Getting Off the Cross of Enabling

Friends,

I'm doing some catch up. Here's my April proclamation at Liberation. This sermon has been heavily edited in the effort to protect the privacy of others. I think the meat of the message and my story is still evident. It's good for me to keep reading this and think and about how I can get on the bed and stop resisting. To get out of the way and make room for the Spirit to move.

Thank you again for your prayers. I could and still can feel them.

...........

April 11, 2010

Liberation Ministries

Please join me in a moment of silence.

I would like to acknowledge the people that are praying me into this space right now - my second time preaching ever. These people are seen and unseen.

All of you in the pews

Darrell

Marletta

Tamara

Garland

My mom

R.

Sara B.

Sarah

Julia

Aimee

My dad

Jesus

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing unto you O, God my strength and my redeemer.

I am humbled and grateful to stand before you today and with you today. I’m a little in awe of the timing of this proclamation - which is part proclamation and mostly testimony, a story about from my life. The Mystery is alive and well today as every other day. I’ll say more about that later. For now just let me say you all and the Spirit are giving me a gift beyond measure inviting me to preach on this day. Darrell asked me to preach on April 11th at the end of February. And since then I’ve been thinking about what to talk about - where is the church, where is Liberation, where am I, where is the Spirit moving, what do I need to share, what do we need to hear? And then Pastor Steve gave his awesome sermon using the parable in Luke about Jesus healing the paralytic man and his teenage friends lowering him through the roof. He called us to pay attention to this story and move from a passive, reserved, distanced caring to a fully engaged, embodied, creative, driven, not to be deterred caring. He called us to action. I loved his sermon and I believe whole heartily in your [his] message.

I couldn’t get the image of this scene out of my mind. The friends, the ropes, the paralytic man on the mat, the crowd, his friends refusing to be deterred, not taking no for an answer, looking for a way where they didn’t see a way through the crowd, all of them up on the roof, and Jesus waiting to receive him in the room below.

Gives me chills.

Here’s that scripture again.

Jesus Heals a Paralytic Luke 5: 17-20

17 One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teacher of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat [bed] and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19 When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowed, right in front of Jesus.

And Jesus saw their faith.

While Pastor Steve was setting the scene I was picturing the man on the mat, his bed and his willingness to be there. When Pastor Steve preached we looked at the teenagers and their ingenuity, their youthful spirit of willingness to do whatever it takes.

Today I want to talk about when the willingness to be on the bed - our willingness and the people we’re trying to help and I want to talk a little bit about knowing when to pick up the ropes and do whatever it takes to get to Jesus, to get to healing, to get to wholeness.

Last weekend we heard Pastor Darrell’s Easter Sermon - What’s got you nailed? And the three points - 1. He was nailed. 2. He was willing to be nailed. 3. He got down off the cross. And his questions What’s got you nailed? How have we been willing to stay nailed? And when are we going to get off that cross? To be healed and move towards fullness of LIFE and not death?

My cross is pretty clear. I’m a recovering enabler - from way back. Focusing on other people lives instead of my own, spreading myself way too thin, feeling like “this” - whatever “this” was for the season - was just life and I’d have to live through it, throwing self care out the window, existing in a state of learned helplessness, standing in the way of the Spirit and healing, avoiding conflict, and for the first 2 and 1/2 decades of my life living behind of a shield of secrecy and everything is fine. I can handle this. But I couldn’t and my body started to reject my enabling habits. I became physically ill and could not ignore how my willingness to be nailed was affecting my spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being. I was stuck on my cross.

My recovery is relatively new, I’ve been asking God to lead me to fullness of life and to help me shed this shell of enabling for about a decade now. And I started to get off my cross for the first time about 4 years ago. I started praying from my cross and whimpering out before that, but it took me a while to get down.

As my mom says, I come by my enabling naturally and honestly. [This section cut in the interest of other people’s privacy] It got to the point where I became almost physically unable to cry when it would have been appropriate and helpful for me to feel my feelings, release them, and to show them, a sign to the outside world how much I was hurting.

