“THE SHINING”

 

 

A post-homiletical discourse delivered by the Rev. Dr. James R. Beebe

Rector, St. Patrick’s Church, Incline Village, Nevada, February 14, 2010

 

 

     Manhood is not what it used to be.  Or at least that’s what Garrison Keillor insists.  Years ago, he says, manhood was an opportunity for achievement.  Now, it’s a problem to be overcome.  Plato, St. Francis, Michelangelo, Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci – you don’t find guys of that caliber today.  Of course, there’s an explanation for this.

 

     Girls had it better from the get-go.  They were allowed to play in the house, where the books were and the adults.  Boys, on the other hand, were sent outdoors, where they were noisy and rough.  Boys ran around in the yard with toy guns and argued about who was dead.  Girls stayed inside and played with dolls, creating complex family groups and learning to solve problems through negotiation and role-playing.  OK, so which gender, do you think, is better equipped to live an adult life?

 

     Bottom line?  You become like those you hang around with.  That could be good…or bad…or indifferent, depending.  But most of the time it’s a choice.  Most parents have criticized their sons and daughters for hanging out with the wrong crowd.  But usually it’s too late by then because little Timmy has already accepted the group ethos.  Just being around them has that “rub-off” effect.

 

     Will Willimon used to be the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University.  He, like most conscientious ministers, worried about his sermons.  Not that they would be ignored, mind you, but that they would actually be heard.  That, somehow, they’d make a difference.

 

     He remembered one sermon in which he urged the congregation to become more committed to Christ.  That afternoon, a man called him to tell him that he and his wife, after much discussion and prayer, had decided to sell their house and volunteer for mission work in South America.  Willimon was aghast.  “Now look,” he said, “I was just preaching!”

 

 

 

 

 

     Scared him to death!  He could have been wrong, you know.  Maybe he had overstated the issue in his sermon.  He only had 15 minutes or so, so he couldn’t possibly add all of the necessary qualifications and reservations.  What an awesome responsibility to actually be a change agent in someone’s life!  Still, it was the husband and wife who had chosen.  They chose to hang around the Dean of the Chapel.  To listen to his message.  To take it to heart.  To let it “rub off” onto them.

 

     Two outstanding examples of this rub-off effect from the scriptures come to mind.  The first happens in the book of Exodus, where we have Moses coming down the mountain after getting Israel’s mission brief from God.  When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he didn’t know that the skin of his face shone because he’d been talking with God.  It’s the first recorded case of God “rubbing off” onto someone.

 

     The second example, of course, is Jesus’ transfiguration.  Taking his executive committee (Peter, John and James), he goes to the top of a mountain to pray.  While he’s praying, his clothing becomes dazzling white and his face is changed.  God is “rubbing off” onto him.  Martin Luther said it best when he talked about the relationship of faith and good works:  “Just as the heated iron glows like fire because of the union of fire with it, so the Word imparts its qualities to the soul.”  In other words, we can hang out with God through prayer, meditation, and worship, but be advised – He’s going to “rub off” onto you.  Do you want that?

 

     Here’s where I depart from conventional wisdom regarding who we are.  Behaviorists believe that we do what we do because we’ve been conditioned to do it in the past.  Cause and effect.  Plain and simple.  You have trouble expressing your anger because, as a child, your parents wouldn’t allow you to express it.  You are insecure and afraid because, as a child, your parents were overprotective.  Your mission in life is to make as much money as possible because, as a child, you went through the Great Depression.  Cause…effect.  Behaviorists believe that we have little, if any, choice in who we are.

 

     I disagree.  But I disagree not just because my opinion is different.  I disagree because we are conditioned by what we aim at, not where we’ve been.  And I disagree because the Good News of Jesus tells me otherwise.  He has set us free – free for the first time, to choose our path.  It is a path not marked by parental dysfunction or socioeconomic roots or any of that.  It’s a path that is marked by the freedom to choose to hang out with God.  To let Him “rub off” onto us.

 

 

 

 

     David Helfgott is a dramatic example of both childhood conditioning and the good conditioning that results from free will.  David’s father, Peter, was a Polish Jew who somehow survived the Holocaust.  But it was an experience that left him a bitter and demanding father.  He himself had some modest musical ability, but was denied the opportunity for a music teacher as a youth.  And if he couldn’t have one, then his son, David, couldn’t either.

 

     Peter tries to solve the problem by trying to live vicariously through his son.  He devotes himself to every detail of his son’s musical lessons.  He loves his son, but it’s the kind of suspicious, conditional love that demands proof and perfection.  The love/hate relationship between Peter and his son reaches a boiling point when David is offered a full scholarship to attend a music college in London.  But, because he demands that his family be around him at all times, the father forbids him to go.  He even threatens to disown him.

 

     This is the turning point.  Having been conditioned to be the person he is until now, David makes the free decision to be someone else.  He leaves home and goes to England.  He begins to develop a relationship with Cecil Parkes, a kind and handicapped teacher.  Parkes becomes David’s mentor, helping him to believe that he has what it takes to play the difficult Piano Concerto No. 3 by Rachmaninoff.  And, in the end – although David is clearly psychologically damaged goods – Parkes has “rubbed off” onto him.

 

     You become like those you hang out with.  That’s what prayer is, you know.  Prayer doesn’t so much seek to get stuff as establish contact.  And that contact means everything.  That’s what our patron saint, Patrick, means in his “Breastplate Prayer” –

 

            Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me,

            Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me,

            Christ to comfort and restore me,

            Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet,

            Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me,

            Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

 

Maybe it’ll rub off one of these days….