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| Touching the Holy: Embracing Ordinariness A young seminarian listened to an address by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. After the talk was over the student turned to the dean and said, "Today I met a holy man." When the dean asked him to elaborate, he replied, "In Tutu’s presence I was able to experience Christ in my life." Have you ever known such persons? Have you ever been with someone who was so real, undefensive, accepting, and self-aware that you felt no anxiety whatsover…someone with whom you could simply be yourself? There is a name for such persons. You might be tempted to use the word "holy" and you would be right. But I shall use another word, a word Robert Wicks uses in his book, Touching the Holy. That word is ORDINARY. Wicks believes that when we are truly holy, we are ordinary. Robert Cole tells the story of meeting Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. "It was on an afternoon, almost 35 years ago, that I first met Dorothy Day. She was sitting at a table, talking with a woman who was quite drunk. The woman had a large red birthmark along the right side of her forehead. She kept touching it as she uttered one exclamatory remark after another, none of which seemed to get the slightest rise from Dorothy Day. I found myself increasingly confused by what seemed to be an interminable, essentially absurd exchange taking place between two middle-aged women. When would it end…the alcoholic ranting and the silent nodding? Finally silence fell upon the room. Dorothy Day asked the woman if she would mind an interruption. She got up and came over to me. She said, "Are you waiting to talk with one of us." One of us: with those words she had cut through layers of self-importance, a lifetime of bourgeois privilege, and scraped the hard bone of pride. With those three words, so quietly and politely spoken, she had indirectly told me what the Catholic Worker Movement is all about and what she herself was like." Don’t you want to be like this…a truly ordinary person who recognizes the equality and worth of all of God’s people? Ordinary people feel secure in who they are and therefore can be less defensive and more welcoming. Truly ordinary people don’t worry about impressing important people or showing favoritism to the rich and powerful. The problem for many of us is that we are raised in a culture that does not value ordinariness. Instead, we are encouraged to be extra-ordinary, to be better than the rest. And yet what does this search to be extraordinary get for us? We may certainly achieve rewards of money and status for our extraordinary efforts, but it will not grant us inner peace. Tennis star Boris Becker was at the very top of the tennis world -- yet he was on the brink of suicide. He said, "I had won Wimbledon twice before, once as the youngest player. I was rich. I had all the material possessions I needed ... It's the old song of movie stars and pop stars who commit suicide. They have everything, and yet they are so unhappy. I had no inner peace. I was a puppet on a string." It amazes me that ordinary humans continue to claim to be extraordinary. Jesus, on the other hand, had good reason to claim his extraordinariness, but he didn’t. He was not obsessed with his image as we so often are with ours. Basically, Jesus was concerned with three things: 1. Trying to be who he was called to be (obedience); 2. Being in solidarity with others (community); 3. Doing everything in the right Spirit (love). Obedience, Community, and Love. How are you doing in the obedience department? Are you doing a good job being who you are called to be? Obedience is not a word highly valued by our society. It conjures up images of blind submission to an untrusted authority. We don’t like the word, "obedience." It may work for dogs, but not for people. A story is told of a mother who wanted to have the last word but couldn't handle the hassle that resulted whenever she said no to her young son. After an especially trying day, she finally flung up her hands and shouted, "All right, Billy, do whatever you want! Now let me see you disobey THAT!" There are not too many of us who actually like being told what to do. We often bristle at the first word of someone who is bold enough to tell us what to do or say. What if we looked at obedience with fresh eyes? Can we eliminate the negative connotations by seeing obedience as simply trying to be who God is calling us to be? It really depends on how in touch we are with our desire to be what God wants us to be. If we truly want what God wants for our lives then we do whatever it takes to obey God. Being ordinary also means being in solidarity with others. Simply put, the spiritual life is about community. We cannot escape the fact that drawing closer to God inevitably draws us closer to people. And one of the ways we draw closer to the people of God is by being with them in worship. No doubt we all have experienced times when we did not want to come to church. I have. One Sunday morning a mother was getting ready for church when she noticed her son wasn't up yet. She finally went in to wake him up. "Come on, get up...you'll miss church!" she said. "No, I don't want to go!" came the reply from her son as he buried his head under the pillow. "Yes, you have to get up for church," the mother coaxed. "No, I am not going to church. And I'll give you two reasons. Number 1, Nobody likes me and Number 2, I don't like them." The mother put her hands on her hips and replied indignantly, "Well you ARE going to church and I'll give you two reasons why you are going: Number 1, You are 45 years old, and number 2, You are the pastor!" One of the realities of being a Christian is that when we choose to follow Jesus Christ, we give up the right to choose whom we will love and whom we will not love. When you choose to become a member of St. John United Methodist Church you promise to be here for each other, to support each other, to laugh and cry with each other, to deal with the differences you have with each other. It is a sacred vow and one we all need to take seriously. Perhaps the primary way you and I can claim our ordinariness is by doing everything in the right Spirit, even if it means loving those who are hard to love. Ted Stallard undoubtedly qualifies as the one of "the least." As a child he was turned off by school. He was not the kind of child people would warm up to. Even his teacher, Miss Thompson, enjoyed using her red pen -- as she placed Xs beside his many wrong answers. If only she had studied his records more carefully. They read: 1st grade: Ted shows promise with his work and attitude, but has poor home situation. 2nd grade: Ted could do better. Mother seriously ill. Receives little help from home. 3rd grade: Ted is good boy but too serious. He is a slow learner. His mother died this year. 4th grade: Ted is very slow, but well-behaved. His father shows no interest whatsoever. Christmas arrived. The children piled elaborately wrapped gifts on their teacher's desk. Ted brought one too. It was wrapped in brown paper and held together with plastic tape. Miss Thompson opened each gift, as the children crowded around to watch. Out of Ted's package fell a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with half of the stones missing, and a bottle of cheap perfume. The children began to snicker. But she silenced them by splashing some of the perfume on her wrist, and letting them smell it. She put the bracelet on too. At day's end, after the other children had left, Ted came by the teacher's desk and said, "Miss Thompson, you smell just like my mother. And the bracelet looks real pretty on you. I'm glad you like my presents." After Ted left Miss Thompson got down on her knees and asked God to forgive her and to change her attitude. The next day, the children were greeted by a reformed teacher -- one committed to loving each of them. Especially the slow ones. Especially Ted. Surprisingly -- or maybe, not surprisingly, Ted began to show great improvement. He actually caught up with most of the students and even passed a few. Graduation came and went. Miss Thompson heard nothing from Ted for a long time. Then, one day, she received this note: Dear Miss Thompson: I wanted you to be the first to know. I will be graduating second in my class. Love, Ted Four years later, another note arrived: Dear Miss Thompson: They just told me I will be graduating first in my class. I wanted you to be first to know. The university has not been easy, but I liked it. Love, Ted And four years later: Dear Miss Thompson: As of today, I am Theodore Stallard, M.D. How about that? I wanted you to be the first to know. I am getting married next month, the 27th to be exact. I want you to come and sit where my mother would sit if she were alive. You are the only family I have now; Dad died last year. Miss Thompson attended that wedding, and sat where Ted's mother would have sat. The compassion she had shown that young man entitled her to that privilege. Obedience, community, and love. If you want to know more about how to embody these qualities in your life listen to the words of James and learn to treat all persons with an equal measure of dignity and grace. Read about Jesus and he will show you the way. Even though he was an extraordinary person, the Son of God, no less, he walked the path of simple holiness and every day he shows us how to be ordinary. |
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September 10, 2000
