Sermon 1-3-2016 Happy New Year!
Lamentations 3:19-33
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Erikson's_stages_of_psychosocial_development
A friend of mine copied the bulletin for her church last Sunday, and as she opened it to lead worship, she realized that the inside pages had never printed… they were blank. There was nothing there. Rather than panic, Gwen realized how fitting it was that, just as the order of worship lay uncharted before the congregation, so the New Year - about to turn – was opening, with no real understanding of what was yet to be.
The past year, the ‘Old Man of 2015’, has gone. There were certain things I expected last year – I looked forward to with great excitement! My son Matthew and his bride Rebecca were married last August. Our grandchildren came from Wyoming for a visit. So many other things happened, both large and small, in my family life, in my professional life, in my spiritual life. It was a wonderful year. But there were also those things that were were unanticipated… my cousin Sharon’s death as a result of complications from Multiple Sclerosis. My older brother’s homelessness. It has been a challenging year. The ‘New Year’s Baby’ aged quickly as it grew, throughout 2015. This is the wonder, the beauty, the excitement, the challenge, the test, the work of life… of living in and through each day, each month, each year.
In his work “Childhood and Society” [1950], the psychologist, Erik Erikson, articulated eight developmental stages through which a healthily developing human should pass from infancy to late adulthood. In each stage the person confronts, and hopefully masters, new challenges. Each stage builds on the successful completion of earlier stages.
Stages of Life – Erickson, a la Tippin!
Middle School/High School – Identity
NOT ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’, but ‘who do you want to be?’ A question of character… Society spends a great deal of time asking our children if they want to be doctors, lawyers, firemen, or soldiers. But how often do we ask them if they
want to be truthful, caring, loving, forthright, honorable, forgiving, just, and kind? How do our children learn to identify themselves?
Young Adulthood – Intimacy
Who do you choose to associate with? What kinds of people do you avoid? Who do you choose to join with in business, in life? Do you choose to marry? To raise a family? Do you choose to remain alone? What kinds of friends/relationships do you surround yourself with?
Adulthood – Generativity
What do you do with what you know? With what you’ve experienced? With who you are? What do you give to others of yourself?
1999 – private practice to academic medicine; Spokane, WA to Iowa City, IA
2001 – academic medicine to private practice; Iowa City, IA to Medford, OR
2004 – private practice to academic medicine; Medford, OR to Iowa City, IA
Concern for our aging parents, and the crazy thought that our college-aged kids might need us, moved us back West to Oregon. It wasn’t long before Jon told me we needed to leave. That was the last thing I wanted to hear… Six years, three cross-country moves & five different houses: house, rental, house, rental, house. Friendships, family ties, my own work… this was going to be tough. My son Seth was studying for his Doctorate in Psychology at the time, and his advice to me came straight from Erickson’s Stages of Life: “Dad’s in the ‘generative’ stage. He could continue to care for patients, and that’s a worthy calling. But since he has the chance to teach, he can teach others how to care for many more patients than he could himself. This is why he loves academic medicine so much more than private practice. This is why he wants to go back to Iowa.” So, after some negotiating, we started packing… again, for Iowa City.
Just a few months later, amidst packing tape and boxes, the phone rang. It was God, calling me into pastoral ministry. It was the strangest thing ever, and six months later I began serving as a pastor in Iowa Yearly Meeting. January 17th will be the beginning of my twelfth year in ministry. God was definitely generating something in my life, too!
Late Adulthood – Saging, not Aging!
‘One strength of Erikson’s theory is that it acknowledges that development continues throughout the life cycle. According to Erickson, even older people are not finished developing. Older people who are coming to terms with their own mortality have a deep need to look over their whole lives. In a life review, a person who can look back over their life history, on the good times with gladness and satisfaction, on hard times with self-respect, and on mistakes and regrets with forgiveness, can find a new sense of integrity and a readiness for whatever life or death may bring.’ These are the persons we become… wise, able, interesting, and sought after for all that we have been taught by our growing… not only older in years, but in understanding and in depth of character.
This past Christmas, the children were gathering for their pageant and I spent time asking them all kinds of questions… Who were the first people to hear the announcement about Jesus’ birth? Who traveled the farthest to see the baby Jesus? Jack Broadwell asked me a great question… ‘What did the Wise Men do all day?’ I answered back with a question of my own… “What does it mean to be wise?” His little brother Sam answered, “Smart.” “That’s a very good answer,” I said. “There are a lot of wise people who are very smart. But there are a lot of smart people who aren’t very wise. What does it mean to be wise?” Jack answered again…. ‘It means to be able to figure things out.’
Our Meeting is blessed with a great number of wise sages… people who are really good at figuring things out. They have lived a lifetime of building personal character; they’ve chosen persons to associate with in spiritual community, business, marriage, friendship; they are people who have given their time, their interests, their love of teaching, their gifts in management, their care for children, their hospitality, their voices, their experiences, their finances, their very selves; and who now reap the reward of counseling, advising, guiding, shaping the life of our Meeting. We each have a responsibility, no matter where we are in the calendar of our lives to reach out… to question, to wonder, to ask, to initiate, to join in the promise each day brings.
Sages – what wisdom might you share with a young person who is asking himself who are they are? Who they might become? Do you ever stop them to ask? Young adults – what question might you have to ask someone just a few years older than you about starting a business, or making Godly choices in finding a life partner? Do you recognize the resource they are to you? Older adults – what lessons do the littlest children in our Meeting have to teach you about the wonder of life you may not notice any longer? What have you forgotten to give that they give so freely?
The scripture reading today is not a song of praise…. It erupts from a collection of poems – five laments – of God’s people, seeing their city of Jerusalem fall. Social, political, and religious corruption have overtaken the leadership of Judah. A new year does not lie open before these people. All seems lost. These laments give them a way of working through their season of grief. It is in the midst of this that we find… mercy and hope.
“My soul… is bowed down within me, but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.”
Morning breaks. The calendar turns. God’s love and mercies are recreated, again and again and again. Regardless of all circumstances – within and without – God’s faithfulness and mercy is unfailing. Whether my soul is standing fully upright or bowed down within me, God is all I need. God is my portion. The day lies before me. The year opens up, fresh and new. Through all the seasons of my life, those past and that in which I find myself now, God accompanies me. Will I choose to live into God’s steadfast love, and the newness of life yet to be? Will I choose to live out of God’s great faithfulness and never ending mercy?