Rev. Dr. Kathy Fuson Hurt

FBC, September 21, 2008

Scripture: Romans 12:1-13

 

 

            For a long time he looked at her in wonder, then he bent over and gave her a kiss. She opened her eyes and smiled. Then she sat up, quite awake. He gave her his hand and she stood up. Together they went down the narrow, winding staircase, along the corridors, down the main staircase, and into the Great Hall.

           

            At that moment, the King and Queen awoke from their sleep. They were overjoyed to see their daughter awake and well, and they welcomed the Prince who had broken the spell. Then the lords and ladies in the great hall awakened, and the whole palace began to stir. In the kitchen, the fire began to burn and the meat began to cook. The maid began to pluck the chicken. The scullery boy ran off before the cook could box his ears. In the courtyard, the dogs awakened and began to bark. In the stables, the horses stirred, and the pigeons on the roof awakened and flew away. Around the palace, the high hedge vanished.

 

            The palace had come to life again after its sleep of one hundred years. Everyone in the palace was both astonished and delighted. And a wonderful wedding feast was prepared.

 

            It is, of course, the climax of the tale of Sleeping Beauty, when the long-awaited Prince comes and, with his kiss, breaks the spell which has kept everyone asleep for so long. For one hundred years, the entire palace, including animals and insects, had been spellbound.

 

            Spellbound, the baby sucks her thumb and watches the patterns on the wall cast by mid-morning sun and leaves. Children play around her, and her mother tries to catch her attention with a toy. But she is oblivious to everything save the shifting light.

 

            Spellbound, the boy watches a fast-breaking game of basketball. He would like to play himself, but he remembers the voices of parents and peers and teachers that have told him he is clumsy and slow. So he watches instead, unable to participate even when a replacement player is needed.

 

            Spellbound, the teenager dreams of prom. Visions of flowers and formal wear and high romance dance through her head. But her parents have forbidden her to go, because she is too young and boys are unpredictable and proms are expensive and grades are the most important concern. She dreams on.

 

            Spellbound, he orders another drink. Too many drinks already, always too many drinks, but he craves the wonderful release drinking brings. Drink transforms his inadequacy and loneliness into a far-distant memory, and replaces them with relaxation and peace. Willingly, he surrenders to the spell.

           

            Spellbound, the nation gears up to vote a new president into office, along with senators, representatives, governors, legislators. Times are hard, anxiety is high, war seems endless, and the people want a new message and new leadership. But anyone who tells hard truths or calls for sacrifices loses in the primaries, runs behind in the polls, while the same spin, the same empty promise of change without sacrifice looks to win. Spellbound, the country votes to continue its same path of destruction.

 

            Spellbound, the congregation contemplates its future. The path should be clear, but their attention is always being caught by old struggles, old fears, memories of all they did before. The images of what they might become are alluring. But the congregation is lured more by the comforts of familiar ways, an easier existence that comes with staying the same, doing the same, giving no thought for the future.

           

            Spellbound: that strange, troubling condition wherein the usual and desirable movements of life are arrested, held captive by a powerful force. Spells were once the common stuff of fairy tales and myths: lovely heroines and handsome heroes forever seemed to be falling under a spell, with their life’s progress halted for an indeterminate time. But spells are also the common stuff of everyday, flesh-and-blood modern existence; all about us, perhaps even including us, walk people whose lives are halted, derailed, caught in one phase long past the time they should have moved on. Once spellbound, we can no longer direct our destiny freely. Instead, we answer to the force which holds us captive, do its bidding, until we are set free—or we die.

 

            Can you go about as you please, doing whatever appeals to you—or do you bump against restrictions every time you turn around? Has your life moved through the usual stages of development—or are you stuck somewhere along the way, unable to finish one life task and move on, broaden out, to the next one? Do your direct your destiny, make the decisions—or do you feel helpless, victimized, excuse yourself with such disclaimers as “I can’t,” “I’m not free to,” “I have no choice,” “I’m too busy,” “It’s not possible”?

