulds”. May God’s Spirit be with us. Amen.