BODY, MIND, AND SOUL:

SHALL ALL BE MADE ALIVE?

Luke 24, 1-9

In two weeks we will be participating in a walk to help melanoma research; all around our world there are walks for diabetes, walks for birth defects, walks for Aids research, and the list goes one. There are a few among us who walk and/or run for fitness. There are others at the other end of the spectrum whose biggest exercise is working their thumb on the remote control! Personal fitness centers around the country support those who choose to tone up muscles, to build their strength, or to carry out physical therapy as a treatment for healing. Due to security concerns, many parents don’t let children go down to a corner lot or a park to play baseball or kickball or soccer. Some times there is not any field nearby. Yes, there are organized teams, but they can lead a family into over-commitment. So when it comes to our bodies, will they last as long as our minds? Will they break and stop functioning well? Certainly prosthetic limbs help in that area, but what about heart disease or cancer? How are we doing in keeping ourselves alive? Our Body, Mind, and Soul health series is designed to help you with prevention. Next week you can have a free skin screening test, right here! Other proactive tests are up to you. That’s a word about our bodies.

Our minds are amazing instruments and in many cases are developing in wonderful ways. Regular classroom study, internet searches, video games, and the vast publishing industry coupled with dozens of television channels have made our age of information almost overwhelming. Some work to keep their minds active, others work so hard that their minds get weary. Most studies have shown that with one’s mind, as with one’s body, use it or lose it is the case. In the beginning of the twentieth century Sigmund Freud pioneered modern psychology. Many others have modified his theories but the framework still stands. You may remember that there is a part of our personality that is based on pleasure and needs. Freud called that part the Id. It has been described like this: “The Id doesn’t care about reality, about the needs of anyone else, only its own satisfaction.” Like babies that don’t care what time it is when they want something, whether their parents are sleeping, relaxing, eating, or working, when the Id wants something, it throws a tantrum until it gets it. The Id is supposed to have dominant control of toddlers until about age three so that their developmental needs get met. Have you noticed, however, that there are persons older even than age 5, perhaps 15, or 25, or 35 or even older, who seem to be stuck in their “me first, and right now” infancy stage? Our world has a conglomeration of people who are controlled in varying degrees by their IDs. Some parents have created princesses or protégé’s out of their children. Some husbands act like Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. And some wives spend or primp as if the saying “Because I AM the queen, that’s why!” was written especially for them. Those stages are supposed be left to infants! Or course, after that stage, says Freud, a child develops an EGO as he or she interacts more with the world; Our Ego, said Freud, balances needs with reality. It begins to understand that other people have needs too and that sometimes being selfish or impulsive can hurt in the long run. It’s the EGO’S job to satisfy the ID, but within reason. More people need that lesson so that civility can reign around us at work or at play. Mature minds are powerful allies for the human race.

