{"id":1319,"date":"2012-10-16T18:37:59","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T18:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=790"},"modified":"2012-10-16T18:37:59","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T18:37:59","slug":"looking-in-the-mirror-in-strength-weakness-sermon-by-a-neufeldt-oct-14-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1319","title":{"rendered":"Looking in the Mirror: In strength, weakness – sermon by Aldred Neufeldt – Oct 14, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

View Archived Sermons
<\/a>Listen to this Sermon<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

Sermon by Aldred H. Neufeldt<\/h3>\n

Looking in the Mirror 3: \u00a0In strength, weakness\u00a0<\/h3>\n

October 14, 2012\u00a0<\/h3>\n

Texts: Psalm 90: 1 – 4, 12-17, Jonah 2:1-10, Hebrews 5:7 – 6:10<\/font><\/p>\n

In today\u2019s sermon we return to our Fall theme and question: \u201cwhat reflection of God do we see when we look at our bodies in the mirror?\u201d\u00a0 That we ask the question should not be a surprise.\u00a0 Christians cannot be other than a people who honour the body.\u00a0 \u00a0We start with the assurance we are created by God and in the image of God. No matter how much we know about cell division and DNA strands, every birth of a new baby is a miracle \u2013 each newborn a unique and marvellous creation with endless possibilities.\u00a0 With advancing age we become aware of its frailty and fate; yet, the essential goodness of our bodies remains unescapable. \u00a0When Jesus instructs us <\/span>to love our neighbours as ourselves \u2013 including \u2018the least of these\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s a reminder that there is a little of God in each of us \u2013 body and spirit, body and soul, are intertwined. This message was so important it\u2019s repeated in 3 Gospels (Matt., Mark & Luke) and 3 other New Testament books.<\/span><\/p>\n

My task is to <\/span>explore reflections when our bodies betray us, when our bodies fail \u2013 more than just the breaking of a limb or surgery to remove an appendix \u2013 to the point we become aware that our bodies may not recover the resilience always assumed \u2013 when we have to re-evaluate our assumptions about what this container of our soul can do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Secular writings dating back to Plato talk about two halves of life \u2013 that of youthful\/young adult assumptions of strength and vigor contrasted with that of maturity with assumptions of bodily decline. \u00a0Carl Jung[1]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> <\/em>famously built on this idea by exploring the core human activities of both halves.\u00a0 \u2018Mid-life crisis\u2019 captures this division, though such division isn\u2019t linked only to age.<\/span><\/p>\n

Biblical literature, too, uses this metaphor to underline that it\u2019s not just about our physical selves, it\u2019s also about our spiritual selves \u2013 perhaps dominantly about our spiritual selves.\u00a0 T<\/span>oday\u2019s reading from the Book of Hebrews <\/em>illustrates this \u2013 contrasting a child-like faith with a mature one. The call is to \u201cpress on to maturity (perfection)\u201d (Heb. 6:1), leaving behind the basic understanding of Christ and salvation learned as a child. \u00a0In the preceding verses the writer makes plain <\/span>the reason for this word of wisdom \u2013 many in the new church seemed to be stuck on the simplistic teachings of childhood<\/span>. <\/span>Basic teachings are fine while one is young, the writer says, but if our understanding of \u201cthe word of righteousness\u201d (5:13) doesn\u2019t grow, our bodies may age but our spiritual life remains like that of an infant.<\/span><\/p>\n

This link between body and spirit in the two halves of lfe is central to a recent book by Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest and notable author<\/span>.<\/span><\/em>[2]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> He builds on Jung\u2019s idea of core activities, and speaks to spiritual life \u2013 picking up the concern set by the writer of Hebrews \u2013 the challenge of not becoming stuck in child-like understandings of faith and God.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The first half is all about growing our strengths. \u00a0Parents note it\u2019s beginning when <\/span><\/em>two-year old children challenge them with the word \u2018no\u2019.\u00a0 The \u2018terrible twos,\u2019 as sometimes called, is a misnomer.\u00a0 It\u2019s not \u2018terrible\u2019 – two year olds are just doing their job \u2013 separating their identity from that of their parents.\u00a0 By saying \u2018no\u2019, they\u2019re demonstrating they\u2019re in control of their own bodies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The next major leap \u2013 to separate one\u2019s identity from that family and begin forming lasting relationships with others \u2013 begins in adolescence and sets the course for much of adult life.\u00a0 Most obvious is fascination with the body that is at an all time high, but lasts much beyond. \u00a0Not so obvious, but very real, is an interest in testing the faith issues learned as a child.<\/span><\/p>\n

