29th November 2009 : ADVENT SUNDAY : Year C
9:30am Camillo
Jeremiah 33:14-16 : 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 : Luke 21:25-38
My name is Alistair. I live with depression.
By the beginning of October it had become so bad that the clinical psychologist I see regularly and the psychiatrist to whom she referred me both agreed that hospital was the safest place for me to be. Safety was an issue because I was periodically suicidal and playing increasingly-foolish games with sharp knives…
I’m not entirely sure where this particular bout of depression came from, or the galloping, out-out-of-control anxiety that exacerbated it. Even the experts can’t be certain. And because treatment in the first instance deals with controlling the present moment and ensuring that the future has a chance to be, in one way it doesn’t matter.
Depression, in the classic phrase, is no respecter of persons. That I should be someone who claims to have a faith, to believe in the Living God, took some people by surprise. Inevitably one of the inmates, as we called ourselves, not without some irony, asked me what I did in the “real world”. I hesitated only for a moment. I had expected the question and had pondered what answer I would give, resolving neither to lie nor to volunteer the information.
So the question came and I told her I was an Anglican priest. As I feared, she immediately said, “Why didn’t God helping you to get better,” or something similar. It was a good question – an excellent question. It was a question I had vaguely wondered about. I suspect I knew that easy answers would never satisfy such a question so I had never sat with the question long enough to worry any kind of response out of it. In any case, I was depressed, so I didn’t really care.
Why didn’t God help you to get better, she asked. To my surprise, I responded with barely a heartbeat’s pause: “He did. He put me in here.” That was the end of that Question Time. And despite the apparent antagonism of the question, for which she has excellent reasons, we became friends.
At one level I don’t like the answer I gave. It sounds too neat, too “pat”. Those of you who’ve listened to my sermons know that I am suspicious of answers that provide simplistic solutions to complex questions. Depression is a complex question.
But the reality is that I was in hospital, at that time, at that moment, and I had no reason to believe anything other than the Living God’s timing and placement. And the Living God does make excellent use of all the available resources – including people who have not yet come to faith, or those whose faith the Church or its minions have damaged.
Either way, that I became recognised as a “minister” brought forth other inmates’ stories and recollections. Some wanted to come to church with me, even though they had not attended in years. One of them persuaded me to join her in a prayer meeting.
I was clear, however, that I wasn’t in hospital on some secret mission to convert the place from the inside out. Mostly I just sat and listened. And that was all that was necessary. I was actually able to stay safe and start getting well again – or at least well enough to leave hospital and begin to start living in this so-called “real world” again.
Of course, I could say much more, but this isn’t a lecture on clinical depression. The reasons I’m sharing this with you are manifold.
Partly it’s because I believe you have a right to know. Our Church is too fond of covering things up, hypocritically cultivating whispers and sly winks at the same time as clucking at rumours.
This is not the way of the Living God. It is not how Jesus lived his life and it is not the example he gave to his followers.
Depression is not something that embarrasses me or I’m ashamed of. It’s an illness like any other. I take pills for diabetes and no one bats an eyelid. I also happen to take pills for depression. And, like diabetes, it’s an illness I am learning to manage, so that I have control over it, rather than the other way around.
And for the sake of saying it aloud so no one has to die wondering…I feel better now than I have for many many years.
Did I lose my faith? No, I didn’t. I didn’t think much about it but when I did it seemed to me that, if anything, my faith was just sitting there, quietly supporting me, as we might support a sick bird on the palm of our hand. It was certainly one of those Footprints moments – when two sets of prints on the beach become one; when Jesus carries us through difficult times.
That’s another reason for sharing my experience this morning. I now join the ranks of so many of you who understand through your own difficult times that hope is not only a great tenet of faith but also an existential reality.
At the end of the day, a greater force prevails. We tend to call that force God. And that’s okay. Other people recognise the force in other ways and use other names and designations. That’s okay too. The Living God is big enough not to need our self-conscious offence! and certainly doesn’t need us to come to the rescue!!
As Richard Rohr might say, we spend far too much worrying about other people – whether they have the “right” beliefs; whether they belong to the right faith or denomination; whether they’re “biblical” enough or too “liberal”. God doesn’t ask us to do that. That isn’t what Jesus’ mission is about.
