The Three Relationships (part 1)

"The Three Relationships"  (part 1)
Romans 12:9-21


I think there are three main types of relationships that we have and try to maintain.  There's the relationship with ourselves.  There's the relationships we have with people we like.  And there are the relationships we have with people we don't like.

Of course these relationships can get messy and overlap.  We have to have a relationship with ourselves.  Because, as the old adage says, "Wherever you go, there you are."  But even though you have to have a relationship with yourself, you may not like yourself some of the time.  So you end up being on two lists at the same time.  Or there are other people with whom you have a relationship that you like some of the time and don't like the rest of the time.  They may go back and forth between two lists.

Up until this point in Paul's letter to the Roman Christians, he has been wading through some thick theological stuff.  He's trying to make the gospel of Jesus Christ clear to two different audiences at the same time:  Jews who have converted to Christianity; and, non-Jews who have become Christians, but are trying to figure out if they have just become a sect of the Jews, or something else entirely.

So, for 11 chapters in this lengthy letter, Paul has given his readers a crash course on Christian theology.  Then with chapter 12, Paul makes a shift and wades into more practical stuff.  Relationships.  That's got to be easier to understand, right?  Rather than continue on about justification by faith, sin and sanctification, Paul rows out into the smoother waters of, "Let's just all get along, here."  Easy peasy, (as a little girl kept telling me while we pulled nails out of boards at the Bread of Life work day, a week ago).

Some times it's not just the emotional side of relationships that's difficult.  It may be just figuring out what the relationships are.  For example, consider the relationship mayhem created when 76-year-old Bill Baker recently married Edna Harvey.  Edna happened to be Bill's granddaughter's husband's mother.  That's where the confusion began for granddaughter, Lynn.

Lynn said, "My mother-in-law is now my step-grandmother.  My grandfather is now my stepfather-in-law.  My mom is my sister-in-law and my brother is my nephew.  But even crazier is that I'm now married to my uncle and my own children are my cousins."

Uh, yeah.  Easy peasy.  Do you hear the banjo music from the movie, "Deliverance" playing in the background?

No matter how they fall out, relationships are difficult.  And Paul doesn't shy away from those difficulties, just as he doesn't shy away from the thick theology he has written in the first 11 chapters of this letter.  From what Paul has begun to write about relationships here in chapter 12, as I started out, he seems to fold all relationships into those three categories:  self, others we like, and others we don't like.

Some would like to make this whole thing simpler by eliminating one of those categories:  the relationship with people we don't like.  If we can just cut that group out, we only have to worry about getting along with ourselves and the people we like.  That would make our lives a whole lot smoother.

But neither Paul nor Jesus will allow us to do that.  Somehow we have to make all three work, or we aren't worthy of the name, Christian.  Sorry.  I know it's a bummer we have to get along with people we don't like.

So let's dive in here, and see what Paul has written about these three relationships.  When I first started writing this sermon, I thought I'd cover all three relationships in one message.  But the farther I got into it, I quickly realized that wasn't going to happen.  So I'm making a series of this, and will talk about the other two relationships in the next two weeks.

I

First, let's look at what Paul says about your relationship with your self.

"Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to what is good."  The fight for your inner integrity is a constant daily battle.  In all the little choices we make, we are fighting for the wholeness and holiness of our inner self.

Paul encourages  believers to run from evil.  The trick that evil tries to dupe us with is the speed.  Instead of running from evil, we think if we walk from it, we are doing well enough.  But pretty soon, you find yourself looking over your shoulder.  You begin thinking, The evil behind me doesn't look that bad.  And it doesn't look that dangerous.  I should be able to handle it if it catches up with me.  So we slow down a bit more, and a bit more, and soon we are overcome.

There's a story about a faithful man who came to the sinful city of Sodom hoping to save the people of that city.  He began preaching and holding up signs.  He went from street to street, marketplace to marketplace, shouting, "Men and women, repent!  What you are doing is wrong.  It will kill you, it will destroy you."  They laughed but he went on shouting until one day a child stopped him.
"Poor stranger," she said.  "Don't you see it's useless?"
"Yes," said the man.
"Then why do you go on?" the child asked.
The man answered, "In the beginning I was convinced that I could change them.  Now I go on shouting because I don't want them to change me."

