Marilu Thomas “Traveling Bears”
I am so grateful to be back at Christ Church, in this sanctuary, with my people! I have been on sabbatical since the day after Easter and because I have been gone awhile, I have been making some missteps, but I also know that perfection is not the goal around here. Sharing the gospel of grace and love of God is what we do and being human is the way we do it.
Last summer was supposed to be my sabbatical and I had several intense educational events planned; like going to Oxford for the C S Lewis Institute and the Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany. Obviously, the pandemic tanked all that. This summer I had simpler plans for a driving trip to see family-- and then my husband and I needed to stay home for various reasons. What actually happened was much better and simpler than what I had planned. This is the difference between a trip planned and the trip that happens—which is life in a nutshell. By staying home, I got to experience God in the rhythm of my everyday life, the one that I seem to want to travel away from. What I realized is that my yearning for travel might just be about my fear of aging, of not being able to travel or do anything. In recovery circles this is called “Doing a geographic”— believing that changing your environment will change you. This can include changing jobs, changing spouses, redecorating, moving, getting a new degree, going to a foreign country on sabbatical, etc. The motivation is to effect an inward transformation by changing your outward material world. To finally feel smart enough, cool enough, organized enough and good enough. But God has other plans for us.
Like many people, I experience emotions vicariously through Netflix or HBO Max or Prime. The show Mare of Eastown has offered a window into this escapist behavior of mine. Mare, played by British actress Kate Winslet, was a basketball star in her hometown who became a cop like her Dad. (Imagine Kate Winslet in flannel shirts vaping with an PA accent, a gun and a badge.) As we watch Mare zombie-walk through her days, we learn that events out of her control blew her life apart. I can relate to that. It’s easy for us to see lack of coping skills in others but hard to see in ourselves. Why is she so angry at her Mom? Why doesn’t she eat better? Why does she drink so much? What is up with her? (By the way, in case you think you don’t really have feelings, anger is a feeling. Mare exudes anger.)
There are two great lines in this drama that pinpoint the locus of our own discomfort and pain. Her partner, Zabel says, “I just wanted to do something great in my life, for once.” And Mare replies, “Doing something great is overrated. People expect that from you all the time. What they don’t realize is that we’re just as screwed up as they are…it’s an expectation to be something I’m not good enough to be.” When Mare is ordered to get help for her grief, her therapist tells her she is seeking external solutions for her internal pain. “The grief will still be there until you confront it.”
Confronting is another word for confessing or facing reality by admitting our pain, grief, fear, disappointment, expectations, anger, resentments and other uncomfortable feelings. It is an awareness that something needs to change in us, not in the world around us. It is God breaking into our self-sabotage with a bit of light, a moment of clarity.
I have a bit of a weird illustration that deals with this idea of confronting. A few days ago, walking on our farm, I opened a gate and was face to nozzle with a very big black bear. The bear seemed just as surprised as I was. My first reaction was to scream at our dogs, which sent my Apple Watch into heart-alert mode. I have been in denial but now I have to face the fact that we really do have bears and put our dogs on leashes. When I thought about it later, confronting the bear also felt like seeing the pandemic again, showing up just around the corner. I thought the Corona virus had gone away, like the bears around our farm, but here it is, back again. Another reality faced.
Scripture uncovers the reality of our spiritual condition by showing us how our fearful ways of dealing with the pain doesn’t work, but God’s plan of confession and forgiveness does free us from fear and give us peace.
The words of the St. Paul to the Ephesians today speak to this, “Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” It’s foolish to believe that other humans are more valued by God than we are. It’s foolish to believe we are hiding anything from God. It’s foolish to believe that the harsh things that happen to us on this earthly plane are sent from a vengeful God. Why are these things foolish? Because, as the text tells us, this is not the will of the Lord.
When we hear ‘the will of the Lord,’ we can be afraid that we are not special enough to hear God’s voice telling us what to do. The Gospel, however, is not as obscure as that. Jesus Christ is the will of the Lord. He is the radical presence of God come to earth to show God’s desire, which is his will, to be your absolute provision, the life in the world, the resuscitation of your hopes and heart, the true master of your fear. Doing something humanly great is overrated because Jesus has done the greatest act by breaking himself open with God’s desire to save you with love.
The Gospel of John today riffs on this same theme. Jesus tells us that He is the bread of life because bread is not a topical cure—it becomes part of the body. The heart is where change is made and only God can transform the heart. External fixes may numb the heart or harden the heart, but love is the only power that can change a heart, and love is generated by Christ because he is the embodiment of the heart of God.
So now when I feel the itch to travel, I pray to find out what is actually going on with me and I talk with someone. I may travel and I may not, but I will be freer when I do to enjoy God’s creation. Being human is an exercise in vulnerability. We are all at the mercy of whatever life comes up with today be it big speed bumps, bears or a pandemic. Life is lifey like that. But God, who brings us joy, offers us confession, forgiveness, and mercy to free us from the heaviness of the world. Don’t suffer alone. You have three priests here at Christ Church who would love to help.
I’d like to end with Kate Bowler’s Prayer for Being Human.
Blessed are we, living in this small space, in these bodies we now inhabit, within the walls of circumstance, in these short years and finite strength and with these eyes that see only so far. We are fragile, contingent beings.
And oh how blessed are we in our fragility and dependence and brokenness, knowing that You, O God, hold all things together.
Amen
