Mark 9:14-37
An Unclenched Moment: Relaxation and Self-Regulation
Gentle me, Holy One,
Into an unclenched moment,
a deep breath, a letting go
of heavy experiences, of shriveling anxieties,
of dead certainties,
that, softened by the silence, surrounded by the light
and open to the mystery,
I may be found by wholeness,
upheld by the unfathomable,
entranced by the simple,
and filled with the joy
That is You 1 .
The
thing is, none of us know when that moment will come: that moment
when we need to be unclenched—not just for our own well-being, but
maybe for the wellbeing, the peace, or even the safety of another.
That
moment came for one of our members this past Tuesday morning when
Coral Gables High School, where she teaches, went on lockdown when a
child stabbed another child to death. When I called her cel phone,
the first words she said were I’m
okay. And
then she went on to describe how she and forty-five frightened
students were shut in the school’s theater, wondering and waiting.
Her voice, while calm, sounded tight, clenched, and while I watched
the helicopters circling over the Gables I felt deeply sad and sorry
she was there, alone . . .and then, suddenly, I was grateful.
Grateful that one of the ones who was there with those frightened
students was a practicing person of faith. . .by which I mean, she,
like each one of us in this sanctuary this morning, is a person
practicing with the intent to be, in whatever given moment, God’s
person, a bearer of light. And I thought she should know that, and
so I said, You
are the person God has placed in this circumstance. Relax your body,
breathe, and know that you are exactly where and what and who you
need to be, for yourself and for these kids. Whatever you choose to
do will be right action, and your students are blessed to have you
there.
And
on the other end of the line I heard a deep breath, and then a calm,
centered voice saying: Okay.
I can do that. And
she did, that day, and then the next.
In
this morning’s story from the gospel of Mark, that moment came for
the disciples twice in short order. First, when the left-over
disciples (the ones who weren’t invited up on the mountain with
Jesus for the Transfiguration) tried to prove that they, too, were
good enough to be Jesus’ best and brightest. A man with a child
described as “possessed of a demon,” probably, an epileptic,
begged the nine disciples to heal his son.
The
disciples had healed before: why not now? And why not, especially,
when they no doubt felt stung and overlooked by their secondary
position in the Jesus circle? I imagine them trying, one after the
other, to pray and find within themselves the power of God to heal,
while the others stood by, confused and clenched up inside, secretly
hoping that they, and not one of the others, would be successful,
would save the day.
It
was a circle of competition that ended in consternation.
By
the time Jesus and the three got back down the mountain, all they
could do, in the face of the child’s suffering and the father’s
pain was whimper why?
Why couldn’t we fix it? And
Jesus, laying hands on the child, said to the father—all
things are possible to those who believe;
and
to his disciples—this
kind only comes out by prayer.
The
second time that moment came—or, perhaps, more accurately, the
second time we are told that that moment came—was later, after the
disciples had once again heard that Jesus was on the way to his
death, and on their way to the next village they addressed their fear
and impotence and sense of impending loss by engaging in a robust
discussion about….which
one of them was the greatest. The
greatest? The greatest what,
we would ask with scorn, except for the fact that we know why people
like the disciples, people like us, get caught up in such pitifully
self-serving conversations: because deep down, we fear that we are
not the greatest at all, but rather, the least and the lost. When
Jesus asked later, what
were you talking about along the way? they
were clenched with shame and misery because they knew Jesus had found
them out.
That
moment comes for each one of us. And it won’t surprise you if I say
that such moments come again and again, throughout our days as we
face the thousand insults and perceived threats to our well-being,
our comfort, our safety, our self-image, our balance. Sometimes our
moments are dire ones, important ones, like at Coral Gables Senior
High earlier this week; other times, small and private, threatening
harm only to ourselves as we clench or rage or fret over an idiot on
the highway, a bill in the mail, a call from a supervisor, a report
from the doctor, a phone call late in the night.
We
are in many ways the safest generation that has ever lived, but we
maintain ourselves in an almost continual state of alert, as if at
any moment the world, our world, might come to an end. So when Ted
Loder prays, gentle
me, holy one, into an unclenched moment, we know it is exactly what we each need, every moment of the day: to
be found by the wholeness and filled with the joy that is God.
