Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Matthew 7:24-28, Isaiah 40:28-31
A couple of Fridays back, Matt Hook left me a voicemail asking if I would like to go to the zoo with him and his four kids. Leigh was gone for the weekend and Matt may have been looking for some relief. Either that, or he looked around the house and said, “Zoo here….zoo in Royal Oak?”….and dialed my phone. Unfortunately, I missed Matt’s voicemail, given that I haven’t been to the zoo in years and I do enjoy Matt’s kids. Besides, it’s fun to relive your childhood through children….even somebody else’s children.
I am not altogether sure what will happen when Matt calls and says: “Hey Bill, how about taking Hunter, Jillianne, Graham and Joy to Cedar Point?” That’s because the older I get, the less I do (in terms of wild and crazy rides, I mean). Years ago, I ruled out anything overly high (recalling God’s promise in the gospel: “Lo, I am with you always.”). More recently, I have begun ruling out anything overly fast. Which is why I will not do Demon Drop, no matter how much the kids….Matt’s or anybody else’s….may whine and beg.
Let me describe Demon Drop for those who have never seen it. It’s an old ride, really. Cedar Point first introduced it in 1983. Newer versions include the Tower of Terror at Disney-MGM Studios. But I have no experience with the Tower of Terror. I am better able to relate particulars of Demon Drop. You wait in a humongous line in order to be packed in a cage half the size of a People Mover car. You are strapped in a standing position, more or less like erect sardines. Slowly the cage ascends a vertical shaft, groaning all the way. When it reaches the top it pauses, ever so momentarily, and then plummets toward the earth, seemingly in free fall. Just before hitting the ground it bottoms out, coming to rest in a position that is parallel to the earth…. meaning that the riders are now lying on their backs looking at the sky. All told, the free fall lasts 2.9 seconds. Which is still plenty of time to scream, swallow your stomach, see your entire life flash before your eyes, repeat 2.9 Hail Marys (assuming you are Roman Catholic), or lose your lunch. Actually, I can stand anything for 2.9 seconds. But, at age 60, why should I have to?
I have an occasional dream….more of a nightmare, really….in which I am plummeting in a free fall of some sort. And the dream is sufficiently real so that I awaken, having experienced all of the physical sensations of falling. Which is one more reason for avoiding the ride.
Actually, Demon Drop recreates another fantasy I often entertain. I am riding an elevator….an “up” elevator….in a large skyscraper. Suddenly I find myself wondering what would happen were the elevator to fall. If I timed the descent perfectly, could I jump into the air upon impact, thus avoiding serious injury? I can see by your silly grins that many of you have wondered the same thing. Which is probably why nobody talks while riding an elevator. That’s because everybody is counting the seconds in case there should be a crash.
But enough about falling elevators and plummeting thrill rides. I did not come to talk about either. Instead, I came to talk about life, which offers some amazing parallels. For, in real life, bottoms fall out….people fall down….lives fall apart….fortunes plunge….futures crash. One minute we are climbing. The next minute we are poised at the top. And the minute after that, we find ourselves toppled by something that sucks the breath right out of us.
Somebody dies, and the bottom falls out. Somebody leaves, and the bottom falls out. Somebody calls with a word about a suspicious-looking mass…a suspicious white powder….a suspicious curl of smoke….a suspicious meeting of upper management….a suspicious trend in the market….and the bottom falls out. Later this afternoon, why don’t you take out a piece of paper and write down the five most devastating pieces of news you have ever received. Then you will know what I’m talking about.
But sometimes it is not just “news” that sends us spiraling downward. We also contribute to our descent. We “sink” into depression. We “fall” from favor. We “drop out” of school. There are countless ways to fall. And most of us have tried one or two. Isn’t it interesting that we speak of being “down in the dumps” or “in the pits”….a pair of euphemisms that reveal far more than we intend them to. We even talk about people who have turned the corner as having “bottomed out.”
The Bible is not silent on such tumbles and descents. Indeed, scripture both fancies and features the word “fall.” In sin, we are said to have “fallen from grace.” And anyone’s house (or anyone’s life) which is not grounded on the rock of God’s word, will be blown down….“and great will be the fall of it.” We’re talking serious downwardness here.