But like that passive version of helping I’m sure people were praying and for that I’m thankful. But, it was not enough. We needed people to intervene, we needed - WE needed- to pull back the curtain so that people could see what was really going on and we needed some perseverant people to come around our bed and pick up the ropes and drop us in front of Jesus.

When we are all in crisis it’s hard to see clearly. We’re freakin’ out. We need people who aren’t directly affected to come in with clear sight, with clear vision, eyes on Jesus so we don’t pull them under the water with us, soft hearts, and strong convictions - open to the Spirit and not to their own Savior complex. Do gooders are not allowed. They distract from the root of the problem, focusing instead on saving the day instead of fostering wholeness, and we block the movement of the Spirit, because we know just what to do and they miss the subtle clues and nudges of God trying to show them a way through the cracks instead of covering them over with a band-aid. Useless help. It just slows down healing and eventual huge chaos.

But, we bind people’s ability to help unless we get on the bed. Unless we surrender.

Those teenage boys didn’t drop an empty mat through the roof. It’s so much harder for people to be useful to us when we refuse their offerings of Spirit in action. And we enablers wear ourselves out trying to make people willing when what we need to do is be still. wait. trust in God, and ask ourselves what good are we actually doing? We need to invite people to get on the bed instead of knocking them over the head, and dragging them around, and violating them at times with our help. We need to ask ourselves are we moving towards wholeness or are we just shaking ourselves and everyone around us senseless trying to fix it, make it work, save the day, figure it out BY OURSELVES instead of laying it down, laying it all down at the feet of Jesus, and sometimes we need to lay it and ourselves down at the feet admitting that we are tired, we are exhausted, and that we don’t know what to do, that we need help so that we can be helpful, asking God to lead us instead of getting fixated on our own way. Which limits our view. When we become focused on the one thing. On the one thing that’s gonna make it right. On the way it’s gotta look if there’s going to be healing. We miss out on all the ways God is trying to show us a different path. We need to surrender.

Here’s what the beginnings of surrender and crying out from my cross looked like for me:

In my mid to late twenties I started going to a little Presbyterian church on Capitol Hill and I fell in love with the people in the pews and the prayer. Prayers of the people were radically honest - God, help me stop smoking, deliver my social security check on time, help me heal my relationship with my mother, I remember one man standing up in the back of the church and crying, my loved one is struggling with addiction. It was there in that context that I started telling the truth. Telling the truth about my family and me. I would sob at the communion rail and call my pastor and my best friend and ask wholeheartedly and unashamedly for prayer. Stand up in the pew and ask for prayers for me and my family.

I started taking care of myself and entering into my life - swimming, eating differently, forming a relationship with a Spiritual Director that I still have to this day, spending my money and my time off on me. I entered a program called the Academy for Spiritual Formation and would go down to San Francisco for a week every three months for two years to learn a semi monastic rhythm of life. Grieving all of the grief I’d kept inside. I quit a job and moved back to Capitol Hill after a brief stint in Issaquah. I fell in love.

I’m standing here to tell you that if the person you’re trying to save does not want to get on the bed and refuses all help it’s o.k. to start focusing on your life and lay down on that bed yourself, let your friends surround you and carry your tired worn out self to Jesus.

I mean this.

We don’t hear this is church a lot. There are some seasons in our lives where we’re not asked to be stationed at the ropes or on the roof - we’re being invited to lay down, to get on the bed and receive healing.

We read the passage in Matthew 25 and hear give bread, give water, clothe people, look after the sick, visit the prisoners, and our head starts spinning thinking about all the things we better hurry up and get doing to stay on the good list and off the naughty list, secure our place in heaven and stay away from the pits of hell. Or here’s my problem. At times I don’t actually trust that God will do the work if I don’t do it. I take it so seriously that it’s up to me, that I forget to let God be God. I forget that when we say WE are the body of Christ, that means we meaning ALL OF US - not just me. I am a member of the body of Christ, but WE are the body. I need to scoot over and let some others gather round. And it sounds like I’m not the only one.

And has any one else noticed in the verse “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers [and sisters] of mine, you did for me.” That Jesus says whatever we did for one of the least. One at a time. One at a time. And when we’re doing for the least how often are we actually, more truthfully, doing it for ourselves, checking it off the list, and moving on to the next thing. Well, we feel better now, but have we actually engaged in change, in justice, in healing, in wholeness? Or have we made it worse? Have we blocked the Spirits ability to move - to show us a new way a different way? Or let somebody else participate for once.

