The Diocese of East Tennessee
Sermons

August 29, 1999
Pentecost XIV (Pro. 17A)
Delivered at Laymen's Conference, Sewanee

Sermon: Bear Learnings
The Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg
Bishop of East Tennessee

Many years ago – but not far from here – I was treed by a bear. Two college buddies and I were hiking along part of the Appalachian Trail. As we approached the camp sight one evening, we saw a momma bear with two cubs foraging around the garbage pit, a hundred yards away. And so, that evening before we bedded down in the camp hut, we strung our pots and pans on a line across the opening. Later that night the bear visited us several times, and in fact, on one occasion she lunged at us, hit the pots and pans, and ran off. It was a long night!

The next morning while we were cleaning up after breakfast, the bear ran at us from around the hut. Rather quickly, we retreated to the other side of the hut and jumped on top of it so that we could bang on the tin roof and keep the bear away from our supplies. She kept us up there for three hours.

Eventually we decided that we could wait for the bear to wander off a bit and then send one of our number down to pack up his belongings while the others kept watch. And finally – quietly and quickly – we all scampered down from the hut, collected our stuff, and departed.
Now, it seems to me that the bear was doing two things … two things that came quite naturally. First, she was looking out for her self-interest and that of her cubs as a priority. And secondly, she did not care one bit about the consequences of her actions for others. And that’s OK for bears – or, at least, until you happen to run into one on the Appalachian Trail.

However, if we translate that kind of behavior to human beings, we discover some difficulties there. In fact, though, many people tend to act like bears in the woods. The model for that behavior includes looking out for self interest first and neglecting to care about the consequences of personal behavior on others.

In contrast to this bear attitude, Jesus said to his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." It is as though Jesus said this: "If any want to follow me they will look out for the interests of other people first, and they also will be aware of the consequences of their actions for others."

These signposts, it seems to me, provide necessary guides to the morality for a new millennium – if indeed that morality is to be grounded in Jesus Christ. We need to pay attention to these guides closely – as individuals and as a Church – if we are to be faithful to the call of our Lord in the next century and beyond.

What will the Church look like if we adopt the morality of a new millennium, the morality of Jesus Christ? First of all, the Church will be focused outside herself, focused – that is – on the interests of others. That is to say, the Church, in faithfulness to Jesus Christ, will focus on mission. We need, therefore, to ask the question, "What is our mission?" And, further, "What are the ramifications of the call to lose our life for Jesus’ sake … and, thereby, to find it?"

As individual churches and as dioceses, we are parts of the institutional Church. And the Church like any institution tends to value one thing above all others – self-preservation. But Jesus says, "Those who want to save their life, will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." Therefore, a consequence of focusing on self preservation is unfaithfulness to Jesus Christ … and, eventually – ironically – concentration on self-preservation leads to self destruction. However, to the extent that we live for others – that we die to self – then we engage in mission. And then – only then – we will be faithful to Christ.
Ironically, once again, when we focus on others – when we die to self – then we find our own lives. And this happens in all kinds of ways.
For instance, consider those times of adolescent growth and rebellion – our own and others. We seemed constantly to be in search of ourselves. And how did we engage in such a search? We went on a journey of some sort. We left the familiar. We sought something new. Somehow we knew what people everywhere seem to discover – that in order to find one’s life, we must lose it first.

I think, too, of those doctors and nurses and ordinary lay people who have traveled with me to Haiti. Over and over again, our experiences were repeated. Something about going away – something about encountering the unfamiliar – something about giving of ourselves – made possible self discovery. "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their live for my sake will find it."

The morality of the new millennium involves something else, too – something tied closely to the first point – if indeed such a morality is to be faithful to the teachings of Christ. Not only does the call of Jesus direct our attention away from self, outward, toward mission. Also, such a millennium morality must take seriously the consequences of our actions on other people. In Jesus’ words, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves."

The longer I live, the more I realize the importance of what was taught in childhood. We all learned then that our actions have consequences. We were taught that message at home and in our earliest school experiences. And we were taught it again as teenagers – probably more than once. But, somehow, that lesson must be relearned again and again, at every age. Our actions do have consequences – for ourselves, certainly, but also for other people.

Somehow or another, good Christian people seem to have missed the message, no matter how often it is repeated. And somehow, too, entire churches have not understood its truth. Our actions do indeed have consequences. And, therefore, Jesus tells us about those actions and their consequences, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves."

And so, please remember that Jesus Christ calls us out of the woods of a bear morality. Instead, Jesus calls us to a morality for the new millennium – a morality not of self interest and self preservation but of saving our lives by losing them in mission to others. And Jesus calls us, too, away from a morality of neglecting the consequences of our actions to the awareness that what we do and say makes a great deal of difference. In fact, Jesus says to his followers today as well as to those two millennia ago, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

Copyright ©1999 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee