HeartSmart: "Taming the Shrew"

Second in the HeartSmart Series on Relationships

 

HeartSmart: “Taming the Shrew”

(Eph 4:29-31; Ja 1:19) (1/11/15)

INTRODUCTION

Last week we began a new series, “Heartsmart,” about relationships.  Relationships are important to God, with us and among us.  That’s what the biblical story is about, God’s relationship with us, with the community of believers, and a personal relationship through Christ’s incarnation.  Then if you think about Christ’s commandments, they are all about relationship: Love the Lord your God, yes; but love your neighbors as yourself; by this you will be known as my disciples if you have love for one another; in everything, therefore, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Relationship.  Relationship is important to God.  It needs to be important to us.  We need to talk about it.

Last week we began the series with the title, “The Right Person Myth.”  For this series, rather than a short summary in the bulletin each week like I’ve done in the past, I’m printing a few copies of the entire sermon that will be available in the back.  I’m also posting them on line at my blog so that people like Claire and Cody can have access to them.

So last week we said, whether you might be a person looking for a friend, a single looking for a mate, or a married person in a new season of life where things aren’t as you might want them.  Maybe our Prince Charming isn’t; or maybe our Snow White is a little dingy, or maybe we’re different.  In the meantime, in the meantime, instead of frustratingly looking, searching in vain, we are instead to become the person we’re looking for is looking for, becoming the person we want, wants. 

As a Scripture, we used 1 Cor 13 (“If I speak in the tongue of men and of angels and do not have love, do not have charity, do not have agape, I am nothing.”) and said it was never meant to be a wedding scripture but about relationships.  Paul didn’t write it to a married couple, but to a small church.  It is about how we are to treat one another in relationship.  In fact, it’s a checklist on how we can become the person we want wants, the person we’re looking for is looking for.  If fact we created a card with such a checklist.
--Love is patient.  Patience is the theme.  In the meantime, we use the “love” checklist to become the person we want, wants.  We focus on ourselves, not waiting for the other.  We are only in control of ourselves.
--Love is kind.  When we enter the room, do the dogs scurry into the corner, or does the warm-hearted index rise?  Do people smile as the result of our presence?  Do they feel blessed because we are here?  Love is kind.
--Love does not eny, it does not boars, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking.  In other words, love puts the interest of others ahead of self. 
--Get the picture?  Examine yourselves often using love, active, sacrificial love of 1 Cor as a checklist.

Always seek to bless the other person, to be a companion, to be understanding.  One of the primary reasons people desire to be in relationship is to have someone who understands them.  Be that person: Seek to bless, to be a companion, be understanding.

Last week, I used, maybe overused, Rick and Rosemary as an example.  Truth be known, we get along pretty well.  We are not confrontational people.  In fact, if anything, we shy away from confrontation.  We’ve found ways to work things out, to accept things that we can’t change, to be gentle.  I’m happy about that because I don’t like confrontation.

But guess what, we can’t always avoid it can we?  We can’t always avoid confrontation.  In business, I often had to get involved in negotiations.  Stakes can be high, emotions can run high.  In fact, sometimes I thought my job depended on the outcome.  High stakes. 

I can remember times when I had a person on the other side of the table who had little to lose, scream at me, be abusive.  I would feel things welling up inside me, about to explode.  A couple of things I learned

First, extricate yourself.  One person calls this “Go to the balcony.”  If you can’t leave the room physically, do it mentally, extricate yourselves.  Mentally, people might recommend counting to 10 (or maybe a hundred) until you respond.

The second is, and I’ve found this is much better than counting, is to pray for the other person.  It is difficult to get upset with the other person if you are praying for them, asking God’s blessings on them.  Better than counting.

BODY

And we know people who fly off the handle, say things they deeply regret, and after the fact, say that they don’t mean to but time after time they hurt the people they care about the most.

Then there are those who can’t seem to have conversation without their emotions getting in the way and before you know it, someone is out of control.  That is the shrew that is within us.

How did they get that way?  What do we do now?

This is not a new problem.  In Psalm 4, considered a Psalm of David, in other words written a 1000 years before Christ, not a new problem, it says, “When you are disturbed, do not sin; ponder it on your beds, and be silent.”  I would interpret that as saying, “sleep on it.”  “Give it time.”  “Give it thought.”

Good advice for a physical reason.  We were made with this wonderful thing called adrenalin that surges into our system when we are in trouble and causes what we call a “Fight or Flight” reflex.  No time for thought, just respond.  Jump out of the way of the oncoming car.  Or stand your ground, fight or flight. 

No time for thought.  The adrenalin actually shuts down rational thought so we don’t stand there analyzing the oncoming car saying “That sure is a pretty car.”  Without thinking we jump.  We get a command from the back of brain to jump.  Without thought “jump.”

(In one of my many trips to Australia, Rosemary went along on two.  On our first visit, she couldn’t get used to the jet lag and by the fourth day, she still hadn’t slept—a basket case.  Anyway, on the fourth evening we were in Melbourne and a group of us decided to walk across the street from the hotel for dinner.  Rosemary looked, stepped in the street to go across and was immediately greeted by the blaring of a horn.  She ran across six lanes of traffic before anyone could say anything.  What we learned was that the most dangerous thing in Australia was not driving on the wrong side of the road, by looking the wrong way before you stepped off the curb.  The second thing is that adrenalin caused us to jump, in this case across six lanes of traffic.

Likewise when we are threatened by words, and our emotions well up inside us, the adrenalin rush shuts down our thoughts and we speak without thinking, sometimes hurting the people we love the most.

The old adage, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me” is simply not true.  We know that.

And one more thing, every “zinger” can undo 20 acts of kindness or love.  Every zinger!

GOD

It’s not new.  It’s an age old problem, and God has a lot to say about it.

James says, “the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! ⁶ And the tongue is a fire. [He continues] The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature,^[a] and is itself set on fire by hell.^{[b] 7} For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, ⁸ but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰ From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters,^[c] this ought not to be so.”

Then in 1:19, he says, “let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger;

And Paul says in Ephesians, chapter 4: “²⁹ Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up,^[a] as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear…. ³¹ Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, ³² and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.^[b]”

Let no come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up so that your words give grace to those who hear.  Grace.  Let your words bless the other person.  Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God is Christ has forgiven you.  Be imitators of Christ.

CLOSE

So when confrontation occurs if emotions arise, if we feel the shrew emerging within us, how are we to act? 

First, if we have a choice, “Sleep on it.”  If not sleep on it, “Nap on it.”  What I mean by that is take a break, go to the balcony.  The reason is that it takes 20 minutes to get adrenalin under control once that rush occurs.  During that time, rational thought is diminished and we are likely to say those things we regret.

As Psalm 4:4 says, “Sleep on it.”  At least nap on it.

The second rule in taming the shrew within us is to “be quick to listen.”  Listening is the best way to avoid an escalation of a war of words, “Be quick to listen.” 

Psychologists call this “Listen-talk.”  When we respond to another, especially if they are spiraling out of control, by replying not with our rebuttal, that’s what we want to do right, tell ‘em what we think right now, not with our rebuttal, but by conveying what they’ve said, what we’ve heard.  And if what we have heard is emotionally charged, we acknowledge that too.  “You think me spending all weekend with my fantasy football friends is neglecting the kids and you’re angry about it.”  (or hunting, or fishing, or shopping.  You get the picture.)

But it’s not time to state your side of the story until you know your partner or your friend understands that you understand.  One of most infuriating things of all is for the shrew within us to think we’re being ignored or the other party is not listening, or doesn’t understand how important an issue is to us.  We can convey our attention, our understanding with Listen talk.

Steve Covey in “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” said it this way: “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.”  Listen talk does not mean we agree.  It means we understand and is intended to convey that we understand to the other.  Listen-talk avoids criticism and deflects blame, both emotional parts of arguments.  Convey understanding.

It is what James said, “Be quick to listen.”

Then James says, “Be slow to speak.”  Why slow to speak?  We need to take time for our words to be measured, even if the time is only a second or two.  We need to be positive in describing problems and solutions.  We need to minimize blame and criticism.  We can only do that if we are “slow to speak.”

“Look, I recognize that neither of us is spending enough time with the kids.  What if I make sure I spend at least a half day every weekend with the kids.  And what if I pick up the household chores a couple of nights a week so that you can spend more time with the kids, too?”

Measured, slow to speak, positive recognition of the problem and positive in describing solutions.  It’s only possible if we are slow to speak.

Now if he had been even more thoughtful.  He might have added.  “Why don’t we spend time going to church together as a family?”  That would have been thoughtful.  That would have been “slow to speak.” 

James ends with, “Be slow to anger.”  Go to the balcony.  Take a break.  Do not let the “Shrew” within us win.  An emotional response of “I’ll damn well do what I want.  They’re my weekends” said in an angry tone is only going to get a more shrill and emotional retort.  Be slow to anger.  It breaks the escalation of the conversation.

By the way, if you and your partner are prone to escalating arguments, you need to create a house rule, one that says you can stop.  If you feel anger welling up or see it in your partner, you can “stop,” or “I need a nap,” or some agreed to code word that with it promises when things cool down, you’ll get back together and talk calmly about the problem.  Be slow to anger.

Why?  Because God says so.  Lots of reasons, but that may be the best.  God says so.  I love these lines from Ephesians: “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice.”  In other words, “Be slow to anger.”  Then Paul continues: “and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.”  In your conversations, in your problem solving, imitate Christ.  Be kind to one another.

And if you can’t do that take a break.  Call time.  Go to the balcony.  Take a nap.  Sleep on it.

By the way.  Another rule.  While you’re sleeping on it, you can’t be scheming how you are going to get even.  Instead, pray for one another.

WE

We began by saying that relationships are important to God.  So important in fact, Jesus begins and ends his teachings on the Sermon on the Mount giving instruction on relationship. 

Remember, after the beatitudes, Jesus begins his instruction by saying, “You have heard it said of men of old, you shall not murder, but I tell you whoever is angry with his brother or sister….”  Relationships.

Jesus then concludes the Sermon on the Mount by using half of Chapter 7 to give us rules for relationships.

I’m not going to read all 12 verses from Chapter 7, but you are familiar with all the pieces of it.  You may not have put it all together as relationship instruction.

He begins by telling us “Do not judge.”  Important relationship instruction, right?”  And he admonishes us to examine the log in our own eye.  Again, acknowledging that we may not be able to do much about the other person, but we can about ourselves.  “Do not judge.  Why are you critical of the speck in the other person’s eye when you won’t even examine the log in your own.”  Great wisdom for relationships.

The next verse are these strange sayings about not casting your pearls before swine or they’ll just trample them underfoot.  Maybe within the context of today’s message, Jesus is telling us that within the context of a heated, an emotional discussion, even our pearls, our best arguments are going to be rejected, trampled underfoot.  Don’t do that.  You’re just escalating the heat, damaging your relationship.  Instead of casting your pearls before swine, be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.” 

Next in Matthew 7, Jesus gives a short interlude on prayer.  What did we say?  In the midst of heated discussions, pray for one another.  “Ask, seek, find.”  Pray for understanding.  Pray for God’s blessings for the other person.

Then Jesus wraps it all up.  Relationships.  He says, “Therefore in everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you; for this is the law and the prophets.” 

And what do we want in our relationships?  We want to be blessed, we want to be understood, we want companionship.

How do we tame the shrew that is in us?  Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.  Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.  Treat others as we would like to be treated.  The very core of Jesus’ teaching is about relationships.  So may it be in all of our lives.  Amen.

HeartSmart: "The Right Person Myth"

First in the sermon series, "HeartSmart," Prairie Chapel UMC

(Ge 2:8;21-25; 1 Cor 13:4-8a NIV) (1/4/15)

INTRO

This year will mark our 55^th Wedding Anniversary.  I can remember our first kiss.  We were 14, freshmen in high school.  We went to the movies together.  First date?  Not sure.  Rosemary was staying at a friend’s house about a block from the movie theater.  In Burke, most places weren’t much more than a block apart.  I lived three blocks from the movie theater.

Anyway, it was a cold January night.  Clear sky.  Moonless night.  I’m guessing it was 10 below, the kind of night where the snow squeaks beneath your shoes when you walk.

I walked Rosemary to Barbara’s house and we kissed on the front step.  At least I kissed, I’m not sure what she did.  I ran all the way home!

That was 60 years ago, this month.  60 years ago.  I’m sure that along the way, Rosemary and I believed that we were just the right person for one another.

But do you know how much we’ve changed over those 60 years?  How many different people we have been?

Rosemary was a student, a telephone operator, a secretary with great responsibility, a mother, an Army wife, a wife and mother waiting for the husband/father to return from war (that was a life in itself), a mother grieving a lost son (another life), a person entering new seasons, a person at times wondering who the “hell” I was, a grandmother, a preacher’s wife (a good one I might add).

And me: a student (a couple of different times), a starving lieutenant, a pilot, a warrior, a returning soldier (and I would have to say a difficult one.  I came home a different person each time.  Difficult, especially after Korea.), a hobbiest, passionate about hobbies: photography, a golf nut, a grieving father (much different than the grieving mother I described, yet we clinged to one another as we both dealt with our grief), an executive with a major corporation with the demands that that brings, a small business owner with different demands, a grandfather, a religious nut. 

One of the myths of our society, I suppose fostered by the Prince Charming, Snow White fantasies (“Someday my Prince will come”) is “If I could only find the right person, if I could only meet, bump into, marry the right person everything would be alright.  We would live happily ever after.”  Right?

So, which one of these Rosemarys I’ve described in the right person for me? 

Which one of these Ricks is the right person for her?  Which, if ever, was Rosemary’s Prince Charming?  And if there ever was a day or a time that I was, the next day or the next season I was definitely not.

