April 18th, 2010 - Spiritual Sanctuary

4.18.10

Rev. Annie Arnoldy

Proverbs 24:16

John 21:1-14

Spiritual Sanctuary

The disciples needed spiritual sanctuary after the horrible events of the previous months.  Their rabbi and leader is killed on a cross.  The government is keeping a close eye on their actions.  They can’t even seem to catch any fish.  Spiritual sanctuary is exactly what Jesus gave them when he showed up on the beach and not only helped them catch a hundred and fifty three fish in one net-load, but he broke bread with them and reminded them of his presence. 

It’s important not to overlook the individual characters in this story.  So often we think of “the disciples” as one entity, and of Jesus as the star of the show.  In this story, the main characters are Peter, who is the ring-leader of the disciples; the Beloved Disciple, who is also known as John; and the risen Christ, whom no one recognizes at first.  The disciples have been out all night on the boat with empty nets, when just after daybreak they hear a man call out to them.  He says, “cast your net to the right side of the boat,” and they do.  The disciple whom Jesus loved recognized Jesus first, and cried, “It is the Lord.”  Then, Simon Peter, who is just sittin’ around in the boat, naked, recognizes Jesus too and puts some clothes on quick!  He not only does that, but he jumps in the water to swim as fast as he can to shore.  The rest of the disciples come in the boat. 

So, which one are you?  Are you the disciple who understands when you see the risen Lord, or are you the one who is surprised by it every time, who has to put on some clothes before springing into action?   One commentator on this passage says Christians are like a combination of these two disciples – we have understanding and we spring to action in our faith.  I am more apt to believe we usually act either like John or like Peter.  We either “hear and understand” something as coming from God, or we get smacked upside the head with a lesson in faith because it happens in everyday life.  There are moments when each of these ways of knowing faith is just what we need.  But, the even better part of living our faith out in a boat with each other is that someone else will recognize the Lord when you do not.  Perhaps you will begin acting on faith first and others will be inspired.  We need each other in this lifeboat.      

Any gospel story has many layers of meaning and one of those layers in going through the events of holy week, and then reading the post-resurrection accounts, is that our shame is overcome by God’s grace.  Jesus’ death on the cross was supposed to be a horribly embarrassing and shameful way to die.  It was public, it was slow and painful, it was saved for true criminals.  Not only does Jesus tell the man on the cross next to him that he will be in paradise too, but Jesus rises from the manmade tomb.  God lifts the shame as the tomb is opened, and allows anyone who has eyes to see realize Jesus’ resurrection was for us to come forward in faith no matter what our shame has been.

Peter’s last act toward Jesus was to deny him three times.  One of his own disciples denying him three times.  In the boat, on this early morning, Peter is sitting naked (or likely in his loincloth), which might represent a defeated man, a man who knows he failed the test of faith at the time it counted most.  When Peter realizes Jesus is on the shore, beckoning them forth, despite his past behavior, he puts his clothes on and leaps toward his Risen Lord.  Now that sounds like the freedom we have in Jesus Christ – amen?  Not only is this Peter’s response to Christ, but Christ gives him a chance to redeem himself.  Just after the verses that were read this morning, Jesus turns to Peter and asks him three times if he loves him.  Peter gets frustrated after the second time, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  Jesus replies, “Tend my sheep.”  And one last time Jesus asks, “Do you love me?”  Peter speaks with maybe more true belief than ever before, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”  Jesus says, “Feed my sheep.” 

There is redemption, even for these rough and tumble fishermen who can’t seem to catch a break.  Luckily, in Jesus, they find their nets filled to overflowing with the catch of the day.  So how do we translate this to our real and everyday lives?  I believe we must look for places to build altars to God in the world.  We spend one day a week in God’s house, so how do we put more of God in our houses? 

Does it happen when we are paying attention?  Can we capture more of God by walking on the Earth?  Is it found in getting lost?  When we encounter others?  Can we actually make more space for God by saying “no”?  Or, sometimes, by saying “yes”?  Do we feel it more in physical labor?  Or can altars only be built by stopping everything and being present to God alone? 

