Well, it happened to me. Did it
happen to you? I kept getting all these emails saying that their computer
server stopped my email from going through to its intended addressee (who,
in fact, was someone I didn’t even know) because my messages were infected
by a virus. Soon my computer began to run very slowly, as if it had a
mind of its own, running lots of things I had no intention to operate nor
had any control over. It wasn’t until I loaded the Anti-Virus software in
my computer at the office and cleared if of this virus that everything got
back to normal. Yes, I got it. I see now why they called it “My Doom!”
The virus, affecting millions of computers, setting them to send billions
of messages to the Microsoft server and successfully shutting it down for
a time recently. I got it. Did you get it?
It turns out that the
internet is a very fragile system. It is so easily exploitable. The
massive system that connects all the world's computers through a network
accessible by telephone lines is maintained in such a delicate balance.
Someone who knows what he or she is doing can so easily break the law and
disable so much of the network. So all of us who have computers now get
regular updates of anti-virus software just to keep up with the latest
dangers that threaten our computers and our connections to the outside
world.
I am always intrigued
how the technical language that describes the operation of computers is so
similar to the language we use to describe life. When one computer first
connects to another computer, do you know what the technical term for that
moment is? It’s called a “handshake.” Computers get “viruses” just like
human beings. I am also intrigued by how we so often are so much more
vigilant to repair, protect, and maintain our computer systems in the face
of the threat of a virus than we are to repair, protect and maintain our
emotional systems, our spirits, our souls, our lives in the face of the
threat of very real virus.
Life is maintained in
such a delicate balance, isn’t it? Health is defined in many ways but one
way to understand and describe health is to talk about it in terms of the
very delicate balance of the chemistry within the human body. If there is
too much of one chemical or too little of another, things get out of
balance rather quickly. That is why it is so vital that your doctor
review your medications regularly for one chemical reacts to another in
different ways as it in turn reacts to chemistry inside the human body.
Life really is a very delicate and precise balance.
I was reminded of this
quite strikingly several years ago. Most of you know that I served as
campus minister at Old Dominion University and Tidewater Community College
with the Tidewater Wesley Foundation in Norfolk for 8 years, 1987-1995.
While I served there we were fortunate to initiate an internship program
where folks, usually though not exclusively students, would serve one of
the various ministries we shared. Through the years the internship
program grew thereby providing 3 interns each year for our staff—one with
the ODU student ministry, one with the ODU Campus Chapter of Habitat for
Humanity which built their first house my last year there, and one with
our ministry to 2 campuses of Tidewater Community College. Crystal Sygeel,
one of my ODU students, was our first intern in 1991. She has since been
ordained as clergy in the Virginia Conference.
One day I got word that
Crystal was ill and would not be in. She had the flu, a pretty severe
case. I did not hear from her until a few days later when I got word that
she was in the hospital. Now all she had was a virus—what was wrong?
Some of you may be guessing already. Her symptoms were so acute that she
was not able to follow the one treatment that is vital to recovery from
influenza—drink plenty of fluids. She was dehydrated—the chemical balance
was upset. The only way she could recover that delicate balance was under
the care of a physician in the hospital. The need for fluids is so vital
that it did not take long at all for a healthy 20-year-old college woman
to require hospitalization and intravenous fluids to recover from physical
dehydration. She was in the hospital only a day or two and did well. It
was then that I was reminded again how very delicate and precise the
balance of life is.
It is so easy to get
dehydrated when a virus attacks. That’s why you always are advised to
drink plenty of fluids. Drink water (water glass displayed).
The prophet Isaiah and
the Psalmist speak of thirst today. Isaiah says
Ho, everybody who thirsts, come to the waters
But he’s not talking about the water that’s in this glass. He is not
speaking of a thirst that this can quench. No, this is a thirst deep down
in the soul. The thirst of one who has lost the way, who is empty inside,
incomplete, dissatisfied, aching for wholeness. Isaiah calls not to those
who suffer from physical dehydration but to those to who suffer from
spiritual dehydration.
You see, just as there
is a very delicate balance in your physical life, so also there is a very
delicate and precise balance in your spiritual life. Your spirit, your
soul, the very core of your being needs plenty of spiritual fluids, if you
will. There is a thirst deep in your soul that must be quenched. The
need for replenishment in your heart is so vital that it does not take
long at all for your own spiritual health to require careful attention in
order to recover. If you don’t seek after the right spiritual fluids or
find the proper treatment for your soul your condition does nothing but
worsen. You get so thirsty. You get dead inside. Do you know what it
feels like to be dead inside? That’s why the people of God were
experiencing as the prophet Isaiah invites them to the waters.
The people of God, you
see, had been in exile for a long time. Several years before they had
been forcibly relocated away for the Promised Land and forced to live in
the far off land of their captors in Babylon. Away from their homeland,
in grief over the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple,
they were thirsty,
they were empty,
their life had lost significant meaning,
they felt cut off from God.
