[Propertalk] Proper 6 b 2018 - part 1

[Robert P Morrison]

Here we go - I finished the first draft on Tuesday but, with some
advice, I reworked it and caught some mistakes. I'm sure there may be
others - feel free to point them out!
Happy happy!
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY  THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER
PENTECOST

	1 SAMUEL 15:34 – 16-13    PROPER 6 b 

	2 CORINTHIANS 5:6-17   17th JUNE, 2018 

	MARK 4:26-34    PSALM 20 

	 What I’m going to offer for our reflection this morning concerns a
difficult subject: suicide. It might be considered dark, sad, or with
more than a tinge of regret and feelings of helplessness. If nothing
else, though, from cover to cover, the Bible invites us to wrestle
with what is difficult as well as with what is joyful, to engage with
sadness and frustration as well as with pleasure, because the Bible
deals with realities that our lives are filled with all sorts of
situations. All sermons are supposed to challenge, to disturb, to
bring us to wrestle with where we find our lives with God and with one
another. 

	 I say this, not to give the sermon an “R” rating, or what we
used in Britain as an “X” rating – neither of which imply in
this case something sexual, or necessarily gratuitously violent, but
to indicate that there is something in a film which adults are invited
to confront. It’s this latter to which I make this preface today. 

	 Perhaps what adds to this is, again, like other sermons, that we may
feel that we’re without a definitive answer, not because God isn’t
there or listening to and engaged with us, but possibly because we
ourselves are still struggling with the questions and so coming up
with answers is made more complicated. 

	 In the last two weeks, two fairly high profile celebrities committed
suicide. This is sad – on all sorts of levels – and should make us
aware of everything that’s going on in our own lives, but especially
in the lives of those around us. One response has been for people to
say, “If only she, if only he, had reached out, I’d have tried to
have helped.” 

	 The reality is, in the vast majority of cases, people who have
crises in their lives simply become incapable of reaching out. It’s
the last thing on their minds. Whether it’s because of mental or
physical illness, or a personality that may not have been very
outgoing to start with; whether the person was introverted by nature,
many times the person wouldn’t make much of an effort or a fuss even
in the best of times, and when things are dark and there’s such a
feeling of hopelessness, then some people simply won’t talk about
it. They may even put on a front that seems perfectly normal. 

	 Health – whether it be mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical
– can be tremendously fragile. There are many times when we simply
can’t imagine with what others are having to deal. What is more
dangerous to us and to society is that there are many times when we
simply don’t WANT to know what’s going on with others. We seem to
have lost the ability to be empathetic or sympathetic. We may feel
that we have enough on our own plates without having to be sorry about
anyone else. Or, quite frankly, our nature may, at times, simply be to
be too controlling so that others don’t want to make any sort of
indication about what’s going on in their lives, bad OR good. 

	 Crises like these go on all the time. 

	 What many have mentioned, though, in addition to the deaths of these
people, is that there is a “celebrity copycat” effect. When one
person, especially someone who’s in the news, on TV, in films, and
so on; when someone well-known takes his or her life, somehow this
provides the stimulus to others to take their own lives. 

	 It’s quite a commentary on society if there are people who seem to
have come to the end of their tolerance, who feel that there’s no
one to whom they can be completely open about what’s so difficult or
dangerous to them, and if there are so few willing to listen, to reach
out, to those in such pain and anxiety. 

	 I know that one can oversimplify, that we can think we can come up
with a “one-size-fits-all” sort of an answer, but it’s hard to
overemphasise the need that we have to listen. Not the sort of
listening we do by having someone on the radio or TV talking
constantly while we do everything from cleaning the bathroom grout to
frying up breakfast. It doesn’t take too long to tune such talk out
so that it becomes a pretty worthless exercise both for the talker and
for the listener. But we – and I mean congregations of Christian AND
all other religious groups – we need to develop the skill of being
intentional listeners. 

	 Many years ago I went to a conference where I met the author of a
book called “Listening Hearts”. She had just published it and
already she and a group of others beginning in the Baltimore area were
looking for ways to reawaken people to the skill and vocation of being
able to listen to others with passion and compassion, to try to hear
what was on the heart of the speaker, and how that person might
identify and fulfil her or his vocation from God. 

	 The group is really thriving those thirty-some years on. 

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