I realized I needed to stop and pay attention to God when I experienced something this winter that I did not know would be so scary and uncontrollable.  Depression.  I wouldn’t even want to talk about it, because now I can pretend it never happened, but I realize how un-talked about it is.  And, I have been learning how to build more altars in my everyday world because of it.  Probably more women in their 30s experience depression as a result of infertility than from any other cause.  This is only what my intuition tells me, but I have a feeling it’s true.  I have been dealing with what infertility does to a woman’s body, psyche, spirit, and lifestyle for over a year and a half.  I know that does not even touch on how long many women have dealt with it, but eighteen months can seem like an eternity when you want to start a family.  Statistics are now showing that up to 1 in 8 couples are dealing with infertility issues. 

So, how can I say I feel like my depression never existed when my condition persists? 

Well, I don’t know where the depression goes, but it’s not a present reality in my daily life anymore.  I am not under any illusion that it will never return, but I think there are steps I took to create some places of sanctuary in my life.  First, I recognized last fall that something was not right.  I felt hopeless, I had no interest in my work, I did not want to see my friends.  To anyone who knows me, that does not sound like me.  I only sought out a therapist because I knew I should seek out a therapist.  But, talking it out really does help.  The steps I needed to take included finding a doctor who specialized in reproductive medicine (the closest one is four hours away), finding a local acupuncturist, and finding a way to take some time for myself. 

In the beginning years of my career, all I wanted to do was nurture it and grow it and build something meaningful.  Throughout high school and college, I guess you could say I was an overachiever.  I always had a goal of blowing away the expectations.  I don’t even know where that comes from – I haven’t gotten that far in therapy!  I was president of Future Community Leaders of America by the time I started my sophomore year of high school.  I was president of my youth group my senior year.  In college too, I was hired to lead the group that designed activities for the students living in the dorms.  I was editor of the English department’s undergraduate literary journal.  So, for my body to tell me that I couldn’t achieve motherhood at exactly the time I planned for it to happen felt unacceptable. 

There’s a show on TV right now called Life Unexpected and it takes a really honest look at life for several adults in their early 30s.  Two of the characters find out the baby they had in high school is now 16 and seeking emancipation.  Since they had given her up for adoption, they never expected to see her again.  In fact, after the mom found out she was pregnant, she never told the father.  He was the quarterback of the football team and never thought in a million years he fathered a child.  The 16-year-old kid, Lux, shows up seeking emancipation from the foster care system and they discover a life they never expected.  All the mom’s issues from her own father abandoning her, to her current distance from the rest of her family play out now in meeting her daughter.  Lux’s dad, the quarterback, can’t seem to get his life together – his father has never been emotionally available to him, and he has a hard time making himself available to others … until Lux.  His daughter changes him.  They all have to confront their issues and it never comes out in a neat package tied with a bow, but they allow themselves to open up to each other.  They find sanctuary. 

We are all living unexpected lives in some way or another.  Think about your life for a moment … did you expect everything that has happened?  And, even the disappointing realities have taught you something, right?  Well, that’s where I’ve come … to a place of trusting the unfolding of my life, unexpected.  When I felt really hopeless and forgot that God had a future set out for me, I needed other people to remind me of the huge track record God had in my life of giving me everything I’ve ever wanted.  Was now really the time to lose hope?  Since I wasn’t sharing any of this with most of the people I know, the circle of people to give me hope was pretty small.  But, for me, a few voices pulled me to a new place, a place of healing.  A couple of the voices were authors I read at that time.  Then there was my therapist, whom I only needed to see five or six times to make a big difference, and then a couple of minister friends, and of course, my family.  I chose not to be on any kind of medication for depression, and within a matter of three or four months, I began to feel better, more like myself. 

