YES...BUT....
Matthew 19:16-21
This is an old story but it illustrates a point and I trust you'll forgive my using some recycled material. A man, who happens to be a recent convert to Christianity, is climbing up a high mountain. Upon reaching the tree line (the point above which no tress will grow), he decides to take a breather and to take a few minutes to view with wonder God's magnificent creation. Having rested, he starts to climb again when, suddenly, he loses his footing and starts to slip down the mountain wall. Passing several trees on his slide, he reaches out and grabs hold of one, and hangs on tightly with both hands. Swinging precariously above the canyon far below, he wonders what to do next. Then it occurs to him that maybe his new-found faith could be of some help. So, he turns his head to the heavens and says "Ah...God...I'm kind of a newcomer to this prayer business but anyway...I was wondering if you could help me out here. As you can see, I'm in a bad way just now and I haven't got any ideas how to get out of this mess so I was hoping you might have some suggestions...."
There is a period of silence and then a deep, resonant voice comes from above saying: "Do you trust in me"?
The mountain climber quickly answers: "Oh, yes, I'm a believer, I do trust in you and I'll do whatever you say!"
After a moment of silence, the voice from above says: "Let go with one hand."
The mountain climber, startled to say the least, hesitates a bit and then lets go with one hand. He then says: "Ok, God, I did what you said, now please save me...it's getting hard to hold on with only one hand."
The voice from above responds with: "Do you really trust me, are you willing to do whatever I say?"
The mountain climber responds, with some annoyance: "Yes, God, I really trust you and I already let go with one hand, but would you please hurry up and save me, I'm really having a hard time holding on up here...."
The voice from above replies: "Let go with the other hand."
In disbelief, the mountain climber says "What??!!"
The voice from above says: "Let go with the other hand."
After a moment of silence, the mountain climber replies: "Ah...excuse me God, is there anyone else up there I could talk to...?"
Letting go with both hands, being willing to follow directions and have complete faith in the power of God or the advice of other people is easy to say but often very hard to do. I find this most often manifests itself in the phrase: "Yes...but."
This morning's Scripture reading from Matthew illustrates the "yes...but" problem. Jesus has been teaching in the synagogue, trying to explain the kingdom of God and the message of the Gospel in stories and parables. A leader of the synagogue, apparently interested in Jesus message, approaches him and asks what he must do to attain eternal life. Jesus, by way of an indirect answer, implies that following the commandments is the way to life eternal. You can almost see the young man's face light up as he listens to Jesus for he has apparently kept all the commandments all his life. We can suppose that he was hoping Jesus' next reply would be, "Well done, that's all there is to it, you've just secured yourself a place in heaven...." Instead, while Jesus commends the ruler's following of the commandments, he instead replies: "There is only one thing left for you to do: sell all you have, give your money to the poor, and follow me." What a shock that must have been. The ruler, probably feeling quite virtuous, was "this close" to eternal life, only to hear that Jesus gives one more requirement. We can assume he must have been thinking: "I've done what you asked, and now you want me to give up my worldly riches and follow you...I mean, yes, I've followed the commandments, but...I can't possibly give away all my possessions, that's just asking too much!"
This story is usually used to illustrate the difficulty of being both materially successful and a follower of the Christ. But, here, I am suggesting it simply illustrates the "yes...but" phenomenon: Yes, I'll do what you ask...but don't ask too much or at least let me explain why I can't do all you ask.
I have encountered "yes...but" situations many times in the work I do. Prior to my retirement a couple of years ago, I worked as an Employee Assistance Professional (or an EAP) with a major pharmaceutical company. An EAP is kind of a blend of corporate shrink and corporate chaplain. Most US companies have found that it is both helpful and cost effective to have a counselor available to provide mental health and substance abuse counseling for troubled employees. Over the years, I have worked with many people who are wrestling with difficult personal, family or work-related concerns. My job, as an EAP, was to help them find solutions to their problems and to help them return to being effective employees. Most of the people I saw were in significant distress and most expressed a willingness to do whatever it would take to get back on track. I am no great font of wisdom but, as often as not, I usually had some reasonable suggestions concerning how they could deal with whatever dilemma they were facing. Still, I can't tell you the number of times I heard: "Yes, what you say makes sense, but...let me tell you why it won't work or why I can't do it." "Yes, I probably should stop drinking, but...you'd drink too if you had my boss." "Yes, I probably should spend more time with my family...but I have too much work to do." "Yes, I probably should see a therapist about my depression, but I just don't have the time to do it." In short, in myriad ways, I heard the "yes...but" response over and over again. I learned many things over the years in dealing with "yes...but" responses and in facing my own proclivity for "yes...butting" helpful suggestions made to me. Mostly, it seems to me that what underlies "yes...but" is fear, or a lack of trust and perhaps even a certain stubbornness which many of us carry around with us.
This is not to say that "yes...but" is always a bad thing. Several years ago when I was starting my career as an EAP, I had very little experience with corporate life and all kinds of great ideas about how we could fix corporate America and have nothing but happy, healthy and well adjusted employees. I also had a wonderful boss. I would walk into his office with some new "cure for corporate America" and my boss would say, very gently: "Yes, Tom, that's an interesting idea, but let me suggest some other approaches that, in my experience, might work even better." Instead of confronting or challenging me, he simply let me know that he had heard what I said, appreciated it, but felt that some other approach might work better. This approach of listening, appreciating, and then suggesting alternatives has been most helpful to me both personally and professionally.
