Wednesday, July 15, 2015

How Do We Defeat our Worst Enemy, Ourselves

It’s funny.  Sometimes I wanted this so bad.   But other times, I didn’t want it at all.  When I was growing up, I started playing tee-ball, which doesn’t seem all that difficult.  You put the ball on the tee, and the kids hit it.   But when God was passing out eye-hand coordination, I must have not been paying attention, because it was a challenge for me.  Still, I always ended up hitting the ball.   It was on a tee after all.  But what I hated far more than being at bat was being out in the field.   Every time the coach picked me to go out on the field, I dreaded it.  Out there in the outfield where they put the clumsiest of us on the team, I prayed fervently that no ball would come to me.   I just knew that I’d mess it up, and let some kid run the bases. 

Yet as much as I hated getting picked in tee ball, when it came time at my elementary school to pick the crossing guards, I wanted to be picked so badly.   I wanted to wear that little reflector vest that the crossing guards wore.  I wanted to get dismissed early to do this important job.  

Have you ever had moments like that, moments where you said to yourself, “Pick me, please, pick me!” or other moments, where you prayed the opposite.   When that happens, what is going on?   Too often, what is going on, is the core issue that creates the misery and pain in our lives and world. 
For example, when I yearned to not get picked to play in the outfield, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to let my team down, to prevent them from winning the game.  I simply didn’t want to embarrass myself.   Losing the game didn’t matter to me so much as long as losing it wasn’t my fault.   And when it came to being a crossing guard, I wasn’t so concerned about the safety of my fellow students during the pick-up time.   I wanted the status.  All the cool 6th graders got to be crossing guards, and I wanted to be in that number.   My desires weren’t about others.  They were all about me.

This sort of self-absorption lies at the heart of our problems.  Our worries and fears come out of concern about ourselves.  Our bitterness and selfishness come out of focus on ourselves.   Ironically, the more self-absorbed we become, the more miserable we and usually everyone around us becomes.  Our self-absorption doesn’t free us.  It imprisons us.    It doesn’t fulfill us.  It diminishes us.   It doesn’t make us more.  It makes us less.  But how do we become free, become free of ourselves?  In this story of Jesus picking folks, God shows us the way.  Let’s listen and hear what God has to say.


In life, more often than not, the worst enemy we face will be ourselves.  As the famous Pogo cartoon put it, we have met the enemy and he is us.  But how do we become free of this enemy?  How do we become free of the self-absorption that limits our lives, that wounds our world?  Here, in his words, and in his call, Jesus shows us. 

But in order to see how Jesus frees us, we first have to see exactly what Jesus is telling us.  In the gospel of Mark, the very first time we hear Jesus speaks, he is speaking the words we just heard.  “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  This good news is literally the gospel.  That’s what the old English word means, good news.   But what does it mean to believe the good news.  What is the good news?    This phrase, good news, didn’t appear first with Jesus. Many folks used it in the ancient world.   And the more we understand how they used it, the more we’ll understand why Jesus did.    

When folks talked about the good news or in the Greek euangelion, they were talking about just that, news that was good.   But they didn’t mean just any old good news, like some human interest story on the 6 oclock news.   No, This is the type of good news that changes the world. 

When the news came during World War II, that we had victory in Europe, VE Day, and then later victory in Japan, VJ day; that was euangelion.  That was good news.   It was actually joyous news, the end of a brutally painful and difficult time.   And after that news, the world was never the same again.  Do you see how Jesus using this phrase tells us something hugely significant?  

Jesus didn’t come to bring us advice; Six simple ways to a free and fulfilled life the Jesus way!   Jesus came to bring us news.  He came to tell us of something that actually happened, something accomplished for us, joyous news that changes everything.   Lots of folks today offer you fulfillment by giving you advice or offering a technique.  But we don’t need advice or technique.  We need a real change.  We need a profound deliverance.  And that’s what Jesus brings.  He brings us news of a real victory in our real world.  

So what is this joyous news, this victory news that Jesus brings.   He tells us.   The time is fulfilled.  The Reign of God has come near (Reign is actually a more accurate translation than kingdom).   In that news, Jesus points to the enemy that we need to defeat.

In the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, we read this curious sentence.   They were naked and not ashamed.   What does this mean?   It doesn’t mean that they were strutting around saying, “Look at my washboard abs.”   It means they knew each other, I mean, really knew each other, as completely as any human being can, but they had no shame, no insecurity.  In other words, they had no self-consciousness, no self-obsession. They had no hidden places.  They didn’t keep any guilty secrets.  They didn’t wall off some part of themselves.  They were naked and not ashamed.

But then Adam and Eve chose not to trust God.  When God said to them.  Trust me about this tree.  They said.  “No, I don’t think so.”  We’re going to become our own authority for everything.  We’re not going to trust you.  We’re going to place ultimate trust in ourselves.  But what seemed to them such a great option, the way to freedom, actually took their freedom away.   For after they took the fruit of that infamous tree, their self-focus didn’t free them, it bound them.  That’s why the Bible tells us that they took fig leaves to cover up their nakedness.  