The importance of what Paul is saying here is that if there is going to be significant change in the world, it has to start somewhere.  It has to start with an individual.  It has to start with you.  The battle for personal integrity is being waged in every human heart.  If the world is going to become a better place, each individual's heart and soul has to be a better place.

Probably one of the more tragic stories is that of Madame Bovary by Flaubert.  Emma Bovary, the daughter of a French farmer, marries a physician.  She could have lived a very comfortable life--a life of service and integrity.

But she was invited to the home of a wealthy noble.  A whole different world she had not experienced was opened up to her, a world of glitter and glamour.  She borrows heavily to dress herself to fit into that glamorous and exciting world.  She takes a series of lovers.  She bankrupts her husband and brought ruin to the entire family.  Finally, because she couldn't cope with what she had done to herself and others, she ends her life with poison.

Instead of running from the evil in the world, she turned and embraced it.  She gained an evil life at the expense of inner bankruptcy.  Without an inner sense of integrity, without holding on fiercely to the good, it became a short trip for Madame Bovary from the glitter to the gutter.  When your inner integrity is neglected, or given over, step by step to evil, your sense of spiritual disaster is dulled.  The end is near.



II

The next thing that Paul says about your relationship with your self is, "Don't be a quitter; be a prayer."  I have a sense that this one goes with the first one about running from evil.  When you find yourself surrounded by evil, like the man in the first illustration, preaching in Sodom; when you find yourself surrounded by such a pervasive and subtle evil, it's easy to start thinking about giving up.  To not only quit being a witness, but to just give in to the ways of the world.  It is just so hard to be all the time swimming up stream, against the heavy current of evil that most others are just ridding along with.  Just give up and go with the flow.

Or be like Madame Bovary, getting enticed by the glittery trap of the world, but then wake up some day realizing you have let yourself get so far down you might as well just give up.  It's over.  You've compromised your life away.  Just quit.

I found a quote by one of my favorite poets, Charles Bukowski, this week.  He said, "People are strange; they are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice."  What happens when you do finally notice?  That you may be totally wasting your life? What do you do?  Quit?  Give up?

Paul says, "NO!" to all those questions.  "Don't quit," he says.  "Instead, pray."   When it feels like you've lost your integrity, or compromised a lot of it away, and it seems too late for you,
it is not.  Instead of quitting it's time to get on your knees and start praying.

Prayer is the only weapon we have in life, especially when we realize we ran for dear life towards evil and let go of all that is good.  Prayer is need finding a voice.  Prayer is shame seeking relief and acceptance.  Prayer is a friend in search of a friend.  Prayer is a quest in the darkness of midnight.  Prayer is knocking on a door that seems to have no latch on your side.  Prayer is the expectation of receiving something even when we know we deserve nothing.

A husband and wife were traveling across Texas.  They saw a tornado coming and were, of course, terrified.  They pulled the car off the road into a ditch and tried to climb under it as best they could.

The twister was coming straight for them, but at the last second, veered off across a field and hit and totally demolished a small wooden house.  The man and woman, still shaking, got out and drove down the long drive to the house, which now consisted of little more than kindling and toothpicks and a hole in the ground.  They looked down the hole and saw an old man holding on for dear life to a piece of timber, his eyes tightly closed.  The woman called down to him, "Hey down there, are you all right?"
The old man opened his eyes, looked around cautiously and said, "I guess so."
The woman asked, "Was there anyone else with you?"
The old man replied, "Just me and God, and we were having an urgent conversation."

When the tornado of evil has come upon your life, and shattered much of what you thought you had, maybe it's time not to quit or give up, but have one of those "urgent conversations" with God.  I think you'll find how ready God is to talk with you.

