Weekly Sermon

"Avoiding Burnout Caused by Chasing the Rabbit" - September 5, 2004

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Psalm 23, Matthew 11: 28-30

Jesus said, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and You will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Prayer: Lord God, we take on the burdens of the world that are so heavy. Teach us to come to You for your burden is light and You share our burdens. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. It is hard to begin a sermon today without pausing to reflect on the terrorist actions of this past week. Sadly, the terrorists understand a truth that we often forget. They know that money, possessions, and position do not bring happiness. They know that what really matters is our relationships with family, friends, and God. How horrifying that they understand and use against us what we taken for granted. We must remember that to avoid burnout, we have to get back to the important things that God has given us: our faith and our loved ones. Max Lucado tells a story about A not-so-bright fellow who saw an advertisement for a cruise. The sign in the travel agency window read "Cruise--$100 Cash." I've got a hundred dollars, he thought. And I'd like to go on a cruise. So he entered the door and announced his desires. The fellow at the desk asked for the money, and the not-too-bright guy started counting it out. When he got to one hundred, he was whacked over the head and knocked out cold. He woke up in a barrel floating down a river. Another sucker in another barrel floated past and asked him, "Say, do they serve lunch on this cruise?" The not-so-bright fellow answered, "They didn't last year." [Max Lucado, Just Like Jesus, (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998) 50] It's one thing not to know. It's another to know and not to learn! The world has been telling God's people forever that the most important things are money, possessions, and status, but we know better. We know that the only way to avoid entrapment by the world's lies is conscious rejection of the world's value system, but it's not easy. And ministers aren't immune from the temptations of the world. In his book, Ordering Your Private World, Gordon MacDonald, tells the story of Reverend Charles Blair who grew up in Oklahoma during the Depression. As a young boy, Blair was walking home from school in the company of a girl about whom he had strong feelings. Suddenly a boy with a shiny new bicycle came up beside them and offered the girl a ride. Without hesitation, she hopped onto the back fender, leaving Blair behind as she and the other boy rode off together. The humiliation of that moment caused Blair to resolve that someday he would have the equivalent of a shiny bicycle, that he would have the wherewithal to make impressions that would command the attentions and loyalties of others. And those resolves burned their way into his life…He would later need to own the most attractive automobile, lead the most beautiful and largest church, and wear the most stylish of men's fashions. These things would prove that he had made it out of the Oklahoma Depression. Charles Blair was running from something, and that meant that he had to run toward something. Although his drive was clothed in all sorts of impressive spiritual motives, and although his ministry was remarkably effective, down at the center were unresolved hurts of the past. Because these hurts remained a point of disorder in his private world, they came back to haunt him. They affected his choices and values and blinded him to what was really happening at a crucial moment of his life. The result? Serious disaster. Failure, embarrassment, and public humiliation. [Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World, (Nashville: Oliver Nelson, 1985), 46-47] In August 1976, a jury found the Reverend Charles Blair, pastor of the 6,000-member Calvary Temple in Denver, Colorado, guilty of seventeen counts of fraud and illegal sale of securities. Blain had raised $14 million from about 3,400 investors to finance the church's ill-fated geriatric center. Blair was fined $12,750 and placed on five years probation, but he was allowed to remain as pastor of Calvary Temple. Under his leadership the church was able to repay the investors. If worldly things charm us, our life will lack the foundation we need when trouble comes and I can guarantee that troubles will come. They come to everyone. The world will tell us that money and possessions will protect us from pain and sorry. It is a lie. To avoid burnout, we need to spend time with the people God has given us to love. Love renews the spirit. That is the first point in avoiding burnout. Another thing to recognize is that what we do is less important that how we do it. The world tells us that having a prestigious job is the important thing. It's not. When my family traveled to San Antonio this summer, we saw a friend of mine I hadn't seen in 14 years. I'm going to call her Jan and although I hadn't seen her, I knew what was going on with her over the years. She has multiple sclerosis (MS). Before I left Texas in the late 80s, the disease had begun its unyielding march through her limbs. She is now in a wheelchair and has no use of her legs. She is in her early fifties. A few months ago, she had to move into an assisted living community, where she is about 20 years younger than the others are. It has been very hard on her. Now Jan has never been an easy person to get along with. She has had a difficult life and can be sarcastic, even caustic, but I wanted to see her so we met at our old church, First Presbyterian of San Antonio. At first Jan seemed like her old self-wisecracking with jabbing words, but after a while she let down the defenses. I asked her how she felt about her living quarters. As she answered, I noted a change in her-a kind of gentleness slipped out. She told me how two people in the center have died since she moved in. I asked her how that felt and she said that it had been hard, but somehow it was healing, too. It turns out that both of these people died as Jan sat with them. She talked about holding their hands, dabbing their brows, and listening whether they were talking or just breathing. She said that she had surprised herself by staying right there as they died. It was amazing to me to see Jan transformed by her own kindness. Here is a bitter, angry woman who became gentle and loving. As she stayed with her friends as they left this world, she became a comforting saint. The world tells us that spending time with the helpless who cannot repay us is a waste, but the Gospel tells us another story. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "So my dear brothers and sisters, stand strong. Do not let anything change you. Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because you know your work in the Lord is never wasted." (I Corinthians 15:58.) The third thing to remember is avoiding burnout is that your work has meaning because God is working through you. With all the pressure from the world, we can be blind to the goodness we are doing. But in Christ, there is hope. In her wonderful book, My Grandfather's Blessings, Rachel Naomi Remen tells the story of a man named George. At forty-five, he had patented a part of a medical invention. For more than two decades since then, he was the CEO of a small but successful company that manufactures and distributes these parts worldwide. But George got had lung cancer. By the time he was diagnosed, his cancer was widely spread and his physicians told him that he did not have long. The diagnosis had shaken George badly. He said, "I have wasted my life. I have two ex-wives and five children. I support all of them but I don't know any of them. I never took the time to know them or anyone else. I have spent my life doing business, building my company from an idea in my basement to what it is today. I do not think they will miss me. I've nothing behind me but a lot of money." He looked away and shook his head. "What an old fool," he said. "A stupid old fool." But…George's invention that his company manufactured is a part of a medical device that has enabled people whose chronic disease was previously unmanageable to live almost normally. It happened that Rachel Remen knew a woman who used the device. It had changed her life. Before it was available, she had been severely limited by her disease and almost housebound. Controlling her physical symptoms had occupied most of her time. She had been unable to work, unable to have any sort of normal life among people. Soon after she was fitted with the device, she had gotten a job for the first time where she met people and began to have friends. In time she had met and married a fine man and had a child. "The day they gave me this device, I was reborn," she had told Rachel Remen. Rachel Remen thought that perhaps her friend might be willing to write an anonymous note about her experience to give to George. But when Remen's friend discovered that Rachel knew the man whose invention had made her device possible, Stephanie was speechless. She asked if George might be willing to come to her home for dinner so that she could show him the life he had made possible for her. George was willing and went to the couple's home for dinner. When he arrived, Stephanie's whole family welcomed him. Her mother was there, her three brothers and sisters, several of her aunts and uncles, and a crowd of nieces, nephews, and cousins. Her husband's parents were there, too, and many of her friends and neighbors-the whole community of people who had sustained her in the years she was an invalid. They had decorated the little house with crepe paper, and everyone had cooked. It was an extraordinary meal and a wonderful celebration. George said, "They had really come to tell me a story: they had each played a part in it and had a different side of it to share. It took them over three hours to tell it. It was the story of Stephanie's life…and at the very end, Stephanie came to me and said, 'This is really a story about you, George. We thought you needed to know.' And I did. I did. "I make close to ten thousand of those devises a year," he said softly. "I just knew the numbers. I had no idea what they meant." [Rachel Remen, My Grandfather's Blessings, (New York: Riverhead Books, 2000), 225-228] The world tells us life is all about numbers and when we believe it we get burned out-our lives don't have meaning. Fred Craddock tells about a discussion he once had with a greyhound dog. He writes: I was in a home not long ago where they'd adopted a dog that had been a racer. It was a big old greyhound, spotted hound, lying there in the den. One of the kids in the family, just a toddler, was pulling on its tail, and a little older kid had his head over on that old dog's stomach, used it for a pillow. That dog just seemed so happy, and I said to the dog, "Uh, are you still racing any?" "No, no, no, I don't race anymore." I said, "Do you miss the glitter and excitement of the track." He said, "No, no." I said, "Well, what's the matter? You got too old?" "No, no, I still had some race in me." "Well, did you not win?" He said, "I won over a million dollars for my owner." "Then what was it, bad treatment?" "Oh, no, they treated us royally when we were racing." I said, "Then what? Did you get crippled?" He said, "No, no, no." I said, "Then what?" And he said, "I quit." "You quit?" Yeah, that's what he said. "I quit." I said, "Why did you quit?" And he said, "I discovered that what I was chasing was not really a rabbit. And I quit." He looked at me and said, "All that running, running, running, running, and what I was chasing, not even real." [Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories, (St Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), 106-107] We can keep running, running, running and we'll get burnout if we're running for the things that aren't real, but the Lord understands and invites us to the Table for he is real and he will lighten our burdens. Amen.