September 25, 2005

Family Stories

By Julianne Stokstad

Yesterday we celebrated Bruce and Hilary's marriage, right here. It was truly a beautiful joy-filled occasion. It will surely become one of their family stories. One of the activities I give couples in preparation for their marriage is to ask them to tell each other their family stories. There is nothing like a good story! Nothing like a story about the relatives to tell us about how the family really works. There is nothing like family stories to humble us. I mean true stories about what really happened, stories about the successes and the challenges. Telling stories is the way we remember who we are and where we come from. Telling stories is how we pass on to others what we believe, what is most important to us.

I come from a family of shy, silent people. My whole extended family was very small and I don't recall hearing many stories while I was growing up (perhaps that is because the young never like to listen to the old timers tell about the good old days). My parents wanted to look forward, not backward, they said. My family story line was about heroic young immigrant grandparents coming to this New Land to make a better life and of their marvelous successes. Daddy Ben, Grandpa, Papa Joe, these were men of legends. Ours is the American dream of last century: hard work, persistence, grit was rewarded with success. Were they successes because they were really better, stronger, smarter people, like implied? Of course I am most curious about what they didn't tell me, that's where the really interesting stories are. What else happened? Were there struggles? What about the women?

Why didn't they tell me about the importance of God in their lives? Was faith not important to them? Our Psalm today reminds us of the ancient stories of faith. In their struggles it was God's goodness and mercy that brought them through the terrors and turmoil and "They forgot what he had done and the miracles that he had shown them. " (Psalm 78:11) Forgetting about God's part in our life journey seems surprisingly common and so human.

One of my favorite courses in seminary was a course about Moses and the Israelites. One of the main points of the class was to understand our life journey as a kind of Exodus story. We are all in slavery in some way to something, and each of us is called out of that slavery into a scary wilderness time where we are vulnerable and not in control and through God's grace and our courage and hope we are led into the Promised Land. It is too easy to forget God's part in our journey.

In Paul's letter to the Philippians, his favorite church, he reminds them the way to successful church community is to follow Jesus' example of humility, obedience to God and selfless service. The church at Philippi had everything going for it. It was successful, diverse and visibly alive, kind of like us. Paul had nothing but the greatest love and joy for this community, but his warning is loud and clear: BEWARE!!! Your very success and achievement has led you to self-sufficiency. It has led to pride and self-importance. He tells them not measure themselves by how successful they are, but by how faithful.

The opposite of pride is humility. Every religious tradition names humility as an essential attitude for the spiritual life. Yet it is scorned and misunderstood today in our narcissistic culture. It is misinterpreted as a kind of groveling and spineless, self-effacing, submissive way of being. The sacrifice that humility leads to is seen as foolish and as a way timid meek people are taken advantage of by more powerful and domineering folk. There is nothing more counter-cultural these days than humility.

The Latin root in humility comes from humus, the dark decaying organic matter in soil. Human comes from the same root. To be human is to be of the earth. To have humility is to know that we are made of earth. Any self-conceit, whether it be about our intelligence, our talents, our good looks, our achievements or what we have acquired in life sets us up for pride. St. Augustine said, "It was pride that changed angels into devils and it is humility that makes men as angels."

Genuine humility requires honest self-awareness, which is a rare quality. Humility involves a clear-eyed honesty about our human nature that neither exaggerates or minimizes. It means acceptance of our humanness, that we are neither gods nor devils. We must realize that even the worst murderers have good in them and even saints have to struggle with darkness we too struggle with.

Tom asked me the question this week, when am I the most humble? My immediate answer was whenever I am most vulnerable. Now I want to say, I find it very uncomfortable to be vulnerable. I have spent much time and effort avoiding the very vulnerability I seem to need for true humility. I fear vulnerability. I fear humiliation, which I experienced as a child and sometimes as an adult when I was vulnerable. Vulnerability is not just an emotionally uncomfortable experience; it can be physically dangerous as well. Imagine cars evacuating the Gulf Coast on Texas highways running out of gas. We have seen with horror the suffering of the vulnerable poor, sick and elderly in the recent hurricanes. I think of those who have been abused. I have spent much of my life working hard to be strong, to be self-sufficient and responsible and not to be vulnerable or incompetent.

Yet it is when I am vulnerable that God is most present. In those hard times when I don't know what to say or how to be of help, I pray, "Oh God, HELP! Help me to bring what is needed," it is in those times when I give up my control that I find the help I need. I am not saying that we shouldn't be prepared or do our work or utilize all available resources, but there comes a time when what is needed is to give up control and to ask God's help.

True humility comes just when we feel most helpless, most vulnerable because it is then that we realize that we are not able to control things. I recall a former parishioner who was deeply grieving the too soon death of his wife from cancer. In his grief, he was going over all the things that he wished he had done. He felt guilty he had been gone working so much when the children were growing up. He felt guilty he was not always fully present to her because of his preoccupation with worries from work. As I heard his laments and grief, I didn't know what to say. As I said my silent prayer, it came to me to say that he was just human and what he did seemed very human. He was not God after all and I hoped he could forgive himself for that because I knew God did and I expected his wife did too. It didn't seem like very much. He told me but remembering his humanness gave him comfort.

It is in situations where our illusion of control is ripped away from us, in times like these when there is no room for arrogance or conceit. Sudden unexpected illness, times of losses that we don't want or choose; it is in these times when we are humbled we find God's presence and guidance most clearly. And sadly these are the stories we don't tell. How hard they are to put into words and yet how very important it is to do so to help each other with our faith.

Helping each other is what community is about. Paul is talking about communities, not individuals, in his letter. Christian community encourages us to follow Jesus' example and act as humble servants; helping those we find who are in need. We need to tell each other the stories of our vulnerability and how God has helped us.

We need to remember the stories of God working in the lives of our ancestors and look for the ways that God is working in our lives right here within this church. As Paul says it is God who is at work in our lives, in our church, enabling us both to will and to work for God's good pleasure. We need not fear when challenges appear. With true humility, we can have faith and remember Jesus showed a love that was able to overcome all things, even death on a cross. Jesus' power came from love and his humility from knowing it was God's love coming through him. For us too, our glory comes not out of our selves but from God's love coming through us. Let's not forget to tell each other these stories.

Amen