With my reproductive endocrinologist being four hours away, I set up some time away from work as well.  It was time to follow the protocol he set up for me, but even better, time to spend with my family on the Front Range.  I really needed some weeks of unscheduled, uninterrupted time to do what my spirit asked of me.  I truly rested.  I cooked with love and ate with family.  I just stopped putting so many expectations on my body.  At the end of my time off, after I followed the doctor’s plan, did everything work out perfectly?  No.  I am still waiting for my time of impending motherhood.  Maybe even better than if I were able to put my infertility behind me so quickly, I succeeded in listening to myself and renewing a right spirit within me.  I have not felt that awful, lifeless feeling of depression in a long time.  That was the real gift of giving myself some time.  There is a certain shame that comes with any physical or mental disorder.  It feels like your body, your mind, your emotions have failed you.  The sense of losing control feels like the awful sense of losing a part of yourself.  No wonder Peter was sitting in the boat naked, wallowing in self-pity and despair because of letting a friend down at a critical time.  He leapt from the boat when he saw Christ.

When we think of ourselves in the world one of the main ways we can encounter God is by walking, or taking action.  There was a woman once who was celebrating the end of her treatment for breast cancer.  She saw an outdoor labyrinth in the yard of a church and wanted to stop and investigate it.  She and her husband first walked straight to the center of the labyrinth.   He stayed there, while she removed her shoes and began the journey of walking out of the labyrinth by following the winding pathways around as they took her closer and closer to the outside ring.  She was crying and she said she was giving thanks for her life as she walked.  “’I began to feel at peace in my body again after being very angry that it had let me down,’ the woman explained.  Walking, she found herself remembering all the people who had walked with her through her surgery and treatment” (An Altar in the World, p. 61). 

“St. Augustine, an early theologian of the Christian church said, ‘It is solved by walking.  What is “it”?  If you want to find out, then you will have to do your own walking’” (61). 

Last Sunday I was visiting the kids in their Sunday school classes and they were all studying the story of Thomas, the one who doubts Jesus when he appears before the disciples after his death.  Each class was learning the story in a different way – our teachers truly are amazing in making the story come to life in a way each age group can understand.  When I would come into a classroom, the teacher would ask if anyone had questions for me about this story or about faith and doubt.  The Kindergarten, First, and Second graders had some great questions about not knowing where Jesus’ body went after he died.  They asked, “how can a person come back to life after they are dead?”  One Second grader I know pretty well said, “It was just his spirit that went up to heaven, right?”  How do I explain the mystery of Jesus being fully human and fully divine to a group of concrete-thinking kids?  In fact, when I come before you every month, I have that exact same thought: How do I explain the awe-inspiring mystery of Jesus being fully human and fully divine to a group of concrete-thinking adults?!

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book An Altar in the World, says:

When I ask people to tell me how Jesus could be both fully human and fully divine, they often describe a kind of laminating process, in which his humanity was encased in divine plastic.  The last thing to occur to most of us is that to be fully one is to be fully the other.  What is it about ‘fullness’ that we do not understand? (118)

Her advice is to not over-think that point.  The important part was what Jesus taught the people about finding the divine in their own lives:

When people wanted him to tell them what God’s realm was like, he told them stories about their own lives.  When people wanted him to tell them God’s truth about something, he asked them what they thought.  With all kinds of opportunities to tell people what to think, he told them what to do instead.  Wash feet.  Give your stuff away.  Share your food.  Pray for those who are out to get you.  Be the first to say, ‘I’m sorry.’  For those who took him as their model, being fully human became a full-time job.  It became a vocation in itself, no matter what they happened to do for a living.  (119)

Learning to become fully human is what the disciples were doing after they thought they didn’t have Jesus by their side anymore.  The great surprise and the on-going, soul-filling miracle in our lives is that Jesus didn’t leave us at our time of greatest need.  Jesus is still calling out to us from the shoreline.  The question is: are you wide-eyed enough to recognize him when he calls?

I think my time off this winter allowed me to leap from the boat, knowing my spirit can be healed.  I keep thinking, “I wonder how so many of you have made it through all the trials in your lives and have still come out with faith.”  I’m beginning to see that putting your faith into practice, that believing even when you do not see, that building altars in the dry and parched places of life are the ways we build up our spiritual muscles.  Our race is not a sprint.  Our spiritual lives are meant for the long-distance running of life.  Christ appears to us on the lakefront shore to cook us breakfast and asks us pointedly, “Do you love me?”  And we are to hear his reply as well … then feed my sheep. 

Amen.