Nancy E. Petty

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

November 25, 2007 – Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Text: Colossians 1:11-20

The Season of Mixed Blessings

Thanksgiving week has been a hard week for our community. With the suicide of our friend and fellow Pullenite, Diane Lunsford, our joy and gratitude for the season has been tempered with sadness and deep spiritual questions. The news of Diane’s death was followed by the painful news from another Pullenite, Charlotte Sweeney who, too, lost her brother this week to suicide. By Thanksgiving Day, it was hard to feel much other than the pain of these two tragic deaths. Little could one do but hold their families in our thoughts and prayers; which many of us have done.

This past week I have wandered around in my own mind trying to discern a word for our community and for myself that would be comforting, even joyful on this Sunday in between Thanksgiving and Advent. I was already ambivalent about my sermon for this, the last Sunday of the church year. Christ the King Sunday or as some call it Reign of Christ Sunday has always been somewhat challenging for me. Odd, it seems, that on the Sunday before Advent, when we prepare for the birth of Christ, that we pause to read passages about his life and particularly his death. It reminds me of some years back when on one particular day in my ministry I went from doing a funeral for a young woman to do a wedding for some dear friends. Jolted by the range of emotions from that day, I called my mentor, Mahan, to seek some wisdom and encouragement. He listened and at the time offered some supportive and helpful words. But later he wrote a much fuller response. As I found myself feeling the mixed blessings and mixed emotions of this season, once again, I found his words helpful so I want to share with you some of his thoughts. He writes:

I think it was in your office, between the funeral and the wedding, when you wondered out loud: “My emotions feel so jerked around, especially during these past few days. Was that true for you? Did you feel jerked around by ministry? I know you did at times. I watched you. But what did you do to stay focused? What kept your emotional feet on the ground?” Of course, I felt emotionally jerked around. It goes with the job, I decided. Often, not always, pastoral ministry is such an emotional roller coaster. The highs are high; the lows are low. And we spend our time, it seems, riding the rails, experiencing both extremes and what is in between.

You asked: How did I manage these mood swings? Poorly, some of the time. I detect two different ways I coped with these emotional swings. At times, I denied the feelings, shifted into automatic pilot and went through the motions of doing the job. “The show must go on,” as they say. This was seldom a conscious choice. It was a survival choice, a way of coping. The price paid is obvious. I became less available emotionally, and if I kept repeating this pattern, I risked the danger of functioning like a robot, hiding myself behind a vocational role. This is one defense against becoming overwhelmed by the emotional drain that accompanies ministry. In one sense, it is a defense mechanism to cultivate. Any professional, including parents, must develop the capacity to place function over felt emotions. But this capacity, suitably drawn upon in exceptional occasions, can, over time, become the norm. And when this happens, our relationships can lack the experience and expression of feelings. That’s the danger I see.

The other extreme is equally destructive. I could over-identify with the feelings stirred up by a pastoral task. When we absorb the feelings of others as our own, we are thrown off balance. We indeed feel “jerked around.” In those instances we may fail to offer the stability of our presence to those experiencing emotional upheaval. And, in time, if we choose to ride, rather than hide, our feelings, we risk emotional exhaustion. Thus, in ministry [as in life] we walk a tightrope between closeness and distance. We risk falling off on either side.

In my latter years as pastor, I began to work on a third alternative. This option became a mantra of sorts, words I attempted to repeat when emotions stirred. The phrase was simple: “Experience and release…Experience and release.” The practice is far from simple. For me this mantra defines the two-fold challenge: being open to experience the feelings that arise; then learning to let go, releasing the feelings. The emotions in ministry provide ample opportunities to practice—both to feel what we feel and let go of what we feel. What I have come to understand is that this capacity to relinquish must be learned through practice. Thinking it does not make it so.

