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Sermon
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| SHEDDING OUR SECURITY BLANKETS Much of my love of story-telling comes from Gordon, as do some of the stories I tell – with acknowledgement, of course! One concerns John Wesley’s sermon on wealth. Wesley was preaching in a mill town. “My first point,” he said, “is make all you can.” A wealthy mill owner said, “Amen!” Wesley said, “My second point is save all you can.” Once again the mill owner was heard to say, “Amen!” Wesley said, “And my third point is give all you can.” The wealthy mill owner muttered, “Why does he have to ruin a perfectly good sermon!” Christianity’s not against people having money. It’s interested in how we get it and what we do with it. Wesley was making the point. Some years ago, when today’s gospel reading came around again, I was troubled by it. I’d heard the usual preacher talk about riches and so on, but I felt there was something more subtle here. I lay on the floor, tormented by this and talking aloud; I asked the Spirit to show me what I was missing. Suddenly, on the screen of my mind, a cartoon popped up. It was Linus, the anxiety-ridden little figure in the Peanuts comic strips. Linus sucks his thumb and drags a blanket everywhere he goes, despite ridicule and efforts by Lucy to rid him of it. He can’t give it up. It’s his ‘security blanket’. I saw it! This episode is about a man who can’t shed his security blanket. He says to Jesus, “How can I really come alive in the fullest possible way?” Jesus says, “Sell all you have and give the proceeds to the poor.” He can’t do it, and goes away sad. Jesus says, “It’s hard for someone like that to achieve his potential as a human being and enjoy life to the full so long as he’s clinging to a security blanket.” So I want to suggest that this episode is not just about money and possessions. It was in the case of this man, but it’s really about all sorts of Linus blankets – ‘security blankets’. I have three for you to consider.
I
First is clinging to HABIT. Maybe you heard about the chap whose barber said, “How would you like it this time, sir?” “Cut this sideburn up to here,” he said pointing to the spot, “and this one down to here. On the back, cut it square this side”, he said, again indicating, “and round it off this side.” The barber was looking puzzled. “And leave about nine long scraggly whiskers hanging down in front.” “You know I can’t do that.” “Why can’t you? That’s the way you did it last time!” Habit is the way we did it last time, and the time before and the time before that. It’s all those things we do without having to think. We’re all creatures of habit. It’s a very primal thing. I was walking one evening in Ocean Grove with an old friend. Her cat followed us, and resisted orders to go back. We kept walking, and the cat kept following. Suddenly, it seemed to go quite crazy. It dashed into a garden, began tearing around in circles and then took refuge under a bush. My friend crawled in, extricated her animal and carried it struggling all the way home. We could only think the cat had a panic attack because it was out of its territory. All of us can feel uncomfortable out of the familiar – and that can mean familiar ways of thinking and behaving. I once challenged a friend over his odd way of painting a room. “I’ve always done it this way,” he said. Then, with a bit of a grin he said, “It’s my religion.” Habit behaviour can get to be almost religious: ‘sacred’, ‘don’t touch’ sort of thing. Don’t laugh; it could be us. Habits of thinking and acting are sometimes clung to as fiercely as Linus holds the soggy corner of that wretched blanket. They can become virtually ‘sacred’ – what we hold to in the depths of our being. Some people would sooner die than shed their set ways of doing things.