God isn’t telling us there that Adam and Eve were having body image issues.  God is saying that their focus on self, led them not to self-liberation but to self-consciousness.  They didn’t become secure in themselves.  They became profoundly insecure.   And in their insecurity, they hid from themselves.  They hid from one another.  And above all, they hid from God.    And from that sickness of self comes all the misery that affects us individually, and our world as a whole.   We don’t need to think more highly of ourselves.   We certainly don’t need to think more lowly of ourselves.  We just need to think of ourselves less.  

Jesus’ news offers us the way out.  He is proclaiming that the true ruler has returned, that the reign of self is over.  God, the rightful ruler has come to set things right, to free us from our bondage to ourselves.    That is the victory news that Jesus proclaims, and it changes everything.
And as Jesus calls his first followers, we are seeing how that change happens.  It happens when we truly understand and live out these cryptic words.   “Follow me, and I will make you to become fishers of people.”    We have likely heard these words a lot, but do we really grasp what they mean?  I don’t think I did until this past week. 

I always thought of it as if there were these people-like fish that Jesus followers were grabbing up out of the water.  But does that really make any sense?  Several years ago, after the movie, The Perfect Storm, came out, I read a lot about folks who fish commercially for a living.  And what I read kind of freaked me out.   I read of unbelievable physical punishment, of going without sleep for literally days on end, and most disturbing of all, how utterly perilous the sea could be.  I remember reading of how someone could get quickly caught on a hook as it went over the side, and find themselves in water so cold, it would kill them in minutes, in the midst of waves that were bigger than houses.   Commercial fishing is the most dangerous job in the world. That’s why the reality show about commercial fishing is called The Deadliest Catch

And who is Jesus talking to?   He is talking to commercial fisherman, to folks who knew how utterly perilous it was to get caught in the sea, who when it happened hoped that their fellow fisherman would do all they could to fish them out before they died.    And the Sea of Galilee was particularly treacherous, known for terrifying storms that could come up and swamp a boat in moments.   So when Jesus tells them that they will fish for people, this is what he is talking about.  He is saying.   We live in a world where people are figuratively drowning around us everywhere.  They desperately need someone who will fish them out of the chaos that is killing them.  And I’m asking you to join me on that rescue mission.      

But how does that happen?   How do we become free of ourselves, so free that we can even help rescue others caught up in the same bondage.   In these words of invitation, Jesus tells us.  Jesus says, Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of people.   In other words, Jesus is saying.  Here is the way to freedom.   Follow me.   Stop placing your trust in yourself.  It’s a dead end.  But if you place your trust in me, I will lead you out.   And his words make it clear, that this isn’t some sort of magical once in a lifetime moment.  Jesus is inviting us into a journey, one in which if we follow, he will make us to become fishers of people.  That’s what Jesus says, not that I will make you fishers, that I will make you become.  In other words, I am inviting you into a journey, a journey that if you follow will free you step by step, day by day from yourselves. 

I am reminded of how this works every time I walk the labyrinth that lies behind our sanctuary.  If you’ve walked that path or one like it, you’ll know how it works.   The path will lead you to the center and back out again, but the way it does so will not make sense.   At some point, you’ll think that the path needs to go one way, when it actually leads you in another.   But, as uncomfortable as it seems, you let the path take you its way, no matter how counter-intuitive it feels.   Do you see what that labyrinth path is showing us?    It is showing how following Jesus frees us.   No matter how many times I walk that labyrinth path, when it takes that unexpected turn, I want to resist.   But when I resist that resistance, when I let go, and trust the path to lead me, I find freedom.  I realize I don’t have to stress out about where to go.  I simply need to let the path show me the way, that if I trust the path, it will lead me to exactly where I need to be.

If you follow Jesus, he will take you down some twists and turns that make no sense.  You will want to resist.  You will want to go your own way.  But if you trust, if you follow, if you let go and let Jesus lead you, then he will free you.  In that following, he will free you more and more from your desire to go your own way, a way that is actually no way at all.   And as he does, you will not lose your way, you will discover it for the first time. 

How can you trust Jesus to do this?  Because he has already done it.  He lost himself so that you can find yours.   He gave up his life to reclaim yours.    He showed us in his death and resurrection that until we die to ourselves, we can’t really live.  In fact if we’re not dying to ourselves, we’re already dead.  

Let Jesus free you from yourself.   Let Jesus raise you up.   Let Jesus fish you out of the chaos of our insecurities and self-obsessions.   As he does so, you will discover.  You won’t be thinking too highly of yourself or too lowly.  You’ll be hardly thinking of yourself at all.    Let us pray.      

 
 



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