Notes From A Late Bloomer

on the parts of ourselves that could use some denying

(Sermon starts at :32. Preaching is a spoken (or signed) art form - so much of the meaning comes in the way it is preached. Do listen or watch if possible!)

Drafting off Jesus; A Lenten Sermon

I’m what is sometimes referred to as a “late bloomer”. Which really is just a polite way of saying  that I was an “early screw up”. I didn’t end up graduating from college until I was 36.

Which means, in the late 80s and early 90s, when others my age were changing majors and pledging sororities, I was nurturing a not insignificant drug and alcohol habit.

This is why, in my 30s and 40s I was so driven to prove myself; because I believed that was the solution to the problem of having been an early screw up.

Then in 2004 when I had two preschoolers at home, and was also trying to finish my thesis at CU Boulder (so I could graduate summa cum laude which at the time really mattered to me) I was relentless. I was single minded. I was absolutely unstoppable. Which is why, one winter day at school when my stomach hurt and I felt unwell, I didn’t choose to go home and go to bed, I chose to just push through until it finally became impossible to pretend I wasn’t sick. I waited too long though, and on the drive home I felt increasingly sick until eventually I passed out… while still driving. Thank God it happened when I was about to pull into our driveway and not while I was on the highway. So rather than plowing down other motorists, I just plowed down the neighbor’s mailboxes, before my car stopped in their flowerbed. I came to, opened the driver’s door, and then proceeded to pass out in a snowbank in the neighbor’s yard right next to my Honda. For like, a little wintery nap or something. The next time I came to, there were paramedics standing over me…and the first thing I said, was “I’m not drunk!” 

I had worked so hard to prove I wasn't the sloppy drunk I used to be but in doing so I just found myself passed out in the neighbor’s yard just like I used to be.

At the hospital hours later when the ER Doc come in with the results from my blood work, he said there wasn't anything wrong with me besides having the flu and refusing to rest – “But Mrs Bolz-Weber” he added, “when you’re that sick…you should go home and lay down.” That little piece of advice cost my family $1,000 we did not have at the time.

The point being, my solution to the problem of having squandered years of my life to addiction was to then just become addicted to proving myself, and then that solution turned into its own problem and well, that’s usually how the cycle goes.

In our Gospel text for today Jesus says that those who wish to follow him must deny themselves, and take up their cross, and those who wish to save their life must lose it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these are just the kinds of messages that would never make Jesus and influencer today. He’d never get more than twelve followers these days with that kind of branding.

I mean, I feel like I speak for all of us when I say what we want is: The 3 Secrets Every Celebrity Knows About Getting Rid of Cellulite, or 6 Steps to Becoming More Powerful in The Boardroom, or The Top 10 Ways to Make Up for Being a Young Addict. But no. Jesus gives us deny yourself take up your cross and follow him and lose your life to save it.

Maybe like you, I struggle with how this denying ourselves thing is good news.  And not just because of how that verse about picking up your cross has been perverted into messages like deny your Queerness, pick up your cross of heterosexuality and follow him.  Or deny your dignity and pick up your cross of continued domestic abuse and follow him. 

I mean, yeah, there is that all of that, but the reason “deny yourself” feels like bad news to me is because I don’t want to deny myself. I like calling the shots.  For most of my life I have relied pretty heavily on me-based solutions to all my me-based problems. Even when my solutions don't work, at least they are mine.

And here Jesus is wanting to take that from me like he can’t see the value in my entrepreneurial life management skills.

But the truth is, as much as I want to be a totally autonomous self-contained entity who doesn’t need to lay down when she is sick, I also am exhausted and very much want to scream the words:  I could use some help here! into my pillow so that I get it out of my system, but also so no one hears me and God forbid thinks I need some help.

But I do. I could use some rest and some help because I am tired of trying to be enough of everything.

So recently I’ve been wondering: if, when Jesus says deny yourself and follow me, that maybe it’s not about insuring his followers are doormats. Maybe he’s inviting us to deny the part of us that wants to see itself as separate from God and others. 

Deny the self that believes that spirituality should be a suffering avoidance program.

Deny the self that always creates a list of demands.

Deny the self that is so turned in on itself that it cannot see much of anything beyond itself.

Deny the self that says really horrible things to you about you.

Deny the self that pretends you never need help.

There are parts of me that really should be de-platformed.

Because in the end, one aspect of the whole death and resurrection thing that Jesus promised us, is the death of the false self.

But the death of the false self doesn’t feel good. In fact, Richard Rohr once wrote that “Holiness never feels like holiness, it just feels like you’re dying”. I think he might have been reading our text for today when he wrote that.

But no matter how painful, when the unhealthy ideas and habits and identities we rely on are taken away from us, it just makes space for that which is actually real and actually holy.

Maybe this is what Lent is about. Not giving up chocolate, but giving up on the things that, let’s be honest, weren't working anyhow.

So if you are faced with your own limitedness right now… If you are exhausted by our achievement culture. If your me-based solutions to your me-based problems keeps failing you. Christian, know this: there is no shame in that,  Not really.

I mean, not with the kind of God we have.

Because as St Paul said, God’s strength is perfected in your weakness.  Denying yourself might be as simple as letting yourself off the hook for having to be God.

So every time we find ourselves passed out in our own version of a snow bank next to the neighbor’s flowerbed – every time our me-based solutions to our me-based problems fail us, just know this: it is in the tombs of our self-manufactured darknesses that God always shines brightest.

I mean, it’s basically his job.

So we offer no me-based solutions here.  Then you know what we have to offer instead?  Divine foolishness.  The kind that says that if you want to save your life you must lose it and if you lose your life you will find it.

Because as St Paul (kind of) says, the cross is foolishness to those whose own solutions are still working for them, but to the weak and the cynical and the socially awkward and the exhausted …to the divorced and the unemployed and the alcoholics … in other words, to all who are in need of help and rest, Christ crucified (the foolishness of God) is life in a way that our own solutions can never be - In a way that more status, and more degrees and more financial security can never be….in a way that proving ourselves and people pleasing and pilates can never be. 

In closing, something came to me very late yesterday that I had never thought of before- when Jesus says deny ourselves pick up our crosses and follow him, I’ve always focused on what a bummer the self-denial and cross carrying part was, and never thought much about the follow him thing. But maybe it doesn’t mean he’s leaving us to a life of struggle and suffering and having to figure everything out for ourselves. Because if he says follow me it must mean he’s guiding the way so maybe we can stop feeling like we need to… like we are going to his house but we’re in separate cars and he’s saying look, no need to enter it in Google maps, just follow me.

Since he says we should follow him, does it not mean that he’s right in the front, that he’s always going before us, that he’s always in pole position, and we get to spiritually just draft off him. That’s the rest and the help we need.  It’s found in the spiritual slip stream of following Jesus - the one who says come to me all who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. The one who never tires of being our help in times of trouble. The one in whom we can rest and just try less hard for once.

Amen.

My deepest thanks to everyone who supports me here!

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