At age 13 or 14 I liked comic books. \u00a0At the back of many was an Ad by Charles Atlas, a famous body builder. It featured a cartoon strip of a skinny guy with his girl on the beach. A muscle bound brute walks by, kicks sand in his face, and walks away with the girl. \u00a0Over the strip, in big letters, was the question: \u201cAre you a 90 lb weakling?\u201d \u2013 followed by a tag line \u201cI can make you a new man in only 15 minutes a day.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mostly, I ignored the Ad. But, I was a skinny kid, at an age where girls were getting to be interesting, and that 90 lb. weakling thing niggled at my mind \u2013 to the point I found an old iron bar of 20 lbs and began exercising. The funny thing is I didn\u2019t really think my skinny body lent itself to being gorged with muscles.\u00a0 Nor did I think the cartoon represented well how boys and girls, or men and women, related to each other.\u00a0 But, for a few months, I used that iron bar.\u00a0 And, it turned out to to be a good thing.\u00a0 No, I didn\u2019t meet the love of my life.\u00a0 That summer I was asked to help a farmer bring in his hay and found, to my great satisfaction, I could pick up and throw 35 and 40 lb haybales onto hayracks along with the rest of the \u2018men\u2019.\u00a0 My self-concept satisfied, I forgot the iron bar.<\/span><\/p>\n

I tell this story not to suggest adolescents are vulnerable to media messages \u2013 I was and they are; nor to argue that my preoccupation with body was normal \u2013 it would something of a mystery if adolescents weren\u2019t.\u00a0 I tell this story to make the point that I wasn\u2019t a passi
\nve creature \u2013 it mattered how I thought about myself when hearing a seductive message.\u00a0 \u00a0A reasonably healthy self-concept developed in childhood along with basic grounding of spiritual self lessened the power of media.\u00a0 The thing about adolesence is that it\u2019s not only a time of bodily change and hormones \u2013 it also is time of great interest in matters of faith.\u00a0 Faith and spirituality bubble happily alongside the hormones in our bodies.\u00a0 Many adults say that their most formative spiritual experience was from engagement with a mentor during adolescence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The issues adolescents become interested in \u2013 identity, security and sexuality\/gender \u2013 are pursued throughout adulthood – t<\/em>hey don\u2019t just pre-occupy us, they totally take over.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The first half of life is devoted to establishing yourself, making a career and finding friends and a partner. Pursuit of success, security and containment \u2013 \u2018looking good\u2019 to ourselves and others \u2013 dominates most of us through young adulthood to middle age and beyond.\u00a0\u00a0 This is normal and not unimportant.\u00a0 <\/span>We all need boundaries, identity, safety, and some degree of order and consistency to get started.\u00a0 We also need to feel \u2018special\u2019 \u2013 we all need some successes and positive feedback, otherwise we spend the rest of our lives demanding it.\u00a0 <\/span>But, when there is little time for simply living, pure friendship, useless beauty, or moments of communion with anything \u2013 one gets stuck in habits of thinking and behaving.<\/span><\/p>\n

