St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, June 20, 2010

Vital Renewal in Christ – Rev. David Mundy

1 Kings 19:1-15a Galatians 3:27-29

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Do you remember the Nervous Breakdown? I don’t mean a specific nervous breakdown or perhaps a nervous breakdown you experienced. It’s just that the term “nervous breakdown” which was such a common way of describing emotional and spiritual turmoil and disability is not used very often anymore. It’s strange how our vocabulary changes, don’t you think? People used to say in hushed tones “he/she has had a nervous breakdown” and we all had a general idea of what that meant. There was even that Rolling Stones song of the nineteen sixties, Here Comes Your Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown.

In more recent years we have used “stressed out” and “burned out” as our replacement terms. There was no “burnout” until a psychologist named Freudenberger used it in the title of his book, Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement in 1974. He originally defined ‘burnout’ as, “the extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one's devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results.”

Do you want to hear the latest terminology? Psychiatrists in Europe have been using the term “vital exhaustion” to describe what happens to us when we lose our way emotionally. They define three types “frenetic, underchallenged, and worn-out.” I wonder if you can be all three at the same time!

This sounds like a good term to me. I never liked “burn-out” because it sounded more like something that happens to a machine than a human being, and it may be, treating ourselves as though we were machines that leads, to our problems in the first place. But “vital exhaustion” is something that all too many of us experience, feeling overwhelmed and spiritually spent.

This morning we listened to a story that comes around once every three years in the lectionary, a story of one of the great prophets of the Older Testament whose name was Elijah. Elijah is this remarkable figure who suddenly shows up in the landscape of ancient Israel, nearly a thousand years before Jesus. During the month of June we hear about Elijah and his intense confrontations with the king of Israel, a monarch named Ahab who, with his infamous wife Jezebel, defy God and lead immoral lives.

When we read in the earlier chapters of First Kings it appears that Elijah is fearless and has boundless energy. He challenges the king and his wife, then he does battle with the false prophets of Israel. He does all this in God’s name and with great courage. But in the passage we just heard Elijah eventually falters under threat. He is frightened and flees for his life. He eventually flops down under a desert tree called the broom and there he has a nervous breakdown, burns out, and suffers from vital exhaustion – all rolled into one. He says that he just wants to die, and he probably does, although he does seem to be throwing a bit of a pity party for himself, feeling that he is all alone in serving God.

Fortunately Elijah is ministered to by an angel sent from the God he figures has abandoned him. This angel feeds Elijah and gets him on his way again. He keeps on going and eventually makes it to the mountains where he snivels a bit more before he is caught in the midst of a violent storm and earthquake and fire. He wonders if all this crashin’ and bangin’ are God, and then eventually realizes that God is speaking to him in “the sound of sheer silence.” Some of you will know that in the King James Version of the bible it says that he hears “a still, small voice.” In the paraphrase called The Message it is “a gentle and quiet whisper.”

It is in the stillness of this encounter with the living God that Elijah overcomes his vital exhaustion to truly recollect himself, and moves forward into life and purpose once again.

Can you identify with Elijah in any way? Have you had times in your life when you felt as though you were at “the end of your tether” and didn’t have the energy to carry on? It actually seems to be the spirit of our time.

You know, in every age we figure that our lives are more complicated and more demanding than in previous generations and that’s honestly not all that easy to measure. Most of us are relieved that we don’t have to track down a wooly mammoth for dinner. And here in North America we live a lot longer than in previous generations, so we must be doing something right. Just the same we know that we have created a culture in which we have the sense that we are under constant pressure to keep up with the pace of change. We can end up feeling that no matter how efficient we are and no matter how fully we schedule and fill our days it isn’t quite enough.

This past week we were given a taste of a report that will be released this Tuesday by the organization called the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. The report is called Caught in the Time Crunch: Time Use, Leisure and Culture in Canada. What it tells us is that we aren’t all that well in our being. Our younger families are on the dead run, trying to keep up with the demands of work and high expectations for what are supposed to be the leisure hours. According to the report children are starting organized activities at an earlier age, but there seems to be no time for some of the basics such as family meals and unstructured play. Levels of stress related illness and depression are on the rise. Little wonder!

I know that what this report has to say is true. I have spoken with a number of younger family people in our congregation in recent months who feel absolutely stretched to the limit by all the demands on their lives, and the uncertain state of the economy has only turned up the heat for them. These are really decent, conscientious individuals, who are on the edge of vital exhaustion, and while they are aware enough to speak with their pastor, they aren’t sure what they need to do to restore balance.

I have been aware too that no one is magically protected from becoming emotionally, and spiritually, and physically overwhelmed. An alarming number of colleagues in ministry have come to that place in the past few months, across denominational lines.

Many of you know that I was off for several months two years ago on what the United Church calls Restorative Leave. After consultation with a denominational official, and my doctor the decision was essentially made for me. After decades of ministry, it was my opportunity to “cease and desist” for four and a half months and rediscover my relationship with God and to feel centred again in the bigger picture of my own life. As reluctant as I was to accept it, I now see how important that time away was for getting my priorities back in order. I actually had the chance to go to church on Sundays without responsibility for the first time since I was in my early twenties. Ministers need the opportunity for worship and renewal as well.

All of us, at any age, in any walk of life, need to strike a Godly balance. So how do we move beyond vital exhaustion to vital renewal? The good news is that God’s desire is for us to be healthy and whole. Half way through our psalm for today, psalm 42, we find

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God: for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

And just in case we didn’t get it the first time, these lines are repeated at the end of the psalm as well.

I invite you to consider three aspects for restoration and renewed spiritual vitality.

We can be honest enough to accept our limitations and disconnect from the treadmill lifestyles which throw us off balance. This doesn’t mean we disconnect from everyday life and live as hermits on an island somewhere, although in some cases we may need to literally disconnect from the devices which keep us in a state of nervous alert all the time. There is a Christian Retreat centre in the Ottawa Valley called Stillpoint, and every time we drive past the sign I am reminded that we all need a spiritual still point in the midst of our sometime frenetic activity.

We can reconnect to that essential relationship with Christ which is the source of abundant life. It is tempting to choose to leave our faith and faith community out of the equation of our lives when we are under pressure rather than understand that we need to deepen our relationship with Christ to maintain our balance. I realize that this may sound self-serving, but when we come together we are reminded that we are loved by God as human beings, not human doings. Our communal worship experience is where we are invited to listen together to be fed, as the angel fed Elijah, and to hear a voice which says I love you more than any other and gives us the courage and stamina to go into a new week. When we experience this, we will praise God in gratitude.

It is essential to re-vital-ize in each day of the week, even if it means just a few minutes for prayer and openness to the presence of God. I have hyphenated this word to remind us of the English word “vital” and the Latin word vita, which means “way of life.” We always have the choice of how we will use the precious time God has given us, and surely there can be a few moments to reflect and open ourselves to our saviour and friend.

There is a story of a Buddhist monk who was on a speaking tour in the United States, with a stop in New York cities. His liaison person in The Big Apple was responsible for getting the monk from his hotel to the place where he was to speak. As they approached the subway the host commented that he had figured out a few connections which would save them fifteen minutes of travel time. With that the monk went over to a bench and sat down. The New Yorker asked him what he was doing, and the monk announced that he was going to meditate with the fifteen minutes they were saving.

Open yourselves to the vitality which Christ can give. Create the time to receive that life. Jesus offered his followers abundant life and he told them that he is the “way, the truth and the life.” He still offers us this promise today, and for this we can thank God. Amen!