On their golden wedding anniversary, a couple were kept busy all day with the celebrations and the crowds of relatives and friends who dropped in to congratulate them. So they were grateful when, toward evening, they were able to be alone on the porch, watching the sunset and resting after the tiring day.
The old man gazed fondly at his wife and said, "Agatha, I'm proud of you!"
"What was that you said?" asked the old lady. "You know I'm hard of hearing. Say it louder."
"I said I'm proud of you."
"That's all right," she replied with a dismissive gesture. "I'm tired of you, too."
No wonder relationships are hard. Frequently, alas, we don't even hear what the other is saying. (Anthony De Mello, The Heart of the Enlightened, 119)
Or, I'm reminded of the woman who said to her husband, who was absorbed in the newspaper, "You can stop saying "uh-uh, honey." I stopped talking ten minutes ago."
Anthony De Mello says:
"Perfect listening is listening not so much to others as to oneself. Perfect sight is seeing not others so much as oneself.
For they fail to understand the other who have not heard themselves; and they are blind to the reality of others who have not probed themselves. The perfect listener hears you even when you say nothing." (Ibid.)
Johnny was a sturdy, robust kid of three. He made friends with a billy goat next door. Each morning he would pull up some grass and lettuce and take them over as breakfast for Billy. So deep was their friendship that Johnny would spend hours in Billy's pleasant company.
One day it occurred to Johnny that a change of diet would do Billy a lot of good. So he went to visit his friend with rhubarb instead of lettuce. Billy nibbled a bit of the rhubarb, decided he didn't want it, and pushed it away. Johnny caught Billy by one of his horns and attempted to get him to each the rhubarb. This time Billy butted Johnny away, gently at first, but as Johnny grew persistent, quite firmly, so that Johnny stumbled and fell with a thump on his backside.
Johnny was so offended by this that he brushed himself off, glared at Billy, and walked away, never to return. Some days later when his father asked him why he never went over to chat with Billy, Johnny replied, "Because he rejected me."
The surest way to kill a relationship: Insist on having things your way. (De Mello, The Heart of the Enlightened, 121-122)
Those are a few stories about how we wound one another - even unintentionally - in our relationships. We live with the aftermath of relationships that are out of tune in our homes, schools, jobs, and churches. Relationships are so important - they are worth investing in. Relationships make the Christian.
In our text today, we learn that Timothy received the faith from his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. Some of us have had similar experiences. Our parents took us to church on Sunday morning. We said the blessing around the dinner table at home. We celebrated the Lord's Supper when it was served at church. Many of us, like Timothy, were reared in a Christian home where our family relationships were also faith relationships. Like Timothy in our text today, we also had spiritual mentors. Timothy had a strong spiritual bond to the Apostle Paul. They had served Christ together through thick and thin. Paul was a spiritual mentor to Timothy. Our scripture reading from 2 Timothy demonstrates how relationships form the Christian.
This was certainly true for me. Like Timothy, I was blessed by being reared in a Christian home where prayer and Bible study and church going were part of the fiber of my life. Beyond my parents, I have been blessed by spiritual mentors along the way. I could name many such mentors who have helped me along my spiritual journey as Paul helped Timothy. One of my first spiritual mentors was a burly business man by the name of Sappo Moore, Jr.
Mr. Moore taught my second grade church school class. He was a muscular young man who had played football for Mississippi State University and he appeared to be as big as a bull as we sat around a small table in an elementary church school class. What drew me to Mr. Moore is that he seemed to like us boys in his class. He developed a relationship with each one of us. Sometimes he would even take us out of town on fun trips.
Once, when Mr. Moore was going to take us to a baseball batting range, a few of the boys and I arrived at his house early. He wasn't ready yet so some of us boys climbed a tree to pass the time. We were having a great time playing in that tree when suddenly I fell and broke the bone in my left wrist. I was embarrassed to have to knock on Mr. Moore's door and tell him I had fallen out of a tree and broken my arm. He took me home and I missed getting to go to the batting range with the boys. That really hurt. Even today, after four decades, I still carry that wound in my left wrist. I am connected to my mentor, Mr. Moore, by that wound and when it gets a bit painful from time to time, I think of him and his dedication to the boys and me.
Such relationships form the Christian. We don't often acknowledge what some of us have experienced. The truth is that relationships leave wounds. We unintentionally wound one another by an unkind word, a look, a gesture, often without even intending it to happen. We hurt one another. It happens. In a strange sort of bonding experience, we are connected by the wounds we inflict upon one another.
Timothy's mentor, Paul, uses the image of a body to show how we are all connected to one another and to Christ. This image inspires us to look beyond our congregation and to include the church universal on this World Communion Sunday. Paul uses the metaphor of a body and says some of us are legs and some of us are arms in the body of Christ.
If he were writing today, Paul would likely say we are all cells in the body of Christ. We are as deeply embedded in the church, the body of Christ, as the millions of cells in your body are connected to you. And we aren't the only cells in Christ's body. All Christians of all times and places are cells in the mystical body of Christ. Just one look at the disjointed nature of Christ's church today demonstrates how we are connected by the wounds we inflict upon one another in the body of Christ. Those wounds bind us together.
Christ himself bore witness to this truth. Christ bore the wounds of all humanity in his body on the cross. He bore your wounds, my wounds, and the wounds of all humanity. As Isaiah says of Christ, "He was wounded for our transgressions and by his stripes we are healed."
When the disciple we call Doubting Thomas wanted evidence that Jesus had risen from the tomb, the risen Christ invited him to do something very intimate. He invited Thomas to touch his nail scarred hands and to put his hand in Christ's sword pierced side. The risen Christ invited Thomas to touch his wounds. For the risen Christ knew that by touching his wounds Doubting Thomas would be reconnected to him in faith.
Talking about wounds does not come natural to us. We are not entirely comfortable talking about the wounds of love we have inflicted on others nor about the wounds others have inflicted upon us. We'd rather skip over the painful parts of our Christian lives and only mention the glory. Yet, the glory of resurrection life never comes without the little deaths we receive and give in painful experiences through our rleationships with others.
We remember our connections today. We remember our grandparents, our parents, and our church school teachers. We remember our spiritual mentors who have helped us in our spiritual journey. We acknowledge how we are connected by our wounds. Especially, today I give thanks to God for the opportunity to form relationships with each of you in this local church expression of body of Christ. As we develop our relationships you will fashion me as a Christian and I will form you as a Christian and we may wound one another from time to time. Such wounds are a natural part of relationships. Such relationships form the Christian.
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The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas on October 3, 2010 (27th Sunday in Ordinary Time)
