Rev. Mary Ramerman preaches about living big; boundaries, integrity, and generosity.
Homily Transcript
Brené Brown is a speaker, author, and professor at a university in Texas. She speaks about shame, vulnerability and courage. These are areas that she researches in her work and she also has written a number of books and has one of the top ten Ted Talks and I wrote about her recently in the bulletin. I want to mention her because she very much influenced my homily today. I probably should send her a check afterwards! But I at least want to give her credit for the ideas. Also at the end the thoughts come from the Blessed Mother Mary. So I want to thank her too for inspiring this homily today.
So Jesus says today, “I give you a new commandment. Love one another.” Which is really not new it was already a commandment before Jesus’ time. But he gives it with great emphasis. He says, “I only have a little bit longer with you and this is what I want you to know. You must love one another as I have loved you. You must love one another.” So what does that mean? Love one another. How do we truly love one another?
I think when we think about loving one another we have to start at the beginning, which is: how do we love ourselves? We can’t love anybody else if we can’t love ourselves.
The Star War movies, I was a big Star Wars fan and just heard there is another one coming out which I was very happy to hear. One of them, in the Empire Strikes Back, Yoda (remember little Yoda?) is training Luke to be a Jedi warrior. He is training him how to use the force and especially to be aware of the dark side of the force. Beware of anger and fear and how that can ensnare him if he doesn’t learn to find within himself calm and inner peace. As they journey along they come to a dark cave, which frightens Luke. Yoda explains to Luke that the cave is very dangerous and strong with the dark side of the force. “In you must go!” says Yoda. “What’s in the cave?” asks Luke. “Only what you take with you.” Yoda responds. As Luke straps on his weapons Yoda says, “Your weapons, you will not need them.” Luke enters the cave. It is very dark and scary. There are thick vines in the ceiling. There is steam rising off of the ground and there is a large snake winding its ways through the trees. As Luke descends in to the cave he is confronted by his enemy, Darth Vader. They both draw their light sabers and Luke quickly cuts of Vader’s helmeted head. The head falls to the ground, the face guard flies off the helmet and Vader’s face is revealed. Only it isn’t Darth Vader’s face. It is Luke’s face. Luke is starring at his own head on the ground.
Walking in to the dark cave is a metaphor for walking in to our own stories of hurt. It can feel very dangerous and foreboding. We can’t anticipate seeing our enemy but what we ultimately confront in our own stories is ourselves. The most difficult part of our stories is what we bring to them. What we make up about who we are and what we guess that we are perceived by others. Yes we all make mistakes. We make mistakes in our jobs, in our relationships and in our families and with our neighbors. We say thing we wish we never said. We do things we wish we had never done. We make a lot of mistakes.
But the most painful part of life is not the mistakes. It is what we tell ourselves about our own self worth and values. We diminish ourselves, we judge ourselves. We think sometimes that we are no longer even worthy of being loved.
To love someone else we first have to open up to ourselves and recon with our own discovery of imperfection. When we do that, when we acknowledge our own strengths and our weaknesses, then we can live in the truth of who we are. And who we are is God’s beloved, creative, adored children. When we know that, we bring light in to the darkness. In other words, we can love.
As a speaker I have often been invited to travel around the country and talk at churches and conferences. Churches always have a tight budget. They never have enough money to cover it. The compensation usually does not cover the expense of traveling there. One time I was asked to fly to Phoenix, Arizona on a Thursday night, to leave on Sunday to attend their conference. They asked me to speak on Friday night and lead a retreat on Saturday and they said, “We can offer you a stipend of $150.” I said, “Well. Ok.”