By the way, there was a time when our marriage was nearly perfect.  Rosemary was the perfect princess.  It was in flight school and the flight surgeon gathered all of the student’s wives together and told them if we didn’t get a good breakfast we would have low blood sugar and probably crash and die.  Rosemary fixed me breakfast every morning!  Perfect.  Until she figured out that the flight surgeon was a chauvinist and besides, I could get breakfast at the flightline if I’d just leave a little earlier.  But for a while, it was perfect.

By the way, this idea of change, that the right person is a myth, also applies to our other relationships: our friendships, our siblings, our families.  And you that your brothers, sisters, in-laws, whatever are not always the right person, but you’re stuck with them anyway.  Whether arrogant, rude or redneck, you’re stuck with them anyway, right person or not!

So if the right person is a myth, how is it that we learn to be in relationship?  Society must prepare us right?  We have 12 or 16 years of education, the schools must teach us right?  If we are going to get a driver’s license we have classes to take, tests to pass.  If we are going to buy a gun, we have fire arms safety classes we have to take.  Society must prepare us for relationships.  No?

If we’re of age, all we do is go to the courthouse and plunk down a few dollars and buy a marriage certificate.  I guess the test is the ability to find the courthouse and the church or the justice of peace.

So, how is it we learn to be spouses?  From our parents.  But in this day and age, the probability is that at least one of the people in the marriage will be coming from a home in which the parents are divorced, maybe not so amicably.  What do we learn from that?

Friendships are the same way.  As children we form our friendships and make our enemies on the playgrounds apart from parents and teachers.  We do it by trial and error.  And we learn to shed friends when they aren’t the right person.  And in 40 percent of our marriages, we do the same.  Forty percent, two in five.

We need models for our marriages.  What does an ideal marriage look like?  A story: An elderly married couple, golden years climbs into bed together.  The wife says, “Honey, when we were younger, you used to lay a little closer.”  So he sidles over a little bit.  In a while, the wife says, “Honey when we were younger, you used to hold my hand.”  So he reaches over, finds her hand, intertwines his fingers.  Then she says, “Honey, when we were younger, you used to nibble on my ear.”
With that, the husband throws of the covers, heads out the door of the bedroom and down the hall.  Dismayed the wife calls out, “Honey, where are you going?”  To which he replies, “I’m going to kitchen to get my teeth.”

Maybe the example of married we are looking for is one in which a spouse will get out of a warm bed, into the cold of the house and go to the kitchen to get his teeth simply so that he can bless the other one with no reward to himself.  Maybe that’s what a relationship looks like.

So maybe before we go further I can give you the definition of what a Godly relationship, whether marriage or friendship looks like: A Godly relationship is one in which the partners seek to bless one another and be a companion to one another. And guess what, they do it through thick and thin.

I say Godly relationship.  Relationships are part of God’s plan.  Marriage was God’s big idea.  So big, so important, relationships and marriage show up in the creation narrative, the first three chapters of the bible. 

Creative narratives, creations stories.  You know there are two of them from two different God-believing communities of faith, maybe stories from as much as four centuries apart.  We know them both.
--In the first, God creates the world in seven days.  Each day he looks on his creation and calls it good.  On the sixth day he creates male and female together and says it is good, very good.
--The second story begins in chapter two.  It is the story of Eden.  God creates man and places him in the garden.  It doesn’t take long for God to see what he had declared good was not so good after all and he says so: “It is not good for man to be alone.”
--God says, “I know what I will do, I will create a helper that is suitable for him.”  Helper that is suitable.  Suitable, suitable.  Keep that in mind.  It will become a word that is both wonderful and maddening at the same time.  “I know what I will do, I’ll create a helpmate that is suitable for him.”

So the story goes, God puts Adam into a deep sleep and takes a rib from his side, so made from the very same stuff, God creates woman.  And Adam is amazed.  He says, “At last, at last, this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.”  And in the next breath, God creates marriage: Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.  And the man and the wife were both naked and they were not afraid.”  (Ge 2:24-25)

A helper that is suitable.  By the way, helper in no way is intended to be subordinate too.  The same Hebrew word is used in other places with God as helper.  Definitely not subordinate.  But it’s this word “suitable” that I’m interested in.  Suitable does not mean the same.  Suitable does not mean the same.  In fact, one Hebrew definition means that it is opposite.  A helpmate that is opposite.  Not opposite in a bad way but in a good way.  A helpmate that is opposite in a good way.  If that is true, can you see why our spouses, our helpers can be maddening at times, frustrating at times?  And why we may think they are not always the right person?

Doesn’t sound like God’s big idea was so big after all does it?  If we’re not supposed to be looking for the right person, what are we to do? 

