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We're all trying to grow up.
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| 10/26/2007 |
The biblical readings for this sermon are found here.
Whenever I use the word “grown-up” to my 10-year-old son – which I still do a lot – he always gets peeved with me and corrects me – “use the word ‘adult,’ Mom.” I guess the word ‘adult’ sounds more … grown up.
But I like the distinction he makes. Because we always make distinctions between children, teens, adults, right? Different phases of life, different roles. Each phase – young child, older child, teen or adolescent, young adult, middle adult, etc. – each phase says something about our relationships to other phases. Both to other phases in our own lives, and the phases of other people around us.
So these standard distinctions are useful and necessary. But what I like about Luke’s insistence that I use ‘adult’ and not ‘grown up’ – even though he’s not thinking this analytically about it; I’m sort of taking this and running with it – is that, in case we all hadn’t figured it out yet, we’re all always growing up.
We’re all trying to grow up.
And from the vantage point of my mid-40s, I’m inclined to believe there’s never really a point of arrival. People often joke about it - we may become adults. But is there ever really a point when we’re ‘grown up’?
So I try to go with Luke’s description, to say that I’m an adult – but whether I’m a complete grown up, is debatable.
I think the Bible makes that same distinction, in a way. The Scripture readings we hear each week up here at the lectern, and the Gospel readings, when the two torchbearers come and stand on either side of the big Bible here – all the stories we hear from those Bible readings tell us a lot about growing up.
Like the one we just heard today.
Did you catch that story? Jesus is talking to “people who trusted in themselves.” Now, not to split hairs, but I don’t think the point is that we should not trust ourselves. We do need to do that, as a way of growing up – need to learn to trust our viewpoints, trust our experiences. That one part of us can say, “hey, something just hurt me,” and we can name that pain and say that it’s true. That has to do with our relationship with ourselves, and it’s very important that that be whole.
But Jesus is talking about people who trust in themselves, which is a bit different. The wording there means more like where we’re going to put all our trust, where we’re going to bank it, who we’re going to follow – which means, what, or who, we think is the most in control and the most reliable. And this is where Jesus is trying to point us to something that might feel both bigger and more vulnerable than just trusting in oursevles.
In talking to people who believe they are the most in control, the most reliable – as Jesus is in this scene – he decides the particular medicine they need (we all have different ailments, so we all need slightly different medicine) is this little story he tells them – a parable. And in this little story, there are two guys, one guy who is a Pharisee, which simply tells us that he’s important and he does have a lot of control in religion, and he is seen as reliable and respected. And the thing is, those things may be true, but the problem is that he mistakes them for the source of truth – he trusts in those things about himself a little too much. He goes to the temple to pray – the holiest place at the time, the place that was set apart as closest to God – and what does he say but, “Thank God I do everything right, and I’m not like all the people who do things wrong – like, that guy over there.” Pumping himself up involved putting someone else down.
Which brings us to the other guy in this short story. A tax collector, which tells us he was low on the totem pole, he did work that wasn’t considered respectable or reliable. He was not seen as a good religious person because he collected taxed from the Jewish people to pay to the occupying Roman government – sort of seen as a half-breed, as impure. And what he says, in essence, is, “Yeah, God, I’m not so perfect. And I need to know you love me anyway.” I’m paraphrasing, clearly, but I think that’s the essence of this plea for mercy.
So, what does this have to do with growing up?
Well, let’s be nice with these guys, and think for a second about what’s going on inside of them. The story describes the outside, but let’s think about the inside.
The first guy, the one who said he was doing all the right stuff – he probably did have a lot to offer. He probably was in the position he was because he was intelligent, educated in the way people were then, probably was a man of means, and probably with family history and family connections. And that’s great stuff to be able to use in the world. There’s nothing wrong with it.
What this little story tells us is that the problem was that all those things – his station in life, his work, how people saw him – was where he was putting all his trust. Rather than trying to be trustworthy, and looking to God to learn what that means, he believed he was really the one in control of all the issues.
And when someone is trying to boast to the world about how in control they are, about how right they are – like at school when somebody talks all the time about how they do stuff better than any body else, maybe somebody who seems like a bully - it usually means that deep inside, they’re not feeling all that right at all. They’re not feeling all that in control. And in fact, deep inside, they might have some really uncomfortable, painful feelings that they’re trying to push away.
In other words, at the risk of being a bit simplistic, the first guy didn’t have the courage to look inside himself at what might really be going on there. He didn’t have the courage to look beyond what society had told him he was, for better or for worse. Which probably means, he was afraid. We can really be kind to this first guy, because he was probably scared.
The second guy, the one who seemed more afraid on the outside, was maybe the one who was a little bit braver, and the one who was a little bit freer. He was able to give voice to the part of him that said, “I’m not perfect.” We all goof up, and it frees us up to be able to say so. But then he goes on – “I’m not perfect, God, and I still deserve your love.” That takes courage. That takes looking deep inside. It takes … trust.
Trust in something other than the fact that he would always get it right, because he knows he won’t. He’s looking for something that’s more trusthworthy than always getting it right.
The first guy, in his fear, was looking for certainty. But the second guy, in his trust, was looking for relationship.
And I think that’s an awful lot like growing up.
This second guy was better at knowing the pain and brokenness that was inside of him – the sad and scary feelings. He was better at knowing that even with the pain inside and the goof-ups, that he was still worth loving. He was better at being vulnerable.
Which means, this second guy was better at being a child.
So – this never-ending process of trying to grow up means that we are therefore in the process of being more and more like children.
Ironic, no? We become better grown-ups by becoming better kids.
Which means, we all really need each other to make this process happen. Those you see around you right now who are on the younger end of the journey – we can never fully be ourselves as a community unless they are as visible in our own minds as they are right now in our eyesight.
I can promise you that some of the best talk about God – theology, to use the fancy word – in the church goes on over in the Atrium. We really need volunteers over there, and if you want to renew your thinking about God and life, sign up for an hour. The way that our kids will see right into the heart of a story or a question; the way our teens will not back down from something that sounds like a contradiction and probably is, and yet they’ll still hang with the dialogue; the way any time a child or teen will give us the gift of being honest with us, the gift of patience with our imperfections; the gift they give all of us when they are totally visible in this community, and how we are not complete without them being front and center.
We are all always growing up. And those of you in Atrium 1, Atrium 2, the youth group – we need you here with us so that we can figure it all out together.
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