It
is why we are here, in this sanctuary, practicing our faith.
This
morning, we are well into a series of sermons presenting five
spiritual antibodies—five spiritual practices we can use in our
lives so that we might not grow
weary in well doing, as the apostle Paul put it, but live our lives with joy, peace, and
purpose, whatever
the outside circumstances. We first considered intentionality—that
is, an awareness of why we are here on this planet and what
principles and values we have chosen to practice along our path—and
how knowing our mission can help us stay centered and focused when
distractions or destructions threaten. Today, we are looking at relaxation,
or put another way, self-regulation.
What can we do to remain unclenched, peaceful, and more importantly,
an agent of healing and transformation for others when in the
presence of perceived or actual threats? What is right action when
we are threatened or afraid?
In
the two texts we have read this morning, there are images that show
us the way we want to become. In First Samuel 16, in the text about
the choosing of the boy David by the prophet Samuel to be king, the
real circumstance is one of danger for everyone. The prophet, who
works for King Saul, knows that his life is forfeit if Saul discovers
he has anointed his replacement. The people of Bethlehem, knowing
the king’s paranoia and rage, are fearful and trembling when Samuel
brings danger to their door. Though Samuel hopes to find the new
king, anoint him, and slip back out of town without being noticed,
everything goes wrong, as young man after young man parades before
him and he knows they are not the right one. Finally he asks if there
is no other child of Jesse to be seen, and when he is told well,
just the eighth, the littlest, he
knows both the risk they are all taking, and the necessity of this
moment of choosing. What is right action when in the presence of a
threat? Samuel says, we
will all stand here and wait until he comes. Right
action in the presence of a perceived threat is to relax. And
whether it took two hours or two days for the child David to be found
in the fields and to be brought forward, when you know what the right
thing is, it is possible to stand and wait, with peace.
Jesus
put it this way: this
kind comes out only by prayer….but
what does that mean? Surely they must have prayed….laid hands on
the foaming child, sought God’s power. But they failed, and I
suspect the text tells us why. There are times when “prayer” is
just words—words that fill up a room, or a mouth, or a
conversation—but go nowhere genuine, or real. When our fists are
clenched, we can’t receive anything. That is, when we pray in fear
or in competition, or with our mind already made up, we are full
already, even if it is only full of ourselves. The kind of prayer
Jesus is describing is not a filling up, but rather, an emptying, an
unclenching, a relinquishing. And if we can release ourselves into
this kind of unclenched moment, right action will present itself, and
we can experience wholeness and healing, whatever the circumstance.
The father of the boy did it when he prayed from his heart: Lord,
I believe, help my unbelief. I think that is the best prayer in the bible.
To
be gentled into an unclenched moment can happen in a variety of ways.
When I work with my colleagues in Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to
help leaders of communities struck by disaster to maintain their
resilience and their purpose down the long road to recovery, we teach
a very quick and easy method of relaxation and self-regulation that
any one can use, all day and every day, to live in the unclenched
moment. Many of us in this room already know this technique, and try
to practice it. And if any of you want, we can teach it to you in
five minutes. And there are other ways to this prayerful, childlike
place, as well. Some follow the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, that is a moment-by-moment being and awareness, accepting self in
relationship with the world and the divine. Many, Christians among
others, practice meditation, in the form of stillness or labyrinth
walking or chanting, or prayers on the breath. Any of these practices
can help us learn to be still and know God…and stay that way.
Knowing and practicing relaxation as a spiritual discipline builds
our immunity in the midst of danger or threat. It causes us, as
Jesus tried to show his disciples after all their sad and
disappointing failures to be like him, to
become like a child.
When
one of our members, Rose Maree Curtis, was in nursing care and
terrified that she was dying, she learned a version of the ancient
Jesus prayer, asked me to write it and tape it to the wall next to
her bed, so that when she felt terror taking her, she breathed her
way with that prayer into stillness and peace. Let us pray it now: Lord
Jesus Christ….you are the light of the world….fill my heart with
your love….and my mind with your peace.
1 Ted Loder, quoted in Life Prayers.