When we go through such an experience, we tend to become quite theological about it. We say, “This feels like hell,” or “This hurts like hell.” Which is, quite literally, what we mean. For while we may not know anything about hell (including whether we even believe in it), we surmise that if there is such a place….such a state….such a condition….this must be pretty much what it feels like, given that this feeling is as far from being “heavenly” as any we have ever experienced.
And since it feels like hell….whether or not it is….it also feels like we are very far removed from God. For what is hell, if not the feeling of separation from God? Which is why most of us feel abandoned and left hanging out to dry when the bottom falls out. And which may explain why they call the ride “Demon Drop”….because anything that feels so much like hell and so little like heaven must, by definition, be more demonic than divine.
But the purpose of my sermon is not to consider the various ways people fall, or even how they feel about falling. The burden of my sermon is to help us think about what the fallen do next: “What do you do when the bottom falls out?”
I suppose the first thing we do is “look up.” I mean, when we’ve fallen to rock bottom, what else is there? Carl Rogers once suggested that human beings are like potatoes in a Michigan cellar. So long as there’s a glimmer of light from above, they will develop sprouts and reach for it. As I mentioned earlier, when the riders of Demon Drop reach the bottom, they are lying parallel to the ground. Which means that they are looking at the sky. It is an apt image. I don’t want to push it too far, given that I don’t really know whether God is “up” anymore than God is “beyond”…. “under”….“within.” All locations are defendable. But haven’t we traditionally used the words “look up” as a means of saying “get in touch with God”….or “pray”? Don’t the AA people continually stress the need to relate to one’s Higher Power? All of which would tend to suggest: “When the bottom falls out, pray.”
Pray, if for no other reason than to fight the feeling of being abandoned. I think of the 33-year-old nurse who went through a painful divorce, only to write:
Our marriage was not made in heaven. But we did have some pretty good moments together. Andy was not a villain. I knew he was hurting as much as I was. Still, we both knew we would be better off not living with each other.
I’ll never forget the night Andy packed his bags and left the house. He kissed me at the door. Then, fighting back tears, he thanked me for the good times we’d had. I was prepared for everything but that. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I felt totally abandoned. I feared I would be alone for the rest of my life. I cried. Then, without even thinking, I prayed: “O God….help me….please don’t leave me, too.”
Day after day, I struggled with my loneliness. One night I knelt by my bed, just like I did when I was a kid. I heard myself saying: “God, if you can hear this, please help me.” That night I fell fast asleep and, for the first time in months, slept the night. I have been saying that prayer for five months now. I still have some terribly difficult days. But I am starting to have some good ones, too. I feel stronger. Things are beginning to come together.
Notice that there were no on-the-spot fireworks as a result of her prayer. Neither was there an instantaneous correction of her situation. What there was, was a linkage….an alliance….an antidote to abandonment….and an attempt to build one relationship out of the ashes of another.
Which leads us to a second response to the bottom falling out. It is what my old friend Barry Johnson (in his book, Choosing Hope) calls the action option. First, look up. Then, do something. We cope with prayer. But we conquer with action.
Consider the man who built his house upon the sand, only to see it blown hither and yon by howling winds and pelting rains. Let’s assume he prays. What does he do next? He rebuilds. Or he contemplates rebuilding. And when do his friends breathe huge sighs of relief? The morning after he goes to the library….or to the church….to check out his first book of house plans. That’s when they breathe sighs of relief. Because he has turned a corner, don’t you see. Ever so slightly, perhaps. But turned it nonetheless.
When I took Stephen Ministry training, I learned the importance of taking one small step. In fact, there is an entire training module on the “small step approach.” It is important, in the midst of a crisis, to help people identify and celebrate the completion of one objective on the road to repair. Consider an 85-year-old widow whose husband has just died. There is a nearly-new Oldsmobile in the garage. But she hasn’t driven the Oldsmobile, or any other car, for nearly 50 years. And she probably won’t drive this one tomorrow. But one small step might involve a trip to the Secretary of State’s office in order to secure the manual in order to study the sample questions for the driver’s test. And, concerning the “small step approach,” there is a fascinating Jewish legend that suggests that when the Jews were being chased by the Egyptians, the great waters only parted when the first Israelite stepped into the sea.
