September 1, 2024

Remembering Ourselves

Who are you?  Have you ever stopped to ponder what it means when you say to someone, “I decided not to go”?  Or what you’re talking about when you say you “changed your mind,” or “talked yourself out of something”?  Who is this “you,” of which you speak?  Do you know yourself?  To what degree can you, in fact, know yourself?  Or are you, perhaps, trapped within the distorted self-images and subjective experiences that leave you incapable of seeing yourself as you truly are?

All this may seem like idle musing about some abstract philosophical query.  But I would suggest there’s a lot more to it than that.  I think there are some intriguing clues, or at least fascinating questions, in scripture about this notion of a “self.”  How is a person defined, and what does it mean when I take some responsibility for being “me?”

Jesus opened the question for us when he said, “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”  In other words, we are not simply tainted by the world with which we come in contact, we must assume full responsibility for our actions.

Jesus is actually making a rather profound statement here.  He is saying in essence that if you want to find the source of evil, don’t look around you, look within.  From where, indeed, does evil come?  From where does goodness come?  Is it all so clear as Jesus makes it sound?  What is this “human heart” that he speaks of?

There was a professor of pastoral psychology at our seminary who used to say that everyone is simply doing the best they can with what they have to work with.  Some people wind up being so emotionally twisted by the combination of their genes and the developmental influences on them that all they have to “work with” is rage.  Some people have had the natural instinct for human compassion squeezed right out of them.  If so, one might ask to what degree that person is responsible for the limitations and distortions of their own heart.  What goes into making a criminal mind?  What causes a man to kidnap an eleven year old girl and hold her in a secret backyard prison as a sex slave for eighteen years, fathering two children with her?  What leads another to be a powerful contributor to society, or a positive influence on others?

I remember several years ago taking Dadgie out to a nice restaurant for a belated celebration of our anniversary.  It happened to be right after the death of Ted Kennedy.  There was a piano player in the room, so I stuffed some money in his jar and asked him if he could play Camelot in honor of Teddy.  He stopped playing for a moment, and asked me what I thought of him.  I recall that he, like John McCain, at the time, had a gift for connecting with people on a personal basis and working across the aisle.  He asked me why I thought he was able to do that and I said I thought that because of all the trauma and difficulty of his life, a good portion of it of his own making, he was more in touch with basic human frailty, and able to be less judgmental of others.  The piano player agreed.  And he played Camelot for us.

Truth is, Teddy and John were, like all of us, a product of the circumstances of birth, and all the experiences and influences that make up a life.  All of this goes into creating a “human heart” – for good or for ill.

But when you try to peer into your own heart and know what is there, what can you see?  Can you truly know how all of those bits and pieces of experience have affected you, or are they so familiar that they blind you to the reality of your virtues and your failings?

There is a remarkable verse in the book of James that focuses our attention like a laser beam: “. . . if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.”  Reading this stopped me in my tracks.  I thought about looking in the mirror when I shave each morning.  I realized that I don’t really look at myself in a penetrating way.  My reflection is like some object that I am working with, making sure that I don’t miss any whiskers.  The sad truth is, I suspect I am like those who look away from the mirror and have little thought of who that person was I just saw.

Can any of us stand to look into a mirror for any length of time and catch our gaze with our own eyes, trying to see deeply into one’s soul and figure that person out?  I think this may be quite difficult for us not only literally, but figuratively.  But I think that’s what’s being suggested here.

Taking a good, long look in the mirror, what do we see?  I think our scripture readings today are offering some things to look for.

The list of evil things that Jesus says emerge from within the human heart are instructive.  There are twelve of them: “fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.”  Every one of them is a failure of human relationship.  Every one of them is a means by which we separate ourselves, and the bond between us is broken.  So, perhaps the first thing to look for in the mirror is to comprehend the reality of our oneness with all others and with all of creation, and the means by which we are connected to one another – to those who have gone before us and those who will come after us.  And, after all, that’s the root meaning of the word “remember.”  Remembering is the opposite of dismembering.  To dismember is to cut apart into many pieces.  To remember is to put the pieces back together and make one whole.

Such a view leads us inevitably to see the ways in which we, by judgment, distortion, prejudice, or assumption, deny the reality of that connection and perpetrate the sometimes comfortable and always destructive myth of our complete autonomy from one another.  In other words, a serious look in the mirror takes us invariably to a broader view of all those in our lives with whom we form a network of being, and the essential value of those ties.

We are not simply separate selves; we live for others.  Which leads, I believe, to another truth about the person in the mirror.  The one we see there is, like all the others to whom we are connected, a gifted and flawed human being – sometimes soaring, sometimes falling.  And the common bond we share, the glue that binds us together, is that we live always in the burgeoning promise of Divine forgiveness.  We are bound together by grace.

Consequently, we are led to recognize that we, and those to whom we are connected, are not so righteous and principled as we might suppose, and we are not so hopeless and irredeemable as we might suppose.  There is great comfort, and great motivation in this knowledge.  It can keep us humble, and also keep us striving to always improve, to do better.

The cautionary note sounded in this epistle of James is in verse 26: “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.”  In other words, what we are battling in our effort to come closer to the Lord, and closer to being the person in the mirror that we are intended to be is self-deception.  Deceiving one’s own heart, as James puts it, is the enemy of true religion.

We deceive our own hearts when we focus on some other person, or some amorphous institution or practice, as the source of trouble or evil rather than, as Jesus cautioned us, to look to our own hearts.  We deceive our own hearts when we think of ourselves as totally independent, autonomous beings, who are not impacted by the actions of others, and whose actions have no relationship to the welfare of our neighbors.  We deceive our own hearts when we view ourselves as superior or standing on higher ground than our brother or sister.  And we deceive our own hearts when we cannot face ourselves in the mirror, with shame so great that we believe ourselves to be beyond redemption.

And, can we entirely know ourselves?  Perhaps not, but the value of self-examination is worth the effort.  As Buechner said, “[you live the mystery of yourself] not by fully knowing yourself, but by fully being yourself.”  And Plato said “The unexamined life is the life not worth living.”  So I offer to you this suggestion.  Take a long look in the mirror.  It’s a scary idea, but I’m going to try it myself.  It may be rather uncomfortable.  But if you look long enough and intently enough, if you peer deeply enough into your own heart, if you try to comprehend what makes that person on the other side of the mirror tick, what all has contributed to his or her personality and perspectives, who are the circles and lines of people to whom he or she is profoundly connected, and what does it mean that his or her failings are covered by Divine, abundant mercy, then when you look away, you might be afforded the transcendent grace of remembering who you are.

I leave you with a poem from Peter “Dale” Winbrow, an oldie but a goodie:

When you get what you want

in your struggle for self

And the world makes you

king for a day,

Just go to a mirror

and look at yourself,

And see what that one has to say.

For it isn’t your father

or mother or wife

Who judgment upon you must pass;

The one whose verdict

counts most in your life

Is the one staring back from the glass.

Some people may think you

a straight-shootin’ chum

And call you a wonderful guy,

But the one in the glass

says you’re only a bum

If you can’t look him

straight in the eye.

He’s the fellow to please,

never mind all the rest

For he’s with you clear up to the end,

And you’ve passed your most

dangerous, difficult test

If the one in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world

down the pathway of years

And get pats on the back as you pass,

But your final reward will be

heartaches and tears

If you’ve cheated the one in the glass