Rev. Tessie Mandeville
October 21, 2007
Christ Covenant MCC
Decatur, GA 30030

We have been winding our way through our fall sermon series, Building Relationships in Beloved Community. Each week we’ve been talking about values and spiritual principles that will sustain our community in the days and years ahead. There are many values that we can talk about in beloved community. I’ve only picked a handful of them to start the conversation. So far we’ve talked about the value of courage, honesty, reconciliation and integrity. Today I would like us to talk about the value of sustainability.

We are used to talking about sustainability in the context of our environment. Right now, as the state of Georgia is in a terrible drought, people are having important conversations about water, about how to use only what we absolutely need in order to ensure that we do not completely run out. I know some of you are using your bath water to water your plants in an attempt to conserve and I applaud that. That’s the practice of sustainability. It’s making decisions today that are healthy, life-giving and affirming that will sustain us when tomorrow comes.

This is no less true when we apply the value of sustainability to our relationships with one another, with ourselves, and with God. I believe with all my heart that we want to have healthy, life-giving and affirming relationships. These kinds of relationships don’t happen by accident; we have to be intentional in what we say and what we do to build solid, loving relationships.

This may come as a surprise to you but I’ve watched Dr. Phil once or twice in my life. How many of you have ever watched Dr. Phil? Everyday on prime time T.V. he analyzes relationships. He listens to what is happening in the relationship, what kinds of behaviors are on display, and then he asks, “How’s that working for you?” And most of the time, it’s not working too well! That’s how they ended up on the show!

But what a great question: “How’s that working for you?” It gives us the opportunity to examine what we’re doing and to discern whether or not what we are doing, what we believe and how we act are sustaining our relationships. Just because we keep doing the same things in our relationships that we’ve always done doesn’t mean it’s what we need to keep doing. It was Albert Einstein who said that “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

We have to hear Dr. Phil asking, “How’s that working for you?” And if the answer is, “Not very well” or “Not at all” then it’s time to do something different. It’s time to make changes so that we can get different results and so that we can better sustain our relationships with one another, with ourselves, and with God.

So let’s look at how the decisions we make today can sustain our relationships with one another tomorrow. For instance, Lisa and I have very different communication styles. I like to ask a lot of questions so that I have a lot of detail to work with. Lisa, on the other hand, assumes a “less is more” attitude. So whenever she talks with a mutual friend or business contractor or insurance company and has to give me the details, I invariably ask more questions of her than she asks of whomever she’s talking to. So if Dr. Phil were to ask me, “How’s that working for you?” I’d have to answer, “Not very well.” I get frustrated because I don’t have enough detail and she gets frustrated because I’ve asked 20 questions. She finally gets so tired of me asking questions of her that she politely invites me to make the call myself the next time! We had to make some changes in order to get different results so that we could better sustain our relationship with one another. Now, I either write down the questions that I want answers to or I make the call myself. It has dramatically decreased our frustration levels with one another.

Think about your relationships with people in our beloved community and ask yourself if you keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. All of us have coping strategies and default behaviors and emotions. Sometimes they serve us well and other times they do not. Maybe our default reaction is anger. And the minute someone doesn’t live up to whatever we think they should have lived up to, or done something the way we think they should have done it, we become angry with them and lash out verbally at them. And then later we wonder why people are afraid to talk to us or they go the other way when they see us coming. Maybe we’re people who easily point out all the reasons why something won’t work and all the things that could go wrong. Our coping strategy is to be negative so that we won’t build ourselves up only to be disappointed later. And then later we wonder why a person doesn’t share their exciting news with us or let us know about something that is important to them. I’d like us all to think about the relationships, the friendships, that we used to be in but aren’t in right now and ask ourselves why. If the same issues keep coming up over and over again, it can’t always be the other person’s fault. Remember, we’ve talked about how we have to hold the mirror up to ourselves before we hold it up to one another. We must find ways of sustaining relationships with one another. We need to hear Dr. Phil asking us, “How’s that working for you?” If the ways we are acting aren’t working for us, then let’s find ways that will. Let’s replace old behavior patterns, old thought patterns with new, life-giving and affirming patterns that will actually help us sustain our relationships with one another.

