Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Psalm 30:4-5 and Matthew 16:24-25
March 23, 2003
Let me introduce you to Bill Muehl….Grosse Pointer by location….Episcopalian by confirmation….University of Michigan trained lawyer by vocation….who was rerouted by God in 1944 to New Haven, Connecticut, where he ended up teaching forty years’ worth of young mumblers at Yale Divinity School how to preach. Including me.
Bill’s most legendary story concerns the night at a cocktail party when he was approached by a man who had had more than a little to drink and was feeling neither pain nor trepidation. Buttonholing my beloved professor, the inebriant said:
Muehl, do you know what I’d do if I believed half that crap you teach and preach? I’d go home, sharpen a knife, and slit my kids’ throats from ear to ear, thereby hastening them on to heaven. After all, why should they put up with the pain and heartbreak of this present world (for 70 or 80 years, no less) when, with two flicks of the knife, I could send them on their way to glory?
And while it is not generally advisable to talk theology with people who are “three sheets to the wind,” I think every seminarian should be required to write a one-page response to that man before being allowed to graduate and go anywhere near a pulpit. Simply put, the question translates: “If the life to come is likely to be so much better, why put up….any longer than absolutely necessary….with a life that (by contrast) cannot help but be measurably worse?” Or if you don’t like that translation, let the question read: “When the going gets tough, why don’t the tough get going….as in right on out of here….above this life….beyond this life….quitting this veil of tears for whatever follows this life?”
To which there are multiple answers. But most of them fall under one of two banners. The first banner reads: “Look again, this isn’t really a veil of tears. And if it seems that way today, it won’t seem that way tomorrow.” That’s the “things will get better so don’t get bitter” banner, initially hoisted by the psalmist who wrote: “Weeping lingers for but a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Or perhaps it is the answer of the pop preacher who writes: “Tough times don’t last but tough people do.” And it is clearly the suggestion of Little Orphan Annie who, somewhere in America, will step center stage and sing: “The sun’ll come out tomorrow….bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun.”
Those are all wonderful answers. Which will assuredly work. At least they’ll work until too much time passes and there is no joy in the morning….no sun on the morrow….no respite from life’s tough times….or no lifting of life’s tearful veil.
At which time a second set of answers kicks in. They are collected under a second banner….the one which reads: “All of this is good for you.” After all, said C. S. Lewis, suffering is the anvil on which a Christian’s character is forged and hammered (although it must be noted that this was the early C. S. Lewis of The Problem of Pain, rather than the late C. S. Lewis of A Grief Observed). But the early Lewis has much in common with the late Paul who advised the Romans that “we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint.” (see Rom. 5:1-5) The bottom line of this argument suggests that the hard life prepares one for the good life….and may even be the good life….in fact, that suffering might well be described as chemotherapy for the soul (meaning that if it doesn’t kill you, it might just save you). There’s truth in those answers, too. And they’ll work. Until the anvil that forges your character tips over and flattens your courage.
Sooner or later, people come to breaking points beyond which they can no longer go. Nor do some wish to go. At which time, death’s face (to whatever degree death can be described as having a face) strikes a pose that is more friendly than frightening. When that happens late in life….at a point that feels like “terminus”….we call death’s friendly face “a blessing” and offer little resistance to it. The last six months I have heard all of the following:
“I want to go home.”
“I just want to die and be with Jesus.”
“I’ll tell you why I’m not afraid to die. I know that there are more people there to say hello to than are here to say goodbye to.”
And who cannot say “Amen” (or even “Bon voyage”) to that?
On Wednesday, I buried a lady well into her nineties, whose husband I buried several years ago. Her last 14 years were compromised. And her last three years constituted a virtual “disconnect” from reality. Finally (and mercifully), as disease piled onto dis-ease, it because hospice time, DNR (“do not resuscitate”) time, and cessation of food and water time. Yet still she lingered. On the twelfth night, the nurse said to her daughter….her only daughter: “Is there some relative or friend she’s waiting for?” “No,” said her daughter. “Just me.” “And have you told her it’s all right to go?” the nurse continued. “No, should I?” the daughter answered. “If you feel comfortable doing so, it might help,” the nurse offered. So the daughter did. And the mother died. Permission given. Permission taken.
