SNAP OUT OF IT
March 6, 2005
Texts – I Samuel 16: 1, 4a, 5b-7
John 9: 35-41
Sometimes the most helpful word is a harsh one. That’s what I hear in our Old Testament lesson this morning. Is it a word you also need to hear?
“How long will you grieve over Saul, seeing (that) I have rejected him from being king over Israel?” the Lord says to Samuel. “Fill your horn with oil, and go!” [I Samuel 16: 1]
Do you remember the movie “Moonstruck,” starring Cher and Nicholas Cage? It’s an old one, dating back to 1987. Cher’s character is a young widow with a sharp tongue. She’s engaged to be married for the second time, when a childhood friend from the old neighborhood blurts out a confession of undying love for her. She’s shocked, dumb-founded. “But I love you!” he protests. “Snap out of it!” she retorts. A harsh word, but a helpful one.
“What’s done is done,” God says to Samuel in our text; “get over it. I’ve moved on and so must you. Snap out of it.” Is that a word you need to hear?
We are trained, many of us from childhood, to be sensitive and caring. That isn’t to say we always are (!), but certainly that’s the way I was raised. Were you? The absolute last thing we want to do is give offense, to act hastily or precipitously. And that’s a good thing, but . . . But sometimes our sensitivity can lead to a kind of procrastination – Did you hear that Donna? “Procrastination” . . . now the preacher is preaching to himself! – . . . sometimes that can lead us into the kind of “gumption trap” in which Samuel was wallowing with his grief over the downfall of Saul.
“How long will you grieve?” God says in exasperation. “Fill your horn with oil, and go!” Find Jesse’s youngest son, David, and anoint him as my chosen one. It was a harsh word, but a helpful one.
Some years ago I led a group from my congregation in Illinois on a two week “study tour” through Guatemala and Nicaragua. There were a dozen of us; our goal was to find a setting to which we might return with work groups from our church. Midway through the trip, we visited the small mountain village of Santa Apolonia in the Chimaltenango province of Guatemala. The setting was beautiful, and the orphanage we toured there seemed ideal.
Hogares Santa Maria de Guadalupe was home to some one hundred and fifty children. It had been built and was being operated almost singlehandedly by a dynamic woman from Chicago. A Roman Catholic nun from the Maryknoll Order, Sister Bernice was a no nonsense, take charge type whose love for and commitment to the children in her care was inspiring. In just three years of operation, Sister Bernice had overseen the construction of seven bungalows to house the children as well as a number of cottage industries which produced all the clothing, shoes and furniture the community needed.
As we toured the compound that afternoon with Sister Bernice, various members of the group
approached me privately, each one saying in their own way – “I think we’ve found what we’re looking for!” But then one of our number excused herself to use the restroom. She came back looking ashen. I saw her whisper to another of our group, and that person stepped away to the bathroom. Then another went. They all came back aghast. “Is there a problem?” I asked one of the returnees quietly. “Is everything all right?”
“Well,” he said, “they do have running water and even flush toilets, and they are clean, but there are no toilet seats anywhere.” From the look on his face, I could see that that was indeed a problem. We had come so far, and seemed so close to finding what we sought, that I just couldn’t let it go unmentioned. “Sister Bernice,” I said, “we’re impressed by what you’ve been able to do here. It’s really wonderful. But there’s just one thing I need to ask you about. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for it. Can you tell me why there are no toilet seats in any of the bathrooms you’ve got here? Are they just all on order?”
“Toilet seats?” she said, surprised and slightly amused. “Toilet seats? No, there are no toilet seats on order. Look around you,” she said. “We have one hundred and fifty little mouths to feed each day, and to house, and to clothe, and to educate. We work everyday on those things, and by God’s grace we’ve been able to do it. In the broader scheme of things, I think you’ll agree that toilet seats are not really a very high priority.” Then she fixed her eyes on me and said, not unkindly – “Toilet seats are a middle class problem!”
“A middle class problem . . .” She might just as well have said, “Snap out it Reverend!” Fifteen years later, people from that church in Illinois still visit Hogares Santa Maria de Guadalupe each summer. I don’t know if they have toilet seats now; it doesn’t really matter. Sister Bernice’s word to us, which sounded so harsh at the time, was helpful. How many other “middle class problems” are there that we ought to let go of?
“For judgment I came into this world,” Jesus says in John’s gospel,
“that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” [John 9: 39]
Judgment can be so harsh. We tend to stay away from it, and mostly that’s a good thing. But there are moments (aren’t there?) when the most loving thing to say may well be a strong or shocking thing. How many of those who heard Jesus that day, I wonder, took his word to heart, and began to see for the first time just how blind they had been?
Oh it’s true – Sometimes the most helpful word is a harsh one. Are you all caught up today in what my teacher, Sister Bernice, would call a “middle class problem”? Maybe it is time to let it go and move on. “The Lord sees not as humankind,” Samuel heard; “the Lord looks on the heart.” [I Samuel 16: 7] Shouldn’t we be striving for that as well?