1 "Keeping Watch" Matthew 26: 36-41 Genesis 1: 26-31 November 20, 2016 Samaritan Counseling Center Sunday Northminster Presbyterian Church Rev. Ann Ohlrogge Johnson There are true stories that are formative for all professions and one of them for me is about a therapist who received a thank you letter from a man, written on his business stationery, which said: What you told me changed my life. The therapist sat for some time with the letter, pleasantly surprised to receive it, wondering what he might have said and why he didn't remember the client. If his words were life changing, this must have been a long relationship. Finally he picked up the phone and called the phone number printed on the business letterhead. When he reached the man, he asked a few open questions but very quickly the man told him: "Oh, I only saw you once. But you told me that I am a very intelligent person. No one had ever told me that before. And then the therapist realized that this man was one of a large number of inmates who had been given IQ tests one year, followed by a very brief counseling session. This story brings to my mind at least two questions: First, how do we each know who we are and what we can do; and second, why did the words of a therapist in a very brief one-time encounter have such a life changing impact.? The story of God's creation of humanity, which was read from the Hebrew Scriptures, is an important starting point to briefly wonder about the first question: How do we know who we are? We are creatures of God, Genesis tells us, each one of us. And we are each, female and male, created in the image of God, whose gender is much debated but certainly is inclusive of both masculine and feminine. And we are creatures a bit different from the others God created. In a beautiful children's book called Old Turtle, the book s wisdom figure, a female turtle, describes the creation of human beings: "There will soon be a new family of beings in the world, and they will be strange and wonderful. They will be reminders of all that God is. They will come in many colors and shapes, with different faces and different ways of speaking. Their thoughts will soar to the stars, but their feet will walk the earth. They will possess many powers. They will be strong, yet tender... a message of love from God to the earth, and a prayer from the earth back to God." Human beings created by God as a prayer from the earth back to God -- what beautiful words from Douglas Wood, the author of Old Turtle. I'm going to extend that thought to include my belief that God created humanity because God wanted some creatures who would be in relationship with God, who would send prayers from earth back to God. I believe this is because God is a relational God, desiring more than splendid isolation in some remote and glorious part of the universe. A relational God created human beings with a need, desire and destiny to be in relationship with God and with one another. The Genesis creation story begins with and is full of God's blessings and God's good intention for humanity.
2 Yet we live in the tension between two realities -- that of our created goodness with the image of God in each one of us, and our human weaknesses and distance from God s intention. I am focusing on Matthew s story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane because it is a story with a helpful picture of Jesus Christ, whom we believe is both human and divine. It is a picture that can help us understand our gifts as well as limits as human beings. Matthew has given us a picture of God's desire for human companionship. As Jesus asked his disciples to stay and watch with him, Matthew has given us a picture of God's desire for human companionship, and then a picture human weakness as the disciples are pictured as sleepy human beings who couldn't seem to stay awake. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus of Nazareth, the long awaited Messiah, the Son of God, the Lord of the Universe, did not want to be alone. He was facing the most crucial moment in his ministry -- a moment when the scriptures tell us that the temptation to give up God's intention for him was close to over-whelming. The gospels record many instances when Jesus went apart from the disciples to pray, but in this case, Jesus took the disciples with him, asked all of them to stay with him, and he took the three disciples closest to him farther into the garden. Jesus needed the support of his disciples as he struggled with his destiny, as he struggled with God's intention for his life and who he would become through his death and resurrection. In this story, I find several important word pictures: First, a challenging picture of who God intends for us each to be -- in relationship to God and to one another; second, some encouraging words about the reality of our frailty as human beings; third, a call to each one of us to stay alert to the suffering of others, which for me is a call to pastoral counseling. Starting with the main character in the story, Jesus presents us with a challenge. The challenge is that Jesus was struggling with his calling to go through death on a cross as the uniquely incarnated Son of God. While God's intention is not for each of us to literally duplicate Jesus death and resurrection, it is God's intention that we each grow to be more and more like God through a variety of individual callings and often struggles. M. Scott Peck writes with clarity of this challenge in his classic book, The Road Less Travelled: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it eventually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Godself. We are growing toward godhood." That is the challenge of this passage -- we each must struggle with God's intention that we more fully develop the image of God within. The encouragement comes from Jesus need for his disciples. We learn from this passage that Jesus needed to have other human beings with him as he struggled. If Jesus needed others, certainly we do as well. Why do we expect ourselves to struggle alone to meet our most important challenges? Yet there is something in our individualistic society that makes it very difficult for most of us to ask for help with our emotional struggles. In March of last year, a column in the NY Times made a sobering prediction about the continued growth of individualism in our society. The columnist wrote: In the future, it seems, there will be only one ism Individualism and its rule will never
