Sermon for March 18 - Addictions

Scripture for this sermon: Ephesians 2:1-10

I remember once going on a day trip to Niagara Falls with my friend Bryce from back in Guelph.  We wandered around for a short while, but it wasn’t long before we found ourselves standing outside the casino.  We looked at each other, checked our wallets and decided to head in.  I only had about forty dollars, I’d never been to a casino before, so I figured it would be ok to lose all my money, and walk out saying I’d done it once in my life.  Forty bucks isn’t too expensive for what I thought would be a few hours of entertainment.

We wandered around, wound up at the roulette table.  And within a few spins of the wheel, we were up.  It was great.  We had it all figured out.  Undoubtedly we would be walking out of there with at least a couple of hundred dollars each.  I didn’t understand how people could lose money, when it was so easy.  Each time we won, it was quite a rush of excitement.  What we didn’t notice was that, those rushes of excitement were further apart than they needed to be for us to keep our winnings.  And soon, I’d say after about only half an hour at the table, we were both broke.

I remember as we walked away thinking to myself: “Boy, I know what I did wrong, and if I just go take out a bit of money, I can get back what I lost.”  Fortunately, I have a good friend in Bryce and he said we should leave even as warning bells were starting to go off in my head.  I can see why they say that the worst thing that can happen to you the first time you go to a casino, is to win.  That thrill is easy to chase.

I never became a compulsive gambler.  But addictions do take a hold of us all in different ways.  For some they may be associated with substances.  Alcohol, narcotics, pharmaceuticals, cigarettes, caffeine, just to name a few.  Some may be associated with behaviors, gambling, sex, pornography, adrenaline inducing activities, eating, even working.  All of these can become addictions.  Though some of these addiction might be socially acceptable, or even socially praised, for the most part we view these as unacceptable.  And any addiction cannot be considered healthy.

Often people with addictions are looked at as a sort of leper.  They are people who are judged for making poor decisions, for not having any self control, for being lazy.  This is why I think addiction is another example of a taboo issue that is never openly discussed.  Instead it is whispered and gossiped about, which truthfully, I think is even more damaging than helpful.

I’m not going to lecture today on the evils of addiction.  We’ve all heard that countless times, we’ve witnessed it, we’ve seen enough after school specials.  I’m not going to tell you how to get rid of an addiction.  I’m not trained in that, though if anyone is interested, I have contact information for groups, and you can feel free to ask me about it in private for yourself or for someone you may know.  All I want to do today is to break the silence.  I want to talk about it in such a way that we are not as afraid to talk about it with one another.

So what is an addiction?

Invite responses

Simplistically put, an addiction affects the reward part of our brain.  So for example, some substances can cause our brains to release dopamine, one of the chemicals responsible for us feeling good.  The more a substance is used, the more our brains become dependant upon them to release dopamine.  Our brain circuits get damaged as we continually fill our system with addictive substances, requiring more and more of them in order for us to feel good about anything.

Behavioral addictions, like gambling addictions or sexual addictions, similarily affect our brain’s reward system.  The rush of winning a big pot, for example, causes us to feel good.  Our brains release dopamine.  Eventually, our brains become re-wired to associate good feelings with gambling.

With chemicals or behaviors we can become obsessed, we can become compulsive.  Longing for that good feeling, longing for the reward system in our brains to be activated, we seek out those same stimulants to do it.  It gets to the point where it is no longer even a choice, our brains have become re-wired, and this is the dependence.  Sometimes this can happen after one or two experiences, sometimes it might take longer, years even.  This is effected by all sorts of factors.  Certain substances or behaviors are more or less addictive.  Our own genetic predisposition to addiction is also a factor.  Environmental and social factors also influence this.

The cycle gets worse when our compulsive behavior, seeking that high, seeking that good feeling, leads us to do things that make us actually feel worse.  An alcohol binge that goes wrong, losing a lot of money at the casino, feeling ashamed of a sexual encounter.  We want to feel better after them, so tragically we return to our addiction.  Addicts often know that what they are doing is having an awful affect on their lives. 

There isn’t reason to it.  There isn’t logic to it.  Don’t try to find it. The natural human desire for pleasure, or to end pain, believe me, holds a greater sway over any of us than logic does.  Many people who are under the sway of an addiction will express a desire to change.  Guilt becomes a factor, and not necessarily a positive one. Someone trying to quit drinking may feel guilty if they fail.  The logic becomes, “I feel awful about drinking.  Let me have a drink to feel better.”

Once the brain has re-wired itself, it is no longer a matter of choice, no longer a matter of will power or strength.  And often, people do not realize the negative effect certain influences can have on their lives until this re-wiring has occurred.  The cycle of addiction is truly one of powerlessness.  And it is heart breaking.  Heartbreaking because of how helpless the addict is, and heartbreaking because of all those who are influenced by it.  Addiction leads to great wounds in life, and not just to the lives of the addicts.  Addiction can greatly wound families, friends, and communities.

I’ve been reading the Big Blue Book.  This is the book put out by Alcoholics Anonymous.  It is a good thing to read.  I’d recommend it to anyone.  It is full of stories about alcoholics, about their lives under the influence of alcoholism.  This powerlessness is shown again and again. People who know what they are doing is hurting them, is hurting those they care about, but who cannot stop.

I think our scripture reading for today responds to that powerlessness.  Verses 8 and 9, “For by grace have you been save through faith, and this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” 

Here the author seems to be speaking directly to our society’s view that people just need to get over their addiction.  People just need to develop more will-power, people just need to be stronger.  The author seems to be saying, no amount of strength in you, no amount work done by you, is going to move you into holy relationship with God, with ourselves, with the people around us.  Moving into a state of grace is not accomplished by us. 

And of course we don’t like that in our world.  We live in a pious protestant society.  Live and act proper, and you’ll get what is yours.  Anyone who is having a rough go of it, deserves it, and anyone who is successful deserves it too.  The reason I am not an addict is because I am a better person.  The reason I am successful is because I am better.  I have done all the right stuff, and someone else has done the wrong stuff.  It is their fault, they got where they are. 

Of course we think this way.  It is logical.  It helps us maintain a semblance of control, it helps us see some sort of order to the world around us.  If I were not entirely in control of my own fate, that would be a terrifying prospect.  And since I am entirely in control of my fate, everyone else must be as well.  This is the American Dream.  The idea that everyone is in control of their own destiny, and everyone gets what they deserve. 

Unfortunately, this is counter to the passage that we just read today from Ephesians.  The author is very clear that we are not in control.  That the works we do in this world have no influence on God whatsoever.  No one is more loved by God because of the work they do.  No one is loved less by God because of what they do.  We are not in control of grace.  All we can do is surrender to the love that is freely offered to all, regardless of who they are or what they have done.

And when we think about addictions, when we think about the powerlessness that comes against such a disease, what a wonderful message of hope this is.

I was re-reading the 12 steps a few days ago at drama practice and I almost started crying at their beauty.  It is no wonder that Richard Rohr called the 12 steps, the greatest addition to spirituality that has come out of North America. 

Read the steps

The steps all carry this message of profound grace and surrender of control.  Perhaps this is why 12 step programs have an above average rate of success in helping people get over addictions.  They admit to that same biblical truth that we are not entirely in control of our own salvation.  That control is in the hands of a power greater than ourselves.  As Christians we believe this power to be the one who loves us, who cradles us, who cares for us, and who longs for the best for each and every one of us.  Maybe this is why many of the recovered addicts I have met and spoken with seem to have a deep understanding grace.

Perhaps the 12 steps can teach all of us a lesson, not just those of us who have struggled with addiction, but all of us who have made mistakes.  All of us who long for relationship with God, with one another.  Perhaps the 12 steps can remind us, that none of us have control over our salvation.  These are not about making us better, instead they are about re-creating relationships.  I would encourage everyone to take a look at these steps, and see how they can transform all of our lives.

Sermon for January 22, 2012 - Following

The Scripture reading for this sermon is Mark 1:14-20

Why are we Christian?  Why do we come to church once a week on Sunday mornings?  Do we come because we just like it?  Do we come because we’ve always come?  Do we come because it is a good place to socialize?  Why are we here?

Following last night’s events I went back to my office and typed a lot.  I didn’t know what to do with my sermon.  So I would write, then cut, then paste, then erase, then write some more, then lie down on the floor, then pace, then write some more.  Rarely have I felt so openly helpless, so ill-equipped in my ministry than I did as I sat staring at a computer screen last night.  Where was my faith in the midst of all this?

At a time like this, the rubber meets the road.  So why are we here?

In our Gospel reading for today we read a truly ridiculous story.  Possibly one of the most outlandish stories in all of the bible.  And it isn’t about a healing.  It isn’t about someone walking on water.  It isn’t about God siding with one army over another.  It isn’t even about the glories of creation or re-creation.  And yet it is one of the most miraculous stories I have read.

It’s about Jesus saying to a few people, “Hey, come and follow me.”  And do you know what?  They do.  Immediately.  Without thought.  They drop their very livelihoods, they leave their families, their possessions, and they follow.  In all honesty, there are no stories in all of scripture that I find half so terrifying as this one.

Think about it.  This is scary.  How many of us, myself included, would walk away from our jobs, would leave our possessions, would abandon our families if Jesus asked us to?  Don’t worry, I don’t think Jesus is asking us to.  But, what did these four disciples encounter? To be honest, though it scares me, I marvel at it as well.  What did they experience in Christ?  What was it that just made them drop everything?  Immediately?

Maybe the question is not, “Why are we Christian?”, maybe the question is more basic than that entirely, “What does it mean to be Christian?”  “What does it mean to cast down our nets and follow Christ?”

It is so easy to drop frivolous words around this story.  Words like, “Oh they found Christ.”  But what do we even mean by that?  “Oh, they accepted Jesus.”  Really?  So what does that mean?

These days words like that imply that we have some sort of choice in the matter.  Some sort of agency in accepting Christ.  We have turned it into a rational head game.  Do this, that, and the other thing and you will be a follower of Jesus.  Believe this, that, and the other thing and you accept Christ.  (Act it out)…  Oh, ok.  Now I guess I’m a Christian.

But look at these four disciples.  They had absolutely no control over what they were doing.  The bible is very clear that they immediately followed Jesus.  They didn’t stop to think about whether or not they should, whether it was a good idea or a bad idea.  They didn’t pause and consider the ramifications of their actions.  They just went. 

So what was it that swept them up?  What took their control away?

My own answer is simple.  They experienced God, they experienced the divine, they experienced holiness, whatever you want to call it when they met Jesus.  Richard Rohr writes that “Anyone who has any authentic inner experience knows God is only beauty, mercy and total embrace.”  To be wrapped up in total embrace, how could they not be swept away?  Once you’ve felt that, once you’ve known that, is there any choice?

More and more I’m coming to the realization that everything about our faith comes down to grace.  That’s all there is, that is all that matters.  Grace! Grace! Grace!  The idea that God’s love comes first.  That all things are created out of love and dwell within that love.  That God’s love is freely and adoringly given.  That there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn that love.  No hoop to jump through, no ritual to perform, no set of beliefs to have.  Alternatively there is absolutely nothing we can do to lose that love, no sin so great, no belief so outlandish.

As Christians we see that Grace embodied in the self giving love of Jesus.  No wonder these disciples dropped everything.  They encountered and knew divine love, and it blew them away.  They were absolutely taken by it!  Because this is so foreign to us, we try to take control of it.  We have created systems that tell us what we need to do in the world or believe about Jesus in order to receive it.  But we can’t control it.  God’s love comes first.

 “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  This is Paul, and I think it is the Gospel, it is Grace, in the most eloquent language I’ve ever read.  NOTHING can separate us from the love of God.

I think it is important for all of us to know that.

But here’s the question, how many of us know that for ourselves?  It is, in many ways, relatively easy to think it about other.  But, when we’re well and truly honest with ourselves, how many of us think, “My value comes from God’s love for me.  And God’s love is enough.”

That is the basis of all things.  That is where the rubber meets the road.  If we don’t have that, if our value comes from somewhere, something, or someone beyond ourselves, it is that somewhere, something, or someone that we will follow.  If the fishermen saw their value as being the work that they did, they would have never left their boats.  If the fishermen saw their value as what they possessed, they would never have dropped their nets.  If the fishermen saw their own value as being their families, they would never have gone.  The bible is not saying any of these are bad.  The bible is simply saying, our value does not come from them.

This is the most basic element of our faith.  Our value comes simply from God’s love.  Our role as Christians is to long to experience that for ourselves and for the world around us.  That is the basis upon which all things must grow.  I wish I could say what needs to be done to experience that.  But I can’t.  That’s not the way it works.  However, if anyone wants to know that, if anyone longs for that.  Talk to me.   I would love to explore with you, as I explore for myself.  Because God’s love is present, it resides deep within and around us.  We’re invited to know it and to share it.

Sermon for December 21, 2011 - Longest Night

The carols are being played, the stores are bursting at the seams with product on display.  Lights are up around town, and everyone is talking about their Christmas plans.  Though this can be a joyful season, it can also be an isolating one, a season that makes us feel left out because there are times when we just can’t wear that same saccharine smile that is on everybody else’s face.  It might be because we have lost someone near and dear to us, and the holidays are flooded with painful memories or just a sense of something missing; it might be because the season overwhelms us with ever growing to-do lists and we long for some moment of peace and pause that we just cannot find; or it might be because our hearts are just heavy and we feel like crying, and there is just no place to share that, to let it go.

And so we come to the longest night.  Only eight hours of light boxed between sunrise, sunset, and the long dark.  And even when the sun is out, it is so low in the sky as to create the feeling of eternal dusk.  It can weigh heavily on us at times.  This year especially, not only the cold and the dark, but the damp makes a potent mix that can chill us to our very core.

And in the midst of this natural movement of the seasons, we have Christmas.  It is funny how the Holy Spirit works.  The past couple of days I have been wondering about the relationship between Christmas and the Longest night of the year, in preparation for tonight’s service.  This morning I received an email from the Center for Action and Contemplation written by Richard Rohr.  In his brief message he describes the historical view of the Winter Solstice, not as a day that embodies the death of the sun as we might think about it, but rather as the day which marks its rebirth.  For early Christians, who lived in the Northern Hemisphere, this was significant and could not be overlooked.  Christmas and the Winter Solstice used the symbol of the rebirth of the sun in the sky, as a sign of the birth of light on earth.

When it comes down to it, Christmas is about one simple story.  A story so precious and gentle, so beautiful and meaningful that it has carried on for two thousand of years.  It was not on a bright sunshiney morning that God came into the world, but rather on a dark cold night.  That is where we meet God.  On those dark cold nights, when we feel like the light of the world is barely creeping over the horizon, if at all.  In Christ, born in a stable, living with the lonely and the isolated, mourning the death of a friend and weeping in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see God’s promise being fulfilled.  We have become engraved on the divine palms, as nails driven into the cross.  God does not abandon us to the darkness alone though at times we may feel it.  God walks with us through those darkest times, carrying whatever burden we carry, weeping whenever we weep.

All the while whispering into our ears, “Oh my precious Child, wherever you walk, I will walk with you.”  Speaking to all of creation, “Oh my love, my love, wherever you go, I will go.”  Sighing with a weeping heart, “You are mine.  I am with you in all things.  You are not alone.  I am there, and my heart is breaking with your.”

Moses, Layton and a Call to Love

Scripture Readings for this week: Exodus 3:1-15, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28

Moses was the man who would become the greatest symbol of liberation, the giver of the law and the leader of the Hebrews who in many ways goes unrivaled in the history of Israel.  And it is at this moment, which we read in scripture today, standing before a fire, a flame, a burning bush, when he begins to follow that path.

Before he encounters God in the midst of the burning bush, Moses was raised in the lap of luxury.  A palace brat, he was incredibly disconnected from the lives of his people.  He might have known he was not an Egyptian.  With his birth mother as his wet nurse, it is hard to believe she would not have told him where he came from, if only in whispers and songs.  But still as an adopted grandchild of the Pharaoh, Moses was Egyptian royalty.

Yet he must have felt some attachment to his people.  When he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, he killed the perpetrator and hid the body.  One might think this would have made him a hero to the Hebrews.  But the very next day, when he tried to break up a fight, you can almost hear the mocking in his own peoples’ voice, “What?  Are you going to kill us too?”  He’s an outsider.  His people will not accept him, and soon even Pharaoh begins to hunt him for the original murder.  And so he runs away, runs into the desert, hoping to escape his own history, his own identity.