At this church, are you welcome to propose new ideas, try out different ways of doing things, explore alternate perspectives and beliefs—or do you find yourself stymied, ignored, dismissed with such pseudo-explanations as “that will never fly around here,” or “we can’t ask people to do that,” or “they will get mad” or “it’s too expensive” or “that didn’t work last time” or “if you do that, if you don’t do this, if you say that, if you try this, then I’m leaving the church and going elsewhere”? Are you free, or are you under a spell cast by some wicked witch or angry magician or unknown and fearsome force?

           

            The Christian church has a long and often dark history of struggle around its relationship with what is usually termed “the world,” namely anything and anyone that does not fall under the umbrella of the church and its tradition. Early on a dualistic kind of thinking seems to have appeared that set the church over and against the world, with Christians alternately urged to withdraw from the world and have nothing to do with it by living in communities and adopting lifestyles that deliberately went against worldly ways, or else to see the world as a sinful place in need of conversion and conquest. Much evil resulted from this dualistic view of church and world, with cultures sometimes being incorporated wholesale into the Christian tradition without regard for their unique elements, other times written off as worthless and beyond hope.

 

            But the liberal strand of the Christian tradition was never entirely taken over by such dualistic thinking, so that liberal elements in the church always sought some sort of accommodation with the world, viewing it as having much that was desirable, trying to figure out how best to shape the church and its views so that it would be regarded as friendly by the world, and vice versa. While this relationship with the world was much to be preferred over the hostile relationship the church often had with the world, it was still lacking in that it tended to be without meaningful boundaries, sometimes becoming indistinguishable from the world. Liberal churches of all types have seen their numbers and influence decline dramatically in the last forty years, and repeatedly a primary reason for that decline is identified as a lack of spirituality, of theological significance, of being too much like the rest of the culture. The liberal church let the world set its agenda, and in so doing became co-opted by the world.

           

            Which may not sound like such a big deal, except that in the process of accommodating itself to the world the church lost its prophetic power—or, in fairy tale terms, it became spellbound, powerless to act as an agent of change. Such a dilemma is the concern Paul addresses in his letter to the Romans. He warns church members to be wary of adopting worldly ways, of being “conformed” to the world, because in so doing they will lose the ability to discern God’s will. When the world is the focus rather than God, it becomes impossible to see where God is leading since all eyes are on things of the world. For transformation to happen, as Paul characterizes it, wherein one is able to discern the movements of the spirit and respond to them, for a spell to be broken, some degree of separation and distinction from the world is needed.

 

            If we read Paul’s advice about not conforming to the world less literally and more symbolically, so that “world” becomes whatever authority that is experienced outside oneself, then the advice becomes sound both psychologically and spiritually. Psychology warns of conditions in which one lets others—parents, partners and spouses, gurus, teachers, preachers, politicians—take over the responsibility for making choices and setting a life direction, insisting that maturity and growth happen when the source of authority for one’s life is experienced internally, individually, rather than externally. Whether we describe it as listening to your heart, or following your bliss, or becoming individuated, or self-actualization, or becoming whole, the descriptions all point in the same direction, the direction that Paul is pointing: guidance comes from within, not from without, at that inner still point where the ever-so-gentle promptings of the Spirit can be discerned. Looking anywhere else for direction leaves one open to having a spell cast, becoming so captivated, so transfixed by another that all individuality and self-direction is lost. Once I am spellbound, I no longer listen to God’s voice inside, but instead march to the tune being called by the one who cast the spell over me, whether that one is a wicked witch, an abusive parent, a controlling spouse or partner, an authoritarian church, a tyrannical boss. Spellbound, the forward momentum of my life halts, a hedge of thorns grows up around me so that no one and nothing new can enter, and I mark time, waiting for another to come and set me free.