So I could relate to one of Brené Brown’s stories about being asked to go to such a conference. She was invited to speak pro bono and when she hesitated, they said, “You’re not going to forget the people who knew you before you were famous, are you?” And so, feeling the guilt she said yes. Then they sent the details of the conference. She would be sharing a room at the hotel. She balked at that and was told, “Everyone else is fine with it.” So she said yes again. She found herself flying to the conference trying to get a good attitude about it. Hoping she would get to the hotel room first, she knocked on the door only to hear a voice say, “Come on it!” When she got in there was her roomie laying on the couch with her hiking boots up on the cushions – a dirt mark left from them. In her hand she had a gooey cinnamon roll, which was all over her hands. Brené, like many other women, was trying not to eat cinnamon rolls at the time. (Actually after the last mass I gave somebody brought me a cinnamon roll. Here, this is exhibit A! I’m not going to touch it.) So there she was eating a gooey cinnamon roll. So Brené handed her a washcloth from the bathroom and she just ignored it and wiped her hands on the back of the couch. At Brené’s horrified face she said, “It’s not our couch. We can do whatever we want.” Then she lit up a cigarette. Brené said, ”You know I don’t think we are allowed to smoke in this hotel.” She said, “What are you the smoking police? Like who is going to care?” So Brené could just feel the resentment coming up in her and the irritation of being in this room at the conference. She got up the next morning and gave her talk at the conference. It went well but she left not in a good mood. She got to the airport; she said everybody at the airport irritated her. Everybody was annoying. She thought to herself, “Come on Brené. It can’t be everybody else.” And then she thought to herself, “But it is everybody else!” They are really irritating. When she got on the plane she thought she should call her therapist. So she called her therapist and set up an appointment for the next morning. When she got there she recounted the whole story, the cinnamon roll, the hiking boots, not having her own room, being forced to go and all her feelings about it. The therapist listened very patiently…and listened…and listened and then she said, “You know, Brené, do you think your roommate was doing the best she could?” And Brené looked at her and said, “Absolutely not! That is not the best than anybody can do. She was not even close to doing the best that she could do.” So the talk went on and the therapist listened and listened and then she gently tried again. “Brené, do you think it’s possible that she was doing the best she could?” At that point Brené thought to herself, “I think it is time that I get a new therapist.” And she said, “She was taking the side of the cinnamon roll wiper!”
But Brené found herself haunted by the question. Was she doing the best she could? She began to research the question. She began to interview people asking them about somebody who irritated them or annoyed them and did they feel that person was doing the best they could. She found that there were two kinds of answers. There were people who said immediately, “No way!” They were not doing the best that they could. They had quick clear responses, no ambiguity about it. The other group of people she said hesitated, thought about it and then said, “Yes. I think they were doing the best they could.” They went on to explain why they felt that way and explained what they thought was the reasons for the person’s actions. She found that people who were able to give people the benefit of the doubt did three things: One – they were generous in thinking of possible reasons why a person might have acted in a certain way. Two – they had integrity in their own values. Staying true to the importance of who they were and the value they placed on being kind or forgiving or understanding. And three – they had boundary’s for themselves that kept them from coming resentful or going beyond their ability to be kind. Brené calls it, “living big.” B for boundaries, I for integrity, and G for generous.
Living big is one way we can grow in our ability to love one another as Jesus loved us. When we set boundaries for ourselves and for others. Then we can ask ourselves what we can do rather than what we can’t do. If I can’t visit for a whole day, can I go for an hour? If I can’t joyfully give a hundred dollar check, can I give $20? If I am uncomfortable with a person from another faith, can I learn something about it so that next time I’m more comfortable? If I can’t give a talk without having my own space at the hotel can I say no to sharing a room?
Integrity. Do I know what my values are? Can I identify one value that Jesus lived by and make that a part of my life? Do I have a mission statement for my life? Do I know who it is that I want to be?
And am I generous? Am I generous with myself for my own mistakes and foibles? Do I accept that I am not perfect, that I have strengths and I have weaknesses? Can I give a stranger the benefit of the doubt? Can I give someone that I am close to room to grow? Can I think of other reasons for their actions than the story that I am telling myself?
Is that enough? Is living big enough to love one another? When you think about how Jesus lived his life he was so loving. He forgives his friend, Peter, who denies him as he is being dragged off to the cross. He even forgives the people who crucify him. He loves even the most unwanted – like the lepers. He befriends the tax collector, the Gentiles, a Roman soldier. He gets down on his hands and knees and washes the feet of his disciples. He notices when people are hungry and he feeds them. He even has time for little children.
Shouldn’t we be loving like that? Of course! If we can do it. Of course. Let’s do it. But if we find that we don’t quite live up to that then perhaps we are not quite ready to do everything in the way Jesus did. Then we just begin where we are. And how do we begin? First off, we breathe. Four breaths in, count to four, hold it for four, breath out for four. We learn to breathe so that when we are confronted by somebody who we find to just be really annoying, we take a moment, we just don’t react, we learn to breathe and then we remember that every person is God’s child and is worthy of love and support. Including us. Every one of us has a soul that blooms with care and understanding and heals with kindness and love. We can smile at the face across from us. We can offer a simple and kind gesture of love and support. We can be open. We can be kind. We can let any anger and disappointment that we have with someone else fall off of our shoulders into God’s hands. We may not ever know the full story of the person that we talk to nor will we be able to fix or solve all of their problems. However, we can choose not to add to another’s broken heart by simple, softly and gently listening, smiling and being patient with the one who needs us.
For when we do that, God can work through us and the amount of love conveyed is bigger than we can ever imagine on our own. Jesus tells us today, “They will know you are my disciples by your love.” Amen.
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