But sometimes people come to breaking points beyond which they feel they cannot go, yet we cannot bring ourselves to view their departure as a blessing, nor can we bring ourselves to offer our blessing. We want them to work harder….go further….stay longer. They want to leave life’s party. We want to say: “But it’s early. Nobody’s ready. There’s so much more of it…. so much more to it….and it won’t be the same without you in it.”
At one time or another, I suppose most of us have flirted with a desire to leave the party early….a desire to not be here. Not because we would rather be some place else….like heaven or Houston. But because we don’t want to be any place. We just want out. Most of us dismiss the thought. Or repress the thought. But a few of us entertain the thought. Even nurse and massage the thought. Yet we seldom admit the thought, because nobody can handle the thought. And are frankly frightened by the thought.
When we were disciplined as children….especially if we think we were disciplined unfairly or severely….we pictured ourselves dead, and pictured everybody else sad….and more than a little sorry. Mark Twain had Tom Sawyer attend his own funeral so he could listen to the eulogies of people who thought he had died. Fantasy? Of course it was fantasy. But Mark Twain wrote it, knowing children would read it and see themselves in it. But few children are serious about it. And most move quickly past it (the idea of not being here, I mean). But as people get older, some linger (around the idea of not being here, I mean). And a few even act on the idea.
On Monday afternoon, I viewed the movie The Hours in a nearly-empty downtown Birmingham theater. On Thursday evening I reviewed it at our Jesus @ the Oscars seminar in Fellowship Hall. Tonight, for those who can stay awake until midnight (which, given my schedule of the last several days, will assuredly not include me), The Hours will be considered for the Oscar for Best Picture.
It is a brilliant film to analyze. But it is not an easy film to watch. For it will engage you at levels of your life (or layers of your memory) that will take you deeper than you probably want to go.
As plots go, there isn’t one….at least one central one. Instead, there are three separate stories which cover a span of 80 years. Threading the stories together is a book (Mrs. Dalloway) and the woman who wrote it, another woman who read it, and a third woman who more-or-less personified it. Although there is another thread, that being self-chosen death. We’re talking suicides, friends. Three considered. Two completed. I mean, my fingers were still sticky with popcorn when Nicole Kidman walked to the river, weighted her apron with a boulder, and entered the water. After she drowned, I couldn’t eat another bite of my popcorn.
She left a note, though. It was meant for her husband, Leonard. She told him about the world closing in.…the madness coming back….the light going out….and how it was all too much. So much too much. Whereupon she thanked Leonard for his love, said he’d probably be able to work better now, and then added: “I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer.”
It will probably not surprise you, given the length of my ministry, that people occasionally close the door to my office and talk to me about ending their lives. And one of the things that always surfaces is their belief that, in choosing death, they will somehow be doing the world a favor….their family a favor….their friends a favor. Sometimes they will be quite specific about the ways in which their departure will make someone else’s life easier….more time, less worry….more money, less fury. They really believe that. Because if they didn’t, they couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.
They are wrong, of course. Unfortunately, dead wrong. Once they go, nobody’s life is ever better. Everybody’s life is always worse. But would it make any difference if they knew that? Well, let Pat Conroy comment.
Pat Conroy is a novelist….a wonderful novelist (Lords of Discipline, The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides, Beach Music). But before becoming a great novelist, Pat Conroy was a mediocre basketball player, who brilliantly tells the story of his senior season at the Citadel in a book entitled My Losing Season.