If we’re a single hoping for a spouse?  What?  Or married seemingly in a different season of life than our spouse?  What?  Or family, or lonely, or looking for a friend?  You hear that often in kids don’t you, but in adults too, “I don’t have any friends.”  People just hoping that someone will enter their lives.  What are we supposed to do?

If the right person to do that is a myth, what are we to do?  According to one of my gurus, Andy Stanley, what you are to do while you are waiting, instead of waiting for the right person to come along, what you are to do is “Become the person you are looking for is looking for.”
Instead of searching for the right person, become the person you are looking for is looking for.  The… person… you… are… looking for…. Is looking for.

In my wedding sermons, I turn this around a little bit.  So Sandra and Darwin, you’ll hear this again.  I start with definitions of success and happiness.  We all want successful marriages right?  We all want happy marriages, right?
The definition of success is “Getting what you want.”  Sounds right.  “Success is getting what you want.”
Happiness, the definition of happiness is “Wanting what you get.”  “Wanting what you get.”

Which of those Ricks did Rosemary want?  Which season of life?  Some, many, but others maybe not so much.
--Now for Rosemary, if the Rick she got at that point, was not the one she wanted, she may not have been able to do much about Rick.  That was the one Rick she had for that time.
--But there was something she could do in the meantime.  She could become the person she wants, wants.  In fact, it’s something she wants to do all the time, knowing that our lives from time to time are going to be out of sync.  In the meantime, all the time, we strive to become the person we want, wants.  And when we strive to do this, we influence the other person, too.

GOD

So how is it we become the person we want, wants?  The person we’re looking for is looking for?  We begin by looking at the foundational ideas of our faith.  We are to love one another.  And this is whether the context is family or friendship or marriage. 

Long before the gospels were written to give voice to Jesus’ words, Paul and James in their letters were saying that the whole law (James called it the royal law) can be summed up in love your neighbor as yourself.

The Greek word they use is agape, an active, sacrificial love that expects nothing in return.  Just as we defined marriage, an active love that seeks to bless the other person.  In those things you think, say, or do in your relationship with another seek to bless them. 

Agape is the word used in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, the words that are often called the love chapter.  Agape.  The King James Version translated it as “Charity”  “If I speak in the tongues of men and angels and have not charity.”  We can be great, we can seem to do all things, but if we do not seek to bless others, we are nothing.

Agape.  By the way, the love chapter was never intended to be a wedding scripture.  It was intended for all relationships.  It was talking about how we are to treat one another in community.  It was about friendships.  Of course it is about partners too.

So what does it tell us?  Reading from the NIV translation, First Corinthians 13 verses 4 to 8:  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  ⁸ Love never fails.

Love is patient.  Love involves waiting.  What do we do in the meantime?  We seek to become the person we want, wants.  Love is patient.

Love is kind.  I looked up the definition of kind: “Having a friendly, generous, warm-hearted, sympathetic, agreeable, beneficial nature.”  I would add, one that seeks to bless the other.  When you come into the room, when you come into the presence of your friends or your beloved, do dogs scurry into corners, or does the warm-hearted index rise?  That’s what we want: When we come into the presence of our friends or beloved, we want the “warm-hearted” index to rise.  We are going to have a lot more to say about kindness in the fifth message of the series.  I would suggest the most important of the six messages.  A message about kindness.

“It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking.”  It puts the interest of the other above his or herself. 

”it is not easily angered,”  We’re going to talk more about this next week.

“it keeps no record of wrongs.”  Forgiveness is essential in relationships.  If we are going to become the person we want, wants, that includes forgiveness.  “Forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.

^“6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  ⁸ Love never fails”  Love wants the best for the other.

CLOSE

There’s a lot of grist here.  But here’s the deal: This is how you become the person you’re looking for is looking for, the person you want, wants.

And you become that person now, not waiting until the next person or the next season or life shows up, comes along side.  You begin now.

There’s a story of a girl brought up in a good Christian home that went off to college and slipped into a routine of frequenting singles bars and hooking up on a frequent basis and then one night encountered Mr. Right at a social gathering.  She told her mother about him and mother was aware of her daughter’s side from virtue.  The daughter told of Mr. Right as being a person of good Christian values who just glowed, said and did all the right things.  The mother said, “O honey, a guy like that probably isn’t going to want a girl like you.”  At that point she resolved to become the person she was looking for is looking for.  Beginning now.  Waiting until the next time is too late.  Now.

Likewise, waiting until we hit a rough patch or our relationships are going well is not the time to begin.  Don’t wait to become patient, or kind, to be trusting, or protecting or persevering.  Now is the time to become the person you want, wants.

