Proper 16(A): From Discernment to New Life

Romans 12:1-8

By: Casey Cross

When big decisions loom ahead, we often wonder what to do. We may ask ourselves, what does God want me to do? What does God want for us? What is the “best” decision? Utilizing wisdom and understanding in these moments is commonly known as discernment. The more time I have spent with this passage from Romans, the more I see that Paul is fleshing out the full meaning of discernment. The new life in Christ that Paul speaks about is not just about having more faith or doing the right things. The new life is the becoming, the transformation. Our whole selves are rooted in Christ so that our whole life becomes what it was always meant to be – a response to the goodness of God’s perfect will. Ours is the process of becoming, growing into, the good creation we were always intended to be; whereas, God’s will is complete, whole, and perfect. As we are made whole, healed, and united, we live into our purpose, and God’s will is made known to the world.

Some may conclude that Paul’s explanation of the new life in Christ comes down to living a perfect, pure, and sinless life. I mean, he says, right there, that God’s will is perfect, right? However, the connotation and use of the word have more to do with growth and maturity, not moral perfection. What is growth, if not a form of becoming?

Paul walks us further into understanding our purpose of wholeness and maturity in Christ. From our transformed minds, attuned to God’s will, we can step forward in our discernment of self and others. The hierarchy is stripped away. We are all members of the same body. Though our function and faith may differ, we are God’s. We are all equally precious. We each have the same purpose; though, it may be lived out through different means.

The task of removing hierarchy is difficult. We humans like to feel special, important, and measure ourselves against each other. Unfortunately, we humans also have limited, or imperfect, abilities to honestly and truthfully evaluate ourselves. Psychologists and neuroscientists have scientifically proven how, why, and in what ways we do this through a variety of research. One of the most famous examples is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The Dunning-Kruger effect, at its core, suggests that people fail to recognize their intellectual and social shortcomings because they simply lack the expertise necessary to see them. As such, the effect reflects a double-curse: People’s deficits cause them to make many mistakes, and then those exact same deficits prevent them from seeing their decisions as mistakes. As a consequence, the pervasive tendency for people to overrate themselves and their talents is not necessarily due to their ego, but rather to intellectual deficits that they cannot see.[1]

You can also watch a five minute explanation here: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-incompetent-people-think-they-re-amazing-david-dunning#watch

Rather than being trapped in biased, scattered and incomplete decision-making, we can recognize what we know and don’t know, and bring it all to God. In our process of transformation, we are integrated. As we grow and are shaped by God’s intention, we turn inwardly to know all of who we are. We heal within ourselves and then, in our relationship to others. We experience reconciliation and in that healing we know wholeness. Our actions, words, and life will then reflect God’s will. It is then that all that we do becomes vocation.

Paul lists seven important vocations, all of which are incomplete without discernment. Each vocation exemplifies the necessity of wholeness within ourselves and in relationship to others. Each vocation is for the purpose of God’s will, becoming a new creation in Christ.

• Prophecy in proportion to faith – Prophecy flows from faith. The prophetic words for community require a balance with the prophet’s faith. Faith is defined as a complete trust or confidence in someone or something. If a prophet is speaking from incomplete trust and lack of faith, how is it in response to a discernment and fulfillment of God’s will?
• Ministry in ministering – All ministry is for the purpose of attending to the needs of someone. If the need is not there, but the “ministry” is, how is it in response to discernment?
• The teacher in teaching – A teacher is one who shows or explains to (someone) how to do something. The only way one can show or explain to another is by fully understanding what it is they themselves know and do not know. If a teacher is unable or unwilling to be taught and shaped by God’s will, how will those they teach learn and experience new life in Christ?
• The exhorter in exhortation – A skilled exhorter will be charismatic and persuasive. Their work is to address or communicate, emphatically urging someone to do something. If their exhortation is not grounded in a continuous discernment process, how easy will it be for them to manipulate others toward a purpose and action other than God’s will?
• The giver in generosity – Generosity is the quality of being kind and generous. Giving is a matter of vocation! Being a generous giver is a quality that infuses our full lives, not just a church’s financial stewardship. If the giver is not giving out of kindness and instead a begrudging perspective of scarcity and duty, how is it in response to a life transformed by the will of God?
• The leader in diligence: Leadership is not just about having a special title or always being in the front of the room. Paul defines the gift of a leader by their diligence, their careful and persistent work or effort. This careful and persistent effort is proportionate to their careful and persistent discernment. If a leader is not careful in their work with others, how will they lead them into a life of wholeness and healing?
• The compassionate in cheerfulness – Those who are compassionate can also struggle with burnout and exhaustion, bitterness and cynicism. That is why compassion must be grounded in accompaniment and a continuous return to discernment. When compassion for ourselves and others originates in the new life of Christ, our lives are refreshed with cheerfulness, which is the quality or state of being noticeably happy and optimistic. Optimism comes from our hope in the new life for all of creation promised in Christ. If cheerfulness does not accompany compassion, how does that compassion come from a response to God’s will?

