December 18, 2011

Rev. Dr. Steve Poos-Benson

Swan Dive of the Heart

Our Scripture passage comes to us this morning from the Gospel according to Mark, the 12^th Chapter. But I was thinking about love on this fourth Sunday of Advent. I thought of this passage as being a perfect way for us to talk about love and how we apply it to our lives. Listen for God’s word as it comes to us today.

One of the religious scholars came up to Jesus. Jesus was teaching, and hearing the lively exchanges of questions and answers, and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question. Teacher, which is most important of all the commandments? Jesus said ‘The first in importance is listen Israel, the Lord your God is one, so love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy. And here is the second. Love others as well as you love yourself. There is no other commandment that ranks with these.’ The religious scholar said ‘A wonderful answer, teacher. So lucid. So accurate. That God is one and there is no other and loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why that’s better than all offerings and sacrifices put together.’ When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said ‘You’re almost there. Right on the border of God’s Kingdom.’ After that, no one else dared ask a question.

And may God bless these words as we seek to apply them to our lives.

Hey Mr. Samu, it is good to have you hear. You know, when poor old Mitch drove into church today – you know what happened to Mitch? He heard this sound and his engine blew up as he was driving to church. So you and I didn’t really get a chance to warm up at the 8:00 o’clock service. Go to the keyboard – this is not rehearsed. I need you to give me a sound of what a swan dive sounds like. What does a swan dive – swan dive of the heart – what does a swan dive sound like? [Mitch plays] Ahhh – very good. [applause].

So – pay attention, so you’ll know your part. You’ll know your part. Very good. The Swan Dive of the Heart. [Mitch continues to play]. So have you ever been dumped? You know – like dumped. Someone taking you and just kind of sets you on the sidewalk of romance? Unfortunately, my high school years were full of sitting on the sidewalk of romance. I was dumped so many time I couldn’t see straight. And wouldn’t it have been great if it stopped in adolescence? Unfortunately, as you go through life being dumped is something that happens on a regular occasion. Maybe it’s your spouse, maybe it’s a friend – a job – you had this job that you love and you’ve given your heart to it and suddenly you walk in and they give you a pink slip – you’ve been dumped.

It’s a painful thing when you’ve been dumped. Is it not? It’s embarrassing. It’s humiliating. But most of all, it rips your guts out. It just rips your guts out. It hurts so deeply when you’ve been dumped. When you’re an adolescent and you’ve been dumped, I heard parents say, be gentle – puppy love is very real to puppies. When you’re a teenager and you’ve been dumped, it’s painful.

There’s a woman by the name of Karen Fisher who was a neuroscientist and she studies love and the affects of love and she wrote a great book called “The Anatomy of Love” and she has done studies on the affect that love has on the brain. How does love affect our brain? And she actually has done MRI studies – her latest studies – she has taken people who have been in long, stable relationships; people who have been in short term relationships, and people who have just been dumped. And I heard her interviewed – “Can we do an MRI – yeah – have you just been dumped? We want to MRI your brain. Slide her in – look at that – there’s nothing there.”

You know what she’s found out by doing these MRIs? That people who have been in a long term relationship, the places that kind of light up in their brain are places that indicate compassion, empathy, and pain management. That if you have this source of stability in your life through love, it allows you to find the equilibrium in your life almost to the point that you can manage pain. By the same token, she has found that people who have been in short term relationships, the thing that lights up in your brain is obsession. If you’re in a short term relationship, it’s just like you obsess over the other person and over the relationship.

What they found with people who were just dumped and they slid them in the MRI machine – I love this – she said it was like we had injected their brain with cocaine. That the brains were just kind of lacking all these different things and she said it was akin to an MRI with people who have been battling addictions. Because, when you think about it, people who have been dumped, their brains are going like this because when you’re addicted to something, your whole life is organized around that addiction. You crave that addiction and you’re going to do anything you can to get that next fix. Well, somebody who has been addicted to love, think about that – they’ve organized their life around that person, they crave that person, they do everything they can to be with that person and then suddenly when that is yanked away from them and they’ve been dumped, they are in this free-fall.