3 end. As for religion, it shall decline; as for marriage, it shall be postponed; as for ideologies, they shall be rejected; as for patriotism, it shall be abandoned; as for strangers, they shall be distrusted. i The fierce individualism, which is a strength in our society, is also a threat to who we are as relational human beings. Jesus needed the disciples with him and we each need others with us as we grow towards God and into the individuals God intends us to be. From the moment of birth we need the care of others. It is obvious a baby needs physical and emotional care. But parents do too. Very often the birth of a child, one of the most joyful events in the life of a family, is also one of the most stressful events for a couple. Even as a parent myself, I was surprised to learn when I was in clinical training that -- on the list of "diagnostic psycho-social stressors" -- the birth of a first child is listed as a severe stressor along with unemployment, divorce or poverty! And often, as we near the end of life s journey, we once again need the care and concern of family members and the support of our communities of faith. Stressful times in the life cycle of a family are not times when people think of scheduling a few hours of counseling. Yet it is a time when our identities, who we believe we are, and our relationships with others and with God, are changing so much, anyone could benefit from the companionship of a counselor. Most of us learned to deal with these kinds of events with an offhand comment, "Sure, I'm a little anxious or depressed, but I'll be fine; I'll survive." But God's intention is not that we merely survive. God's plan is for us to thrive, and to thrive and grow we often need not only our biological or adopted families, but also a relationship with a pastoral counselor or other therapist because, like the disciples -- who were closest to Jesus, but who didn't seem to understand what Jesus needed at that hour -- we often cannot provide the kind of "watching with" that is necessary to individual growth for those we love most. Often the situation that led to anxiety or depression passes. But if it doesn t, how does an individual know when to get help from someone beyond family and friends? Part of keeping watch for one another is being ready to suggest that someone reach out to a therapist or physician for help. But many people don t know how, or when, or how to suggest professional help. You have a bookmark from the Samaritan Center in your bulletin today. I am asking that each of you to take the bookmark home put it somewhere so you know where it is, so you will have a phone number and website to give to someone you are watching with. And so that you will have the information yourself if you need it. It is harder to reach out and care for someone struggling with mental illness than physical illness. Just a few weeks ago, a book review in Christian Century magazine contrasted the caring response of congregations for those suffering from physical illnesses to the strange reluctance to offer pastoral care to people with mental illness. The reviewer stated: The reasons are multiple, including the steady medicalization of treatments and characteristically American notions of self-help entrepreneurialism. ii This new book confirms the role of individualism, but also points to the lack of knowledge about mental illness and its complex reality. And lack of understanding creates fear and fear creates stigma and barriers to connection -- both for the one suffering, and for the one who wants to help.
4 One of the reasons I have felt called to the specialized ministry of pastoral counseling as a teaching elder, is that counseling and therapy are full of moments when having the right information can lead to healing and growth. And some of you have the information you need to take care of yourself and help others find help in mental health resources, and some of you don t. In fact most people don t. The Samaritan Counseling Center is committed to caring for mind, body and spirit: through counseling and education. There will be a table downstairs with educational information about mental illness and handouts you can pick up during Fellowship Time. One of the handouts is a reminder that we need to take action when we become aware of mental illness, just as we do more readily for physical illness. And it will tell you that one in every five adults will have a diagnosable mental illness in any given year. That s 20 people in every group of 100! Another handout, same size, will give you an idea of how to know when you or someone you care about needs to find more help than a family member or friend can give. Using depression as an example, people are sometimes hesitant or even afraid of taking medication for depression because an old myth lives on: It s just in my mind. But depression can be a physical illness as well, and the good news about the time in which we live is that, with all the new more complex medications, 80 to 90 percent of clinical depression can be treated successfully. Even when depression becomes so deep it is life threatening, it can be treated. And at that point, the love and care of family and friends are not enough. A Presbyterian pastor wrote about his father in an article titled What Love Can Fix: So every time we told my father that we loved him at a chemical level it didn t matter that we loved him. We couldn t say it in a way that could penetrate the shield that depression had erected around his sense of self-worth. Dad got better. But love didn t heal his depression because love couldn t get in. The only way to fight a chemical imbalance is with chemistry. iii As I am asking you to keep watch with one another, I know how difficult it can be. The disciples