Spiritually, people in the first half of life are often drawn to order, to religious routine, to either\/or categories. These become habits shaped by the norms and practices of our family and community. <\/span>\u00a0Only after we\u2019ve taken care of these basic elements of the life journey, are we ready to fill the container with content. \u00a0<\/span>But, if one hasn\u2019t taken care to nurture and grow one\u2019s understanding of our deeper selves and faith along the way, the challenge spoken of in the book of Hebrews<\/em> becomes evident.\u00a0 The writer doesn\u2019t put too fine a point on it \u2013 saying that their understanding of the good news remains that of an infant with a preference for \u2018milk\u2019 rather than \u2018meat\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is comfort of staying with our habitual ways of doing things, thinking about things \u2013 to live in a sort of perpetual adolescence, Rohr says.\u00a0 But in doing so, our containers remain largely empty and ill-defined \u2013 and increasingly discomforted when encounters with the world around us don\u2019t fit our neat assumptions.\u00a0 For many, the response is to draw tighter walls around us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls\u201d,<\/span><\/em> Jung observed in 1944[3]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cThey will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn the literature of the whole world – all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls.\u00a0 Thus the soul has gradually been turned into a Nazareth from which nothing good can come.\u00a0<\/em> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In today\u2019s society we have a more positive view of yoga and various kinds of diet than in Jung\u2019s day, but the fundamental point remains.\u00a0 There is a tendency to pursue routines of one kind or another in lieu of faith \u2013 with our \u2018soul\u2019 walled away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t need to happen.\u00a0 Good mirroring from an authentic mentor can provide a spiritual framework that lessens the impulse to look at Narcissus\u2019s mirror or begging the attention of others. You have already been attended to, and have no need to protect your identity or prove it.\u00a0 It just is, and your connectedness with God opens and deepens.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But, for many, being so open is a problem.\u00a0 It takes a crisis <\/span>before deepened spiritual development can take place. “Normally a job, fortune, or reputation has to be lost,” writes Rohr, “a death has to be suffered, a house has to be flooded, or a disease has to be endured.” The crisis can be devastating. The crisis undoes you. The flood doesn’t just flood your house\u2014it washes out your spiritual life. What you thought you knew about living the spiritual life no longer suffices for the life you are living.\u00a0 <\/span>Many of us have experienced crises of this nature.\u00a0 Richard Rohr goes on to suggest that when this happens, we experience something of what Christ did. \u00a0His crucifixtion was the ultimate fall \u2013 the giving of his life \u2013 followed by resurrection in order that the church might be born and God\u2019s wish for humanity advanced.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard Merton, a Cistercian monk with the wonderful ability to describe his inner life with God, speaks to this same issue of crisis.[4]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> <\/span>We\u2019re all like Jonah, Merton says. \u00a0Jonah was the prophet God ordered to go to Nineveh to tell its people of impending doom for their wickedness.\u00a0 Rather than do as asked, he has an uncontrollable desire to go the opposite direction.\u00a0 God points one way, our own ideals point to another. It was when Jonas was travelling as fast as he could away from Nineveh that he encountered a crisis.\u00a0 A tremendous storm threatened the ship he was on and, at his suggestion, was thrown overboard \u2013 and swallowed by a great fish.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tucked into the Book of Jonah<\/em> is one of the great prayers of the Bible, as read earlier.\u00a0 It acknowledges God’s sovereignty, surrenders to God’s plan and is a prayer of faith for deliverance. One senses that when Jonah was thrown overboard he fully expected to die. He seemed resigned to it and at the same time a hope was rising from within because he says: “Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.” Somet
\nhing inside him still trusted even though he also felt that he had been cast outside of God’s sight – outside of God’s favor.<\/span><\/p>\n