It always has to begin with whoever “me” happens to be. Rohr, in a talk called Men and grief, quotes an American cartoon in which the main character says: “I’ve seen the enemy – and dammit, it’s me!” The first person we have to convert – MUST convert – is this strange, tumultuous, contradictory, ornery, complex, sometimes nasty, always within a hair’s-breadth of tremendous evil, but ultimately glorious and beautiful person called “me”. Like wot Jesus sed: Love your neighbour as yourself. If we aren’t loving ourselves – and you do know what I mean: self-respect and self-esteem; not narcissism and self-aggrandisement – if we don’t love ourselves then how will we love anyone else? How will we know how to love anyone else?
Because it’s clear enough – heh! has it ever stopped being clear enough – that a lot of people need to be loved. And among the many reasons people need God’s love, mediated through our own intentional actions and prayer, ties in rather neatly with this morning’s gospel reading.
I’m referring of course to the latest cinema classic, 2012, which bills as a movie about the end of the world. Why 2012? One of the reasons is because the Mayan calendar – the calendar the Maya people of South America created centuries ago – this calendar finishes on what we call the 21st December 2012.
I’m not sure why this suddenly becomes important given that we’ve managed quite well to live without the Mayan calendar for several centuries. And for all we know, the reason that calendar ends on 21st December 2012 is because whoever was chiselling it into the nearest ziggurat got RSI or bored or died or decided it was too much of a good thing or thought it would be a clever trick to play on posterity…
Holy Scripture, the Christian bit, tells us, through Jesus, that we don’t know when the world will end. Sure, here in Luke, he has Jesus saying we’ll have signs, cosmic signs. But in reality those signs are so common and have occurred throughout history, that they add up to a pretty vague set of indicators.
9:30am Camillo
Jeremiah 33:14-16 : 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 : Luke 21:25-38
My name is Alistair. I live with depression.
By the beginning of October it had become so bad that the clinical psychologist I see regularly and the psychiatrist to whom she referred me both agreed that hospital was the safest place for me to be. Safety was an issue because I was periodically suicidal and playing increasingly-foolish games with sharp knives…
I’m not entirely sure where this particular bout of depression came from, or the galloping, out-out-of-control anxiety that exacerbated it. Even the experts can’t be certain. And because treatment in the first instance deals with controlling the present moment and ensuring that the future has a chance to be, in one way it doesn’t matter.
Depression, in the classic phrase, is no respecter of persons. That I should be someone who claims to have a faith, to believe in the Living God, took some people by surprise. Inevitably one of the inmates, as we called ourselves, not without some irony, asked me what I did in the “real world”. I hesitated only for a moment. I had expected the question and had pondered what answer I would give, resolving neither to lie nor to volunteer the information.
So the question came and I told her I was an Anglican priest. As I feared, she immediately said, “Why didn’t God helping you to get better,” or something similar. It was a good question – an excellent question. It was a question I had vaguely wondered about. I suspect I knew that easy answers would never satisfy such a question so I had never sat with the question long enough to worry any kind of response out of it. In any case, I was depressed, so I didn’t really care.
Why didn’t God help you to get better, she asked. To my surprise, I responded with barely a heartbeat’s pause: “He did. He put me in here.” That was the end of that Question Time. And despite the apparent antagonism of the question, for which she has excellent reasons, we became friends.
At one level I don’t like the answer I gave. It sounds too neat, too “pat”. Those of you who’ve listened to my sermons know that I am suspicious of answers that provide simplistic solutions to complex questions. Depression is a complex question.
But the reality is that I was in hospital, at that time, at that moment, and I had no reason to believe anything other than the Living God’s timing and placement. And the Living God does make excellent use of all the available resources – including people who have not yet come to faith, or those whose faith the Church or its minions have damaged.
Either way, that I became recognised as a “minister” brought forth other inmates’ stories and recollections. Some wanted to come to church with me, even though they had not attended in years. One of them persuaded me to join her in a prayer meeting.
I was clear, however, that I wasn’t in hospital on some secret mission to convert the place from the inside out. Mostly I just sat and listened. And that was all that was necessary. I was actually able to stay safe and start getting well again – or at least well enough to leave hospital and begin to start living in this so-called “real world” again.