To help you, I’ve given you a card with this passage on it.  Use it as a checklist.  Keep it in a purse, fold it and keep in your wallet, make a tent out of it and keep it on your desk.  But use it!  The other side is for a later session but you can peek at it.  Use the card.  Start becoming the person you want, wants, now.  Look at it daily, evaluate it daily

Love, agape.  What we’re talking about is how we become a loving person.  In all relationships, but especially in marriage, what does agape look like?

When Rosemary and I moved to Columbia, we met a couple at church, Rev. Bob and Marie Treece.  Bob had taught seminary at Boston University and he was my Sunday School teacher at Fairview.  Marie was beginning to show signs of dementia and problematic.  She often walked away from home and her Alzheimer’s was not pleasant.  In a few years, Bob, now eighty himself had to put Marie in a care facility.  Bob’s love never failed.  Even though Marie had nothing to give in return, Bob spent every day with her, at least four hours every day, and every day he would tell her the stories of their life together.  Being her companion, striving to bless her in anyway he could.

After three years, Marie passed away.  What Bob was doing in the fading years of Marie’s life was jumping out of an otherwise warm bed and heading to the kitchen each day to get his teeth in order to do anything he could to bless her.

That was agape.  That was what it means to bless another, to be their companion “in sickness or in health, as long as we both shall live.”

A few months after Marie passed away, Rosemary and I were eating at Panera’s and noticed Bob and a widow from church in the Target wing of the mall.  Octogenarians both.

Adelene was a pastor’s widow, delightful, delightful person.  As we observed Bob and Adelene talking we saw Adelene pick some lint off Bob’s sweater.  We said, is there something going on here? 

A year or so later, there was a wedding at the church.  It was the happiest wedding I’ve ever seen.  All of the families, including Marie’s were delighted.  The whole congregation was excited.  These were two people everybody loved.  Everyone was excited about them being together, able to bless one another, to be companions of one another together.

And as I put together this message, I came to understand why.  Bob and Adelene had spent their entire lives becoming the person they want, wants.  Amen.

Veteran's Day Sunday 2014: "Unbroken"

 

(Mt 5:43-45a; Col 3:13b) (11/9/14)

A.    INTRODUCTION

1.      I grew up in a family of veterans, in a town of veterans.  I can remember standing in the back of my Grandpa’s shop listening to the conversations.  That day it was whether or not they were going to be subject to the draft for the Korean War.  One of them, the town trucker had been in the Battle of the Bulge.  He was one of the town characters and the war stories about him were amazing.  Another, the editor of the local paper had been a POW in Germany for three years.  My uncle Dean had been a navigator on a B-29 in the Pacific.  His plane had been hit over Japan and had lost all of electrical systems, all of his navigation systems.  Using celestial bodies he navigated the plane back to the island of Tinian.  That was like navigating from South Dakota to Dallas, TX and finding an island the size of Dallas Love Field with ocean around it as far as the eye could see.  Until recently, I never understood how big a deal that was or how many planes in the Pacific took off and were simply never heard from again because of poor radios, or unreliable planes, or navigations systems that weren’t up navigating hundreds of miles over water with absolutely no reference to anything.  Just water. 

2.      The town appreciated its veterans.  Veteran’s Day was a big deal.

3.      Our last trip to South Dakota, Rosemary’s younger sister, Virginia, a big reader, had two books for me as a gift.  She’s big about buying used books off the internet and she’s a WWII buff.  One of the books had been on the top of my reading list for some time, but I had kept buying others instead of getting to it.  Its title was “Unbroken” and maybe it is the most unforgettable story of WWII and of veterans ever.  Ever.

4.      And I guess I never appreciated the brutality of the war, especially the war in the Pacific.  In the Pacific, of the Allied POWs held by the Japanese, 132,000 of them, one-quarter of them died in captivity.  They were especially hard on Americans.  Thirty-seven percent of the Americans held in Japanese Prisoner of War camps died.
Unbroken is one man’s story.

B.     THE MOVIE

1.      On Christmas Day, you’ll have a chance to see a movie released in theaters, “Unbroken,” directed by Angelina Jolie.  Angelina Jolie doesn’t taken on minor projects.  This is a movie of significance.  This will be a significant movie.  But what I want to tell you is not the story of the movie, but as Paul Harvey used to say, “The rest of the story.” 

2.      But the rest of the story does need some introduction.  I’m going to show you the movie trailer and even that needs some introduction so that you can understand what you are seeing. 

a.       This is the story of Louie Zamperini, an Italian American boy from a good Catholic family and whose mother’s prayers sustained him.

b.      He grew up in California and he probably had ADHD, unknown at that time.  He was always in trouble until his big brother, Pete, channeled his energies into running.

c.       In his senior year in high school he ran the fastest high school mile in the world.

d.      By the age of 19 he tied the American record holder in the 5000 meter race and qualified for the 1936 Berlin Olympics where he led all Americans and ran the last quarter mile in 56 seconds to finish seventh.  Hitler shook his hand and called him the fast finisher.

e.       His dream was to be the gold medalist in the 1940 Olympics that was to be in Tokyo, Japan.  It wasn’t to be.