In each of these vocations, there is a cycle of return to discernment, centered on God’s intended purpose for all of creation, a return to self, and another turn out into community. In each turn we grow and become more wholly who God created us to be. Ultimately it is all by the grace of God. All we can do is keep showing up, presenting ourselves before God’s mercy, and living into the gifts God has given us. It is in the process of our transformation that we will grow in our knowledge of God and others will know God through us.

No matter what questions arise for us in the days to come, no matter our decisions, God will not abandon us. Each step is a new step in becoming. May you learn from Paul’s words what it is to live in this cycle of discernment and new life in Christ. May it free you to share this abundant life with others in through your whole life.

Casey Cross is serves as the Young Disciples Director at Hope Lutheran Church in Eagle, Idaho. Check out some of her other work and writing at http://caseykcross.com.

 

 

[1] D. Dunning, ‘Why incompetent people think they’re amazing’, TEDEd. [website], https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-incompetent-people-think-they-re-amazing-david-dunning#digdeeper, (accessed 1 July, 2020).

Proper 12(A): Sighs Too Deep For Words

Romans 8:26-39

By: Kristen Leigh Mitchell

On April 6, 2020, Maria Cain got word that her sister Franca Panettone, a 46-year-old woman with Downs syndrome, died alone in her hospital bed after several days on a ventilator battling COVID-19.

Sighs too deep for words.

On May 25, 2020, witnesses watched in horror as a 46-year-old black man named George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer, who knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, choking him as he cried out for his breath.

Sighs too deep for words.

As cases of coronavirus continue to rise in the United States, robbing people of breath and life, and as more and more white people come to an awareness of the systemic racism and white supremacy that have robbed black people of breath and life for over 400 years, we find ourselves at a time when we need the Spirit to intercede for us with sighs too deep for words.

The NRSV translates the Greek word στεναγμός as “sighing,” but the more common translation is “groaning.” The word specifically implies the groans of those in distress.

I am a chronic anxiety sufferer. I have experienced panic attacks for nearly two decades. Over the years, my anxiety has manifested in a number of different ways, but one of the most common is a feeling of tightness in my throat. This “choking” sensation, common among anxiety sufferers, is actually where we get our word “anxiety.” It comes from the ancient Latin root angere, meaning “I’m choking” or “I can’t breathe.”

One of the things that I have learned over the years as both a chronic anxiety sufferer and a Christian is that it is extremely difficult for most people to integrate anxiety, anger, and sadness into their understanding of a “spiritual” or religious life. Particularly among white people, “spirituality” is often associated with peaceful feelings, calmness, quietness, and being nice. Sadness, fear, and anger are understood as “sinful”… they lead to “the dark side.” It is for this reason that many people cannot conceive of the relationship between spirituality and social justice, or between religion and the public square. Consequently, many “spiritual” people respond to the totally justified anger, fear, and grief of black people with dismissive platitudes about love, nonviolence, and the need for inner transformation, while many “religious” people respond to the totally reasonable, medically-informed anxieties about the spread of a deadly disease with denial and the demand to return to public worship.

Of the many cultural trends that have dominated the American religious landscape over the last century, the “positive thinking” movement remains one of the most insidious and pervasive. Often associated with Norman Vincent Peale and the Religious Right, the origins of this movement do not necessarily lie within Christianity itself, but in the Transcendentalism of the mid-19^th century and the New Thought movements of the early 20^th century, which offered a uniquely American interpretation of Hinduism that linked modern capitalist ideals to the belief that individuals could earn God’s (or “the universe’s”) favor through positive thinking and the avoidance of “negative” thoughts. These ideas have given rise not only to the multibillion dollar secular mindfulness industry, which promotes individualistic self-help through the consumption of trendy, positivity-based “spiritual-but-not-religious” practices, but also to the hyper-individualized “feel-good” version of Christianity that has given us megachurches, the prosperity gospel, and the Christian pop of “positive and encouraging K-Love.”

