Each week a group of clergy from the Charlotte area gathers
for conversation and prayer. We support one another in joys and sorrows,
frustrations and celebrations. Each week we take turns drawing a little, wooden
ball from a small, black bag. On each ball is written one gift of the Spirit:
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, or self-control. That gift is
given to us to contemplate for the rest of the week, or at least for the rest
of our time together. Of course we all joke about wanting the pleasant ones,
like joy or love or kindness. But when we’re really honest with ourselves we
often recognize the need for the harder ones like self-control and patience.
This morning there were three of us. The other two chose
before I did and both got joy. I hoped for joy too, but got self-control. Ugh.
Then I remembered that I had stopped at Panera on my way to Charlotte for not
just one, but two pastries and a large coffee. And I remembered that the night before
I had stayed up long past my bed time doing nothing in particular. And then I remembered
the massive piles of stuff on my desk at work which have poured out onto the floor, the
couch and into the closet.
I think if I took a quick survey, self-control would be everybody's least favorite gifts of the Spirit. But self-control is one of those tenets of the faith we’re supposed
to spend time with especially during Lent as we practice the traditional three
disciplines of Lent: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Now, when I’m really
honest with myself- and with God - self-control is not something I’m all that
good at. I don’t have trouble with the big addictions like drugs or alcohol or
sex or gambling and I’m not violent or a criminal. My
self-control issues, and I would posit that this is the case for many of us,
are less obviously harmful and therefore more difficult to see and admit.
Self-control is difficult for several reasons; one of the most
pressing is that it is simply not cool. At the risk of sounding anti-culture,
which I’m not by-the-way, our society is uninterested in self-control.
Self-control is bad for business, for one thing. Most marketing is all about
encouraging us to impulsively buy stuff that upon more careful reflection, we
don’t actually need.
But blame cannot be placed only on advertising. There is a
secular “I’m OK, you’re OK” philosophy pervasive in much of our culture. (I’m not
specifically talking about the 1967 book
I’m OK, You’re OK by Thomas Harris.) Please don’t hear me saying we ought
to be more judgmental of one another. That is far from what I want. This
philosophy, in my opinion, has sprung from a desire to counteract the excessively
judgmental theology espoused for so long by much of Christianity. People have a
need to be loved and valued for who and what we are, no matter what. Unfortunately,
what has happened is that a stark “either-or” dichotomy has evolved. Either I’m
being judged as a terrible person by a far-off God who attacks my very being
through the church or I’m perfectly fine no matter what I do or to whom.
What would be more valuable is to develop a centrist
understanding of human nature. Something that admits we are not always OK, that
our choices and our actions have consequences which sometimes cause pain and
even harm to ourselves and others. Not a judgment pronounced from on high, but
an honest admission that I am not perfect and that I do not always have the best
interest of God’s creation in mind when I make choices. In other words, I do
not exercise self-control in all areas of my life and that has consequences for
me and for the world in which I live.
The other side of that, of course, is that God meets us in
the midst of our guilt and pronounces forgiveness. Even as we deal with
consequences of our lack of self-control, God comes to us where we are with grace
and love. There is a reason the self-control is considered a gift of the
Spirit, because left to our own devices, we’d never manage it alone. God’s
grace comes to us with the gift of self-control. Seeing it as a gift and not a burden
frees us to take it on freely. It is not a chore we have to do on our own
without help. It is a present from the Holy Spirit.
Self-control frees us from slavery to our cluttered lives.
In the Sunday Adult Discussion Group we’ve been discussing “The Spiritual Practice
of Shedding Stuff,” an article by Diana Dworin from the December issue of The Lutheran Magazine .During one of our
discussions, Stacey Leiby defined clutter as “anything that gets in the way of
what you want or need to be doing at the time.” The article in the magazine
says, “In the broadest sense, clutter can be anything that clogs our
opportunity to experience life at its fullest.” It seems antithetical to say
that self-control would help us experience life to its fullest. Wouldn’t doing
whatever I want and acquiring anything I want help me experience a full life? But
people of faith know that exercising control over our impulses to do too much
and own lots of stuff does not fill the space in our hearts which can only be
filled by Christ.
The same can be said to the clutter in our minds, hearts and
spiritual lives. “Clutter includes the non-essential ways we spend our hours
and energy on extraneous activities…It also takes on psychological and
spiritual forms, from maintaining unhealthy relationships to nursing the wounds
of hurts from years past,” writes Dworin. God’s gift of self-control is a gift
of clarity in that it allows us to see what it is to which God would have us
give our attention. It helps us to spend our time in life-giving activities and
in healthy, supportive relationships including with our loving God.
So, this morning I groaned when I pulled out the “self-control”
ball. And probably I will the next time I pull out that particular spiritual
gift. But as I reflect, I also give thanks and I ask God, please give us all
the self-control we need to have a full life, the kind of abundant life you
desire for us, the kind of life you so want us to have that you died and rose, the
life breathed into our very nostrils by the Holy Spirit.
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