Every Rung Goes Higher, Higher

Every Rung Goes Higher, Higher

Genesis 28:10–19a,  Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

 “We are climbing Jacob’s Ladder…Every rung goes higher, higher…”  We assume our faith is about ascending…going higher and higher, up toward heaven.  Our society is geared toward constant growth and achievement. It’s been said that the greatest sin in our culture is failure – descending, not fulfilling expectations for growth.  It would be great, wouldn’t it, if we always ascended, always climbed higher and higher toward heavenly glory and happiness.  

But is this really what life is all about?  Are we really meant to go higher and higher and never to come down?  What about those who trip and tumble, often through no fault of their own? There are plenty of young people and adults who face heart-rending trials and illness and losses, that derail the idea that ‘every rung goes higher, higher.’   Does that mean God doesn’t love or honor them, or usl?

In our story about Jacob’s Ladder in scripture today, we find Jacob running in fear from the wrath of his brother, Esau, after having stolen his birthright.  This is not a proud or happy moment for him, living as a fugitive and an outcaste.  He sleeps on the ground with a stone for a pillow, but dreams of a ladder, a stairway to heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it.  Jacob himself doesn’t climb; the heavenly angels do.  And the angels don’t just go up; they go up and down; into heaven’s radiance, and down from glory into the mundane.  

So perhaps we also are meant to ascend and descend; to do all we can to succeed and to rise up; but to realize that there will be times when we end up going down; times when the tuna-fish hits the ventilator, when the rug gets pulled out from under our feet, and down we tumble, like Yurtle the Turtle, into the mud and mire.   And God is still there, offering us hope and blessing. 

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to climb.  Striving for success, for achievement, for accomplishment in work or in art or in the spiritual life, is natural and an imperative.  Working hard to master a discipline, to rise up in reputation and in achievement is a worthy goal.    Some of the finest moments of our lives can be times when we hum ‘every rung goes higher, higher’ and we have the skill or luck to ascend.

Our church is in a time of ascension right now as we look forward to the completion of our hard-won goal of rebuilding our beautiful Fellowship Hall.  We’ve climbed rung after rung, thanks to angels like Marilyn Gentile, Tom Eddy, Bob Liebenow, Don Pope, and many others… I myself am truly looking forward to the gorgeously restored and expanded new hall with wooden, decorated ceilings, chandeliers, brand new classrooms, offices, restrooms.  It is a long-sought after dream of our church and we will soon be enjoying its benefits.

At the end of this summer Martha and I will be driving our daughter, Suzie, to Boston, to drop her off at Emerson college.  Like many 18 years olds, having climbed the ladder of success in high school, with good grades and SAT’s and involvement with drama and arts, she’s riding high.  When you are young and full of potential, it can seem as though life is a stairway that you just climb upward, always higher and with great and greater degrees of fame and glory.  Everything is possible, and who knows?  Fortune may smile and all her dreams may be realized: fame, wealth, and happiness!

As adults, we smile and send our well wishes, but in our hearts we know the risks, the pit-falls and the low probabilities that come with future achievement.  Good things do happen, but so do bad.  If we assume that only good things will happen, and that we can’t possibly fail; we can run into serious trouble.  I just read an article with this disturbing statistic in it, written by the chief of Mental Health Services at Harvard University, who advised: “If your son or daughter is in college, the chances are almost one in two that he or she will become depressed to the point of being unable to function…and one in 10 that he or she will seriously consider suicide.  In fact, since 1988, the likelihood of a college student suffering depression has doubled, and suicide ideation has tripled, and sexual assaults have quadrupled.”   “Scholars at the National Research Council in 2002 estimated that at least one of every four adolescents in the U.S. is currently at serious risk of not achieving productive adulthood.”  

So we certainly have hopes and wishes for success for our young people; and yet realize that there are great pitfalls and trials out there, that can happen to anyone.  Assuming that we will always succeed and will inevitably triumph because of our superiority and golden blessings is naïve and dangerous.