in the garden with Jesus fell asleep -- perhaps because they were tired, but it is also possible that they didn t want to be awake and aware of the painful struggle Jesus was enduring. In a blog called The Praying Life, a Presbyterian pastor, Loretta Ross, writes about how hard it is to be with someone who is suffering. It is difficult to open your heart and mind to the raw suffering before you and remain there steadfast and watching in someone else s Gethsemane. Yet to wait in faith and hope at the foot of your neighbor s cross is one of the most healing acts we can offer one another. This is because here in the darkness at the end of the road is where divine action meets human limitation and leaps from heart to heart. iv Returning to Matthew s account of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus comments to the disciples, The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, I think it is a sympathetic awareness of the disciples good intentions, of their desire to be there for him. But it is also an awareness that his adopted family, the disciples, were not able -- because of their humanity, because of their close human connection to him -- to keep the kind of watch he needed at that hour. I believe
5 Jesus' request in the garden demonstrates our need for companionship; also that the disciples inability to be present signals that we need a particular kind of watching and companionship through life's most challenging times. So I find in this story a model for pastoral counseling and psychotherapy. As I was looking at all the different things Jesus says in this passage, I paused for a while on his comment: Couldn t you keep watch with me for one hour? People are often surprised that an hour of counseling or therapy is usually 45 or 50 minutes, not a full 60-minute hour. And I chuckled a bit about the temptation to suggest that Jesus' question might be a theological reason counseling hours are traditionally not a full hour. But that of course is not the main point of this story. It is Jesus request that the disciples "keep watch" with him while he struggles and prays. The Greek word for watch tells us more about what was going on for Jesus. It is used in the New Testament in parables where Jesus is telling a story of the coming of God where there is a major transition about to happen in the way things are in the world, or for the individuals listening to the parable. And it seems that this is true also of this passage. This is a major transition point in the gospels. If Jesus had emerged from prayer saying, I've decided I am not the messiah; I'm ready to apologize to the earthly powers that be and avoid the cross, then the world would be a very different place. So "keeping watch" means being open to the possibility of a whole new reality that may emerge for an individual. The therapist at the beginning of this sermon certainly observed a whole new reality about the prisoner he met with so briefly. That hour in the Garden of Gethsemane was a unique time, an hour that in New Testament Greek would be kairos time -- time as opportunity -- rather than the counting of minutes and seconds that is expressed by the other Greek word for time -- chronos. This is another way in which this gospel story has been important to me because I believe that counseling or therapy is kairos time as well -- time as opportunity to pause and look at and through the life experiences that have shaped and continue to shape an individual, couple or family. Each one of us -- counselor and counselee (and I include myself in both terms since I have sat in both chairs, as a client as well as a therapist) -- have within us the potential for whatever growth and healing is necessary or desired. And we have, as the Scriptures tell us, that of God within as well. It is in the kairos time -- when individuals and therapists meet -- that spiritual and psychological healing and growth can most surely occur. It is time apart, a time of keeping watch for the birth, growth and development of the person God intends for each of us to be. In the true story with which I began, this keeping watch was stating an observable truth to another persona -- truth that had never been heard before by the man in prison. Keeping watch did not mean doing anything to the man to change him, but rather observing the reality within the man, and he then was transformed through his own God given potential for growth. Another part of keeping watch is creating safe space. Often the experiences that need to be understood in the kairos time of keeping watch are painful memories or experiences of emotional, physical or sexual abuse that must first be said and processed apart from a person s family or close friends. So keeping watch often means being the first person to hear and believe the painful reality that a person has survived, accepting and holding the pain in a safe place. And then keeping watch as that reality is transformed by the individual's own potential for healing and
growth into a new life as the image of God within that person becomes slowly but steadily, clearer and clearer to her. For one of my clients, her counseling was this kind of long, slow processing of painful memories, as well as a spiritual journey that changed her childhood faith of fearful obedience into an active adult spiritual life. When we were finishing our work together she said, This has been a sanctuary for my soul. Jesus asked the disciples to stay and watch with him as he struggled with the most difficult decision in his life -- to fulfill the plan God had for his life. May we all look for ways to keep watch with one another, believing in God's blessing of humanity, and believing in the frequently struggling, but ever emerging, image of God within one another. AMEN. 6 i New York Times, Ross Douthat, March 15, 2014 ii Review by Mary Clark Moschella, Yale Divinity School: Madness: American Protestant Responses to Mental Illness by Heather H. Vacek, Christian Century, October 4, 2016 iii Christian Century February 4, 2015: What Love Can t Fix by Matt Gaventa iv From The Praying Life October 7, 2014: Loretta F. Ross