The Simpsons, Saviors, and Silly Choices
When we were in seminary our professor of pastoral theology made us practice an old school discipline of writing a phrase over and over and over again in hopes that it would sink in. For you Simpson’s fans out there you are very familiar with this practice as every episode since 1989 has opened showing Bart writing some phrase on the chalk board at school as a punishment for having done the very thing he is writing about. Some examples from over the years: “A booger is not a bookmark,” “Teach did not get dumped-it was mutual,” “I will not encourage others to fly,” etc. You get the idea. Well, our professor’s goal was more proactive, trying to instill a positive truth into our hearts and minds. She had us write, “There is a Savior, and I am not him” over 100 times. The implication is pretty obvious that all of us have a tendency to think it’s up to us to save everybody. It’s on our shoulders. We love to take responsibility for everything. Well, we love it and hate it all at the same time.
It is the quagmire of our sinful nature. On one hand we are addicted to thinking we are God or at least that we should be God and know best, and on the other hand we are completely crushed by the pressure of trying to be God. We can never do enough and whatever we do is inherently flawed. In some recovery circles they call it a “double-bind.” You’ve probably heard it articulated as “damned if you, damned if you don’t.” This is Satan’s playground. He absolutely loves to get us stuck in this hellish merry-go-round where the end results are fear, shame, anxiety, and ultimately implosion.
Our professor’s exercise was an attempt to penetrate our thick skulls and callous hearts with the reality that we will want and try to take responsibility for the problems and needs of everyone in our care, and it will kill us. We need to remember and be reminded that there is a Savior, and we are not him. Jesus is the only who can and did carry the weight of saving this world. We are going to come up against problems, needs, and demands that are way beyond our paygrade...way beyond our skill level, expertise, know-how, and everything else, and we will need the real Savior, the real God, to be on the throne, not us. We and anyone we are given care over will need Jesus to be the one who is in control. We will count on him to know what he is doing because there will be many times when we won’t have a clue.
I write all of this because this is where the rubber meets the road for all of us. You may not be called to be a pastor. You may not be charged with the care of a congregation’s pastoral needs. You may not be the leader of a big organization worried about your employees. You may not be a parent with similar worries about your kids, their well-being, and their futures. But you are still a person, and you will be confronted with the reality that half the time you are not even able to care for yourself the way that you should or hoped to. You will be (and probably already have been) confronted with your needs and the needs of others around you, and you will be acutely aware of your limitations, your inability to meet them.
It’s in these very sober moments...real moments of mercy from God, frankly, when he has stopped the delusional thinking of our own power and control that passages like Jeremiah 1:4-10 connect in a deep way. We are confronted first and then comforted by God being God. His sovereignty. As he calls Jeremiah, he tells him, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” This is first confrontational because it means we are not the authors of our own lives. We did not think or wish ourselves into existence, nor are we are an accident of nature, but rather have been created with intentionality. This is not a popular idea in our western culture. We have fought so hard for the idea of autonomy that now we think everything about us down to our biology is a matter of our own choices. In one sense this is the logical result of the belief in a supposed free will. However, historically all our insistence on this idea of free will ever does is prove the lack of our freedom. Our current trends are no different. We are in the midst of a living nightmare where you have no solid ground on which to stand. Who you are as a person is as unstable and impermanent as the fluctuations of your own emotions. I have to tell you, as someone who has spent their fair share of time in counseling and recovery rooms...my choices are not good news. It’s one of my favorite sayings from the 12 Step community, “Our best thinking got us here.” A helpful reminder that my best ideas on how to cope with my problems often result in me being deeper in the muck than when I began.
SO, God’s word here is first confrontational. But then it is comforting. The weight of the world is NOT on your shoulders. You do not have to figure everything out. Before you were able to do anything or take responsibility for anything God knew what he was going to do with you. Now some may think this means that they now have to figure out what God wants them to do, which is just trading one exhausting endeavor of defining yourself for another in trying to figure out the mystery of the mind of God. You can hear Jeremiah struggle with this thought when God tells him he has appointed him to be a prophet. Jeremiah freaks out saying he’s too young and doesn’t know what to say. The knowledge of God’s call on his life first feels like a burden because he thinks it’s up to him to figure out what God wants him to do. BUT the Lord quickly corrects this. He says,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.”
Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me,
“Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (1:7-10).
God reassures Jeremiah and us that he does not leave us in the dark about his call and his purpose for us. He has a good purpose for us and he will show it to us in his good timing. He will give us the words he wants us to speak. He promises to guide us, to direct us, to carry us into all he has planned for us. We hear Paul echo this in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” As you read/hear these promises feel the weight begin to lift. I need to hear them again every day because I reflexively fall back into thinking that I am supposed to be the savior for myself and everyone else. I need to hear that there is a Savior, and I am not him. Not only that, I need to hear that he does not leave us guessing or wondering about his plan for us. He comes to us, invades our worlds, and speaks his good news of grace, forgiveness, and provision for us. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:7-10 emphasis mine). He has you in his hands, and he is carrying you into all his plans for you. There is a Savior, and you are not him. Amen.
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