Look up….the prayer option. Do something….the action option. And, third, avoid the bends. This is the option of pace and grace. Let me explain. I am not a deep sea diver. Something about my father’s fear of the water is sufficiently present in me so as to limit my aquatic enjoyment to things that can be done on the surface of the water. But people who dive, aided by all of that marvelous equipment strapped to their backs, tell me that, given the enormous pressure, they must be extremely careful in resurfacing in order to avoid the “bends.” They must ascend from the deep slowly and intentionally, allowing plenty of pauses for adjustment along the way.
Emerging from crisis calls for a similar sense of pace. We human beings are not rubber bands. We do not snap back. Neither are we like the Schmoo (that plastic punching bag of my childhood) which was sufficiently filled with air, and weighted by sand, so that it could be knocked down and returned to position before my fist could be recoiled to deliver another blow.
Some of us place unrealistic demands upon ourselves. We expect to brush off the blows and recover from the falls as if there were medals to be given for the fastest lift-off from a prone position. There are no such medals, my friends. Trust me. Or trust the words of the prophet Isaiah. All of us recall those marvelous lines at the end of the fortieth chapter, to the effect that: “They that wait upon the Lord shall….
- Mount up with wings as eagles.
- Run and not be weary.
- Walk and not faint.”
But, some years ago, I reminded you that this was not one promise, but three. And I suggested that the three promises were not always experienced simultaneously. The reason that “walking without fainting” is the last of the three has to do with the fact that it is sometimes the hardest to come by….and the most difficult in which to see the hand of God. But when you are at the bottom looking up, it is not soaring or running that concerns you, so much as finding….somehow….some way….the courage to put one foot in front of the other without falling flat on your face. “They shall walk and not faint.” As promises go, that one isn’t very spectacular….especially in a world that relishes soaring and running. But it is one way to draw strength from God. And it may be the only way to experience God when one has fallen to the bottom and is not yet even standing erect.
My Tuesday Morning Study Group has been reading a book by John Claypool (who will be with us for a weekend in March). At a time in John’s life when everything was going wonderfully, he lost his 10-year-old daughter to a slow, agonizing battle with leukemia. One month later he climbed back into the pulpit. Among the last words of his sermon were these:
I am here this morning….sad….broken-hearted….still bearing in my spirit the wounds of the darkness. I confess to you honestly that I have no wings with which to fly or even any legs with which to run. But, my friends, God still came and did his thing for me. I have not fainted yet. And I am still on my feet.
As is my friend, Fred, who dropped by to see me (ever so briefly) on Thursday. He wanted to thank me for maintaining an interest in him and to assure me that he was still very much alive. Which no one doubted four years ago when he had it all. We’re talking good career….good job….good health….good life….good wife (one)….good kids (four)….good friends (legion).
Then he fell from the perch….the pedestal….the path that was before him….and the potential people saw in him. He self-toppled. And great was the fall of him. He figured it would be a momentary setback. He was sure he would bounce quickly. But he didn’t. He just lay there for a long time. And I knew how bad it was when I took him to lunch one day and he almost lost it, right there in the middle of the restaurant.
Five jobs and nearly as many apartments later, he looks like a man with a life again….is about to take a wife again….and is no longer afraid to smile again. It’s okay. He’s okay. The future looks okay. So what does he say about all that? Something like this:
Bill, the first 20 years you knew me, I lifted up the Lord (week by week) for a paycheck. The last three and half years you’ve known me, the Lord has returned the favor (day by day) for free. God’s grace is amazing. It’s a shame I didn’t know how amazing when I was preaching it.
Look up….the prayer option.
Do something….the action option.
Avoid the bends….let the grace of God direct the pace.
These are lynchpins of survival. I did not learn them playing at Cedar Point. I learned them working at life.
