A Fourth Church Sermon by Donna Gray

August 5, 2001 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Learning to Blush

Donna Gray
Interim Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Luke 11:1–4

“Man is the only animal that blushes or needs to.”

Mark Twain

I always thought that blushing was a natural response to an embarrassing or shameful situation, until I recently read an article suggesting that we learn to blush. Not all of our emotional responses are natural; some are shaped by experiences and stories we hear as we grow up.

Walter Brueggeman, a biblical scholar, tells a story from his childhood about a plane that crashed in a cornfield not far from his home. Arriving at the scene, he saw the ambulance crew with white gloves on removing parts of human remains from the plane. At the same time, he was struck by a woman holding a child and watching as she was eating an apple. For Brueggeman there was something terribly wrong with that picture. Why did there appear to be no remorse, no embarrassment by this woman? Brueggeman, whose idea is supported by others in the fields of anthropology and philosophy, believes that blushing is learned. Our culture teaches what emotions are appropriate at what times and places. Brueggeman, drawing from that childhood incident and reflecting on society today, says we need to resensitize our eyes to the embarrassment of the idiosyncrasies of our day.

That, I believe, is what Jesus did when he taught his disciples to pray, “Our Father . . .” The Lord’s Prayer is a wonderful tool to keep life’s idiosyncrasies before us. William Barclay, in his book on the Lord’s Prayer, says that the petition “Give us this day our daily bread” means that God will give us the simple, ordinary things we need both physically and spiritually. In teaching this, Jesus knew the struggle humans experience over our wants and our needs. This petition invites us to blush over our wants that at times seem to take us over. For many of us, it is a tug of war that goes on daily. We must learn what our true needs are, and we must learn to blush at our excessive wants.

As a pastor who ministers particularly to children, I have a concern in observing that recent church school curriculums recounting the story of Moses and the Children of Israel often jump from the dramatic account of the Israelites fleeing through the parted waters of the Red Sea to the equally dramatic scene of Moses on the mountaintop receiving the Ten Commandments. But the between the sea and the mountaintop is omitted, a story that I believe helped me as a Sunday school child learn about the meaning of “daily bread.” The Israelites wandering in the wilderness were without food. The food they were given as slaves in Egypt may have been inadequate, but it was daily. In the wilderness, there was no daily bread, and except by divine intervention they would die. People in such situations care nothing for the extras; their wants and their needs are identical. God gave the Israelites manna, just enough for each day. They couldn’t store it or keep it for the next day; it truly was daily bread. The lesson God was teaching was of our radical dependence on God for our basic needs.

A way that lesson was reinforced in my childhood, a way that I hope does not completely fall to the wayside in time-pressed family life, was through grace. Grace, that brief prayer before meals, to remind us—to remind our children and our grandchildren—that we are both dependent on and thankful to God for the food in front of us and to never take that for granted. I know grace does not seem to fit into the ambiance of fast food restaurants, but maybe the lack of saying grace for our daily bread is one of the idiosyncrasies of our day to which we must resensitize our eyes.

My first experience as a pastor was in a small community that at that time still had daily, door-to-door milk delivery. The town’s milkman was a member of the congregation I served, and over the years I learned that he was a keen observer of the community and an insightful homespun philosopher and psychologist. One day he came to me and said, “Pastor, there’s trouble in the Smith family. I don’t know what it is, but I saw a large screen T.V. being delivered to their home today. I’ve seen it before: every time there’s trouble in that family they buy something they can’t afford.” Sure enough, a few weeks later I learned that the Smith’s teenage son had a drug problem that they were refusing to acknowledge and deal with. In effect, they were a family that had forgotten how to blush and were even diverting attention from their basic need with the things they wanted.

While this sermon asks us to rebalance our wants and our basic physical and spiritual needs, it is not intended to deny the validity of wanting the good things God intends for our lives. There is nothing wrong with wanting as our motivation for work. And there is nothing wrong with the pleasure we get from working and achieving. But there must be that balance between want and need, and there must be enough embarrassment about the disparity between want and need in the world to keep them in balance.

“But to whom much is given, much is expected.” Sojourners magazine reports that many wealthy Christians are currently involved in a group called Responsible Wealth (“What’s Right with This Picture,” January–February 2001). Its purpose is to advocate tax fairness, a living wage, and also initiate responsibility-oriented shareholder resolutions. Made up of people who are in the top 5 percent of income earners in America, Responsible Wealth is resolved to love the society into a more equitable system that will benefit others, even at the expense of some of their own advantages. “Give us,” not me, “our daily bread.” One who prays this cannot pray this without a blush as long as others have too little. We who pray this must all blush until God’s kingdom does come “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Since I am your pastor for Children and Family Ministry, I hope you will allow me to conclude with a favorite story I tell to children on Mother’s Day. It is meant to create both a proper blush at the difference of want and need and then to affirm the good and graciousness of our God.

“What Bradley Owed”

Bradley thought that the best things were the things that cost the most money.

He wanted to know how much his birthday presents cost. And the one that cost the most was, he was sure, the best.

He sometimes told other people how much he had paid for their Christmas presents because he thought the amount of money he had spent made the present important.

One day he thought up a way in which he could earn some money: he wrote a note on a little piece of paper, folded it up, and put it on his mother’s plate on the breakfast table.

His mother was surprised to find a note on her plate. She opened it up and this is what she saw Bradley had written:

Mother owes Bradley
For running errands……… $2.00
For being good……… $1.00
For making the bed…… $1.50
For extras…… $ .50
Total Mother owes Bradley $5.00

Bradley’s mother read the note and smiled and tucked the note away in her apron. When lunchtime came, she put the note he had written and $5 dollars on his plate. With it was another note.

Bradley’s eyes sparkled when he saw the money! Now he knew how to earn money an easy way. Then he saw the other note. When he opened it, this was what he saw:

Bradley owes mother
For being good to him ……… Nothing
For nursing him when he had strep throat…… Nothing
For washing his clothes and mending their tears… Nothing
For buying him clothes and books and playthings… Nothing
For meals and a beautiful room……… Nothing
Total Bradley owes Mother ……… Nothing

Bradley’s eyes filled with tears when he read his Mother’s note. “Oh, Mommy,” he said, “take the money back and just let me do things for you for nothing. I want to help you because I love you.”

“No amount of money can buy love,” she said as she hugged him.

And God so loved the world . . .