II
Second Linus blanket is HOARDING: hoarding stuff we don’t need. Yes, go on: look at each other and give each other a nudge! This also is very primal, rooted in animal behaviour. Many types of birds and animals, including your dog interring a bone, are conserving things against the day when there is a scarcity. And that makes a lot of sense. There is nothing wrong in having a deep freeze and buying some stuff in bulk a month at a time. Nor is there anything wrong with collecting coins or stamps as a hobby. Like most things we do, good in moderation but crazy when they’re out of control. There is a disorder called compulsive hoarding. It involves collecting, or being unable to discard, large quantities of whatever even when their storage causes clutter and impedes basic activities like moving around the house. It is thought to originate with anxieties about a day, somewhere down the track, when there won’t be enough whatever to supply our needs. It can be a problem when we are getting older, but it’s not confined to older people. Anyone who has been in my study knows it is floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall books. Crazy! I justify keeping them because they have been my friends – some for a long time. There have been some notable hoarders, and you may think you know one or two! This time, to stress there’s nothing ‘personal’, let me give you a case from an article in ‘Behaviour Research and Therapy’. The client, D, lived with her two children, aged 11 and 14, and described her current hoarding behaviour as ‘a small problem that mushroomed’ many years ago, along with corresponding marital difficulties. D reported that her father was a hoarder and that she started saving when she was a child. In addition to hoarding, she reported several other obsessive-compulsive symptoms (which are then listed) . . . The volume of cluttered possessions took up approximately 70 percent of the living space in her house. With the exception of the bathroom, none of the rooms in the house could easily be used for their intended purpose. Both of the doors to the outside were blocked, so entry to the house was through the garage and the kitchen, where the table and chairs were covered with papers, newspapers, bills, books, half-consumed bags of chips and her children’s school papers dating back ten years. III
My third Linus blanket is clinging to old HURTS. The subject of forgiveness has assumed a lot more significance in our time. It’s the recurring theme in South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It was the topic for over forty research scientists and theologians at a conference sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation a few years ago. Dealing positively with hurt and moving on, which is what forgiveness is about, is a big issue. Many cling to old hurts as a kind of Linus blanket because they think forgiving implies absolving the offender, even justifying the offence, and somehow weakening their own sense of what is right. I want to offer a perspective on this and close with another story, but first a word of explanation. Because it was the thing for my generation, I was trained in a school of counselling that was sometimes called ‘non-directive’. This approach didn’t interrogate the other person; it didn’t judge or blame; it offered not much in the way of interpretation. It had a lot to do with listening, and with coaxing the other to unpack and tidy up their own emotional baggage. It took time and patience, but we believed it was the best way to help troubled people. Then I read a book called “Reality Therapy” by William Glasser, a practitioner who had worked some years with young females in trouble with the law, and in detention. Many of them had experienced awful things as children; these were duly unpacked, along with their long-term effects. Then Glasser began to realise that a number of these girls were using their bad experiences as an excuse for not moving on. They would say, “Of course, I’m a first class so-and-so, but it’s not my fault. It’s because my mother ran away, or my father beat me, or uncle sexually abused me. They made me the way I am. So, you can’t blame me.” Glasser wasn’t unsympathetic, but he found he sometimes needed to say, “OK. Sure, your mum ran away, or your dad beat you or that old uncle abused you – but you can’t give them power over who you’re going to be tomorrow. That’s in your hands.” Hanging on to old hurts is giving the offender power over who we’re going to be tomorrow. I want to wrap this up with an odd case of healing in John’s gospel. There was a pool in Jerusalem where sick people would come – rather like Lourdes. It was fed from a subterranean stream. Every so often this would bubble up, and the pool would be disturbed. First in the water when this happened would be healed. One man had been there thirty-eight years! When Jesus saw him lying there, and knowing he’d been there a long time, he said, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir, I haven’t got anyone to put me in the pool when the water gets stirred up. Someone else always beats me to it.” Jesus is suspicious. It looks to him like this man is enjoying what we call the ‘secondary benefits’ of lying there. He says, “Get up! Pick up your bed and walk.” At once the man recovers, picks up his bed and walks. Jesus invites human beings to shed their Linus blankets: the hurts, the hoarded paraphernalia, the habits that enslave... to be forgiving, free of encumbrances and flexible, and to float trustingly in the Eternal One – to ‘let go and let God’, as Gordon Powell used to say. ___________________________________________________
An address presented by the Rev Dr John Bodycomb at St Aidan's
Uniting Church North Balwyn, on 15th October, 2006 IT MAY BE REPRODUCED WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENT. |
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Page updated 16/10/06