Never Let a Serious Crisis Go To Waste (2 Timothy 1:8-12)
Rev. Peter Heinrichs
Revised and Repreached at South Freeport Congregational Church, September 16, 2018
The title of my sermon this morning, “Never Let A Serious Crisis Go To Waste,” is a quote from the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel. The full quote goes this way: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste….it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” I love that statement. Do you? Do you believe it? I do. Over time, I have come to see it as true and necessary.
I grew up with the thought that a crisis is something to be avoided. How about you? When I was a kid, my Dad once lost his job. That was a crisis. Then he got a better job. Oh, good, I thought, crisis over. It never occurred to me to think what I learned from the crisis—how to pull together with my family, how to think creatively about money. It was that winter I started snow shoveling in our Baltimore neighborhood and earned sometimes $20 to $25 on a snowy day. Lot of money for a ten year old in 1960.
I also did not like conflict much. Conflict felt like a crisis. Conflict felt threatening and scary. So nobody was more surprised than myself when I stood up one morning in an all-school meeting at boarding school (where I was a scholarship student) and spoke up about daily racism I saw practiced against the minority students in the school. Next day I got called into the headmaster’s office and lectured. I was a scholarship student. The broad hint was that scholarships are given to those who show loyalty. The reprimand felt like a crisis. As I look back on it, I remember mostly what it felt like to stand up and speak from my heart.
Over time I’ve had crises at work, experienced cancer, been divorced. I don’t recommend any of them. But did they add something to my life? Well, here it is. I once thought that I had to “get a grip” on my life – to look at it, work for the best, plan for the worst, hold life tightly, like in a fist. But life hasn’t turned out that way. What has come – the best and the worst – has come mostly unexpectedly. Instead of a fist, I have learned – am still learning – to open the palm of my hand to see what life has to bring me. And it is the open hand, no the fist, that has brought joy, forgiveness, wonder, peace.
There’s a wonderful video on YouTube from one of the TED Talks – a series of educational talks about life from people who have some amazing things to say. This one comes from a man named Phil Hansen. Phil is an artist. Often today he creates these powerful images of faces – faces full of anger and longing and hope and a wild beauty.
A few years ago, Phil Hansen gave up on his art. Loved it, but gave it up. He had contracted some sort of nervous disorder that made his hands shake and he could no longer draw a straight line. He was incredibly frustrated and angry. There years later, wanting to return to his art, he went to a neurologist. The doctor confirmed that the nerve damage was permanent. No medical magic here. The shake is permanent. But the doctor posed a question to Phil. He said, “So, Why don’t you embrace the shake?”
Phil Hansen decided that the shake wouldn’t shut him down. He began to create art that pops out at you. You look and you see no straight lines – lines curl or dot or swirl, full of feeling. The shake became the message.
So when I say to you, Never let a serious crisis go to waste, I am inviting all of us to entertain the possibility that every crisis, every circumstance that feels challenging, every limitation we can’t see our way around, is also an opportunity to find the blessing that meets us on the other side. It’s a chance to live with an open palm and not a fist. What does this message mean to you? Where in your life are you seeing only limitation? Where is there a crisis that invites your trust that something is opening up for you, not closing down? You don’t have to be an artist to “embrace the shake.” All you have to be is a human being willing to see that your story is not done yet.
We are limited in this body and in this life. We do seem to meet crisis after crisis. We think there is no reason to believe, no alternative to what we thing is challenging or frightening. But there is no point in asking the world to provide our answers for us. The world cannot do it. The world is not in control of our peace and happiness. The Lord whom we praise and honor this morning does not see any of us as limited, for love has no limits. The Lord whom we pray to is not worried about our crisis, for God is our advocate and our judge. As Paul says in the reading this morning: I couldn’t be more sure of my ground. The One I’ve trusted in can take care of what he’s trusted me to do right to the end.
We have a God who can look at our crises and our limitations and say: “I’m not done with that one quite yet.”
Amen.
I grew up with the thought that a crisis is something to be avoided. How about you? When I was a kid, my Dad once lost his job. That was a crisis. Then he got a better job. Oh, good, I thought, crisis over. It never occurred to me to think what I learned from the crisis—how to pull together with my family, how to think creatively about money. It was that winter I started snow shoveling in our Baltimore neighborhood and earned sometimes $20 to $25 on a snowy day. Lot of money for a ten year old in 1960.
I also did not like conflict much. Conflict felt like a crisis. Conflict felt threatening and scary. So nobody was more surprised than myself when I stood up one morning in an all-school meeting at boarding school (where I was a scholarship student) and spoke up about daily racism I saw practiced against the minority students in the school. Next day I got called into the headmaster’s office and lectured. I was a scholarship student. The broad hint was that scholarships are given to those who show loyalty. The reprimand felt like a crisis. As I look back on it, I remember mostly what it felt like to stand up and speak from my heart.
Over time I’ve had crises at work, experienced cancer, been divorced. I don’t recommend any of them. But did they add something to my life? Well, here it is. I once thought that I had to “get a grip” on my life – to look at it, work for the best, plan for the worst, hold life tightly, like in a fist. But life hasn’t turned out that way. What has come – the best and the worst – has come mostly unexpectedly. Instead of a fist, I have learned – am still learning – to open the palm of my hand to see what life has to bring me. And it is the open hand, no the fist, that has brought joy, forgiveness, wonder, peace.
There’s a wonderful video on YouTube from one of the TED Talks – a series of educational talks about life from people who have some amazing things to say. This one comes from a man named Phil Hansen. Phil is an artist. Often today he creates these powerful images of faces – faces full of anger and longing and hope and a wild beauty.
A few years ago, Phil Hansen gave up on his art. Loved it, but gave it up. He had contracted some sort of nervous disorder that made his hands shake and he could no longer draw a straight line. He was incredibly frustrated and angry. There years later, wanting to return to his art, he went to a neurologist. The doctor confirmed that the nerve damage was permanent. No medical magic here. The shake is permanent. But the doctor posed a question to Phil. He said, “So, Why don’t you embrace the shake?”
Phil Hansen decided that the shake wouldn’t shut him down. He began to create art that pops out at you. You look and you see no straight lines – lines curl or dot or swirl, full of feeling. The shake became the message.
So when I say to you, Never let a serious crisis go to waste, I am inviting all of us to entertain the possibility that every crisis, every circumstance that feels challenging, every limitation we can’t see our way around, is also an opportunity to find the blessing that meets us on the other side. It’s a chance to live with an open palm and not a fist. What does this message mean to you? Where in your life are you seeing only limitation? Where is there a crisis that invites your trust that something is opening up for you, not closing down? You don’t have to be an artist to “embrace the shake.” All you have to be is a human being willing to see that your story is not done yet.
We are limited in this body and in this life. We do seem to meet crisis after crisis. We think there is no reason to believe, no alternative to what we thing is challenging or frightening. But there is no point in asking the world to provide our answers for us. The world cannot do it. The world is not in control of our peace and happiness. The Lord whom we praise and honor this morning does not see any of us as limited, for love has no limits. The Lord whom we pray to is not worried about our crisis, for God is our advocate and our judge. As Paul says in the reading this morning: I couldn’t be more sure of my ground. The One I’ve trusted in can take care of what he’s trusted me to do right to the end.
We have a God who can look at our crises and our limitations and say: “I’m not done with that one quite yet.”
Amen.