The Lesson of the Skin Horse

Sunday, March 8, 2009
2nd Sunday in Lent
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Readings:
Genesis 17:1-7,15-16
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38


Audio sermon file:

http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/D1022BC1-DAEE-5A0F-4D2A-D06A155149DD.mp3


In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples how the Son of Man must undergo great suffering. Peter rebukes Jesus who then calls him “the devil”. Ouch! Peter knows Jesus as a mentor and very good friend. He doesn’t want to ehar what Jesus has to say. Die, be buried, raise from the dead. Peter never gets past the “Die” part. And you can’t blame him. Jesus I one of his best friends and Paeter doesn’t want to hear what Jesus is telling him.

This is a text about arguing as friends.

It’s not easy to get in a fight with someone we love. But it’s a sign of real caring. We care enough to disagree. We care enough to rebuke. We care enough to try to work it out.

With family, too, we can disagree, sometimes passionately. We argue, but it doesn’t have to rupture the relationship. Sometimes in martial counseling, Pastor Johnson shared he meets couples who “confess” they never fight. If it’s nottrue, they’re lying. They wouldn’t lie to a pastor, would they? And the lying’s got no place in a healthy relationship. If it’s not true, it’s also not healthy because there’s a problem with “never arguing”.

You have to argue and be willing to disagree. You have to be willing to test a relationship. You have to be able to withstand having different points of view. You have to forge a partnership that can withstand disagreeing. In engineering design, you constantly fortify a design to withstand the expected loads. A component or a system like a bridge that’s never loaded is not deemed a success simply because no car’s ever driven over it.


In the children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit, the Skin Horse says that he has weathered the love that has made his tail thin of hair and his eye rubbed over and over. At the prospect of becomign "real", the Skin Horse shares:



"You become (real). It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

You need to weather the weathering, he claims, to “become real”. And with freinds, you are never ugly. A friend understands. But "it doesn't happen often to those who have to be carefully kept".

You have to find ways to disagree … even passionately.

Pastor Johnson adds here that some folks mention they have friends who are good sounding boards, who listen to their whole story and do not judge them … and he comes to the conclusion …

You can get rid of those friends.

You NEED a friend who’ll tell you sometimes you sin.

You NEED a friend who’ll tell you sometimes you’re wrong.

… and that relationship needs to be able to withstand that.

Lots of times people will say that “You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family.”

But Pastor Johnson offered the notion that it might be more the case that the opposite is true. One author he read has the theory that our friends are picked for us, ordained gifts from God, lampposts sent our way to guide in some sense. Sometimes they are the unlikeliest od characters, so different from us. It’s odd how they come into our lives at opportune moments, by happenstance, by God’s grace.

We do, however, pick our family. We LOVE Aunt Josie, but Uncle Harry – he’s not getting near that punch bowl. We pick out and shape our family.

Our friends are unlikely, beautiful “grace notes” in our lives. And you can be that only if you’re willing to fight and only if you’re willing to make up.

Gary Johnson admitted he liked this lesson because he thought of it differently now than he did or would have earlier in his life. He knows now that your best friend is someone who can’t bear to see you in pain. Peter can’t watch or hear what Jesus has to say anymore. Then … a few days later, it’s Peter who recognizes Jesus and runs out to embrace him. And Jesus says, “Peter, do you love me? … Peter, do you love me? … I’d like for you to be the one to feed my lambs.” Their friendship survives Peter rebuking Jesus, Jesus calling Peter “the devil”; it survives the name-calling, the arguing, the betrayal … because they always have forgiveness and the deep love from which these arguments were born.

If you find yourself in these disagreements with a best friend, with someone you consider your pal for a long, long time, this is a gift. It’s a gift of your friendship that you can withstand these moments.

By God’s grace, you will mend these relationships because that’s what you wanted to do all along. By God’s grace and with Peter as our example, the mending will take place.