Following Jesus VI: "Take Time to Love Yourself"
Loving ourselves leads to loving our neighbours.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, November 3, 2002
Text: Luke 10:25-28
I always like to take my car in to the garage downtown where it gets serviced early in the morning and go and have a cup of coffee or breakfast; and then, I pray to heavens that it is done when I get back.
It was one such rather cool morning a couple of months ago when I did just that. I dropped my car off at around 7:30 in the morning and walked down the road. No sooner had I turned the corner onto Parliament Street than I tripped over a man lying on the sidewalk. For a moment, I must admit, I thought the man was dead. There was no movement in his limbs, no light in his eyes. He just lay there, sprawled across the sidewalk.
I thought back to a course that I had taken some weeks before in CPR and before I picked up my cellular phone to call 911, I tried to assess the man, to see if he could move, or if there was a pulse and if he were breathing. Sure enough, he was.
As I rolled him over, this unconscious man still did not open his eyes; but as I prepared him and got ready to call 911 I realized that there was something very wrong. Something was sticking out of this man's arm: A syringe and a needle.
As I tried to revive him he started to come around and then, realizing, of course, the dangers these days with dealing with needles, I didn't touch him again. I just informed him that I was calling medical care and they came and they took him away.
I went back to the garage absolutely shattered by what I had seen. I told one of the mechanics at the desk what I had just seen and he said: "Oh, this is normal. He does this all the time."
Then I said: "Well, do you know anything about him?"
He said: "Oh, we know all about him. I bet when you found him you saw a needle in his arm."
I said: "Yes, I did."
He said: "Oh, we don't know much about him but this we do know. This man was abused as a child, was abused again as a teenager and has basically blotted out all sense of reality ever since."
In fact, seldom a day goes by when they don't hear of him or see him either wandering around the streets or simply lying on the sidewalk with a needle in his arm.
I was so horrified by what I had seen that I couldn't get the image out of my mind at all. It haunted me for days and weeks. What possesses a person to do something like that to himself? To obliterate any memory, any sense of who he is? To obliterate his whole personhood?
But I realized that what had befallen this man was in fact a complete loss of a sense of self: He had lost a sense of his own identity. Somewhere along the line, as an abused person, he had either created another personality to deal with the abuse, or he had just obliterated it, as many do, through either drugs or drink or losing themselves in a whole series of things, because they no longer can deal with the reality of who and what they are. They try to lose themselves.
But this loss of self is not just a psychological reality. It is also a spiritual reality: to restore a sense of who you are not only do you need psychiatric care and psychological counseling (and that desperately), but you also need a profound sense of who you are in relationship to a higher power, in relationship to something greater than yourself. This is one of the great problems that I believe many people face in the world today - the sense that they are not loved and that they do not know who they are.
Now, I have heard the mantra expressed over and over again that you can't love somebody else until you love yourself; that you cannot, in fact, love somebody else unless you have a sense of your own identity and your own personhood. Now, I don't believe that to be true, because I believe that you can love your neighbour even if you don't have a sense of yourself; that we are commanded to and called to love our neighbour, even if we do not love ourselves. But this I will say: the quality of the love that we give to others and that we show to our neighbour is directly related to the quality of the love that we have for ourselves. If we really don't love ourselves, then we do not treat our neighbour with the care, affection and love that we ought.
And so, a wise, legal scholar asked Jesus to quote the law, Jesus was right to repeat it to him and say: "You should love your neighbour as yourself." It is not a quantitative thing but a qualitative thing. Your sense of your own personality, your sense of your own worth and dignity before God affects the way in which you ultimately are going to love others.
This morning, I want to look with you at this central Christian teaching, because I believe, as we end this series on being a disciple, that the disciples of Jesus Christ are ultimately people who first of all understand that they are loved by God; secondly, they love themselves; and thirdly, they pour out that love for their neighbour. Therefore, a sense of self is first of all related to how we see God.
The Bible makes it abundantly clear: God is Love. But not only is God Love, God is demonstrated to have love. We find this all the way through the Gospel messages. Jesus put it this way: 'As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.'
The love of God is the love that the Father has for the Son and the Son has for the Spirit and the Spirit has for the Son and the Son has for the Father. As this great bond of love that exists between the Father and the Son and the Spirit manifests itself, this is the very power, the relationship within the Godhead of love.
But more than that, it is so strong, a love that is so self-emptying, so giving, so sacrificial that it manifested itself in the creation of the world. That is why the Book of Genesis says: Let us make humanity, male and female, in our image. Let them have, in other words, the love that we have. Let them be the object of our love. Let Creation know and respond to the love that we have for one another, let us pour out our love on the world and the world become the object of that love. This very Creation, our very being, your very existence is a result of the love of God. We are created in God's image and despite our fallenness and despite our disobedience, God's love still is there for us because we are a creation of the very God of love.
