Irvine United Congregational Church                        May 6, 2007

On Loving Yourself

Galatians 5:13-18 (Message version)   It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows.  For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom.  If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

            My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness.  For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.  Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”  That saying shows up nine times in our bible, so it must be pretty important.  It’s in all three synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke.  And Jesus didn’t make it up, because the first time it shows up is all the way back in Leviticus, the ancient Jewish law.  This saying shows up twice in Paul’s letters.  That’s fun, because it means even before there was a New Testament, when people were telling Jesus’ teaching from memory, “love your neighbor as yourself,” was one saying of Jesus they all remembered and told.  It’s in a letter from Jesus’ brother James too.  There isn’t much that Paul and James agree upon, but that saying they agree upon.

If you’ve been around churches, you’ve probably heard a sermon or two about loving your neighbor.  What about loving yourself?  Christian leaders seem to assume we already know how to love ourselves, so they don’t need to tell us to do it, or how.  Some of them even think we love ourselves too well.  I think we often love ourselves poorly, if we even try at all.  And that is not what God is asking of us.  Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you.”  As Jesus loves us.  Could we love ourselves as Jesus loves us? 

As well as we love ourselves: that is how well we will be able to love others.  When you get on a plane, the flight attendants go through that little pantomime of what to do in case of an emergency.  The recorded voice says, “In the event of an emergency loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling.  Secure your oxygen mask by pulling on the rubber strap.  Put on your own oxygen mask first.  Then assist children or others to put on their masks.”  Put on your own oxygen mask first.  Why is that so important?  Apparently you have about 18 seconds after depressurization to think and act before you run out of oxygen and lose consciousness.  You have a little while after that to be revived with no lasting side effects.  Without oxygen, you can be saved, but you cannot save yourself or anyone else.  Love is like oxygen. 

So let’s talk about how we can secure that oxygen mask: how we can love ourselves well.  I struggle to explain love.  Here is my working definition.  I love you when I “am determined to get both my needs met and your needs met.”  I’ve learned the importance of needs because of Nonviolent Communication.  In your bulletin you will find a sheet listing basic needs.  There is nothing unique about the categories they’re in, and the list is not complete. Our needs are universal; our strategies for meeting those needs are specific.  For instance, I do not need Ben and Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream, no matter how much I crave it.  That ice cream is my strategy to meet a need for... nutrition?  Hardly.  Comfort, I think.  I do not need to work as a pastor.  I do need to contribute to other peoples’ lives.  Have you heard about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?  Well, don’t let Maslow tell you which need is more important.  Listen for yourself.  And don’t let advertisers tell you how to meet your needs.  If you did, what would you hear?  Meet your need for acceptance by buying this car.  Meet your need for ease by taking this expensive cruise.  Meet your need for fun by drinking this soda.  I don’t think so.  Our culture functions by lying to us about our needs.  It says we need money, but money is only a strategy to meet our needs for security and recognition.  It says we need war when we really need understanding.  Imagine what the world would be like if we taught our kids in school, “What do you need, and how are you going to get it, in a way that everyone’s needs can be met?” 

I’m going to talk about four huge needs that we can to work on to love ourselves well.  The first is acceptance: acceptance of others, and acceptance of ourselves.  That means taming the jackal, that inner voice that compares and labels and passes judgment.  We listen instead to the giraffe, the inner voice that is connected to God, Life, Spirit.  We identify our needs and figure out how to meet them.  Here’s an example.  Enter my yoga studio with me.  The room is walled with mirrors.  You are requested to wear form fitting Lycra.  Every lump is on display. 

            Jackal ears in– self-judging:  What am I doing here in Lycra?  There’s that Ben and Jerry’s again, right at thigh level.  I have the fattest thighs of anyone in this room!  Argh!  I want to bolt for the door! 

            Now jackal ears out– judging others.  These people are so Newport Beach.  Let’s see, that one’s probably got breast enhancement, that one looks anorexic.  And that guy should shave! 

            Fortunately the practice of yoga itself invites me to put on my giraffe ears. 

            Giraffe ears in– self-acceptance.  I’m here to meet my need for health, not to compare myself to someone else.  I am grateful that I am caring for my body.  I feel invigorated!

            Giraffe ears out– accepting others:   I’ve stopped judging and started accepting people as they are.  All those differently shaped bodies are doing the same posture , and now they seem graceful and beautiful to me.  I feel comfortable, seeing all these bodies working together for health.

            Acceptance is a huge need we all have.  The acceptance we get from other people will never fill our need, unless we also practice accepting of ourselves and others.