3.      Louie Zamperini became a B-24 bombardier in the Pacific.  When he and his crew were on a search mission for another crew that had been lost at sea, their B-24 lost two engines and they were lost at sea as well.

4.      Three of them survived the crash.  They drifted for 47 days starting with a few chocolate bars and six pints of water.  Forty Seven Days!

                               a.      They learned that if they pulled a tarp over them, that albatross would land on them, and if they were quick they could reach us and grab their legs.  These birds were scavengers and they were putrid. 

                              b.      Louie also though that maybe he could catch one of the small sharks that circled the raft.  The first time he tried, it pulled him into the water.  When it turned back on him, he slammed his hand into its nose and scrambled back into the raft.  He tried a smaller one and this time he immediately pulled the shark’s tail out of the water and pulled it into the boat.  Supposedly, the only part of value was its liver and they used the rest of the carcass as bait.

                               c.      Forty seven days!  At one point they went seven days between rains and drinks of water.

5.      In forty seven days they had drifted 2000 miles and washed up on a Pacific island only to become Japanese Prisoners of War.  Thus started a grueling three years of continuous brutality.

6.      So here’s the clip, the trailer of the movie. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8mBzKLhL0U)

7.      I don’t know how the movie will be able to portray the brutality they experienced.  They sometimes existed on no food or two or three cups of seaweed a day.  In their final POW camp which was in Northern Japan, they were slaves in either coal mines or salt mines and beaten everyday, most frequently by a monster the POWs called “The Bird.”

C.     THE REST OF THE STORY

1.      Now the rest of the story.  Louie will tell you that all this time that he was sustained by his Mother’s prayers and by angels, spirits of divine service (Hebrews 1:14) that had protected him.  Although he didn’t recognize it at the time, there were miracles that occurred at his darkest hours that saved him.

2.      Even though the war was over, it wasn’t over for Louie. 

                               a.      Here he was a celebrity, an Olympic athlete that had endured.  He was a hero.  He even captivated and married the girl of his dreams over her parent’s objections.

                              b.      A hero, but he was haunted every night by unbelievable nightmares.  “The Bird” beat him unmercifully in his dreams.  He couldn’t get away from him.  He wanted to choke him.  Revenge became an obsession for him.

                               c.      His only escape was the bottle.  For four years he drowned his dreams.  But of course he couldn’t.  He decided his only hope was to return to Japan and find and kill “The Bird.”

                              d.      By the fourth year he had lost everything.  One night lying in bed beside his wife who was now nine month’s pregnant, he experienced a terrible nightmare and awoke to find himself choking his wife and her screaming at him.

                               e.      After the baby was born, she left him in California and returned to her parents in Florida.

3.      Later that year, she came back to Los Angeles to divorce him.  Cynthia and Louie were in the hall of their apartment building when they bumped into a new couple and began a conversation that was pleasant until the couple mentioned that there was a revival in town.  A young preacher by the name of Billy Graham was launching his first extended crusade.  It was 1949 and Billy was just beginning his ministry.  (It was the 1949 Greater Los Angeles Revival that defined Billy Graham as an evangelist) Louie didn’t want to hear anything of it and turned and left.

                               a.      Cynthia came back to the apartment and asked Louie to take her that night.  He refused.  She said, then I’m going alone.  That’s alright, he had drinking to do.

                              b.      Cynthia came back on fire.  She wasn’t going to divorce him.  Louie was elated until he realized she had had a religious awakening and that turned him sour.  Cynthia wanted him to go with her.  She begged him for a week.  He finally relented.

4.      That night Billy talked about the woman brought to Jesus who had been caught in adultery and Jesus kneeling and writing in the sand.  What did they see him write?  Could it have been their life story?  Billy said, “God takes in everything about your life from the day you are born until the day you die.  And when you stand before God on that judgment day, they are going to pull down the screen and run the movie that will include everything you did, everything you said, everything you thought.  You are going to say, ‘I was a good man’ but your own deeds, your own words, your own thoughts are going to condemn you.  And he is going to say, ‘depart from me.’”  Billy told of hell and salvation.  And he said, “Tonight there is a drowning man, a drowning woman, a drowning boy, a drowning girl that is out lost in the sea of life.”
Louie knew he was talking about him but he wouldn’t accept it.  He became angry and grabbed Cynthia’s arm and bolted for the door.
That night he experienced the nightmares again.  Bird had taken off his belt striking him alongside his head with his buckle.  He was looking at the face of the Devil.

