Sermon at St. Thomas, by Lynn E. Cunningham, May 6, 2007. Easter 5. John 13:31-35.
Dubois has a well deserved reputation as a helping community. Sometimes people here have real trouble asking for help. I want to talk today about learning better how to seek help, and, just as importantly, how to accept help when it is given.
1. A man in Dubois called me a couple of weeks ago and he actually asked me for some help. He is a middle aged, working man, who had actually screwed up his courage enough to call me and ask for financial assistance. I had known him in various settings. He is a good perspn. But I was quietly amazed that he had the courage to call me, and actually lay things on the line and say that he needed help. His request was entirely legitimate.
2. But a part of me thought, wait a minute here, this is a man!
a. This is a DUBOIS man, actually asking for some help.
b. This goes against the prevailing myth that very often men do not ask for help in Dubois, unless it is from close friends, and then usually the help requested is to get somebody to bring a truck to tow them out of a mud hole, or something.
c. Otherwise many men here tend to just tough out the pain, whatever it is. Or that is the myth.
3. Men here like to think of themselves as tough and independent. Men do not like to go to doctors for medical help. Too often men do not want to go to church and ask for the Lord’s help. If man falls off a horse at the rodeo, and smashes a shoulder, he assumes he is going to get right back on for the next ride.
4. Actually, it is not just the men. Women here and elsewhere have the reputation to want just to tough it out too, like staying with abusive men until well past the time to seek help and get out of a bad relationship.
5. Knowing when help is needed, being able to ask for help, and then, being able to accept help, are three Christian spiritual practices worth paying careful attention to.
6. Naturally, the easiest thing is to see the practices missing in other people. The past three weeks, I have witnessed five or six situations where major health crises or even deaths have occurred, including my own elder brother’s health crisis. In almost every situation, I heard remarks from family members and friends to the effect that, if this person had accepted help, with living a more healthy life style, they would not have suffered this illness or this death. I always heard judgment voiced by people around them. And in my own head as well. If only the sick person had sought and accepted help sooner, maybe this crisis would not have happened, has often been one of the messages.
7. As if to say, tragedy would not happen if we all lived perfect lives. Which is impossible. Tragedies happen regardless of the life a person lives.
8. But the fact that tragedies happen regardless of the kind of life a person lives, still leaves the issue, how and when to seek and accept help when needed? How to hear and act on good guidance when offered?
9. Listen again to this fascinating story about someone who chose to refuse, over and over again, help offered them. You have all heard variations of the story of the family who lived on the flood plain of the Mississippi River. A storm and enormous flooding were forecast and the radio broadcast a warning to all citizens on the flood plain to evacuate their homes and move to higher ground. One family decided to stay put, and the man, the head of the house, justified staying put by saying, “the Lord will provide and protect us from this flood.”
10. Later the police stopped by all the houses on the flood plain and ordered everyone to move to higher ground. Again the man refused, and said that the Lord would provide!
11. The flood waters came up covering the front porch of the house, and a boat came by to rescue stragglers. Again the man and his family refused help.
12. The river kept on rising and the family climbed on the roof to stay alive. A national guard helicopter appeared, hovered over the rooftop, and offered a rope ladder for the family to climb up to get away. But again they refused, because they were convinced that the Lord would provide, and rescue them.
13. Well, the family all were drowned and the next thing they knew they had arrived at the pearly gates. The man was angry. He said to St. Peter, St. Peter, what happened? Why didn’t the Lord provide for our protection and safety? How could God let us drown like that? Why didn’t the Lord save us?
14. And you all probably know what St. Peter replied. What more could the Lord do? A broadcast came by radio warning all to evacuate, a police car came by to alert you, a boat to rescue you, and then a helicopter? You refused offers of help over and over again! What more could the good Lord do to rescue you and your family?
15. The man was chagrined, perhaps like the rich man in Luke’s story of the rich man and Lazarus, who also had been warned while he was alive.
16. The man and his family knew how to ask for help, but they did not know how to accept help when it was offered.
17. The man allowed his love of the Lord to feed his fear of being too dependent on mere human beings. He overlooked the fact that the Lord often acts through other people.
18. The man in the story is not unusual. A therapist recently said that two different fundamental fears operate in most people.
a. The first is the fear of being separated from other people. Fear of being cut off from the herd. Cut off from the community. Fear of isolation. Almost everyone is afraid of being left fundamentally alone.
b. The second is the fear of being absorbed by the other. Fear of loss of oneself. Fear that some one else will be so dominating that our own personality will get lost in the other person.
c. Fear of being cut off, and fear of being absorbed. Two opposite, but equally powerful, fears operating in most people.
19. Seeking help and being willing to accept it mean grappling with both fears. Seeking and accepting help that is desperately needed means, usually, overcoming both fears. If help is denied, a person can feel cut off from those around him. And if help is given and accepted, some degree of independence is lost, as the family in the flood story feared. Seeking and accepting help can mean giving up part of a person’s sense of personal control. Spiritual practices require facing such a challenge.
20. Sometimes I wonder, How do my own versions of these two complementary fears act to block my seeking and accepting help that I truly need? I can think of several ways.
a. Are there ways where you might be missing the boat as well?
21. I said that knowing when to seek help, actually going out and seeking it, and then actually accepting it when offered are Christian spiritual practices because they challenge us to seek the Lord both in our fears and in what other people offer to us.
22. Jesus in John’s Gospel gives a new commandment to love one another. He says that his followers will be known because of their love for one another.
23. Why is this love so important in the practice of asking for help? Because love conquers all things, as St. Paul says. Love conquers all fears, including both the fear of being cut off, and the complementary fear of being absorbed in the other.
24. As you ponder whether you might need help in a particular situation, and whether you can bear to accept it, Come to Jesus! Jesus invites you to let your spirit dwell in God’s love for you, and to open yourself up to the gentle guidance that God offers with that love. As you wrestle with what to do with your needs, known and unknown, come to Jesus! Learn better to rest in the abiding love of God. Come to Jesus, and let go of the fears and accept help that is offered. It is almost certainly the Lord who has sent that help for you.
25. In Jesus name, Amen.