Does not take
directions well. Has trouble
listening. Won’t color within the
lines. These are the kinds of
evaluations made about kindergarten students.
Early in our lives two realities clash.
The first is highlighted in today’s breathtaking reading from the 139th
Psalm. Each of us, like a snowflake, is
unique. We have been lovingly crafted by
a skillful Creator to be ourselves – a one of a kind masterpiece. The other reality is we are a communal
people. We do not live in isolation, but
rather in complex relationships with others.
As such, we need to conform to certain standards and expectations. There comes a time in life when you will be
free to color outside the lines, but early on the emphasis is on mastering the
skills necessary to fit in and get along.
To shift the
metaphor to one I have used before, in life, each of us is meant to be a jazz
musician. Jazz music is a free-form,
creative expression built on the unique talents of the artist and his or her
interaction with others in the group.
You can’t just pick up a saxophone for the first time and blow
jazz. First you must master the basics
and learn the scales. Only when the
fundamentals are so deeply ingrained as a tacit skill is it possible to break
free of them and create something of your own.
It takes years
and years to get to this point, and one of the great sadnesses of life is when
a person learns the scales but never deviates from them; when a person learns
how to color within the lines, but never branches out into authentic, personal
expression. These people are everywhere,
littering our lives. They tend to be
rigid, domineering, and highly critical of others who question convention.
We meet some of
them in today’s reading from the gospel of Mark. If the Pharisees are anything, they are
masters of the scales of practicing religion.
When the Lord God said, “You shall honor the Sabbath and keep it holy,”
they became the guardians of what this looked like. They have all the details down pat. What was intended as a day of rest and celebration
of delivery from bondage in Egypt became for them an exercise of coloring
within the lines and playing the scales.
Do it like this. Nothing else is
permissible.
Sunday in and
Sunday out we gather in this place and pretty much do the same thing every
week. Yes, the readings and the hymns
change, but we are a “prayer book” church.
It is how we come together to experience the Sabbath. But we are not slaves to the prayer
book. Several years ago we received word
early on a Sunday morning a parishioner had been rushed to a hospital with a
life-threatening medical emergency. I
knew I had to be there, so I turned to Al Reese and said, “You need to figure
out how to wing it.” Everyone understood
the Sabbath priority of pastoral care eclipsed prayer book worship in that
moment. Do you remember the Sunday we
observed the 15th Anniversary of 9/11 outside with the Unity
Project? Honoring the Sabbath is not the
same as being obliged to a mandated form of worship.
Try to tell this
to the Pharisees. They exercise what is
known as positional authority. This is the authority of a boss or teacher or
police officer. We do what they tell us
to do because their position entitles them to place demands on us. Positional authority is grounded both in the power
of the person who wields it and in the fear of those who are under it. The Pharisees’ title and role makes them the wardens
of all things religious.
Jesus operates
with personal authority. Its expression is grounded in a person’s own
vision and values. It inspires loyalty and trust in others and
they will allow such a person to speak to their lives because they know the
person cares about them. Personal
authority is not concerned with prestige, status, or image, but rather in the
genuine well-being of self and others.
Sometimes, but
not always, a person with positional authority also has personal
authority. This is a powerful and potent
combination. In today’s reading, no one
has both. Jesus has personal authority,
but not positional. The Pharisees have
positional authority, but not personal.
Most often most
people will not challenge positional authority even when they know it to be
wrong. The FAA has discovered many
errors by flight captains go unchallenged by crew members because they do not
believe it is their place to question. One
airline went so far as to create a flight simulator with scenarios designed to
overwhelm the captain. 25% of the time
subordinates failed to take corrective actions in the face of a captain’s fatal
mistake.
This suggests the
Pharisees are not used to having their positional authority challenged. They are not used to someone like Jesus who
knows how to color within the lines, but at times elects not to. And it illuminates why they take the dramatic
step of consulting with the Herodians – members of the occupying ruling government
– in order to find a way to “destroy” Jesus.
They are concerned only about the demands of communal living and insist
on conformity and standards. Jesus has
moved past this and is focused on the reality that every person is a
masterpiece and our highest pursuit is to discover the unique way we can
express how we have been created in God’s glorious image.
Dr. James Hollis,
in his book What Matters Most: Living a
More Considered Life, states “the single most important task of the second half of life is the
recovery of personal authority, namely, the discovery of what is true for us,
really true, and mobilizing the courage and resources to live our truth in the
world.” He notes Carl Jung – the founder
of analytic psychology – held “all our troubles stem from one place—the
separation from our instincts”. All
those adaptations we make to fit in and get by, while necessary, have the
cumulative effect of estranging us from the quiet and centered voice within
each one of us; the voice telling us who we are and what is right and what will
keep us healthy and help us to flourish.
Hollis talks about the adaptive self and the true self,
which is longing to be expressed in the world.
He says,
The ultimate question we have to ask ourselves is, “what
wants to enter the world through me?” This is not a narcissistic question; it is a
respectful, reverential invitation to reflect on the purpose of our journeys. And then we must ask, “what within me stands
in the way of embodying that talent, that enthusiasm, that curiosity, that
relational gift which I can bring to my family, my friends, my world, and to
myself?” This is not an agenda for being
famous, recognized by others, or even understood by others. It is rather a question of what do I
experience as truly meaningful in my life.
“In the end,” he says, “we need to feel that the life we
lived was our life, not someone else’s, that it was chosen rather than simply
our following the instructions on the box.”
Christian spirituality adds to this
search one critical element. In the
search for our true self we are also in pursuit of the true Jesus. How does the Word Incarnate inform who you
really are? Say you discover your most
authentic self-expression is that of a ne’er-do-well. Such a discovery is not one to be celebrated
or pursued. Each one of us has been
created for something more grand and glorious than this. We have been created to manifest a unique
expression of the perfect humanity we find in Jesus of Nazareth, what St. Paul's describes as making the life of Jesus visible in our mortal flesh.
This morning we see Jesus acting out of
his personal authority. He addresses
human need and alleviates human suffering.
These are expressions of his deep, authentic self. The single most important task in the second
half of life is the recovery of personal authority. What is true for you and how do you mobilize
the courage and resources to live your truth in the world?