I wanted to share with you his response to me because I think his words apply not only to ministry but to life in general. Most of us know, regardless of our profession, what it is like to be on that roller coaster of emotions. One minute we are up. The next we are down. And even when we are neither up nor down but in that in between place we are still aware of the intense emotions of the highs and lows of life. For some of us, this season that we are in and are going into can be a time of mixed blessings and emotions and Mahan’s mantra “experience and release” can be both a helpful and hopeful word. If you find the holidays to be a time of worry and pain and anxiety “release” is definitely a hopeful and helpful word. If you find them joyous—a time for family and friends and good memories—“experience” is a helpful and hopeful word. For most of us, though, this time of year is marked with mixed emotions and blessings. There are moments of joy AND there are deep reminders of pain: moments we want to experience fully and others we struggle to know how to release. For those of us who find this season to be a time of mixed blessings we need both words—experience and release. If you can, try releasing all that might be keeping you from experiencing the present. Then experience the present for what it is and decide what of that you need to release and what you want or need to hold on to. We don’t always get to choose our experiences. But we can decide what of those experiences we want to release. It is not easy and Mahan reminds us that this capacity to relinquish is only learned through practice.

I want to shift my attention now from Mahan’s letter to me to Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Paul’s letter to the Colossians is marked by two theological themes: wisdom and grace. And for Paul it is only in the life of Jesus that one can find the kind of wisdom and grace that keeps us centered and grounded in a life of faith through both the highs and lows that life can bring. Paul was writing to the Colossians because he had become worried that the faithful had become ungrounded in God’s wisdom and grace and had instead become dependent on some popular cultic practices, such as angel worship. Paul admonishes his listeners with clarity: it is Jesus “who holds all things together” and in whom all wisdom and grace is found. In essence, Paul is saying to the Colossians, “You can look wherever you want. Try whatever you will. But it is Christ who holds all things together.”

It is understandable why this text in Colossians was chosen for this particular Sunday—the Sunday when the church affirms its central focus on the life and teachings of Jesus. It sets forth a high Christology. Paul reminds the people that Christ is not simply to be seen as the firstborn of all creation; rather, all things were created in, through, and for him. God is the Creator, but Christ is both an agent of creation and, more than that, its goal. All things are held together by him; their integrity and coherence depend on his role. It is Christ who has all power over the evils that threaten human life. And therefore, it is through him that we find the strength to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to God.

As I said earlier, I struggle with this particular Sunday when it seems to me we elevate Christ to that of God. If I am truthful, and I have said this before, I am not in that place with my own Christology. And yet, as I face the events of this past week and as I face the evils in this world that keep our world from being a peaceful world and as I fight with my own demons this time of year, I take great comfort in the life and teachings of Jesus. For in no other person have I found the kind of wisdom and grace that keeps me grounded and centered in life’s highs and lows and everything in between. It is his life of compassion and love and acceptance that gives me hope when I feel hopeless. It is his life that I look to when I struggle to know how to live my life authentically and with integrity. It is his life that I turn to when I need reminding of how to forgive and how to treat my enemy. It is his wisdom and grace that I seek when life is turned upside down. And because of that, this Sunday—Christ the King or the Reign of Christ Sunday—is a day of mixed blessings for me. I cannot make the same claims that Paul made. And I cannot deny that in the life of Jesus I find both the wisdom and grace to endure life’s highs and lows and everything in between.

Whether it is Mahan’s mantra of “experience and release” or Paul’s theology of wisdom and grace as ultimately experienced in the person of Jesus, they are each helpful and hopeful words; especially in a season that, at best, confronts us with life’s mixed blessings. Whether you feel jerked around emotionally by this time of year or feel comforted by the joy of this season, or both, remember: experience and release; experience and release and above all ground yourself in the wisdom and grace of the one who loves us unconditionally, who forgives us unconditionally and who accepts us unconditionally. For whatever it is worth, I do believe that he is our way to peace—for you, for me and for our world. In this season of mixed blessings, may you be made strong with all the strength that comes from God’s power through the wisdom and grace of the person we call Jesus.