The second need is connection.  We need relationships.  I’m only going to talk about one relationship:  honest connection with God and yourself.  If you don’t have a personal image of God, you might think of this as connection with life; with what is truly important.  If we have that kind of connection to what is real, what we value, then we are never truly alone.  And we do not depend on others to accept us, or to tell us what is right.  God is the Source, the one who knows how to love us when we think we are unlovable. You can connect with God– with the sacred– in many different ways.  How do you like to connect with God?  (your answer here.)  I call any kind of connection with the sacred: “prayer.”  Many of my prayers take the fom of  two way conversations with God– probably because I have a vivid imagination. Here’s one I had last week.

Me:      I am so nervous about this business networking lunch.  I’m invited to give a 30-second pitch for Nonviolent Communication and I’ve been fretting over it all morning.  I feel so silly– what’s the big deal?  I’m a minister– I talk in front of people all the time.  Why is this so hard?

God:     What are you afraid of?

Me:      This is a new environment: the business world.  I’m afraid of the unknown.  Oh, I know that fear well.  You’ve sent me into the unknown many times.

God:     I call you into the unknown so you can grow.  What do you need to face this challenge?

Me:      I need to trust.  To trust that I am where I need to be, doing what I need to do, for you.

God:     I’m there for you.

Me:      I can do this... with your help!

The third huge need is choice– freedom, autonomy.  Nobody makes you feel anything.  They trigger our feelings, they push a button that is our own thinking.  And seldom does anybody make you do anything, either.  You always have a choice, in your attitude if nothing else.  In our passage the apostle Paul talks about freedom:  being Christian doesn’t mean following a set of rules.  Do you remember that well known verse in Mark where Jesus says, “Why don’t you decide for yourselves what is right?” (Luke 12:57)  Martin Luther said, “Love God, and do what you want.”  Don’t chain yourself with “have to’s,” or “shoulds,” same thing.  You have a choice.  God gave us amazing freedom.  Use it! Here is a little exercise about choice.  I want you to think of something you “have to” do- you think you have no choice.  Have you got one?  My “have to” was “pay taxes.”  When you say, “I have to,” you are saying, “I’m doing it, but I really don’t want to, and I resent it,”  and that is not a fun way to live.

Now see if you can change your “have to” into a “choose to, to meet my need for...”  I choose to pay taxes to meet my need for... fairness (everybody else has to pay), to make a contribution (to those parts of our government I enjoy making a contribution), and for the comfort of avoiding further late penalties.  (And next time, I choose to figure my taxes more carefully so hopefully I don’t have to pay back taxes and interest.) 

Were you able to figure out why you “choose” to do this thing? After all, if you did it, you chose to do it.  Do you feel any better about that thing you “had to” do? What if you can’t think of any reason to choose to do what you’re doing?  Then maybe it’s time to choose not to do it.  Is that a frightening idea?  A woman did this exercise. She “had to” cook dinner for her family every night.  She couldn’t think why she would ever choose to do it.  She couldn’t believe it was a choice.  She decided to try saying “No,” for a change.  She marched home and announced she was not cooking dinner that night.  Her family was so relieved!  For years they had been listening her complain at the dinner table every single night about how much she hated to cook.  I didn’t hear how they worked out dinner, but that is a small thing compared to the relief that woman’s whole family felt when she realized she had a choice.

The fourth need is to give from the heart, out of the joy of giving, to contribute to others’ lives. I love the church, because so many of you here understand that need.  Yet sometimes we turn the need to give, to contribute to the lives of others, into a “have to,” and that ruins it.  Don’t ever give out of guilt, or obligation.  When you give that way, your attitude may spoil the gift, or you may ultimately ruin your own health.  Either way, when you give from guilt or obligation, somebody will pay.  When you give because it feels like a gift to be able to help, you are giving with love energy, God energy, and the world is a more beautiful place because of it.  If you can’t seem to get excited about giving from the heart, it’s time to put on your own oxygen mask, to get in touch with your own needs so you can replenish your natural desire to give generously.

Loving yourself... putting on your own oxygen mask first.  Meeting your own needs, so you can find the joy of serving others.  Acceptance:  trade your judgments in for understanding.  Connection:  tank up on love from the Source, so you have enough to share.  Choice:  Do what you love, or else figure out how to love what you do.  And giving from the heart, to meet our own need to contribute.  As we figure out how to love ourselves well, we will care for others better.  We can get everybody’s needs met.  “Love your neighbor as yourself.”