<-- home
IS THERE AN AMY IN YOUR LIFE
by Marion Hogan LarsonBethel College chapel 3/11/96
When I was eleven, I spent three weeks at a Christian camp and came back, as we often do from such experiences, ready to live for God. That "spiritual high" lasted until shortly after my quiet time on my first day home when I got into an argument with my sister Amy. Unfortunately, this event was all-too-common at our house in those days: it didn't seem to matter how much progress I thought I was making spiritually; somehow, Amy always got to me. In frustration, I stormed off to my room, my mom close behind. I said, "Mom, during the three weeks I was at camp, I never did anything wrong. In fact, the only time I ever do anything wrong is when I yell at Amy! She just makes me crazy!" Wisely, my mom didn't try (at that time anyway) to correct this warped perception that my only fault was in the way I treated my little sister. Instead, she said, "Marion, you need to learn to get along with your sister, because there will always be someone who drives you crazy. There will always be an Amy in your life."
My mom was right: there always have been and probably always will be people in my life that, no matter how hard I try, seem to bring out the worst in me. I'll bet you've got at least one Amy in your life, too--maybe a brother or sister, a parent, roommate, friend (or former friend). It's my prayer today that I will learn to live as if I really believe the words I'm about to speak whenever I encounter my Amys--and that you will be able to as well. I'd like to begin by reading two familiar stories from Luke. In both of them, we see siblings struggling with the Amys in their lives.
The first is in Luke 10, where Jesus visits the home of Mary and Martha: "A woman by the name of Martha welcomed Jesus and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. 'Master, don't you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.' "The Master said, 'Martha, dear Martha, you're fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it.'
Then, in Luke 15, we read the story of the Prodigal Son. The part of the story I'd like to read focuses on the older brother's reaction to his father's lavish welcome home party. "The day's work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, 'Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast--barbecued beef! -- because he has him home safe and sound.' "The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen. The son said, 'Look how many years I've stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out on a feast!' "His father said, 'Son, you don't understand. You're with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours--but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he's alive! He was lost, and he's found!'"
I must admit, I've often been drawn to characters like Martha and the big brother. After all, their assessment of the situation is at least partly right: Martha shouldn't have to do all the work; the prodigal shouldn't have squandered his money and life. Both older siblings worked hard and tried to do the right thing, yet their responsible actions seem almost ignored. Jesus' response to Martha and the father's answer to the older brother often seem unfair to me. What can we learn from these stories? And what do they say to us about the perspective we need to take toward the Amys in our lives? We've all heard sermons on the need to get the "log" out of our own eyes before trying to operate on the "speck" in the eyes of another. We know that we shouldn't "judge" unless we, too, want to be judged. And whenever we recite the Lord's Prayer, we ask God to "forgive us as we have forgiven others." These ideas all apply to what I'd like to say today about our Amys--but they don't go far enough. They seem to remind us to give grace just as we'd like to receive it (that is, to be tolerant because that's how we'd like others to treat us). However, I think that ultimately God puts Amys into our lives because he wants us to learn from them--not just put up with or forgive them.
What do we need to remember when we encounter our Amys?
1. Let God be in charge of working in your Amy's life. After all, we don't always know what God's image should look like in another person.
Having children of my own has helped me see this approach to God more clearly. Martha and the big brother remind me of my daughter's common approach to her 5-year-old brother, Evan: she seems incapable of keeping from correcting him, even when I'm in the room. She'll correct his table manners or tone of voice, or even interrupt prayer time to remind him that he needs to close his eyes when we pray. And then she gets upset when I correct her rather than him. I remind my daughter that she needs to let me be the mom, and I'm offended by her clear lack of trust in my ability to see and handle the situation. I tell her that her brother is right when he says, "Erin, you're not the boss of me!"
But isn't this how we all act towards God sometimes--as if he's not in the room with us? Or, if he is, as if he needs us to tell him how things have to be fixed? When we keep reporting to God all of the ways in which he needs to fix our Amys, not only are we acting as if we're the boss of them (to put it in my son's language), but we're even acting as if we're the boss of God! Dietrich Bonhoeffer summarizes this point more eloquently: "God did not make others as I would have made them. He did not give them to me as brothers and sisters for me to dominate and control... God does not will that I should fashion others according to the image that seems good to me, that is, in my own image; rather...God made each person in His image. I can never know beforehand how God's image should appear in others."Similarly, Joan Chittister says, "We don't have the master plan for everybody else's life, [so] we shouldn't spend our lives telling other people how to run theirs."