I've often wondered whether that man down on Parliament Street would stick needles in his arms and obliterate his life if he realized he was a creation of God and a product of God's love. But unfortunately, the reality is that even if you affirm the love of God for people, they still don't translate it into a profound sense of self-love. (And the love that Jesus is talking about is indeed self-love). There are many people who have lost the sense that they are loved by God, and for many reasons.
It is not only the extreme cases of drug addicts down on Parliament Street. It's many people. I have listened this past week for example, to the debate about the relationship between the black community and the police. I think that this is a very complex issue. The police are in a terribly difficult position.
But so, too, are many black youths who are stigmatized by the colour of their skin even if they are not involved in crime, who have a low sense of their self and their being because of the racism that they have run into over generations and who, just by virtue of the colour of their skin, are unsure of how they are going to be treated day in and day out.
There are many people who because they have been told the races are not equal, that they are not of the same nature, that they are not as important, have a low sense of self-esteem and carry around with them the stigma that they are not as important as other people that they are not of value. At times they cease to love themselves and they turn to all manner of things to make their lives better or to give themselves some self-affirmation.
There are also people, regardless of their economic status, even people who have grown up in wealth and privilege, who have never been able to live up to the ideal that their parents set for them, never been able to accomplish the high goals that had been put before them, never been able to live up to this standard and therefore feel this sense of inadequacy that they have never attained the greatness that was expected of them; and, because they haven't done so, have ceased to love themselves.
There are people who have physical deformities or mental incapacities who, because they are not able to live up to the standard that they think society sets for them, because they are not physically beautiful, or because they are not able to achieve the things that others who are physically or mentally able can achieve, therefore have a low sense of self-esteem and do not love themselves, but loathe themselves. I have run into adults and children who loathe themselves because they can't live up to that standard.
I run into people who are overweight, who all their lives struggle and try to the best of their ability to look as good as other people and to look like the images that they are continually bombarded with, but actually hate themselves because they are not able to live up to that standard.
I know people who have sinned, who have done terrible things and who, because of those sins, have been haunted by guilt every day of their lives and have a low sense of their own value. They are disgusted with themselves; they do not feel that they can live up to this standard.
Shakespeare had a wonderful line in Henry V: "Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin / As self-neglecting."
There are many people who neglect themselves, who do not take time to love themselves, who sometimes loathe themselves and have not self-love.
Jesus of Nazareth came to those people. He came to Zaccheus who was so ashamed of himself that he climbed a tree. He said: "Come down, Zaccheus."
He said to the woman who reached out and touched his robe and received power from him, "Come along." He came to the children who had been pushed out and rejected and reached out and picked up a child and showed his value and drew them in. He came to the lepers who were told not to go into the synagogue and drew them in. He came to the Samaritans who had been the outcasts and drew them in.
Have you noticed a pattern here? Jesus restores all these people, people whose sense of self has been broken and mangled and crushed and beaten. He restores them and he loves them and he does it out of a spirit of forgiveness and out of a spirit of grace.
I love the line of the great British actor, Sir Peter Ustinov, who said: "Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit."
The habit of Jesus was to reach out to people who had ceased to love themselves, to restore them and to say: "You are loved."
But it is not just a product of grace that suggests that we are loved. It is a product of our very creation itself. It is, as St. Augustine said, that within each one of us there is the vestigia Trinitatis - a bit of the love of the Trinity right in everybody's life and in their heart. When people realize that, I believe that their lives are transformed.
In an article in the Chicago Tribune in 1995 there was a story about the Art Institute in Chicago. The Art Institute had received a donation, before the war, of sketches and drawings but they looked pretty bad. They were oxidized, the chalk had gone black and the outlines had become blurred. So they just decided to put them away in a drawer. Until 1986.
In 1986, they once again opened this drawer and they had a look at what was there. They realized that one of the drawings looked very much like a Raphael. It was of a hand waving and it was beautifully drawn. One of the art critics said that the lines were very similar to those of Raphael, but they believed that it was just a copy, for surely an American donor could never have a real Raphael.
So they called a man called Oberhuber from Germany to come and have a look and Oberhuber did something that scared everyone. He peeled the back off and revealed a water-mark dating to 1520; this drawing that they had was a real Raphael. What they had stored away and left in darkness and ignored was one of only 12 Raphael works in the whole of the United States of America; one of the most valuable things they had in the Institute. They thought it was just simple and ordinary but, you see, it took on great worth and great value when they realized who was its creator.
