20221016 Growing up¶
Welcome¶
Good morning, my name is Clifton Bartholomew, and I am a local preacher here at UMC.
It is always so good to share with you all. Welcome again to any visitors and to all our online guests as well.
I always like to say before I preach that I am a teacher by training and so I am very used to being interrupted. If anyone is brave enough to raise their hand and ask a question or give an input, it is warmly welcomed.
Introduction¶
Jab 1 - adults can be children¶
At the men's breakfast we were talking about what it takes to move from a boy to a man. This verse has been in my head for a while. 1 Corinthians 13.11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. We spoke a lot about what the qualities are that distinguish a man from a boy (and it really isn't gendered). One interesting conclusion that we came to is that “growing up” doesn't happen at a certain age. Isn’t this so true?
How many of us know fully grown adults who behave like children? Everyone who has been on a neighbourhood WhatsApp group has experienced this. There is always that one petty family member who doesn't invite you to Christmas lunch because you forgot to wish them happy birthday.
Jab 2 - children can be adults¶
Yet the opposite is true as well. I have seen incredible maturity in young people. Recently at Reddam there was a very anxious autistic child who struggled with feeling like he was failing. And he would often rock back-and-forth in anguish making noises. I saw this in class and I had no idea how to help this young boy. But his classmates, on their own, surrounded him and knew how to calm him down. This wasn't a once off thing, these boys would make it their mission to make him feel a part of every lesson and always were including him and helping him when he needed it.
Unfortunately I think that there is a heavy unbalance of the former over the latter.
Jab 3 - our world is sick¶
This is a sickness I see in our world. People who are afraid to grow up. We are a nation of 50 year old children who when they get angry or fearful they stamp their feet and lash out with their fists.
When we don't grow up a man can kill his girlfriend in the mall because she broke up with him. When we don't grow up, wars are waged because of one man who wants to feel powerful. When we don’t grow up a man walks into a school with a gun to murder dozens of children to make a statement.
These are the extreme symptoms of a deep illness. These events cannot happen in isolation. These people are all part of communities where these people's behaviour is not addressed while it is still mild in its effects. Growing up is not just for other people but also for us. We are living in a world that is hungry for people to “put the ways of childhood behind them”. How many of us are unwilling to do the work?
Right Hook - the two halves of life¶
In his book “Falling Upward --” Richard Rohr talks of this transition in what he calls the first half of life into the second. He says that the only way is to fall upward. We must go down before we can go up. And we see this in our passage this morning. Jacob is renamed, reborn from a former way of living into a new way of living. But first he must wrestle with God.
Explanation¶
Teaching Point 1 - We will fall¶
Before his encounter with God, the way that Jacob operates is very self oriented. He is looking at how he can go upwards. He is focussed on me, me, me. What can I get? How can I succeed? He controls the world around him to get the outcome that he wants. He tricks his twin brother Esau out of his inheritance using a bowl of really good soup and out of Esau’s blessing from their father through dressing up as his brother and playing on their fathers blindness. He plays his uncle Laban through clever terms of payment and amasses huge amounts of wealth in the form of livestock.
The thing is, this kind of living is not sustainable. It will always break down. Richard Rohr says that falling upwards happens one of two ways, voluntarily or through drastic circumstances. We choose it voluntarily or it eventually happens to us. We can see that in his case he is living in fear of those he has slighted and eventually he will run out of family to coerce.
In the AA tradition they say that we are actors who are trying to run the whole show:
If only everyone does what I know is the right thing then it will all go well. We cannot control our world. We are not the directors.
Teaching Point 2 - Falling is painful¶
Jacob eventually comes to a point of realization where he pleads with God: “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me’.
From personal experience one of the hardest things that I have done in my life is say sorry when I feel that I am right with every ounce of my being. How hard is it to overcome our ego?
Dying to self is one of the hardest things because it is so painful. For Jacob it feels like he is wrestling an entire day with God. Jesus says it in another way, if you want to find your life you must first lose it.
This kind of experience with God is like being purified through fire. It burns but on the other side we come out new. In Jacobs' case he arises with a new name. He is a new person. His name is changed from “supplanter” to “the one who wrestles with God”. His whole identity changes after this encounter.
Teaching Point 3 - Falling allows us to rise¶
We can only build God’s kingdom on Earth if we are concerned with building God’s kingdom. We must live a life facing outwards rather than facing inwards. Kingdom building comes through the pain of dying to self. It is a job for grown ups. And it is hard and painful. But it is glorious.
In Paul's second letter to Timothy he is passing on the baton of leadership of building the early church. He says: for I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. Now it is your turn
He says to Timothy in the beginning of chapter 3: There will be terrible times in these last days, people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
Have nothing to do with them.
And in today's reading he says: You know about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecution and suffering. Followers of Christ will be hated on, bad men go from bad to worse. You know what you have learnt, you know the scriptures which make you wise for salvation. You know that scripture is the best yard-stick. - Preach the word - Be prepared always - Correct, rebuke, encourage (with great patience and careful instruction). - Keep your head - be sober always. - Endure hardship. - Do the work of an evangelist.
Build the kingdom. It is a job for grown-ups.
Application¶
Action 1 - Quit trying to be the director.¶
This is subtle, but there is a difference between bending the world to your will and trusting that God is driving the ship and we are contributors.
The only way I can describe this is like it is an opening up of oneself. We allow God to work through others, we don't think our ideas are the best, life is not as forced.
Maybe a question is how has your need to make sure things are being done right actually blocked God from moving? We plant seeds, God grows.
Action 2 - Learn to fall.¶
An old man is driving down the N2 and his phone rings. It is his wife frantically warning him, “Herman! I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on the N2! Please be careful!”. “It’s not just one car,” said Herman, “It’s hundreds of them!”
I had this experience recently while reading my diary. I read stories of how my boss never listens to me, how my wife never listens to me, how my father never listens to me. If everyone else is doing the wrong thing it is often you that is driving the wrong way.
There is not one turning point. There are 1000 turning points each day. I have learnt the most about this from my marriage. I thought I was quite put together.
Action 3 - Be a leader wherever you can be and as often as you can be.¶
I have a habit of running away from tasks. It has affected my quality of work, my mental health and the size of my Goals. This year has been a journey of taking responsibility for my life first. To be a leader in my life first, in my household, in my classroom. And I have found that this overflows into the world around you.
Jordan Peterson says that we must clean up our own rooms as the first step of contributing to the world. This is the quickest way to pick up our cross and look to serve instead of be served. Take responsibility and ownership of your surroundings.
I hope this is useful. Because it has changed my life. Although I am a child in many ways I have made a concerted effort to grow up in others.
In these “deaths” I have grown closer to God and grown clearer in my purpose and direction. I have grown in peace and capacity for love. I have grown in joy.
One Liner¶
We need to be grownups