I could probably stop there and sit down, because learning to apply these words would be a big step for most of us--I know my own life would be revolutionized if I could learn to apply them. We do need to learn to trust God to control situations and work in people's lives, and we do need to at least acknowledge that his image looks different in different people. This doesn't go far enough, however: we need to learn to do more than accept the Amys in our lives--we need to be willing to examine ourselves and see how we need to learn from them. And that poses a far greater challenge, I think. In order to learn from others--especially the Amys who sometimes bring out the worst in us--we have to remember our emotional energy. Just as a person who's physically exhausted isn't able to run a race effectively, or a person who's mentally exhausted isn't likely to perform well on an exam, so, too, a person who's exhausted emotionally won't be able to engage in the hard work of self-examination.
2. We need to conserve emotional energy by remembering to let God be God, even in the lives of our Amys.
Whenever I focus on the injustice of the world or the long list of the ways in which I wish God would fix situations or people, I wear myself out! And if I'm worn out, I won't have energy left for living as God wants me to live. In Matthew 11, Jesus tells those with heavy burdens to come to him and receive rest--then we'll be able to take on his yoke and learn gentleness and humility from him. I think one of these heavy burdens is self-imposed: it's the burden of telling God how to fix everything.
Joan Chittister and Richard Foster remind us of the rest which we can experience if we are willing to lay down this self-imposed burden of assisting God in the process of running the world: Joan Chittister says, "Peace comes from not needing to control everything and not needing to have everything and not needing to surpass everyone and not needing to know everything and not needing to have everyone else be like me." And Richard Foster, on a similar note, says that "freedom comes from giving up our right to be in charge, from laying down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way." If we can begin by giving intellectual assent to what we know to be true--that God is the one who should be running the show--then we can ask God to help us learn to lay down this burden. And we can ask him to help us see how he wants to work in us through the Amys in our lives.
3. We need to learn to be open to what God may be trying to teach us through the Amys in our lives.
Why were Martha and the big brother so bothered by their Amys? Why do the Amys in my life get to me so easily? Maybe these people exhibit characteristics which remind us of our deepest struggles--like a recovering alcoholic who can't spend time with others who still drink. Parker Palmer, in describing the struggles of learning to live and work with and relate to others, speaks of the "external stranger" (or the Amy) who reminds us of our own "internal stranger." He says: "Community is the place where the person that you least want to live with always lives. . . . And when that person moves away, someone else arises to take his or her place! . . . Community always contains the person you least want to live with because there will always be someone who draws out the quality you least like in yourself. The external stranger reminds us of the inner stranger whom we do not want to acknowledge or confront."
It may also be that the Amys in our lives have qualities which we ourselves wish we had--and that can be tough to admit to ourselves, much less to others. I think that's been the case with me and my sister, Amy. This past fall I gave Amy's husband some advice which I realize that I too need to hear: I told him that I think it's the job of married partners to focus much of their attention on what God would have us learn from our spouses--in short, I told Ed that he needed to do all he could to learn from the Amy in his life. It's often a lot easier to give advice than to take it, isn't it? I gave Ed this advice because we're not sure what the future holds for our Amy. This past fall, a week before school started, my sister was diagnosed with an inoperable, fast-growing, malignant brain tumor. Radiation seems to have slowed down the inevitable, but unless God works a miracle in her body, she won't survive to see her youngest child start kindergarten. Watching Amy handle this devastating news has reminded me of what she can teach me if I'll let her.
Two quick examples:
So, I ask you again: Is there an Amy in your life? If so, remember to 1. Let God be in charge of working in your Amy's life. Remember that we don't always know what God's image should look like in others. 2. Consider your emotional energy: if it's used up trying to "fix" others, there won't be enough left for self-examination or availability to serve others. 3. Be open to what God may be trying to teach you through your Amy.
Chapel address by Dr. Marion H Larson, sister of Amy.