And I ask myself – or Karen Fisher talks about why does it happen, why do they go into that free-fall? And she uses this term – it’s like when you love somebody, they camp in your soul. They set up camp in your being and you can’t extract them. My term for it is that you do the swan dive of love. [Mitch plays]

This is our own John Hausman. Our very own John Hausman was on vacation in New Zealand and he showed me this picture – sent me this picture – I almost vomited. How high up were you? 150 feet, standing on a very good solid platform, and you wrapped something around your ankles and you jumped. Did you go [Steve screams]. You did a swan dive [Mitch plays] Splash [Mitch makes splash sound].

But you know – that’s what happens. When you do a swan dive of love, you let all of your boundaries down. You feel as though you are in a safe place. You are in a safe place in this relationship, you’re in a safe place with your job, you feel security around your job. When you’re in a safe place with your health, you’re feeling good and stable and all of a sudden it’s yanked out from underneath you and you’re dumped – you know what happens – you go into a free-fall. Because what you thought was stable was suddenly no longer stable. And your brain is just going in this thing trying to find something to hang on to.

I found myself wondering on this fourth Sunday of Advent, we talked about God’s love. Where are God’s hands in the middle of all this? Because in the middle of that swan dive that we do with God – is God going to catch us? Has God dumped us? How do we do the swan dive into God’s heart?

This passage that I love captures the essence for me – the religious scholar comes up to Jesus and says “What is the greatest commandment?” Actually, it’s more like this. “Jesus, what are the greatest commandments?” And Jesus says “Ah, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and to love your neighbor as yourself.” And the religious scholar answered back – echoed Jesus – “You’re so right teacher, loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself.” Those are the two greatest commandments. And Jesus says “You are very close to the Kingdom of God.” And he walks away.

Everybody was so frightened, they didn’t want to ask Jesus any more questions. I love this story. For me, this story is like the theological drive-by shooting. Because the religious scholar thinks he’s got it. Right? He’s just answered the right question. And the Master has confirmed “You’ve got it right.” And he’s sitting there smug and Jesus has walked away, and all of a sudden it dawned on this scholar “What do you mean close? What do you mean I’m close to the Kingdom of God?” I don’t want to be close to the Kingdom of God. I mean in the final swan dive, you don’t want St. Peter to say to you “Oh you were so close. You’re just like this far away.” No, you don’t want to be close, you want to be in. Don’t you? You want to be in the Kingdom of God. Not close. It’s horseshoes, right? I want to be in.

So think about it. What does this scholar need to do to get in? If he’s close, he’s so close – what does he need to do to get in? Think about that. What does he need to do to get in? Here’s the Poos-Benson answer. He’s done the academic. He’s done the academic. Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. That’s the right answer. He’s approaching love as if it’s a term paper on ‘what is Valentine’s day?’ What this religious scholar needs to do is – Mitch? – take a swan dive [Mitch plays] into the arms of God. Get out of your head religion scholar– dive into God’s arms.

You know – academics gets you a great degree. But that’s just piled higher and deeper. Doesn’t get you into the Kingdom of God, it doesn’t get you in the arms of God. The arms of God will give you this Ahhhhhhhh [Mitch plays]. When you set aside all reason and all logic. Because God’s love isn’t reasonable. It’s not logical. It’s unconditional. Your reason only takes you so far. The most brilliant theologians can only take you right up to the precibus and then reason goes. And you can still see God out there, but if you’re waiting for reason and logic to build a bridge, you can be standing forever. Soren Kirkagard, the great Danish theologian calls it a leap of faith. That at some point you have to back up and set it all free and dive into God’s arms. [Mitch plays]

Have you done that? Have you taken that leap of faith and have you dived into God’s arms? Are you holding back? Have you pushed away? Just not ready to take that leap. I wonder why? One of the things that I wonder about is that if you haven’t taken that dive, somehow you don’t feel worthy of God’s love. That you’re not worthy of God’s love.