III

The third thing Paul says about your relationship with yourself is to keep yourself fueled up.  "Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame," Paul says.  It is so easy to get burned out in our society.  What's crazy is that there have been all these projections that computers and other technology is going to do all our work for us, and we'll have all this free time.  But just the opposite seems to be happening.  We're working harder and longer, almost as if we are afraid of leisure time.

The "Coronary and Ulcer Club" lists the following rules for members:
1. Your job comes first. Forget everything else.
2. Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays are fine times to be working at the office. There will be nobody else there to bother you.
3. Always have your briefcase with you when not at your desk. This provides an opportunity to review completely all the troubles and worries of the day.
4. Never say "no" to a request. Always say "yes."
5. Accept all invitations to meetings, banquets, committees, etc.
6. All forms of recreation are a waste of time.
7. Never delegate responsibility to others; carry the entire load yourself.
8. If your work calls for traveling, work all day and travel at night to keep that appointment you made for eight the next morning.
9. No matter how many jobs you already are doing, remember you always can take on more.

Many believers do the same thing in their work in the church.  There are the handful who always say, "yes," and end up doing all the work for those who make excuses.  Then they get burned out, and quit, or disappear, and everyone else goes, "I wonder what happened?"

The best way to keep yourselves from burn out, is to take care of yourselves.  So many people think self-care is selfish.  But if you don't take care of yourself, who will?  And self care involves all aspects of the self:  physical, spiritual, emotional, relational.

One of the best ways to take care of yourself, says Paul, is to rely more on the Holy Spirit than on yourself.  Think of it this way.  The candles we have on the Communion Table are oil filled.  The wick is placed in oil, and then lit. If the oil runs out, the wick burns. As long as there is oil, the wick doesn't burn, it's the oil being pulled up by the wick that is burning.  The Holy Spirit is our oil, so to speak.  As long as we are living in dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit, we don't burn out. The question we need to ask ourselves in taking care of ourselves is, "What's burning?"

IV

And the last aspect of our relationship with our self that we need to look at, says Paul, is our own sense of ego.  "Don't be the great somebody," Paul wrote.  In other words, don't be puffing yourself up all the time.

Idolatry has been a problem almost as long as there have been people.  In Moses' day it was the golden calf.  Other cultures have different beings as idols.  In our society, it's said that money is our main idol.  Or power.  But I think something else, larger than money, larger than power has taken over the number one idol spot in our culture.

It's very similar to one of the idols from ancient Assyria:  it's the idol of the self.  Assur-Nasir-Pal was an evil Assyrian ruler whose writing described well this idol, and kind of idolatry:
And now at the command of the great gods, my sovereignty, my dominion, and my power are manifesting themselves; I am regal, I am lordly, I am exalted, I am valiant, I am lion-brave, and I am heroic.

There's nothing wrong with having a positive self image.  Christ said that the second great commandment is, "Love your neighbor as yourself.  So self love has to be part of a healthy humanity and spirituality.  But excessive self love becomes narcissism, which is a rampant idolatry in our culture.

Narcissus, according to Greek mythology, was renowned for his beauty.  He was exceptionally proud of his own beauty. Nemesis noticed this behavior and attracted Narcissus to a pool, where he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it, not realizing it was merely his own reflection. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, Narcissus died.  Thus we have narcissism, the love of self above all other things--which is idolatry.

Trying to be "the great somebody" as Paul wrote to the Roman Christians is the folly of the idolatry of narcissism.  It leads to your own demise.  The emphasis of Paul in these verses, in terms of your relationship with your self, is finding those things that lead to life, not to death.  Things that really enhance your relationship with the self, through the Holy Spirit.  But a narcissistic personality takes the Holy Spirit out of the feedback loop.  The narcissist only has themselves in their feedback loop.  That is, they are only getting their own opinion.  Without the Holy Spirit in the feedback loop of the self, without the a Holy Spirit in control of the self, the end is near.

V

So, in your relationship with your self, through the Holy Spirit, you are going to run from evil and hold on to what is good; you're not going to be a quitter, you're going to be a prayer; you're going to keep yourself fueled in order to avoid burnout; and you aren't going to puff yourself up.

Next week we will look at the relationship you have with those people you like.