Rev. Dr. Doug Showalter Scripture: Matthew 11:28-30 The Church of the Pilgrimage, Plymouth, MA Copyright 2011 July 31, "The Abundant Life"

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1 Rev. Dr. Doug Showalter Scripture: Matthew 11:28-30 The Church of the Pilgrimage, Plymouth, MA Copyright 2011 July 31, 2011 "The Abundant Life" JESUS CAME INTO OUR WORLD, proclaiming that he wanted people to have life and to have it abundantly. But I ask: Do all Christians believe that? Jesus counseled his followers saying, "Take my yoke upon you...for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." But again I ask: Do all Christians really believe that? MANY YEARS AGO, as a young minister in rural Vermont, I had a disturbing experience which is still etched on my mind. I was attending a United Church of Christ workshop in which several older, more-experienced ministers were invited to talk about their ministries, for the benefit of us new clergy. Those more experienced ministers sat in brown metal chairs on a low speaker's platform. I remember one of them in particular. He had a salt-and-pepper mustache and wore a rumpled gray suit. Sitting slightly hunched over in his chair, that clergyman's face seemed cast in a perpetual scowl. When his turn came to speak, that minister said words to this effect: I look at my ministry as a pendulum. Day after day, I keep swinging back-and-forth from one guilt to another. If I'm working in my office, I feel guilty that I'm not out visiting my parishioners. So out I go to do some calling. If I'm with a parishioner, I feel guilty that I'm not working on my sermon, so, back I go to my office. And so it goes, day after day. Whatever it is I have to do for the church, I swing from guilt to guilt. The truth is that man looked tired. He seemed like a sincere and dedicated minister. But one thing seemed clear. That individual s ministry and faith were not making him happy. Within him, I could detect no sense of joy

2 -2- whatever. Watching that individual made me sad. It also made me a little apprehensive. As a new minister, I wondered, is that what the Christian faith and service to Christ s church are really about? THE HUMAN CONSCIENCE IS a wonderful thing. At times, guilt is a very appropriate and helpful emotion. A little bit of guilt can make us remorseful for our failings and eager to mend our ways. A little bit of guilt can stir us to strive for excellence. A little bit of guilt can even bring us to faith. But here's the problem. A little bit of guilt goes a long way. And there is a difference between guilts which are healthy, and guilts which are unhealthy. Healthy guilt is constructive. It stirs us to take positive steps to improve our lives. However, unhealthy guilt is destructive. Healthy guilt comes in response to specific concerns. In contrast, unhealthy guilt is a vague, overall feeling of personal dis-ease and unworth, which continually eats away at one's entire life, like a corrosive acid. Instead of bringing benefit to our lives, unhealthy guilt is like a lingering ailment which only poisons our lives. AS PEOPLE WITH moral consciences, it is inevitable that we will experience pangs of healthy guilt from time to time. After all, we re all human; we all do make some mistakes. But unhealthy guilt is a spiritual and emotional trap, which many people fall into. They can fall into it, especially if they have sensitive consciences and they ve been led to believe that guilt is the appropriate response to their own less-than-perfect humanness. CAN UNHEALTHY GUILT be taught? I think it can. I'll never forget speaking to a group of young church school children

3 -3- in another state, years ago. To avoid the public school system, those children had been sent to a very conservative Christian School. Those children were exceptionally well-behaved, but at this cost. Their young spirits seemed broken. The joy of childhood and faith seemed gone from their eyes. At their school, those children had been taught that the wrath of God was always just waiting around the corner, to punish them. Punish them, if they didn't obey Mommy's and Daddy's rules to the letter all the time; Punish them, if they got careless and spilled their milk at supper; Punish them, if they did any of the other, childish things, that children are just apt to do from time to time. On Sundays, those young children attended my church. Speaking as their minister, I said to them in a children s sermon: Don't let anyone ever tell you that God doesn't love you. I know, deep in my heart, that God does love you. You are good. We all can, and do, make mistakes. None of us is perfect. But God still loves us. And God won't do anything to bring you, or any of us, harm. As I spoke, I could see those children's eyes fill-up with big salty tears -tears of relief. For, even at their young age, those children had been living under a tremendous sense of guilt, which others had planted within them. It was a pervasive, unhealthy sense of guilt, which was corroding their lives. AND SO I THINK IT WAS with that Vermont minister and his pendulum view of Christian faith and ministry. Somehow, somewhere along the line, that minister had come to believe that almost nothing he ever did for the church, for God, or for anyone else, was really good enough. In his own eyes, that minister was always falling short of the