“Annie Dillard tells a haunting story of the 1845 expedition of Sir John Franklin and 138 men on their journey to the North Pole.  They anticipated a two to three year journey over treacherous and icy terrain, but each ship carried only a two-week supply of coal. Instead of a larger coal supply, the ships were filled with superfluous items, including a 1,200 volume library, a hand organ, numerous settings of fine china, fancy wine goblets, pastries and several sets of sterling silver with officer’s initials and family crests engraved on the handles.  Incredibly, they brought no protective clothing other than their official uniforms from Her Majesty’s Navy.   Years later, native peoples found their frozen corpses with sleds behind them containing mostly sterling silver, china, chocolate and even a backgammon board.” 

Without a healthy realization of our own vulnerability and humility, we can end up frozen in our own self-centeredness and self-glorification, surrounded by our useless trophies.  Realizing life includes both successes and failures, is an antidote to this.  With empathy and wisdom, we see both sides.

The writer JR Briggs looks thoughtfully and prayerfully at what it means to be a success in our faith.   Does God really give up on us, if we descend, instead of ascend?  Is God not there in the trenches, but only in the clouds?   Briggs writes:  “The downward mobility of a life hidden in Christ leads us in a direction and on a trajectory counter to the esteemed goals of our culture.  We may fail, but it does not define us.  We may fail, but we are loved anyway.  We may fail, but we are accepted.”

Of course our model for this is our Savior, Jesus Christ.   He writes:

“Rejected, beaten, spit upon, humiliated, mocked, misunderstood, flogged, deserted by his closest companions, accused of wrongdoing, crucified naked on a cruel and inhumane execution device, and killed.  At a moment’s notice Jesus had the power to call it off, and overthrow it all, but he chose to remain.  His form of cosmic redemption was not control but vulnerability….  The gospel is Jesus compassionately communicating to the world, “Me too.” 

Me too.  We can also descend.  We can also suffer tragic losses, crumbling of promise and hope, failure in finance or in relationships, ship-wrecks of poor choices or poor luck.   We can end up on Golgotha, spit up and laughed at, and in agony.  But does that mean that God has abandoned us?  Does that mean we didn’t pray hard enough, and so deserve to suffer?  Does that mean that Jesus sees us as lost in sin because we have failed?  No. Of course not.  Jesus joins us in our sorrows and pain and mire.  Jesus has gone there before us.  Jesus says, “Me too.”

Martha and I just saw a movie yesterday called Ida by the Polish director, Pawel Pawlikowski.  It tells the story set in 1962 in Soviet Poland, of a beautiful 18 year-old girl, Ida, who is a novice in a nunnery, about to take her vows.   The movie begins with her Mother Superior taking her aside and telling her that before she takes her vows, she needs to go talk with a woman, her aunt and only relative.   She finds this woman, a prostitute in a small town, who informs Ida that Ida is Jewish, and that her family had been killed in the war.  As Ida is about to return to the nunnery, her aunt finds her and shows her pictures of her mother, and herself as a baby.  Her aunt had fought in the resistance during war and was a judge and prosecutor, though now a serious alcoholic.  Ida insists that she wants to see her parent’s grave; and though the aunt replies, there is no grave, agrees to go to farm, where she grew up, and to seek their burial place.  The story then goes on to become a road-trip about maturity, awakening into adulthood and the reality of war, hatred, brutality and more.   I won’t spoil the movie for you – but it is a beautiful meditation on human suffering and faith.    The reason I talk about it is because if Ida had ascended up to become a nun without descending into the sorrows and brutality of her past, her life would have been a lie. In order to ascend, in order to seek the glories of faith, first we need to go into the depths of sorrow, hardship and pain. It is there that we discover true wisdom, spiritual depth, and a foundation of faith.

Richard Rohr, the Franciscan writer, says that the path of descent is the essential message of our faith; that we are called to let go of our self-centered aspirations, and surrender to God.  He writes: “Christians call it the Way of the Cross. The Desert Fathers and Mothers called it the Way of the Desert. In Philippians Paul called it kenosis, the way of self-emptying: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8).

When Jacob woke up from his dream of angels and a ladder, he exclaims in fear: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”  (Gen 28:17) God is everywhere, even out in a desert place, and humble situations.  God is with us, even in our times of failure, our humiliation, our sorrow, when we’ve lost our job, when the divorce papers arrive, when the x-ray reveals a lump, when the check bounces.  God is there to lead us forward, to care for us, to guide us toward the Promised Land.  It is not just about getting to the top; it is about being faithful, loving, self-giving and true.   This is the gate of heaven; this is our greatest reward.   Amen.