As they finally made a life for themselves in exile they began to
accommodate themselves to their surroundings in Babylon. Many became
quite successful, even wealthy. Some accommodated themselves so
thoroughly that they even adopted the practices and habits of their
captors. They had been gone from the Promised Land and, they thought,
from God for so long.
Now, what happens to
someone who is deprived of water for a long time, if that delicate balance
is upset due to dehydration? What is it that someone stranded in the
desert with no water for a long time begins to see on the horizon? What
does it look like? A well! An oasis! A city! But what is it really?
A mirage.
You can almost see him using every last bit
of energy to reach that imagined destination only to stumble and fall as
he arrives at the same dry and barren place he was before.
The balance of life is
so very delicate. That is particularly true of the spiritual life. If
that deep thirst in you is not satisfied you’ll find anything, see
anything on the horizon, chase after every mirage in order to quench that
thirst. You’ll find something in the culture to fill that void, that
ache, that gaping hole in your heart, just like the people of God did in
exile.
The Babylonian culture
provided all the trappings of wealth and comfort for those fortunate
enough to do well for themselves. Isaiah says, “Don’t try to fill your
lives with all that. It will not satisfy. It’s not the real thing. It’s
a mirage.”
It has been suggested
that there is a virus spreading among you in our culture in our day. It
is a virus that thrives in an empty heart. It is a virus of the spirit to
which an incomplete, dissatisfied, and aching soul is so very
susceptible. The infectious nature of this virus upon the spirit rivals
that of the flu virus upon the physical body. It is not a new affliction
to our souls (Isaiah warned the people of God about it so long ago) but
recently it has been called by a new name. It’s not “My Doom!”, thought
that might be appropriate. This virus of the spirit has been named “Affluenza,”
a term coined by Jessie H. O’Neill in her 1997 book The Golden Ghetto:
the Psychology of Affluenza. How do you catch affluenza? Do you
already have it? How does the infection pass from one heart to the
other?
It seems the affluenza
virus incubates in the heart for quite awhile. It plants itself, it
seems, in the hearts of the children in our culture as they absorb the
advertising and inticements of the television where they learn very early
about many, many things they have just got to have. Affluenza symptoms
are particularly acute during the teenage years when peer pressure demands
that certain clothes with particular name brand labels must be worn even
though they may cost three times as much. The symptoms of affluenza
thrive when you get on or several of these (display credit card).
These become almost carriers of the virus because temporary gratification
is so immediate with one of these. It is a disease of a culture that
places ultimate value on what you possess, own, and control. A culture of
affluence where persons share a standard of living, though far exceeding
that of most other peoples in the world, never seems to satisfy—a culture
of affluence where you always want more. Affluenza is a disease where you
spend, accumulate, acquire, and get things of the culture in order to fill
that empty place in your soul--if you can just buy the next thing you see
on the horizon. The problem is, after you use every last bit of energy to
reach that imagined destination you always stumble and fall as you arrive
at the same dry and barren place you were before.
What do you do for
affluenza? Treatment for this virus of the spirit is much the same as for
that affliction of the body, influenza. (baptism pitcher of water
display) Drink plenty of fluids.
Isaiah says
Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your
labor
for that which does not satisfy? Seek the Lord while he may be
found;
call upon him while he is near, that he may have mercy…for he
will
abundantly pardon.
The water of baptism is a sign of God’s love for
you—a symbol of God’s love in your life long before you were ever able to
understand who God is. That ache in your soul, that emptiness, that deep
thirst of your spirit can only be satisfied by the love of God in your
heart.
When you are physically
dehydrated you need to find a physical dehydration recovery center.
That’s why you check into a hospital for rest, for intravenous treatment
by a physician. When your soul is depleted, when you are spiritually
dehydrated, you need a spiritual dehydration recovery center. That’s why
you come to the church—for baptism, for Holy Communion, for worship, for
community, for careful treatment by the Great Physician, even Jesus Christ
our Lord.
If we could only be as
diligent in protecting our souls as we are in protecting our computers; if
we could only be as diligent to maintain our spirits as we are our
anti-virus software; if we could only tend to our lives as carefully as we
are committed to the regular, disciplined maintenance of that vital
machine that sits on your desk or in your lap or in your palm, then the
church wouldn’t have to worry that a virus rampant in the culture could
indeed spell doom for the human race.
You come to the church
to pray, even as you prayed with the Psalmist this morning
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you,
my flesh
faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no
water. So I
have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and
glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life…
Jesus tells a parable of a fig tree
that has never been fruitful. The owner of the vineyard tells the
gardener to cut it down, but the gardener said,
Let it alone for one more year, one season. I’ll water it,
nourish it, let’s
see what it does.
Sisters and brothers, this season of Lent is that season for you. Come to
the waters. Take in plenty of fluids. Bare your aching, empty soul to
God and be filled with love. Life really is a very delicate and precise
balance. Don’t forget, in this season, to drink plenty of fluids.