Of course, I could say much more, but this isn’t a lecture on clinical depression. The reasons I’m sharing this with you are manifold.
Partly it’s because I believe you have a right to know. Our Church is too fond of covering things up, hypocritically cultivating whispers and sly winks at the same time as clucking at rumours.
This is not the way of the Living God. It is not how Jesus lived his life and it is not the example he gave to his followers.
Depression is not something that embarrasses me or I’m ashamed of. It’s an illness like any other. I take pills for diabetes and no one bats an eyelid. I also happen to take pills for depression. And, like diabetes, it’s an illness I am learning to manage, so that I have control over it, rather than the other way around.
And for the sake of saying it aloud so no one has to die wondering…I feel better now than I have for many many years.
Did I lose my faith? No, I didn’t. I didn’t think much about it but when I did it seemed to me that, if anything, my faith was just sitting there, quietly supporting me, as we might support a sick bird on the palm of our hand. It was certainly one of those Footprints moments – when two sets of prints on the beach become one; when Jesus carries us through difficult times.
That’s another reason for sharing my experience this morning. I now join the ranks of so many of you who understand through your own difficult times that hope is not only a great tenet of faith but also an existential reality.
At the end of the day, a greater force prevails. We tend to call that force God. And that’s okay. Other people recognise the force in other ways and use other names and designations. That’s okay too. The Living God is big enough not to need our self-conscious offence! and certainly doesn’t need us to come to the rescue!!
As Richard Rohr might say, we spend far too much worrying about other people – whether they have the “right” beliefs; whether they belong to the right faith or denomination; whether they’re “biblical” enough or too “liberal”. God doesn’t ask us to do that. That isn’t what Jesus’ mission is about.
It always has to begin with whoever “me” happens to be. Rohr, in a talk called Men and grief, quotes an American cartoon in which the main character says: “I’ve seen the enemy – and dammit, it’s me!” The first person we have to convert – MUST convert – is this strange, tumultuous, contradictory, ornery, complex, sometimes nasty, always within a hair’s-breadth of tremendous evil, but ultimately glorious and beautiful person called “me”. Like wot Jesus sed: Love your neighbour as yourself. If we aren’t loving ourselves – and you do know what I mean: self-respect and self-esteem; not narcissism and self-aggrandisement – if we don’t love ourselves then how will we love anyone else? How will we know how to love anyone else?
Because it’s clear enough – heh! has it ever stopped being clear enough – that a lot of people need to be loved. And among the many reasons people need God’s love, mediated through our own intentional actions and prayer, ties in rather neatly with this morning’s gospel reading.
I’m referring of course to the latest cinema classic, 2012, which bills as a movie about the end of the world. Why 2012? One of the reasons is because the Mayan calendar – the calendar the Maya people of South America created centuries ago – this calendar finishes on what we call the 21st December 2012.
I’m not sure why this suddenly becomes important given that we’ve managed quite well to live without the Mayan calendar for several centuries. And for all we know, the reason that calendar ends on 21st December 2012 is because whoever was chiselling it into the nearest ziggurat got RSI or bored or died or decided it was too much of a good thing or thought it would be a clever trick to play on posterity…
Holy Scripture, the Christian bit, tells us, through Jesus, that we don’t know when the world will end. Sure, here in Luke, he has Jesus saying we’ll have signs, cosmic signs. But in reality those signs are so common and have occurred throughout history, that they add up to a pretty vague set of indicators.
If they really indicate something, what are we going to do? Are we going to start becoming better, more loving, more ministering, more praying boys and girls? Are we not doing that already?
Don’t we already care about those who are far more damaged than us? Don’t we already tend to the needs of those who are sick, in prison, naked, hungry and thirsty? Do we not already love our neighbours as ourselves?
If we do, then, well, what does any one have to fear? After all, we pray for the end of the world every single Sunday – at least. Your kingdom come, we say. We ask God to send the kingdom… In other words, to end the world as we know it and replace it with a place of love and harmony. If anyone is afraid of that then don’t pray the Lord’s Prayer.
Now, of course, if we aren’t doing any of that other stuff, then stop listening to this sermon and get out there (after Communion) and start doing it! But remember – it always begins with that creature I mentioned before – “me”…