I think another lesson Jesus is trying to teach in this story is that all, or perhaps almost all, of us have a point beyond which we will not go. Yes, I'll practice the principles of Christian living...up to a point. I'll behave myself and try to do the right thing, but don't expect me to make any radical changes. The environment is a mess so I'll buy a more fuel-efficient car, but don't expect me to sell my car and start riding a bicycle to work or to the shopping center. Yes, I'll send some money to the Red Cross, but don't expect me to cash in my 401-K and send the proceeds to Darfur. Yes, I'll work on being more pleasant to that obnoxious family member or neighbor, but don't expect me to actually take the time to get to know them or figure out why they behave the way they do.
By no means is this meant to demean or overlook the value of our individual efforts to incarnate the Gospel in the world. This church is full of people who have indeed sacrificed time, money and effort to show God's love in needy situations. There is a real sense of mission in this congregation and our mission efforts speak for themselves. So, perhaps it is a matter of degree. We are a willing and caring congregation, but we still have our limits.
In this morning's Scripture, Jesus is gently reminding us that none of us is perfect "...if you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, then follow me." He knows that even the best among us have our "yes...but" point and that fear and lack of faith keep us from being able, relying solely on our own resources, to achieve perfection or life eternal. Or, to put it another way, we cannot earn our way into heaven. This is a humbling recognition. I can imagine the ruler going home and saying to himself: "I guess I have to rethink this thing, I have to realize that due to my human frailty and fear, I'm not willing to do all that God requires of me, maybe a bit of humility wouldn't hurt after all...."
If this were the whole story, it would paint a rather glum picture of human life, even Christian human life. But, as I see it, the message of the Gospel is that God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God can be the source of hope, courage, strength and power that allows us to overcome our fears, doubts and lack of faith. We are not perfect, nor can we expect, relying on our own resources, to achieve perfection but, in Christ, we have a way toward a better life here and a life beyond our human frailties yet to come. Our task then, as Christians, is to strengthen our hope and faith through reliance upon God's grace; to dispel the fear that keeps us locked up with the "but..." side of "yes...but" and to more toward the "yes" of genuine living.
I have many friends who are recovering from alcoholism through A.A. While they are a diverse group, what they all have in common is the belief that they did not get themselves sober. Rather, they believe that a "higher power" or God lifted them from the fear and terror of active addiction into a sober life beyond their wildest dreams. They all report myriad attempts, relying on their own resources, to stop drinking, all of which failed. They report making deals with God, making all sorts of promises, trying to find some way to either drink normally or just stop drinking altogether, all to no avail. When they "let go with both hands," when they stopped saying "yes...but" to all the efforts of family, friends, and professionals to help them; when they realized that God would do for them what they could not do for themselves, they report a miraculous transformation. I have seen similar things in the lives of others not plagued by alcoholism: depression overcome; joblessness faced with courage; terminal illness accepted gracefully, difficult personality traits confronted squarely. Those who do these things seem, in some way or other, to have the willingness to let go, to trust that God's love will--to return to the story we began with--catch them, cradle them, and return them safely to the ground.
I often ask my wife Susan to read over my sermon as I am working on it to see if it makes sense to her. When she got to this point in my first draft she said, "Not bad...but where's the baseball reference...."
So, for those of you eagerly awaiting it, here it is: My team, the Mercer Mets was locked in a close game. We had a man on second base with no outs when I came to bat. I casually looked over to the third base coach and noted that he was giving me the bunt sign. The plan was for me to make a sacrifice bunt thus moving our runner at second over to third. This was standard baseball strategy and I knew what I had to do. Unfortunately, the pitcher for the other team also knew what I had to do either because he had picked up the coach's sign or because it just made sense for us to do this. That being the case, he fired a high, inside fastball--a pitch, for those of you who may not be baseball aficionados, which is virtually impossible to bunt. The fact that it was impossible to bunt didn't stop me, however, and I squared around and attempted to make contact. The ball hit my right thumb and bounced into foul territory. I believe I uttered some phrases not normally found in the Calvinist dictionary and left the field to apply some first aid to my broken thumb. A substitute was put in and the game continued. My coach asked me, after the game, if I realized that that pitch was unbuntable. I said "Yes...but I had my orders and I was just following the coach's directions. He suggested that sometimes a bit of common sense is helpful. Which is simply to say that sometimes, in life's more significant situations, "yes...but" can be a valid response. Because we've been told to do something doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right thing to do or that we can't exercise some judgment in deciding whether to do it or not. If at work, for instance, we are told to do something which we feel is unethical or simply wrong, we can exercise the right not to do it.
That we are not perfect, that we can never fully follow the lead of Jesus and live the Gospel-life correctly all the time is both a humbling and reassuring fact. It is humbling because it reminds us that our successes are at best transient and quite possibly largely not of our own doing and it reminds us that that is true of others too. It is reassuring because it liberates us from the yoke of perfection, from having to always be right and never being in error. It keeps us from the illusion that we can either buy or earn our way into eternal life. The central message of the Reformation is that we are saved, we are justified, our lives have meaning, value and purpose by the grace of God. Unlike the rich young ruler in the Scripture lesson, we don't have to turn away disappointed but rather are freed to expand our understanding of God's will for us and to carry the Gospel, however imperfectly, into the world.
The good things we do: trying to meet the needs of others; going out of our way to do some small act of kindness; working to free ourselves from grudges and resentments; sharing our relative wealth with the less fortunate, these are but signs that God's love is moving through us out into the world. Each time we do the next right thing we are not earning "goodness points" but rather showing God's love and responding with gratitude to what God has done for us. Does God know our limitations, does God know just how imperfect we are and yet how often we yearn to do the right thing? Yes...but God loves us nonetheless. Perhaps all that is asked is that on any given day, we say "Yes" just once more than we say "Yes...but...."
August 3 , 2008
Tom Baker
e-mail