My friends, very many people, maybe one of you, are like that Raphael drawing: in need of restoring, in need of being reaffirmed, in need of being renewed. But you really only realize that when you realize who made you in the first place, namely Almighty God. And if Almighty God made you, and if your worth is so wonderful because you are the creation of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, then does it not follow automatically, as Jesus was saying, that you must then love your neighbour? For your neighbour is also someone who has been created in the image of God. It is just so simple and it transforms human existence.
But herein lies one of the great challenges: The need to love yourself because you are a creation of God, because God is love, can become narcissism unless it manifests itself in the love of neighbour. That is why Jesus said to the wise man coming to seek his guidance: "You must love your neighbour as yourself."
And this, as was so rightly said in the introduction to the passage today, is from the Shema of Israel, of Deuteronomy 6:4. It is one of the great passages of the Bible. It is repeated in the Book of Leviticus. It is at the core of the faith. But it is more than that. It is the very core of our lives.
Sometimes I hear people say that all religions share the Golden Rule, that you should "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (I have often wondered what would happen if a sadomasochist said that, but that's another story). Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Jesus went 'way, 'way, 'way beyond that. He says: You love your neighbour as yourself. It's not just a case of a quid pro quo or reciprocity. It is born out of an actual attitude towards your very own existence and the existence of other human beings. It is born out of love. And what is love and where does it come from? God, Godly love.
That's what the Shema of Israel was about. That is what the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth were about. It is: You love your neighbour as yourself. My friends, I believe that very reality transforms human existence like nothing else.
I read recently a very touching story of a seminary professor who went on holiday in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. When he went there, as was his habit, he got up early in the morning with his wife to have his favourite meal of the day, a big breakfast. As his wife and he sat there early in the morning with that big breakfast, a man with white hair and a distinguished look started walking over and the professor thought: "Oh, no. He's going to come to our table. Just let us eat our breakfast in peace, Lord, please."
But oh no, the Lord didn't listen and the man came to their table. He introduced himself to them and he said: "Welcome to Gatlinburg. Pleased to meet you. What do you do and where are you from?"
He said: "I'm a seminary professor from Oklahoma."
The man said: "Well, have I got a story to tell you."
They rolled their eyes and the big man sat down at their table and they munched away on their breakfast and he told them this story. He said: "I want you to look out the window. Do you see those hills over there?"
They said: "Yes."
He said: "There was a young boy who was born in those hills to an unwed mother. That unwed mother brought up this child to the best of her ability, but wherever he went people kept asking him the question: Who is your father? When he went to school, the kids taunted him and said: Who is your father? And when he went to the Post Office he was teased and asked: Who is your father? Even when he went to play with his friends they laughed at him and asked him: Who is your father? Even when he went to church, people would make fun of him and ask him: Who is your father?
One day, this young boy, who hated going to church and hated having anything to do with anybody because of all this, went to church to hear the new minister in town. The new minister caught everybody by surprise for he preached a nice, short sermon - must be a good minister, right? But not only that, he caught everyone by surprise because when he finished the sermon, he just pronounced the benediction.
The young boy usually tried to get out of church early so he didn't have to talk to anyone, but the minister so caught them by surprise that the boy was stunned and he had to go to the door like everybody else and shake the minister's hand and tell him what a wonderful sermon he had preached. At the doors he met the minister and the minister said: "Can you tell me, where's your mother?"
He pointed to his mother.
The minister said: "Now, who's your father?"
The boy went: Oh, no. Not again. He just looked at this minister and there was a pregnant pause. Everybody around knew that the boy had been tortured by this question over the years. Then, the minister just looked at him and realized the difficulty.
He said: "Oh, I know, I know, I know. It's okay, don't worry. You are a child of God." As the young boy's face lit up, he said: "Now you just go out there and claim your inheritance."
The young boy walked out and the next time when he was teased at school and someone said to him: Who's your father?, he said: "I am a child of God."
When he went to the Post Office and was teased and asked the question: Who is your father?, he said: "I am a child of God."
Then the man who had finished telling the story said to the seminary professor: "You see, you seminarians are good people, because had that minister not said that to me, I wouldn't be the man that I am today." And he left.
The seminary professor continued to eat his breakfast of two eggs, sausage, ham, toast, orange juice, coffee. Finally, he went to the waitress and said: "Excuse me. Who was that man?"
She said: "You mean to tell me you don't know who he is? He is Ben Hooper, the former Governor of Tennessee."
Ben Hooper became what he was because someone had dared to tell him that he was a child of God. There is no greater affirmation, no greater source of self-love than to know that truth and to believe it. My friends, I appeal to you as disciples of Jesus Christ. If there is any reality, if there is any thing that you need to hold onto in your lives, it is that God is love and that God so loved us that he created us and gave himself for us; that that God so loved us that he wants us to love ourselves and, in loving ourselves, to spend our lives and our days loving our neighbour. For that, my friends, is ultimately what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ today. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.