 

            Since George Williamson retired as pastor of this church, maybe even beginning a time before his retirement, I have heard from you images that suggest a sense of a church that has come under some sort of spell. You complain of a lack of energy, of joy; you worry that the church is drifting and has lost its purpose and drive; a feeling of disconnection prevails between those who are long-tenured members and recall fondly the church’s past glory days, and those who have come into the church within the past five years and cannot understand why nothing new ever happens. While there is no literal hedge of thorns around the buildings of First Baptist, there may well be a metaphorical hedge: we do little or no outreach (I hear from our Outreach Committee that no one is willing to serve as a greeter on Sunday morning, and our Mission and Social Action Committee receives minimal response to the projects it proposes to engage us with our neighbors in need), we follow outdated methods of governance, our image in the mind of the community is not so much that of a church known for its leadership in matters of justice but rather regarded as a curiosity and a kind of gadfly, willing to make lots of noise but having little influence. Time passes, we drift, the hedge around us gets so high that it seems no one will be able to see us any longer, much less come inside and join us.

 

            A church under a spell, indeed. Whether the spell was the result of being more conformed to the world than transforming, letting our agenda be set by those out there rather than we in here, or whether the spell was the result of being overly attached to a single way of functioning that never grew or changed over time, a single message, a single kind of ideal church member, or whether the spell was the result of believing that someone external like a new pastor or a new Christian Education Director or a new Music Director or a new denominational home or a new cause would come along to tell us where to go next—where the spell came from, how the church fell under it, is no longer as important as figuring out how to break free of it. Where is that handsome prince, that courageous maiden, that miraculous being who will kiss us awake and start our life in motion once more?

 

            In The Message version of today’s scripture reading, Paul offers a clear prescription for how one reclaims authority over one’s life from whatever external agent has cast a spell and taken control: “Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do . . . . Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.” (Romans 12:1-2).

 

            I have discovered the truth of Paul’s teaching more than once at times when my own life has become landlocked and spellbound, so that I am unable to take action and set any kind of direction for myself. For a variety of complex reasons, I fell under a spell yet again when I came hear to serve as your pastor. While I have been physically present, I have been spiritually absent more often than not, caught up in a spell that distracted my attention from serving you wholeheartedly. What finally set me free from this spell, what has always broken the spells I labored under, was realizing that my challenge was not to recreate myself nor remain mired in resentment over the circumstances I found myself in, but to play the hand that was dealt me, to honestly assess my strengths and my shortcomings and to work with just that—not something someone else would bring me, not some magical new power, but the entirely good enough package that was me and my own particular, unique life. Paul is describing a life stance that is not set over against anyone or anything else, that does not define itself in terms of anyone or anything outside, but finds its definition from within.

 

            And what would this mean for our church? I believe it would mean becoming very clear, very focused, on who we are uniquely—not just who we have been, but who we are now and who we may yet become—and then discovering how to fully live into that identity.   This would not happen easily or overnight, but would require real work on our part, hard conversations between us that have been too long avoided, a willingness to reconcile and heal, the courage to be open to change. We would ask ourselves questions like, “If First Baptist ceased to exist, where would we go to church?” or “What would be lost to this community, to the Baptist tradition, to the world, if First Baptist closed its doors?” We would no longer define ourselves in terms of what we are not, not that kind of Baptist church, not that kind of Christian; we would no longer define ourselves in terms of our stances on social issues; we would no longer define ourselves in terms of any one pastor; we would no longer define ourselves as being different from the other churches on the corners of town; we would no longer define ourselves by what we used to do, however admirable and important that was. We would be the church we are now, today, just as we are, an all-too-human community that is still learning how to love and how to live, a church that has a message of peace the world desperately needs to hear.

           

            When we can do this, when we know who we are now and are committed fully, as one body of Christ,to living out our mission and identity, than I believe we will see the spell we have been laboring under lift, and new life and joy return to us in abundance. The hedge of thorns around our building will be transformed into roses that invite people in rather than turn them away. And the party that we were throwing here, that has been in suspension so long, too long, will resume with all the laughter and music and celebration that comes with living in the kingdom of God.