He begins by recalling Dickie Jones….flashy point guard….who captained the best basketball team in Citadel’s history. Subsequently, Dickie went on to be the mayor of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina and a regular communicant in the Roman Catholic Church. Yet one day, seated on a park bench in the middle of the town he governed, Dickie Jones ended his life. Leading Conroy to write:
Dickie’s death coincided with my entry into another of the great drifts my life seems to take at least once a decade. For I have had a history of cracking up at least once during the writing of each of my last five books. Which has not provided the greatest incentive to head for the writing table each morning. But it’s a reality I have lived with.
I came out of my most recent free fall when, upon hearing the news of Dickie’s death, I called Dickie’s home. In the background I heard the shrieking of Dickie’s children, who were far too devastated to speak to me.
I know the dark things all suicidal persons know. But as terrifying as those things are, none had prepared me for the image of my children and my family approaching my open coffin with bitterness and love tearing through them in alternating currents. My imagination has always kept me alive, and it did so as I mourned for Dickie’s family. Out of nowhere, he had given me a sign that I was still needed in the game. It was the weeping of his children that saved my life. Dickie Jones died without ever knowing the great impact he had on me.
At the end of my review of The Hours, I said I had tried to address every question posed by the movie except for one. That being: “What do I say to someone who closes my office door and speaks of their desire to leave the party early?” On Thursday, I said: “I’ll deal with that on Sunday.” But now it’s Sunday. So I guess I can’t dodge the questions any longer.
At first, I don’t say much. I listen. I ask questions. I try to clarify. And I try to connect. When appropriate, I tell a little of my story. Because it is most likely my story that brought them in to tell their story.
I do not tell them I know what “wanting to leave” feels like. But I do tell them I know what it feels like to be left. That it isn’t better. That it’s worse. For a long time….worse. Years of worse.
Then I say: “Look, I can’t promise that things are going to turn around for you….turn up for you….get better for you. I think they are. But if you can’t see that, I can’t force you to wear my glasses.”
All I can say to you is this: “When you reach the point where you can’t come up with a single reason to stay alive one more day, then stay alive as a gift to somebody. Maybe you’ll tell them. Probably you won’t. But if you stay alive as a gift for one day, you may just be able to stay alive as a gift for two. Then who knows, maybe you can go for three.”
In one of The Hours’ other stories, Richard (who has AIDS) is telling Clarissa why he doesn’t want to show up to claim a literary prize he has been awarded, or attend the party she has planned in his honor afterwards.
Clarissa (he says), I think I’m only staying alive to satisfy you.
So (she answers), that’s what you do, isn’t it? That’s what people do. They stay alive for each other.
* * * * *
We are fast approaching the time of the year when our praying and preaching will be chock full of the cross of Jesus Christ. Who said: “I must bear mine, and all who would come after me must bear theirs.” Notice, he did not say that all who would come after him must bear his. No, they must bear theirs.
In the economy of the gospel, some (including soldiers) may be called to die for others. While others (including suicides) may be called to live for others.
Both take great courage.
Note: Several things led to the timing of this sermon. First, I was asked to review the film The Hours as a part of our incredibly-successful series entitled Jesus @ the Oscars. Second, I read Pat Conroy’s book, The Losing Season, shortly after Christmas and was deeply moved by his story of the late Dickie Jones. Third, I have sought for some time an appropriate vehicle to talk about the suicidal impulse and my pastoral response to it. As many know, our son, Bill, ended his own life in May of 1994 and I have preached four previous sermons growing out of that experience.
Bill Muehl was my legendary preaching professor at Yale Divinity School from 1962-1965. The quote at the beginning of the sermon can be found in his book All the Damned Angels. Alas, I misplaced my copy some years ago and have been unable to locate a replacement. But I am virtually certain I have quoted him correctly (and without pastoral embellishment).
In addition to the Romans 5 passage about endurance producing character, I would offer this from James 1:2-4:
My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
The fact that this passage sounds incredibly Pauline probably indicates that this pastoral advice was widely preached in the early church, where suffering was but a way of life and a theological problem.
