Sermon for
May 9, 2004
5th Sunday of Easter - Mother’s Day/Festival of the
Christian Home
Series: The Household of God: Three Keys to a
Healthy Life
2. First Key to a Healthy Life—Accept
Differences
Acts 11:15-18; John 13:34-35
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to distinguish between the one from the
other.
United Methodist Hymnal,
459
What is life like at your house?
That’s the continuing question before us as we explore together life in
the household of God. The household of God is a community of love where
people know and support one another and where every idea is respected and
everyone is committed to the common goal for which the whole community
strives. The household of God—you know, the place where God lives, where
the peace of Christ reigns. Is that what life is like at your house?
The household of God
finds its origin in the intention of God in creation. The household of
God was created in the beginning as the very basic framework of human
relationship. It began with the creation of Eve. When she entered the
scene the fabric of life began to take shape. With the creation of Eve
life was transformed from the solitary existence of a lone being into a
community of human relationship. With this possibility of human
interaction, relationship and community brought both the promise of
fulfillment and the threat destruction of the household of God. The
creation of Eve introduced differences and differences, diversity, are the
two-edged sword that shapes life. Differences are what make relationships
and, therefore, life possible. Differences also produce conflict;
conflict brings the potential to destroy the very relationships
differences make possible. It can be said that in the very beginning by
the creation of differences God planted the seeds for both the growth and
the destruction of life.
Cheryl and I attended
our first play at the Mill Mountain Theater recently when we saw the
production of Mark Twain’s The Diary of Adam and Eve. Mark Twain
describes the promise and the threat of differences so well in his own
inimitable way. We would share just a bit of his original work upon which
the play was based by way of illustration. Listen to Mark Twain’s
interpretation of the differences introduced into the world by the
creation of Eve and the subsequent relationship that make life
possible…..
Excerpts from
The Diary of Adam and Eve
by Mark Twain
Adam’s Diary
MONDAY.—This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in
the way. It is
always
hanging around and following me about. I don’t like this; I am not used
to
company. I
wish it would stay with the other animals….Cloudy today, wind in the
east; think
we shall have rain…We? Where did I get that word?…I remember now,-
-the new
creature uses it.
Eve’s Diary
SATURDAY…I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday
afternoon, at a distance, to se what it might be for, if I could. But I
was not able to make out. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man,
but I looked like one, and I feel sure that is what it is. I realize that
I feel more curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles. If
it is a reptile, and I suppose it is; for it has frowsy hair and blue
eyes, and looks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot;
when it stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a
reptile, though it may be architecture.
I was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time it turned
around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by and by I found it
was only trying to get away, so after that I was not timid anymore, but
tracked it along, several hours, about twenty yards behind, which made it
nervous and unhappy. At last it was a good deal worried, and climbed a
tree. I waited a good while, then gave up and went home.
Today the same thing over. I’ve got it up the tree again.
Adam’s Diary
WEDNESDAY.—Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to
myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it out
it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the
back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make
when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always
talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but
I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and any
new strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these
dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new
sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear,
first on the one side and then on the other, and I am used only to sounds
that are more or less distant from me.
Eve’s Diary
NEXT WEEK SUNDAY.--All the week I tagged around after him and tried to get
acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he was shy, but I didn’t
mind it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I used the sociable
“we” a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to be included.
Adam’s Diary
FRIDAY.--….My life is not as happy as it was.
“Extracts from The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain
Harper’s Magazine,
June, 1999
(line breaks indicate omitted material)
What a struggle and
what a joy it is. Differences! Life! And we have not even considered
the differences that children introduce into the human mix! That reality
was perhaps no better expressed than by my father-in-law, rest his soul
who was known to respond when asked, “How are you?” he would say, “I
haven’t been well since the baby came!” And I heard him say that for the
first time about 23 years after the birth of his first baby, my wife,
Cheryl. He indeed had not been well for a long time!
Differences: the
very promise of the fulfillment of life and the very real threat to life
as we know it. Life really is all about negotiating differences. That’s
why the first key to a healthy life is: accept differences.
Now there are several
ways to deal with differences. Most of us are uneasy and anxious about
differences. When you are uneasy and anxious about differences you tend
to deal with differences by insisting that everybody be the same. That,
of course is impossible, but more often than not we find two ways to try
to accomplish this impossibility. One way is to totally adapt yourself to
the seeming consensus of the moment and completely absorb your identity
with that of the other. Another way is to so clearly define your own
identity that you insist others be just like you and cut yourself off from
any who disagree with you. Obviously the more mature among us find the
way to relate that is inbetween these two extremes. Mature persons
somehow find a way to clearly define who they are without being threatened
by the difference in another while at the same time remaining relationally
connected to those with whom they do not agree. The emotionally mature
are so comfortable within themselves that they can easily relate to others
without either imposing themselves upon them or totally abandoning
themselves to them.