Let’s look at how the decisions we make today can sustain our relationships with ourselves tomorrow. Let’s talk about our physical and emotional selves. We live in a busy world that wants to demand of us that we must be on the go at all times. I struggle with this myself. When I’m not busy and doing things, I don’t feel like I’m making a difference in the world and then I get depressed. But to apply the value of sustainability in relationship to ourselves is to know when enough is enough, and when it’s time to take a break. I declare to you today as your pastor that I would much rather you lay a task down when it’s time than for you to keep doing it and burn out. Check in with yourself to see how much you’re doing and how often you’re doing it. Hear Dr. Phil asking you, “How’s that working for you?” And if the answer is “Not too well” then it’s okay to lay it down and to take a break so that you can rest. It’s difficult to serve when we are exhausted and sick. The goal is sustainability both physically and emotionally. Taking time for self-care now will help ensure you have health for when it’s your turn again. Trust in God that others will step up to the plate and take a turn.

And finally let’s look at how the decisions we make today can sustain our relationships with God tomorrow . Spiritual sustainability is invaluable because what we believe about God affects our relationships with one another. In any beloved community of faith, there are always different opinions about God, about Jesus and about faith. There is plenty of room here at Christ Covenant to believe what you need to believe. We don’t pass out a doctrinal statement in our membership classes. Our personal, lived experiences in this world inform much of our faith. To work toward sustainability in our relationships with God is to make room for change and growth.

Most of us have lived on this planet long enough to know that our concepts of God have had to change in order to sustain us into the future. For instance, some of us grew up thinking that as long as we were good people, nothing bad would ever happen to us or to people we love. But sometimes bad things happen to good people and we have to find a belief in God that sustains us during those times. I prayed fervently that my friend, Paul, would not have terminal cancer, but he still does. I don’t believe in a God that punishes people with illness; I believe in a God that walks through the valley of the shadow of death with people.

We need a spiritual belief system that sustains us in good times and in bad. We need to read not only the Bible but other sacred texts that sustain us, that lend a compassionate understanding of God. Think about your concepts of God and hear Dr. Phil asking, “How’s that working for you?” And if the answer is “Not at all” then it’s time to replace it with a life-giving and affirming belief in a God who loves us beyond measure and who is always present with us.

Jesus himself has a beautiful teaching about the value of sustainability in the gospel of Matthew. In this story there is a person who releases an unclean spirit. That unclean spirit wanders around the desert looking for another person to live inside of. It doesn’t find one so it comes back to the home it knows only this time when it comes back, it brings friends along for the party. The unclean spirit comes back with a vengeance and is able to get back inside the person because the house is empty. It is swept clean and in order. But Jesus teaches us that there is no such thing as empty space. It’s not enough to simply release old patterns, old ways of behaving and believing from our lives. Once we release them we have to replace them with beliefs, actions, emotions, and theologies that can sustain us into tomorrow.

The decisions we make today can sustain all our relationships tomorrow. This is because, as Marianne Williamson says, “We are building a bridge to the future and the future is not fixed…The bridge to the future is a bridge that moves—and the land to which it is connected moves as well—according to how we walk across the bridge and who we are while walking.”

It is my deepest desire that as we build relationships in beloved community we will be people who walk across the bridge in sustainable ways. And next time we hear Dr. Phil asking, “How’s that working for you?” we’ll be able to say, “The ways I’ve filled myself with life-giving and affirming patterns are working much better for me and all my relationships.” Glory be to God and amen.

Copyright © 2007 by Rev. Tessie Mandeville. Permission granted for non- profit circulation with attribution of author and venue. Other rights reserved.