Shuttlecocks

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ [1 Corinthians 1:4-7].

If you read last week’s meditation, you may recall that I wrote about the church’s belief that, following His death and before His resurrection, Christ descended into hell. Light descended into darkness. One of the points that I tried to make is this: that for some of us—perhaps many of us—our existence is sometimes hellish. It is as if, to quote Shakespeare, we are bombarded by “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Continuing the Bard of Avon’s mixed metaphor found in Hamlet [Act III, Scene I), we can find ourselves within a “sea of troubles.” Yet, as I argued last week, in the face of those troubles, that conflict, that turmoil, yes, even that hell, Christ is with us since there is no hell into which Christ will not enter.

Last Thursday, I had a conversation with a friend about that piece. He offered an additional insight that I’d like to share if I can do it justice. As I relate below, his insight even dovetails with one of this week’s Lectionary readings. He said his frustration wasn’t so much that he felt like he was a constant denizen of hell, but rather that he felt as if he was a shuttlecock, jumping back and forth between positions of peace and tranquility, on the one hand, and torment and sadness, on the other. Life, he said, could be kind and beautiful, and when it was, his spirit and faith soared. It could also be mean and ugly. In those moments, his spirit—and his faith—could be coarse and splintered. Why didn’t he stay on an even keel? Why did he bounce forward and backward? Why did he seem aways to “re-act,” rather than to “act?”

I saw this very thing play itself out as Jane and I drove down to Davidson on Monday. We were heading to a lunch rendezvous with some of our closest friends. We were both in buoyant moods. Jane and I were chuckling together about something. And then, I saw him in my rear-view mirror.

Traffic was heavy. I was in the left lane, cruising a bit above the speed limit. A string of cars cars was proceeding ahead of me at an almost identical speed. I’d left several car lengths between me and the car ahead; I don’t like to tailgate. The guy in my rear-view mirror had no such proclivity. He was speeding along a mere five feet from my rear bumper. I thought to myself, “He’s going to do it.”

And so, he did. He recklessly squeezed himself into the lane to our right, speed up, passed me, and then quickly maneuvered into the space that I had allowed between me and the car ahead. Wow! He was now one car-length closer to his destination. I’m sure that fact made his day.

My blood boiled. My emotional shuttlecock jumped from joy and ease to anger and tension. I flicked my lights several times to show him that I was less than appreciative regarding his maneuver. It took a full 15 minutes for my shuttlecock to return to my calm, happy side. As I write this sentence, I wonder, was that shuttlecock merely waiting for the next negative moment, the next irritating stimulus? Do I act, or do I all too often merely react?

I know, I know. I can hear some of you say, “Don’t fret. It’s natural to move from pleasure to pain, from contentment to frustration, from calm to frenetic.” But is it, really? Is it really natural?

Duke wins big in basketball; I am elated. We lose; the shuttlecock rifles in the other direction. I’m laughing with one of the grandchildren. My feet barely touch the floor. My phone chimes and I see that I have an email message. It’s from Barry—not his real name—the colleague I can barely stomach. Some of these examples are trivial, of course, but you get my point. The shuttlecock rifles back and forth, back and forth. It’s tiring. It’s irritating. It’s unhealthy. And yet, it continues.

Are you at all like me? Is it easy for you to exhibit deep faith in those moments in which the seas are calm, in which the roses bloom, in which we experience the warmth and security of a loving hug or handshake? What happens to our faith when the sky turns dark, when finances are tight, when the world ignores—or disdains—the plight of the helpless, when “the virus” again turns its ugly head toward us? What happens then? Does our faith fade or vanish altogether?

Do you, like me, sense that there is something within us, something that pulls us in different directions, as we react to the good and then, like a shuttlecock, react in equal measure to the bad? Do you sense that something important—perhaps even vital—to our core is broken? Why is it that we, who are formed in God’s image, seem to be so fragmented, so torn between good and evil, between love and disdain, between grace and disgrace?

As we learned as children in Sunday School, our brokenness is the result of humanity’s desire to be God, our failure and refusal to live within limits, our desire to know and experience what had been forbidden to us. Since that fatal first bite, our species has been frustrated, divided against each other, and divided even against our own selves. We’ve become shuttlecocks, bouncing first this way and then that way as we seek to exercise dominion over our lives. But we were never meant to have that sort of dominion.

We know what it means to be broken, shattered, and divided, both externally and internally. And yet, because there remains within us a sufficient vestige of the image of God, we long for wholeness. We long not to be reactive, but rather to be active, always responding to the good and beautiful around us—never defined by the ugly, the evil, the negative that lives as well with us in this world. If there was just something—or perhaps someone—that could make us whole, that could keep us on an even keel.

Well, dear souls, thanks be to God, for there is. St. Paul wrote about just such a person in his first letter to the Corinthian church. This week, as we turn to 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, the epistle reading for this upcoming Sunday, the Second Sunday after the Epiphany (RCL, Year A), we see St. Paul remind the divided church at Corinth that Christ’s presence among them has enriched them in every possible way. With Christ in their midst, they are not lacking in any spiritual gift. In Christ, their formerly broken lives are full and complete; they are no longer fractured. As I read Paul’s words here and throughout the remainder of his letter, he tells the early church—and, therefore, us as well—that we no longer need to be shuttlecocks, tossed to and fro by the circumstances that we face from hour to hour.

Christ beckons us away from fractured lives and into a life with Him. Life with Him isn’t the simple decision that many of us made years ago. It’s a decision that we make each day—to pick up our cross and follow Him, the One who not only leads us, but loves us. The only way we can mold our shuttlecock nature into oneness is to become One with Him.