I think there are seasons where God asks us to stop, not to do more. Just stop. Be still. Stop Worrying. Listen.

Because we live our lives in cycles and although Jesus lived the heaven, earth, cross, grave, heaven cycle once - we are invited to live it multiple times. Over and over and over again until we are home, in our final resting place. Over and over again we are invited to practice daily resurrection, getting off the cross and living.

During my crying out period I still had a toe in the enabling pool. Just in case I wanted to go back to the old ways.

But, the truth always comes out - it is insistent. It can not be ignored forever. The reality of the situation and the truth about ourselves will always come out. And our longing for Life is actually strong if we give it some room to grow. It is a fierce longing. But the longer we wait the harder the fall.

And so nailed to a cross of my own making I started to gain some perspective and I started to listen to my body, my mind, reading poetry and sitting in the quiet in the morning. I started to stop flailing and be still. I started to consider surrendering, not just crying out, but be willing to get down. and here is what I heard those quiet mornings.

Stop. Be Still. Listen.

Wait. Is that me trying to force something or the Spirit nudging me to move? Lay it down. Try to become fully emptied. Give the Spirit more room to move.

Stop. Be Still. Listen. Pray.

God, teach me...

God, teach me...

Stop. Be Still. Listen. Pray - pray radically.

Holy Spirit, if this is right for me, let it become more firmly rooted and established in my life. If this is wrong for me, let it become less important to me, and let it be increasingly removed from my life.

This is a Flora Slosson Wuellner prayer. As she says, don’t pray it unless you mean it. You will get your answer.

Stop. Be Still. Listen. Pray. Wait.

The Truth will come.

God, give me clarity and if I receive clarity may I have courage.

Stop. Be Still. Listen. Pray. Wait.

God, give me clarity and if I receive clarity may I have courage.

Stop. Be Still. Listen. Pray. Wait for the Spirit’s nudge. Move.

The truth came out. Painfully. And I moved.

The Holy Counselor Jesus promised to send did come. She came blowing through the trees, and the stars in the night sky I would lay under. She would show up in strangers at bus stops. The comforter showed up at pulpits and on podcasts. At meetings. Through friends and friends of friends, through professionals. Through classes run by professionals. I asked for help and the help come flooding through the space I created by getting out of the way. Practical, natural resources that had been waiting in the wings for me to LET GO, to surrender, and to make room to move.

I felt a deep joy and relief that I had never experienced before - coupled with a deeply broken and grieving heart, but I did feel strong and rooted in God. I was exhausted and overwhelmingly tired.

When I came down off my cross, when we come down off our crosses, we are tired. We are spent. We’re physically weak. We’re drained. We’ve been hanging up there. We need to go deep. This is grave time. Jesus didn’t go from the cross up to heaven. He came down and he was buried in a tomb. We have from Friday, we have the Sabbath ‘til Sunday morning. We need this time. We need to be in something like the earth that can surround us and give us rest. We need sustenance. Deep, deep rest and renewal. We may need darkness, like being buried in the earth, as much or more than we need light. We need our Sabbath, our Friday and Saturday, before we can climb out of the tomb and fully embrace our lives again. And we need to allow each other to have that time.

It’s o.k. to name that and tend to our own needs. If we want to be at the ropes when the season comes we need to be rested, we need to be centered, and we need to have our eyes on Jesus.

I’d like to end with a Rumi poem. Thank you so much for listening to me and hearing my story today.

Zero Circle

Be helpless, dumbfounded,

Unable to say yes or no

Then a stretcher will come from Grace

to gather us up

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty

If we say we can, we are lying

If we say no, we don’t see it

That no will behead us

And shut tight our window on to Spirit

So let us rather not be sure of anything

Besides [the God that resides within] ourselves and only that so

miraculous beings come running to help

Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute

We shall be saying finally

with tremendous eloquence, lead us

When we have totally surrendered to that beauty

We shall be a mighty kindness.

-Rumi

Amen.