Maggie Scarf studied
the difference between unhappy and happy families. Unhappy families tend
to “rigidity into certain recognizable, limited stances.” They become
trapped in “fixed patterns of responding; they get into ‘nonnegotiable
positions.’” Unhappy families “get stuck..” Happy families are known for
their “variability,” their “ability to be flexible.” Happy families
“cherish” the individuality of its members. There is a certain resiliency
to happy families while unhappy families are strikingly intolerant of
differences.
It was certainly an
unhappy time in the Christian family when Peter was so upset about the
differences between the original Jewish Christians and the newly-converted
non-Jewish Gentile Christians. For a long time the young Christian Church
insisted that any new Christian must follow all the rituals, traditions,
and practices of the Jewish faith. But in our text from the Acts this
morning, Peter saw in a dream the gift of the diversity of the Christian
family and, having seen the spirit of God come upon an uncircumcised
heathen who experienced the reconciling love of Christ quite apart from
any accommodation to Jewish culture, he declared
If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we
believed
in the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was I that I could hinder God?
Acts 11:17
Differences bring conflict. In the
midst of conflict, anxiety rises. When anxiety rises, the perception of
differences is magnified. What ordinarily would be a thoughtful,
straightforward discussion of a difference of opinion so easily
deteriorates into the angry exchange of adversaries. Sometimes in life
everyone is invested in clearly expressing themselves and finding a
mutually satisfying consensus where each one gives up a little bit and
everyone wins. But too often, however, a stressful battle of wills
develops where everybody is only understood in “black and white” “win or
lose” terms and the entire situation deteriorates into a struggle of life
and death. The potential for both was planted in the very beginning with
the creation of Adam and Eve. From the very beginning, differences
provide the opportunity for the vitality and lay the foundation for the
fall of human life.
What is life like at
your house? Or at your school? or at your work? Or at your church? Or
in your world? Do we accept differences? Or do differences become our
downfall every time?
No family, no school,
no workplace, no church is perfect. Nowhere in the created universe will
you find a human community anywhere where there is a perfect balance
between the separateness and closeness that is the key to accepting
differences and making for a healthy life. Every family, every school,
every workplace, every church has the potential to experience the growth
and vitality that happens when differences are accepted. There is a kind
of magic to this creation, there is a grace in creation that brings health
to relationships and makes life grow. That magic, that grace is available
to any who accept differences. Whenever we can successfully negotiate
the differences between us such that we keep our own integrity and enhance
the integrity of another we tap into the very power of creation itself
that creates life.
Every Mother here
this morning has at one time or another in her life, recited in her heart
of hearts the sentiment expressed in the poem of Rudyard Kipling entitled
If:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too….
Rudyard Kipling
Every mother here
this morning can remember a time in your family when tension was high, the
conflict intense, and everyone seemed to be looking to you for support or
love or affirmation or whatever. Do you remember the moment in your
family, in your life? Every mother can remember that one moment when
somehow you managed to keep your head, when you were able to clearly
define yourself without cutting everybody else off and clearly hearing and
understanding everyone else? Do you remember such a moment? The
resolution that came was perhaps not immediate; you had to wait patiently
for it. It was not a solution you managed or perhaps even imagined. It
felt like a gift. Well, it is a gift granted to all relationships where
somebody just keeps her head, thinks clearly, speaks for herself and stays
connected to everybody else. Every mother here can remember a moment just
like that. In that moment, you gave a real gift to your family, not only
in that moment, but for the rest of their lives. Because in that moment
everybody grew up just a little bit in emotional maturity and experienced
what life is really like in the household of God.
Jesus gave to his
disciples back then and continually gives to us today a new commandment
You love one another, just as I have loved you. John
13:34a
Love, agape, love that asks for nothing in return. Love that has
enough integrity to be who you are while letting others be who they are.
Love, when expressed and shared, creates wholeness of life in its
expression and in its experience by the grace of God through Jesus
Christ.
What’s life like at your house? In
conclusion let us offer the prayer that places us before God in the best
way I know for God to work in us this magic of creation:
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the
wisdom to distinguish between the one from the
other.
United Methodist Hymnal, 459