5.      Cynthia spend all the next day begging Louie to go back to hear Billy Graham one more time.  All day.  Finally he gave in. That night in the tent, Billy talked about suffering, why is it that good people suffer?  He began his answer by pointing to the stars.  “When I look at the stars in this California sky, I see the footprints of God.  I think to myself, that God, my Father, has hung them there and holds them there with the omnipotent power of his hand.  Even though he runs the whole universe, he is not too busy to count the hairs on my head or to see the sparrow when it falls because God is interested in me.” 
Billy went on talking of the miracle and intangible blessings that we all experience in our lives.  He said, “If you suffer, he will give the strength to go forward.”

                               a.      Louie found himself thinking of all the unexplained things that had sustained him through those three years that could only be explained in the impossible was possible.  But he couldn’t accept it.  Billy said, “All he requires of you is faith.”

                              b.      Louie bolted for the exit.  As he got to the end of the row, everything around him disappeared.  In his mind, he was back in the raft, in the middle of the ocean, endless ocean with his buddy Phil curled up beside him.  Louie was dying of thirst.  His lips were parched.  Then he remembered a promise he had made in the form of a prayer.  A prayer and a promise he had forced out of his mind until that moment.  He had told God, “If you will save me, I will serve you forever.”  If you save me, I will serve you forever.

                               c.      He was at the end of the row, but instead of turning left to the exit, he turned right and went forward to the call that God was making through Billy Graham.  Billy said, “This is it.  God has spoken to you.”

6.      When Louie got home that night, he went to the liquor cabinet, picked up all the bottles and poured him down the sink.  He took his cigarettes and dumped them in the garbage.  That night Louie slept.  He awoke in the morning cleansed.  Bird had not entered his dreams that night and he never would again.

7.      That day, Louie dug out a Bible and went to the park and sat reading it.  Softly he wept.  Louie Zamperini was a new creation in Christ Jesus.  A new creation.  As a new creation, he would never again have the feeling of revenge of retribution.  They had left him forever.  “But I say to you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.”  It was 1949.  From that day forward, that verse would define his life.

8.      In 1950, he returned to Japan and went to the prison where all of the camp guards were imprisoned, 850 of them.  He stood before them and forgave them.  Then he asked his guide if he could see those from the three camps where he had been imprisoned, those who had guarded him.  He forgave them.  Each one of them.  Each one of them individually.  “Forgive one another, as God is Christ has forgiven you.  So you must also forgive.”  Only “The Bird” wasn’t there.  No one knew where he was.  Some thought he was dead.

9.      In 1954, Louie opened a camp for Juvenile boys, Victory Boys Camp.  He had scraped every dollar together that he could and built most of the camp himself.  That camp became his life’s work.  He showed the boys his love of the outdoors, he opened up life for them, showed what they could become.  Of course, too, he added a mild dose of Christianity.  He also managed the senior center at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, and of course traveled telling his story and the Good News of Jesus Christ.

                               a.      He was never able to race again.  One of his ankles had been badly injured during his internment.  But he carried the torch in five different Olympic Games, the last when he was 80 years old.  The Olympics were in Nagano Japan and the torch route when right by the last prison camp Naoetsu in which Louis was imprisoned.  Louie carried the torch past the camp joyfully.

                              b.      CBS who was doing the television coverage and a special on Louie Zamperini had found “The Bird” and interviewed him, unrepentant until that day.  They asked if he would meet with Louie.  He refused.  Louie had written him a letter of forgiveness, the closing saying, “I forgive you, and would also hope that you would now become a Christian.”

                               c.      Louie passed away this past July 2^nd at the age of 97 in the midst of the making of the movie.

D.    CLOSE

1.      This week we pause to celebrate Veteran’s Day.  The government website tells us “It’s a celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and to sacrifice for the common good.”

2.      No story tells us of the sacrifice and service like this one.  I for one am going to see the movie during the holiday season.

3.      But the rest of the story tells us so much more:

                               a.      God can take our brokenness and make of us new creations.  Of that the story assures us.

                              b.      God can take our bitterness and anger and hatred seemingly justified by man’s inhumanity to man.  He can take that away and replace it with love of enemies.  “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.” 

                               c.      God can take the need for revenge and retribution and replace it with forgiveness.  “Forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven you so you must also forgive.”

                              d.      And in so doing, God can place joy and hope in our lives that will carry us the rest of our days.

4.      As we remember our veterans this week, let us remember the God of all veterans and all peoples everywhere.  God the giver of faith.  The giver of hope.  The giver of forgiveness.  The giver of love.  Amen.