But when is one an adult, when is one ready to make such an assertion? Is it at age 13, or 18 or 21? Can any of us say that we are really spiritually mature at any point in our lives? So when, then, should we be confirmed, when can we make adult affirmations of our faith?
In classic Anglican fashion, our prayer book and our practice has come up with a compromise, one that, again in classic Anglican fashion, manages to be an encompassing compromise, a ‘both/and’, rather than an ‘either/or’, solution. At baptism, the vows of the Baptismal Covenant are made on our behalf by parents and Godparents. At confirmation, be it at 13 or 30, we renew those vows. And then, throughout the year, on special days like Easter, and the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, we renew those vows. So that over time, as we mature physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, we remember and remake our baptismal vows. And over all our lives, we seek to live into those vows at every age, as we journey through the learnings of our lives. When we hear our lectionary readings today, one of those vows comes to mind. “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” to which we answer, “I will, with God’s help.” (BCP, 305)
In the epistle reading today, Paul tells the Romans, “All of us… have been baptized into Christ Jesus… We have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Rom 6:3-5) This is the essential reality of what it means to be Christian. Through baptism, we are conjoined with the humanity and the divinity of our brother Jesus. We share in his very real, very human, death and thereby we share in his gloriously divine resurrection.
But if we do, then so do others. Our baptismal vow challenges us to seek and serve Christ in others. The death and the resurrection that are within us are within others as well.
In our gospel today, Jesus says, “"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.” (Mat 10: 32-33)
So, what is it then, to deny Christ in our own context, to deny the Christ in others, rather than to seek and serve Christ in others? What is it to deny? What is denial?
In recent times, we’ve heard a lot about denial in our culture. We seem to be living in a time that has discovered the human propensity to deny the truth of our own lives, and the truth of the lives of others. Psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors and social workers have helped us learn that trauma often leads to denial; because denial is a very useful, very successful mechanism for coping with trauma.Those who have suffered horrible abuse often block conscious knowledge of that abuse. They cover it up, to themselves, and do their best to get on with their lives. Of course, the truth will always out in some way, in some form. Those in denial of their trauma often choose behaviors that are compulsive, and inordinate to the actual life situations they are in. Mental health professionals have learned to look for these compulsive behaviors; and then look for a large wall of denial between the behaviors and the trauma that has given birth to the behaviors.
Victims of physical abuse often ‘forget’ the abuse they’ve endured, and tragically, often become abusers themselves. Treatment of these individuals involves a slow chipping away of the denial, and a recovery of the initial trauma they suffered. It is often an awful, awful day, when physical abusers finally acknowledge that the abuse they have perpetrated stems from the abuse they themselves have suffered. Imagine the horror of coming to know that you yourself have become the very monster that once terrorized you. But this awful day, this personal Calvary, is necessary if healing and recovery are to have even the slightest chance.
People who grow up in the chaos of alcoholic homes are often, to greater and lesser degrees, unconscious that the drinking they saw was in any way problematic. Their adaptive behavior is often to become extremely controlling, seeking to control everyone and everything around them, as a way to stem the chaos of their lives, chaos that they have been trained to respond to in just this way. Treatment of these individuals often involves “setting a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother” (Mat 10: 35) as the denial of the alcoholism in the family is supplanted with a freeing truth. Only then can the long process of letting go of control, letting go of manipulative, domineering behavior begin.
Often those of us who have encountered trauma in others, trauma that leads to dysfunctional behavior, are drawn into the denial and dysfunction system, and we become caretakers and enablers of the traumatized, and fellow deniers ourselves. The untreated trauma of others traumatizes us, and we become compulsive in our caretaking. We help and help and help. And we deny and deny and deny that there’s anything wrong with our unrelenting help. Some of us will even claim that our compulsive helping is, in fact, Christian.
It is not.
Helping someone avoid the truth of his or her dysfunction is not Christian.
What it is is a denial of the Christ that is in that person. It is a denial of the potential for resurrection that is in that person. In helping and enabling -- cleaning up the messes of others, helping them cover up their dysfunction, preventing them from suffering the consequences of their dysfunction -- we deny them their Calvary, painful as those personal Calvarys are, and thereby, we deny them their Easter. Again, to use Paul’s words from this morning’s epistle, their old selves are never allowed to die, to be crucified, and so they are denied the newness of life that comes only after that death.
But it can feel so good to be a helper! We give advice that is really attempted manipulation. We help compulsively, even when our help isn’t sought. Unconsciously we remain vigilant, always on the lookout for another trauma victim to take on, to take into our lives, so that our self-definition as a helper can be supported and maintained. We become deeply enmeshed with these trauma victims, often they are our family members or co-workers or friends -- and we love them, as we should. Of course we do.
But to love, really love, with a truly Christian love is “to seek and serve Christ in all people” by allowing those we love to go to Calvary, and there to suffer, and to allow their old selves to die. So that, within them can come the resurrection of new life that comes only after Calvary. Or to put it more simply, as Alanon, the 12-step program for those affected by the trauma of others, advises, “Do someone you love a favor. Leave them alone.” Or as a Southern aphorism puts it, “Leave her lie where the Lord flung her!” So, stop helping. Rather, start serving.
Seek and serve Christ in all people. The Christ that dies and lives again. The Christ who understands the necessity of death in the working out of the divine plan of salvation; the salvation of the world, and the salvation of every single person in the world.
And maybe, just maybe, if we learn to seek and serve Christ in all people; if we allow others to go to Calvary, sure that it will lead to the garden on Easter morn; then just maybe we’ll come to serve the Christ that is in us, and go to our own Calvarys, confident in the knowledge that when we let our old selves die, we make room for the newness of life that comes in and through the death and resurrection of Christ, that Christ that is in us, with us always, until the end of the age. Amen+
© The Rev. Mark R. Collins
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