From SAD to GLAD

1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13; Jeremiah 8:18-9:1


About coffee break time on Thursday morning this week will be the autumnal equinox when the orbit of the earth results in the sun crossing the equator. Day and night will be equal length for one day. We will be halfway between the first day of summer (15 hours of daylight) and the first day of winter (with 9 hours and 21 minutes of daylight). You have probably noticed that the sun has been rising later each morning and setting earlier in the evening.

At 39̊ 20' N latitude Waverly is neither in the tropics or the arctic zone. Nevertheless we do get depressed feelings when the winter days are short and grey. If we lived above the Arctic Circle, we would notice both the never-ending light of mid-summer and the never-ending night of mid-winter.

Psychologists have defined seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, as a depression from the lack of sunlight and the effect that sunlight has the chemistry of the body.

In Finland, March and April are “birthday months.” It is an amusing fact, that far and away, more babies are born in those two months than during any other time of the year. The reason is that people really enjoy themselves during the long, golden days of high summer, which given Finland’s high northern latitudes, lasts for more than 20 hours every day.

The curious thing is that the lowest birth months are July, August and September. Recreation during the bleak weeks of near total darkness in November and December occurs inside but not in the bedroom. It seems that the Finns are particularly susceptible to SAD. For Americans, the highest concentration of SAD people is not in Alaska but in Seattle. So that’s why so much coffee is brewed there! Add to that the near constant drizzle and we would be SAD too.

There is a reason so many northerners go to Florida and Arizona every winter. And it’s not just arthritis.

An acronym is a word made up of the first letters of several words. Any good acronym can stand for a number of things. Before I came to Waverly, the only thing NCR stood for was National Cash Register Company. I had to forget that quickly. Because I live in several levels of the church, I sometimes have to stop and think where I am in order to flesh out an acronym.

SAD, the acronym for Seasonal Affective Disorder, can have a meaning in church language: Spiritual Affective Disorder. SAD churches display all the classic symptoms associated with individuals struggling with the seasonal disorder. SAD churches are lethargic, slow to react to events either within their faith community or in the world around them. This is layered with an underlying sense of anxiety running through everything these churches try to do.

Like individuals, SAD churches have a notoriously low reproduction rate. Every year the number gathered in their pews grows fewer, grayer, frailer. New members aren’t attracted to a SAD congregation, and current members who haven’t been completely spiritually debilitated often flee in order to keep their flickering flame of faith from being snuffed out by the spiritual vacuum around them. SAD is no longer a mainline church malady. It is effecting evangelical Protestantism and Roman Catholicism as well. Big congregations and urban ones are as prone to SAD as are small or rural congregations.

Just as the cause of Season Affective Disorder is a lack of light in a specific spectrum, so, too, churches that suffer Spiritual Affective Disorder do so because they lack a certain type of light in their lives. That light, of course, is the “Light of the World,” Jesus Christ.

Today’s reading from 1 Timothy celebrates the universality of God’s love and God’s redeeming intentions. That divine urge may be universal, but it can be possible only by one thing: the “one mediator between God and humanity, the human Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a payment to set all people free” (vv. 5-6).

What that means is that the church is called to stand out in a darkened world as a life-saving beacon of light, a blazing torch of hope. The church needs to be lit from within by a single source of power – the redemptive love and spirit of Christ.

Academic theology has fixated its thinking on God, has dissected Christ like a chef mincing vegetables, and has shied away from even thinking about where the Spirit comes in. Much of our theological talk keeps God at arms length through abstract words and concepts. Because Paul’s theology is dense, we miss out on the core of his consistent message, which is “Jesus.” Jesus is our all in all.

An African-American Gen-Xer in Chicago started coming to church because he got excited about somebody named Jesus. He told his pastor, “If it weren’t for Jesus, I wouldn’t be a Christian.” Think about that. Sometimes the obvious is in plain sight and we still miss it. The man said that he had encountered numerous followers of Jesus, but all of them were afflicted with SAD. That might explain the T-shirt which proclaims, “Jesus save us ... from some of your followers.”

Dr. Paul says that we don’t have to SAD Christians or SAD churches. We can be transformed into GLAD Christians and GLAD congregations. What does GLAD stand for? God’s Love Always Delights. God’s Love Always Delights. Say that with me, please. God’s Love Always Delights. Again. God’s Love Always Delights.

Don’t take Paul’s word for it. The psalms give ample opportunity to be delighted by God’s love. Here’s a portion of Psalm 113:

God’s glory is higher than the skies!
Who could possibly compare to the Lord our God?
God rules from on high;
he has to come down to even see heaven and earth!
God lifts up the poor from the dirt
and raises up the needy from the garbage pile
to seat them with leaders —
with the leaders of his own people! (113:4-8)

Paul doesn’t tell us to go the Florida. He gives us a prescription in the opening verse of today’s reading: “First of all, then, I ask that requests, prayers, petitions, and thanksgiving be made for all people.” If we are praying, and if we are giving thanks, there is no way we can suffer from SAD!

• Feeling overwhelmed by your problems? Pray for someone else whose burdens are equal to or greater than your own.
• Feeling resentment toward an individual? Give thanks to God for that person, asking God to let him or her be an instrument of growth in your life.
• Feeling alone and in the dark, uncertain where to go next? Pray, asking God to shed the light of divine wisdom in your soul.
• Feeling critical of others? Thank God for the objects of your criticism, and ask God to make them a blessing wherever they go.
• Feeling bitterness toward others who have succeeded where you have failed? Pray for their continued success.
• Feeling impatient with the pace of your spiritual growth? Thank God for your progress so far.
• Feeling unforgiving toward others? 

There’s the rub, isn’t it? How can we be GLAD Christians, praying and thanking God, unless we have an attitude of forgiveness? Not just toward others, but towards ourselves. And towards God. Doctors have shown that being unwilling to forgive or being unwilling to be forgiven is more detrimental to health than many physical ailments.

The inability to be forgiven or to forgive someone is like a room darkening shade that prevents the light of Christ from penetrating our lives. If we can roll that shade all the way up we can bathe in the delighting which God’s love always brings. That sounds easy, but we all know how contrary window shades can be. They sometimes need to be nudged and coddled, and dealt with carefully. They can’t be forced. Forgiveness can’t be forced. It must be genuine. But the more there is, the GLADer you can be.

Remember: God’s Love Always Delights. Say it with me again. God’s Love Always Delights.



General Resource:
Homiletics, September 20, 1998.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.

Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.