4 -4- mark, and condemning himself to wallow in pervasive feelings of guilt. From all appearances, that man's guilt-ridden faith was driving him to live a narrow life--a life cramped and twisted with anxiety, pressure, and a painful lack of self-contentment. WHAT DO YOU THINK? Is swinging from guilt-to-guilt the kind of life Jesus meant, when he said that he came to bring us abundant life and an easy yoke? I think not! AS I SAID BEFORE, pangs of healthy guilt can bring us to faith. As an example of that: parents can realize one day, that they have made a mistake by not raising their children with the spiritual nurture a church can give. Thus, those parents are prompted, at least in part by guilt, to find a church home for their family, and to take their own faith much more seriously. Pangs of healthy guilt can bring us to faith. But a faith which is, in itself, filled with guilt, is, I think, both a sorrow and a terrible distortion of the wonderful good news which Jesus came to bring us. To be Christians, must we always feel guilty? I think not! th LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT Martin Luther, the 16 century Protestant Reformer, when he was a still a young Roman Catholic priest. Martin had a very sensitive conscience. Somewhere along the way, Martin developed a guilt-ridden faith. Although he had done nothing seriously wrong, Martin spent day after day in the confessional, confessing even the most minor and trivial infractions. Luther was tormented by guilt, and he wanted to list to his confessor every possible sin he had committed, in the hope that he would be absolved of them.

5 -5- As the story goes, Luther's confessor became so exasperated with Luther's picayune confessions, that he finally said to Luther, quite sarcastically: Luther, don t come back to this confessional until you ve really done something worth confessing, like killing your mother or your father! Like many other Christians of his day, Luther had been taught to fear God as a punishing and wrathful figure. Driven by the immense guilt that teaching produced, Luther even went so far as to shut himself in his room for days, to whip his own body until the blood flowed. AS A PRIEST-SCHOLAR, Luther had the opportunity to study the Bible. That study eventually led Luther to a wonderful discovery. Contrary to what he had been taught: --Luther discovered that God sent God s son into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save it. --Luther also discovered that Jesus' suffering on the cross was a sign, not of God's wrath, but of God's great love for all the world. With those discoveries, Luther's life and faith began to change dramatically. Prodded by guilt, Luther had been acting as though he himself had to be crucified, in order to atone for his own sins. But now, as Luther realized: --Jesus' death on the cross did not need to be repeated. --Jesus died, so that others could live abundant lives. --Jesus died so that others could discover God's love, and thereby be released from their own heavy burdens of guilt. OVER TIME, Luther grew beyond his guilt-ridden faith, to have a faith of positive affirmations. Luther's fear of a punishing God was eventually replaced by deep feelings of thanksgiving for what God's love in Christ, had

6 -6- already done for him and for all people. Instead of a pendulum swinging from guilt to guilt, Luther's life became a growing and loving response to God's love. In this process: --Luther became a much happier and more joyful person. --He began to find satisfaction in his life and in his work for God. --In short, Luther began to discover that ABUNDANT LIFE and that EASY YOKE of which Jesus spoke. WITHOUT A DOUBT, Luther still had pangs of guilt from time to time, for specific things he had done wrong, things he knew he should correct. But here's the difference: Luther's faith and life were no longer filled with guilt or poisoned by it. LUTHER BEGAN TO SERVE GOD not because he had to, out of guilt or fear, but because in love, Luther truly wanted to serve God. As likely you know, that transformation in Luther's heart, that growing in faith beyond guilt was one of the driving forces which gave rise to the Protestant Reformation. Shakespeare once wrote, My conscience hath a thousand several tongues And every tongue brings in a several tale And every tale condemns me for a villain. SENSITIVE CONSCIENCES can be overwhelmed with unhealthy guilt. Yet, here is the joyous good news of our Christian faith. In the love and forgiveness of God, offered to us through Christ, we really can move beyond our guilts, to more abundant lives in faith. As Jesus tried to teach us: Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy

7 -7- burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. [Matthew 11:28-30] The Abundant Life!

What It Means to Be a Teacher of God. Excerpts from the Workshop held at the Foundation for A Course in Miracles Temecula CA. Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.

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