Our Attachments – How they keep us from God’s Power
Beth Henricks Message
February 5th 2017
Scripture Reading – Luke 4:1-13
Resources Utilized – Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly, The Active Life by Parker Palmer and Carrie Newcomer
This past Wednesday our circle of care group met as we do each month Each time we gather together we always start by doing a check in and sharing our joys and concerns. Usually we have lots to share joyfully in our lives, but this past Wednesday there was a heaviness to our sharing. Every one of us felt a sense of sadness, a sense of anxiety and some sense of dread. We all have been grappling with various challenges, changes and losses in our lives for some time but last Wednesday felt different. We all were trying to figure out why we had such a heavy feeling. Maybe the weather and lack of sunshine, maybe all the dramatic changes going on in our country every day, maybe the lack of control over so many things in our lives and the world.
I think a lot of people are feeling this sense of sadness. Maybe it has to do with how we have defined ourselves and how that definition keeps changing and shifting and begins to threaten our very foundations. Is my sense of self coming from those things this world tells me are important and what this world values? And as things change and losses occur, how does this impact my sense of self and my esteem?
I have been thinking quite a bit this week about attachments. What are those things that I cling to, that I am devoted to, that define my sense of self-worth? What are my attachments that stop me from experiencing the fullness of God’s love and power? We all begin our life attached to our mothers as we grow and develop in her womb, receiving all our nourishment through that umbilical cord. We remain attached until the moment of our birth. This is our first moment of detaching and becoming a separate and distinct being. Our life journey begins and as we grow and develop we become less and less dependent on our family of origin. But as time goes on we attach to other things: our possessions, our status, our relationships. We need to control certain things to be the person that we want the world to see and have some sense of power. For some this means a sense of wealth and prosperity, for others it is a job that the world will respect, for some it is relationships, others it is degrees and education to display a perceived sense of knowledge. The list goes on and on and is different for each one of us, but it is the desires of our ego that we hold onto and don’t want to let go of because we need to say to the world that we matter.
I have appreciated learning about the life of the Quaker writer Thomas Kelley and how his life experience teaches us to reflect on our own desires and attachments. Kelly was driven by the strong desire of his ego to be recognized and respected as a great scholar and it controlled him for much of his life and caused great pain and physical illness. He wanted desperately to be working at a prestigious college (Earlham did not cut it for him in this category and he did two stints there) and he went back to get a second PHD from Harvard to give him more credibility and hopefully an invitation from an east coast school. During this time, he experienced significant health issues in both body and mind. He finally was asked to join the faculty of Haverford College in 1936 as he was completing his second doctorate at Harvard. During his oral exams at Harvard, he experienced a panic attack and could not respond to the professor’s questions. He was not granted the degree and this plunged him into a deep depression. His wife thought he might take his own life. His attachment to prestige and recognition as a scholar likely shortened his life. But it was at this darkest time that he wrote an essay entitled The Eternal Now that described how he was “shaken by the experience of Presence – something that he did not seek, but that sought him”. He felt God’s gentle, loving but awesome power that was taking hold of him and he saw God at work in the world. He began to see that his attachments were keeping him from experiencing the full power of God’s presence and reality in his life. He began to write a few essays that spoke to this release of his attachments and the mystical experience of the integration of God’s spirit and love in his life. He died at 47 years old from a heart attack on the day he found out that a collection of his essays was going to be considered for a book. That book A Testament of Devotion has become a Quaker classic and a classic book for many on the spiritual path. All his desire to become recognized and respected never occurred when he held onto it so tightly. Yet he received this recognition and respect after he let go of it and not within his lifetime.
I want us to consider the story of Jesus temptation in the desert that Brenda read to us a few minutes ago and what that has to say about our attachments. The story is very dramatic and it seems like a pivotal moment in Jesus ministry. Jesus is led by the Spirit into the desert to face his demons. While the encounters with the Devil seem to happen quickly, I think this period of testing lasted a long time. The number 40 is used in other places in the Bible to describe extended time such as the Israelites wandering for 40 years and the great flood lasting for 40 days. And while some might feel repelled by the word Devil since we don’t use the word that often today, we can certainly substitute other words like ambition, selfishness, power, those forces within all of us that can lead us into darkness.
In the story, The Spirit has brought Jesus into the desert to face his attachments to the world. The Devil is saying to Jesus prove to us your identity. John the Baptist has declared you the Chosen One – so show us that you are the Chosen One. Turn the stones into bread, do something spectacular like throwing yourself down to the Temple and if you are the Chosen One the angels will save you. Envision a world of earthly glory and power for you. These temptations were a portal that Jesus had to walk through to come to a place of surrender and letting go. He came to a place of being willing to forfeit an external confirmation of who he was. It was truly by letting go of all the earthly attachments, the things that the world values, that Jesus came into his calling, his ministry and the fullness of God’s love.
The last line in this story says that when the devil had finished every test, the devil departed until an opportune time. We do not one day wake up and have declared victory over our attachments. Our desire of our attachments keeps coming at us again and again during our life. We are on a journey to come back to our center, our Light, God’s love within us.
The passage says that when Jesus left the desert, he came with the power of the Spirit in him. As Thomas Kelly discovered, “there is a last rock for your souls, a resting place of absolute peace and joy and power and radiance and security. There is a Divine Center into which your life can slip, a new and absolute orientation in God, a Center where you live with God and out of which you see all of life, through new and radiant vision, tinged with sorrow, pangs, new joys unspeakable and full of glory.”
As we enter our time of waiting worship and listening for God’s voice may we hold in our heart any message from God that is meant for us. And may we be obedient if this message from God is one that others need to hear and will share this.
Here are some words from Carrie Newcomer to consider as we enter this time of worship:
I've traveled through my history,
From certainty to mystery
God speaks in rhyme in paradox
This I know is true
And finally when life is through,
I'm what I am not what I do
It comes down to you and your next breath,
And this I know is true
Leaves don't drop they just let go,
And make a place for seeds to grow
Every season brings a change,
A seed is what a tree contains,
To die and live is life's refrain