The last personality part that Freud asserted was interesting, since he was born a believer in God and then grew up to be an Atheist, contrary to, say C. S. Lewis, who was born an agnostic and grew into a follower of Christ. Freud said that as a child grows up, with proper guidance a Superego develops. That is the part that is unique to human beings alone. The Superego provides people with religious and/or moral guidelines for living. A conscience, as it is also called, gives us the capacity to know right from wrong. A person with a dominant Superego, however, can become morally rigid, judgmental, and unbending about ethics. People with dominant Ids think they are the center of their own universe. Know any people like that? Those with strong Egos, contrary to the way it sounds, are solid, self-differentiated people. Today, like a personal trainer or a coach can get your body in shape, and like a good teacher or tutor can sharpen your mental skills, a preacher is one who is charged with getting sloppy, slothful, slovenly, or sinful souls in shape! The message of Easter has no meaningful impact on your bodies: when you die, the believer says your body will go back to dust just as the non-believer says. Also, the message of Easter has no meaningful impact on science or empirical theory, nor does it make anyone smarter. No; the message of Easter is life changing for the soul, the part of you that is your essence, the part that questions, “Isn’t there more to life than what I’m experiencing?” The part that wonders, “Even if there are planets and stars and moons, who made them?” The part that concludes, “If there is a watch, there must have been a watchmaker.” Taking a journey with other Christians to explore what difference it makes to believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead, not only for the bystanders at the cross, but for generations to come, is soul food. Sitting around tables with other committed searchers with Bibles and minds open to the Holy Spirit’s guidance through lively discussions and study of Scripture is soul food. Worshipping an invisible God who came to earth as a human being and then returned to the earth as a Spirit can be done, at times, through enthusiastic worship (which means infused with spirit), at times through mystical worship (as in the Divinum Mysterium, the amazing mysteries of God as Paul call’s them), at times through ecstatic worship if you have witnessed people lost in charismatic exuberance, and at times through silent worship as certain religious orders have done to grow closer to God. What playing soccer or basketball or surfing or golfing is to the body, and what reading a good book or watching an engaging film or researching a subject does for the mind, worshipping, praying, and studying Scripture does for the soul. How many in our world are flabby or soft physically; how many are so zoned-out mentally that they cannot answer simple questions; and how many are so fuzzy about beliefs that they put Buddha, Mohammed, and Jesus on the same pedestals? My friends, we are in danger of losing our bodies to disease, our minds to technology, and our souls to sin if we do not care for what has been given to us! As for the soul, our concluding topic for today, Psychologist and theologian Thomas Moore, in his book CARE OF THE SOUL, has said, “Soul is not a thing; [it is not part of our body that a surgeon could remove. It is] a quality or a dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance.” (Harper/Collins, 1992, p.5) The soul is the part that makes us who we are and is the part that some day, will see God, be judged by God, and, by human repentance and divine grace, will be welcomed by God. The great preacher Phillips Brooks in describing what John saw in Revelation: (And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God) wrote these words: “What is meant by standing before God? We are apt to picture ourselves in a great dramatic scene. Host beyond host, rank behind rank, the millions who have lived upon the earth, all standing crowded together in the indescribable presence of One who looks not merely at the mass, but at the individual, and sees through the whole life and character of every single soul.” [PHILLIPS BROOKS: SELECTED SERMONS, E.P. DUTTON, 1950, P. 369.] “It is upon moral grounds that the most separated souls must always meet. Upon the child and the philosopher alike rests the common obligation not to lie, but to tell the truth. The scholar and the plow-boy both are bound to be pure and to be merciful….Therefore it is before the moral judgment seat of God that all souls, the small and the great, are met together.” [Brooks, P. 372.] As a child, I never liked doing the yearly President’s Council on Physical Fitness tests. I think Kennedy was president then. We all had to do as many push ups, sit ups, pull ups, and run as many laps as we could in a certain amount of time. Our scores were recorded as we were judged on our physical fitness. Maybe you loved those things, but not me. But someone was watching out for my fitness as a child, and whether it was my gym coach or my baseball coach, someone was seeing that I was learning skills and keeping my growing body in shape. In another area, students for decades have dreaded the SATs or the ACTs, the standard college entrance exams. In them students are judged whether they can be admitted to a school and if any amount of scholarship will be offered because of high scores. Maybe you loved those things, but not me! Standardized timed tests were the pits! But our nation needs some way to judge the mental readiness of its high school seniors. In a similar manner, preachers and Christian Educators work with people having the same attitude as I did growing up- even about Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. I thought they were the pits too! But the Lord had a sense of humor, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and drafted me into his service, the soul service, that is. “Fine,” Jesus said in my ear.” You don’t like the way church works, YOU do something about it!” God puts burdens on the hearts of preachers and Sunday School teachers to be like your gym teacher, your school teacher, or your doctor: You may not like what is asked of you, but someone who sees the bigger picture is preparing you for your day of judgment, whether it is a PE test, or SAT test, or a sheep or the goats test as described in Matthew 25. Will your soul pass the test for eternal life? Your soul was given to you as a gift from God; and God watches how you use it. According to the Bible, we use our soul to bless God (Psalm 103: 1 ;) to weep with those who mourn (Jeremiah 13: 17;) to live an upright life (Habakkuk 2: 4;) and to love God and neighbor (Matthew 22: 37.) So today, let me close by giving all of you a blessing for your souls, that they will be prepared for the tests to come, and pass with flying colors into the glory that is prepared for those who are ready. Those who believe that Jesus is Lord can go from an earthly life to a heavenly life when they die, all because the tomb was empty that Easter long ago. He is risen! Let me offer these words of encouragement to you, using these paraphrased words from the third letter of John in the New Testament: “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may have good health; and that it is well with your soul. For I rejoice that others have told the truth about you and said that you are honest in your dealings with others. I can have no greater joy than this: than to hear that you are following the one who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” May God bless us, everyone. Amen.

Jeffrey A. Sumner April 8, 2007