And it is there that he encounters God.  Tending a flock of sheep for his father-in-law, Moses comes upon the burning bush.  And his own fire is lit, a fire deep within his heart.  This is Moses’ moment of conversion.  This is where Moses discovers something beyond himself and within himself.  The voice of God echoes within his soul, telling him who he truly is, telling him that he is one of God’s own, that he is beloved, telling him that he has a place within the world, that he has a place within history.

It is hard to describe a conversion.  For some people it does strike like a burning bush within their hearts, and for others, faith has been with them their whole lives.  Whether it feels like lightning or whether it feels like a warm blanket faith resonates within the heart.  It is that sense that there is something beyond ourselves as individuals, that sense that we are beloved, that we have a place in the world, a place within history.  As Christians that place is expressed in the Gospels.  It is the understanding that we are loved.  It is the understanding that we are not alone, that God, that the universe is on our side, and that we have experienced this love in Jesus Christ.

But it cannot end there.  It does not end there for Moses.  He does not see a burning bush, smile politely and walk away.  The voice of God goes on.  “Ok Moses, you know me!  You have met me!  You have met me within your heart! But you will no longer encounter me in a burning bush, no longer will you encounter me just as a flame inside you!  From now on you will meet me with my people!  You will meet me where my sons and daughters cry out for justice, where my people long for liberation and freedom.  I have touched your very soul Moses, now that you know me, how can you do anything but go?!”

Moses’ conversion did not end at the burning bush.  In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus reminds us that our conversion, our faith cannot end in our hearts. Jesus does not say to his disciples, “Hey hang out for a little while, and think of me fondly.” He says, “Pick up your cross and follow me!” 

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, this path for Christians is quite clearly defined as the path of love, the path of hope, the path of generosity.  It is the path of caring for the poor, of supporting those who are mourning, of seeking peace.  Does any of this sound familiar?

This past week the whole nation has been trying to understand how it feels about the death of the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, Jack Layton.  People are writing on walls, they are tweeting, they are writing in newspapers, they are crying out that now famous phrase, “Love is better than anger, hope is better than fear, and optimism is better than despair.  So let us be loving, hopeful, and optimistic, and we’ll change the world.”  These words echoed for people because, people long for them.  Regardless of political stripe you would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t within their hearts want a world of love, hope, and optimism.  But all too often we cynically advocate for something else.

If these words rang true, if these words resonated, if these words sounded familiar, it is because they are incredibly grounded in the Christian faith.  This is Paul through and through. But since the church in many ways has forgotten to preach and to live those words, Canada has turned to someone else for that fundamental Gospel truth.  People long for that message grounded in love, grounded in hope, grounded in generosity.  Jack Layton, a lifelong United Church member who continued to be active within the church through his adult life is offering up his faith to the world.  Trying to live it in the world around him.

This is what it means to be Christian.  It is not just a matter of believing in Jesus and then washing our hands of the world.  To quote Richard Rohr, if this were the case “One could be warlike, greedy, a racist, selfish and vain, and still believe that Jesus is their “personal Lord and Saviour.” The world has no time for such silliness anymore.  The suffering on earth is too great.”  To be Christian we cannot separate our faith from the world.  We cannot withhold that same love which has been so freely given to us from the world around us.  We cannot say Christianity is only about our hearts, when every prophet, every saint, and Jesus Christ has not only held love, but lived it in the world.

We are Christians, we are part of a holy community, stretching back through history to that greatest act of love on the cross.  With a fire burning in our hearts, a fire, like the burning bush that doesn’t consume but enlightens; it is not our duty, it is our opportunity to embody love in the world.  To not hoard that fire, that understanding of grace, that awareness that we are the beloved children of God, but rather to share it with all we meet.  It is our privilege to join with Christ in offering that self-giving love to the world.  It is our privilege to answer Paul’s call to embody faith, hope, and above all love.  It is our privilege, to walk with Moses with that fire within us, going to places where there is only anger, only fear, only despair, to those places where there is injustice, where there is slavery and oppression, and to shine that light in the darkness.  Thanks be to God, Amen.