While we may easily chortle at the saccharine spirituality of ultra-spiritual guy or the Precious Moments chapel, this tendency to split off from our so-called “negative” emotions in order to avoid conflict and pain is as common in “progressive” Christian circles as it is in evangelical communities and the SBNR “love and light” crowd. Mainline churches have also been guilty of using spirituality to ignore the cries of the those who can’t breathe. I can’t count the number of times mainline clergy have tried to use Matthew 6:27 (“who of you by worrying can add a day to his life?”) in a misguided attempt to control or suppress my anxiety (seriously people… stop doing this). Conversations about mental illness are shut down in mainline church contexts almost as swiftly as conversations about death (“It was all a part of God’s plan”) and conversations about systemic racism (“Why cause trouble by bringing up the negative?”).

In 1984, Psychologist John Welwood coined the term “spiritual bypassing” to describe this habit of using “spiritual” beliefs and practices to avoid dealing with painful feelings and uncomfortable realities. “Part of the reason for this,” writes Robert Masters, “is that we tend not to have very much tolerance, either personally or collectively, for facing, entering, and working through our pain, strongly preferring pain-numbing ‘solutions’, regardless of how much suffering such ‘remedies’ may catalyze” (click here for more information about spiritual bypassing).

Christian clergy, cognitive behavioral therapists, “wisdom” teachers, motivational speakers, and New Age gurus alike have taught us that the path to healing entails a process of learning how to transform and/or replace “negative” emotions with “positive” ones. But as Sri Lankan philosopher of psychology Sahanika Ratnayake writes in The Problem of Mindfulness, “the focus tends to be solely on the contents of an individual’s mind and the alleviation of their distress, rather than on interrogating the deeper socioeconomic and political conditions that give rise to the distress in the first place.”

Indeed, a growing body of research suggests that while spiritual “techniques” may be helpful in offering short-term relief from everyday stresses, they are largely counterproductive for navigating anxiety, depression, and anger, precisely because these emotions are often rooted in experiences of trauma, abuse, neglect, and oppression. Attitudes of suppression or even “nonattachment” can impede the kind of direct confrontation with the pain that is necessary for long-term healing and social transformation.

At this moment in our communal lives, it is critical for religious and spiritual people to begin to understand that our “negative emotions” are not exclusively anger, sadness, and fear, but any emotion to which we become overly attached. Calmness, peace, love, and hope can all become extremely negative and toxic when we cling to them at the expense of acknowledging painful truths. In fact, numerous studies have demonstrated that the primary shared trait among psychopaths is a profound lack of anxiety, fear, and sadness. Thus, spiritual and emotional well-being does not extend from a steady, zen-like state of calmness, but from an emotional fluidity that allows for an engagement with the full spectrum of reality.

Perhaps we can forgive our wayward SBNR friends for being swayed by feel-good cultural trends. But as Christians, we ought to know better. We know from the Biblical witness that there can be no love without justice, and no justice without a humbling of those in power and a lifting up of the lowly. Ours is a God who despises the false optimism and “positivity” of those who sing songs of praise while ignoring the cries of the poor and the oppressed. Ours is a God who abhors those who honor Him “with their lips” but who meanwhile “make someone out to be guilty,” by ensnaring the defender in court, “and with a false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.” (Is. 29: 13, 21). Through the life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus, we have come to know a God who was born into poverty, a God who wept, a God who got angry over religious hypocrisy, and a God who even despaired of God while he was suffering and dying unjustly at the hands of those in power.

When the Holy Spirit intercedes for us in times of distress, it is not with platitudes of prosaic positivity, but with the wordless groans of empathic lament. Any spirituality that does not make room for anger, sadness, and fear is not a truly Biblical “spirituality.”

Because what happens when those groans go unheard and unacknowledged?

What happens when the grief and the fear and the anger are ignored?

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—and then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

—Langston Hughes, Harlem

Kristen Leigh Mitchell, M.Div. is a freelance writer, theologian, and indie-folk singer-songwriter based in Asheboro, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, the Rev. Joe Mitchell, and their dog Casey. Kristen graduated from Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 2014, where she focused on theology and the arts. Kristen leads classes, retreats, and workshops, and regularly performs music at venues across central North Carolina.