He must have come awfully close to death because he says that “the earth with its bars closed behind me forever” and then in the next moment he acknowledges that God brought his life back from the pit. His best moment is when he says that when his soul fainted within him, he remembered the Lord. It is the moment of the surrender of his will. He would no longer turn and run the other way; he would no longer fight the plan of God. The sign of Jonah, to Merton, was its anticipation of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ \u2013 and the recognition that in weakness, renewed strength can emerge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While it\u2019s hard to match the drama of Jonah\u2019s near death and resurrection, the prayer is not unlike one I\u2019ve prayed on an occasion of crisis \u2013 or ones you may have prayed. <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Growing into the second half of life doesn’t necessarily happen. You can stay stuck if you wish.\u00a0 It\u2019s not age related, though age helps. What a crisis does is create a situation where change is possible.\u00a0 People, organizations, even countries rarely change in a significant way without experiencing a major crisis. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The journey into the maturity of an \u2018elder\u2019 begins when we honor the needs of the first half of life, but also can let go of their importance.\u00a0 It begins <\/span>when we can see loss as an opportunity to search for something new and more meaningful, when we see the old as not all that important in the scheme of life.\u00a0 When that happens we are open to seeking the answer to the question: What is the contribution God would have me make in the world?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To move into the second half of life we must be willing to be stretched beyond our comfort zones. Where once we might have been sastisfied with, nay sought, relatively simplistic reasons for how we spent our time, our purpose in life, these no longer satisfy.\u00a0 We move into the second half of life because of spiritual restlessness and dissatisfaction with the status quo. We come to recognize that Jesus doesn\u2019t offer a one-size-fits-all gospel. Instead, as Rohr suggests, Jesus offers us a vision of reality in which \u201cGod adjusts to the vagaries and failures of the moment. The ability to adjust to human disorder and failure is named God\u2019s providence or compassion\u201d (p. 56). <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As we move beyond our first half understandings, we discover that God is less concerned about laws and more about relationships. \u00a0In all accounts of Jesus ministry, it\u2019s notable that He never seemed angry at sinners \u2013 He got upset with those who thought they didn\u2019t sin. We become less interested in eliminating the negative or fearful.\u00a0 We gradually come to understand that a direct assault on these things takes an immense amount of energy, and may well be useless \u2013 it may even lead to another kind of evil and invite pushback from those attacked \u2013 think of the Koran burners in Florida, Rohr says.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we become less infatuated with the strengths of our first half life and come to accept our weaknesses, a strange thing happens \u2013 we become more open to new possibilities \u2013 and, in the process discover new strengths.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>What happens is that we learn to tell the difference between who we really are, and what people around us mirror to us that we are \u2013 or not.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>This helps us to not take either insults or praise too seriously.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We attend to the soul, becoming more serious about and disciplined in our relationship with God \u2013 whether in prayer, in reflection, or other ways.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This journey from weakness back to strength leads through complexity and paradox to a new simplicity where the painful and excluded parts of life are accepted, and where we can ask with the Psalmist to \u201cteach us to count our days, that we might gain a wise heart.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You may not know, but today\u2019s Psalm reading (Psalm 90) is sometimes referred to as the prayer of Moses.\u00a0 I can see Moses, towards the end of his life, sitting on the side of a mountain as he offers this prayer, reflecting on all the pains and troubles of leading his tribe through the wilderness \u2013 and, out of the most difficult times, his encounters with God.\u00a0 That could be a metaphor for all of us \u2013 we all walk through our own wilderness.\u00a0 We all have our times of pain and trouble.\u00a0 And, together with Moses, can reflect on the meaning of our life, confident we are in God\u2019s embrace:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2026The days of our life are seventy years \u2013 or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/sup><\/em>\u2026 So teach us to count our days\u00a0that we may gain a wise heart.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Amen<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n
\n

[1]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> <\/span>Carl Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche<\/span><\/em>, CW 8, par. 784 (1930).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> <\/span>Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life<\/em> (2011)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

[3]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> <\/span>C. G. Jung (1944), Psychology and Alchemy, Collected Works, v. 12<\/em>, par. 126, 1968<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

[4]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> <\/span>Thomas Merton (1981), The Sign of Jonas<\/em>. New York: Harcourt<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

View Archived SermonsListen to this Sermon Sermon by Aldred H. Neufeldt Looking in the Mirror 3: \u00a0In strength, weakness\u00a0 October 14, 2012\u00a0 Texts: Psalm 90: 1 – 4, 12-17, Jonah 2:1-10, Hebrews 5:7 – 6:10 In today\u2019s sermon we return to our Fall theme and question: \u201cwhat reflection of God do we see when we look at our bodies in the mirror?\u201d\u00a0 That we ask the question should not be a surprise.\u00a0 Christians cannot be other than a people who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}