I had a conversation with a church member this past week who told me that a family member was going to a church where they’re talking about the fact that people are not worthy of God’s love. And that stuck with me all week long and I couldn’t get it out of my brain. How could a church teach that somehow we’re not worthy of God’s love? That you’re not worthy of God’s love. How could that be a part of the Christian message of the Gospel? That you’re not worthy of God’s love. That somehow you’re so sinful and you’re so separated from God that somehow you’re not worthy. And my fear is that some of you kind of get that into your being and you feel as if you’re not worthy. That you feel as though you’ve done something that is so separated from God that you are isolated. This makes me a little on the worried side – not so much for you, but for me. Because this commandment of the love God with your heart, soul, mind – love your neighbor – is based upon your ability to love yourself. That’s why to love your neighbor as yourself – I don’t want you to love me the way you love yourself. Because I think you do a rotten job of it. Loving yourself. You live with the hair shirt on. You constantly cut yourself down and beat yourself up. The only thing you talk about is your own limitations. You fill yourself with negative self-images. Sunday in and Sunday out we try to tell you how good you are as children of God. We tell you to go out and live it. And you do till about Monday at 2:30. And then it all starts unraveling.

What is it going to take for you to take that swan dive and know that you are a child of God? God created you. God held the luminescence of your soul. God endowed you with gifts. God sent you into the world. You’ve never been separated from God. You are God’s child. When you know that God has done a swan dive into your heart – man – and it’s opened up something inside of you – then there’s this beautiful resonance with you and God so that you’re really kind of glowing inside and there’s a sense of strength about who you are. A sense of courage. And then, when you feel that, it allows you to turn to your neighbor and when you look at your neighbor, it is then that you are able to take a swan dive into your neighbor’s heart. The swan dive into your neighbor’s heart.

And that’s where the trouble begins. Because I know that Jesus would have never thought that if he had to live next door to my neighbors. It’s one thing to have God do a swan dive into my heart and me back into God’s heart, but how am I going to do a swan dive into my neighbor’s hearts? Because hugging my neighbor is like hugging a cactus. It’s all kind of prickly. You’d get stuck on stuff. But yet, there’s this commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. How do you do that? How do you do that? For me, it comes to remembering that my neighbor is a child of God. Despite the pricklies that he or she might have, despite the anger that he or she might have, despite the fact that they leave their garbage cans out there three days after pick up and they let their dogs do their stuff on your lawn, and they have kids who race down the road regardless of pets or kids and they fire up their Harley at 5:30 in the morning and they paint their house orange and blue – a number 15 on the garage door – they too, are children of God.

One of the things that I do when I’m stuck in traffic is play this game “Just like me”. I’ll look over at somebody who’s frustrated and I think to myself “You know, that person is just like me. They want to get home. Just like me. They worry about their finances. Just like me. They have baggage from their childhood. Just like me. They worry about their loved ones. Just like me. They worry about their finances and retirement. Just like me. They’re doing the very best they can. Just like me.” Somewhere that I realize that they’re just like me, it allows you to go to a place of compassion because if God has unconditionally loved you and you know that in your being, it allows you to move to a place of unconditional love. When you realize that God doesn’t judge you – are you hearing this? – God doesn’t judge you, it allows you to not judge your neighbor. When you realize that God has unconditionally accepted you, it allows you to unconditionally accept him. The great swan dive.

I sometimes wonder why people don’t dive into God’s arms. And my fear is that they’ve been dumped too many times. People have dumped them. Jobs have dumped them. Maybe they feel as though God has dumped them. And so they push back away and they build up all these barriers and they say “never again am I going to trust somebody. Never again am I going to let some guy into my life. Never again am I going to trust another woman. Never again am I going to let my guard down. Never again, especially God – I’m not going to let you in. This is why it’s so important on the fourth Sunday of Advent that we talk about God’s love. Because the message of Christmas is that God does not give up until you know about love because the message is for God so loved the world – for God so loved the world that God gave his son. It’s about love.

In this final week as you wrap your presents and fill out cards and go shopping I want you to remember that there’s this beautiful, divine being that has dived into the world and is wondering if you will dive as well and together you will be in love. Amen.