Rev. George Miller
April 3, 2022
John 19:1-16a
Since last year, Emmanuel has hosted Community Conversations to discuss topics
like Women’s Equality, Veteran Affairs. In
May, we discuss Mental Health In Rural Communities, a topic affecting everyone,
including myself.
Back when my Mom’s health fell apart anxiety levels rose, my doctor prescribed
a low dose of Prozac.
I feared an antidepressant would make me a zombie, instead the benefits
have been great. I went from having many
thoughts in my head, to one at a time.
Instead of being a zombie, I feel calmly alive, present.
With my biological, chemical makeup, I needed something to smooth it out. Kind of how an engine needs the right weight
of oil to run, my body needed a 40W but was producing a 30.
There are times I think I can go off it, be fine without it. But the doctor, knowing my family history,
said “No.”
Then she said something so profound.
“Don’t be afraid to feel good.” Wow. “Don’t be afraid to feel good.”
I’m thankful to have a doctor who’d say something so simple, profound as “Don’t
be afraid to feel good.” In other words-“Don’t
be afraid to be happy.”
As humans, we try to seek happiness and wellness, but it doesn’t always
seem that we know how to truly embrace feeling good or being happy.
Some of us were raised to feel guilty about feeling good; some worry too
much about the world that they feel guilty about being happy.
Then there are those who only seem happy when they are miserable, and
only feel good when they feel bad.
We all know them: The aunt who only talks about her sciatica.
The friend who always has their heart broken, but keeps choosing the same
kind of guy.
The neighbor who complains when it’s hot, moans when it’s cold, worries
when it rains, and upset when it’s not.
Some folk are happy being unhappy, and some folk are afraid to feel good. Kind of like the people we meet throughout
the Bible. Think about it.
God plants a garden, providing all one needs, giving 1 simple
instruction.
What does Adam do? Eats the apple! He had no job, free food, a naked wife, and
that wasn’t enough.
Numbers 13, the people make their way to the Promised Land; see all that
God is giving them- milk, honey, fruit, ripe grapes, pomegranates, figs.
But they get scared; allow fear to take over. They lie, doubt, cry, moan, melodramatically
say “Oh that we had died,” wishing they were back in Egypt.
Talk about being afraid to be happy.
Because of their desire for despair, they wander the wilderness for 40 years
when they could’ve been sipping wine and drinking tea with honey.
1 Samuel 8- the people are in the Promised Land, enjoying their sweat tea
and Merlot, but that’s not enough. They
look at the other nations who have a king, so they want one too.
God says “You don’t need a king, you have me. I love you as you are and give you everything
you need.”
“A king will take and take, your sons will be soldiers, your daughters
maids, your best livestock, produce, and land will be taken away, and you’ll
end up crying a river.”
But the people say, “We don’t care what you say God, we want a King.”
It’s like they are completely addicted to chaos.
From day 1 God gave the people what one needs to be happy, to feel good-
garden, land, Sabbath rest.
But they choose again and again the choices that will leave them
miserable, despondent, victimized.
Maybe instead of 10 Commandments, God should’ve given each person 10
milligrams of Prozac.
Then we have today’s reading. Talk
about choosing to be miserable. The
people are experiencing Jesus, God in the Flesh, and they’re still not happy.
Jesus is making folk well, getting blind to see, lame to walk, restoring
families, turning up parties, offering free Captain D’s on top of mountains,
assuring folk they won’t be treated like garbage and thrown away.
And that wasn’t enough.
Just like the Garden.
Just like the Land of Milk and Honey.
Just like the gift of Sabbath rest.
It wasn’t enough. When the people
have the chance to do something right;
when the religious leaders, who studied the story of God, were entrusted
to teach the story of God, had the chance to do something right, the chance to
keep the community feeling good, the people happy, what do they say? “We have no king but the emperor.”
These men, living in a Ukraine-like situation, would rather pledge their
allegiance to a foreign enemy who only wants to hurt them, then to fight for a
man who has done everything he could to make God’s true love known.
When they say, “We have no king but the emperor,” it is akin to the
people of the Ukraine saying “we have no president but Putin.”
But more than that, what they are saying is that they don’t even see God
as their king, as their head.
This one sentence should make us sad.
Sad for the people, because they make the choice yet again to be
miserable.
Sad for the people because they’d rather choose a well-known abuser over
a well-known healer.
Sad for God, because once again, the people have turned their back from
the One who had always been there.
Sad for Jesus, because now he will go experience one of the most painful,
shameful, humiliating deaths there is.
This story is so needlessly tragic, so heartbreakingly sad, because once
again, we have God suffering because for some reason, we are so adapt at being
angry, more comfortable being miserable, so willing to be in woe,
that even when we have the Living Font of Wellness before us, we still
choose that which makes us unhappy.
Today’s story shows us just the depth of dysfunction that has crept into
our world.
The choices we make that can lead us to death when what God really wants
is for us to choose life.
Thank God we have the Resurrection.
Thank God we have Easter Sunday.
Thank God for God’s amazing grace.
Because if this was it, it would not be enough, and yet, as we will soon learn,
God does not give up on us,
God does not walk away, God does not succumb to the ways of the grave.
Because no matter how much we may seem to choose unhappiness or continue
to make tragic mistakes,
Jesus reminds us that,
God is always beside us,
cheering us on,
hoping that this time,
we will make decisions that are good, and decisions that lead to happiness.
For that, we can say “Amen.”
No comments:
Post a Comment