WHEN YOUR CUP IS EMPTY
Mark 5:21-43
There is an old and simple saying that you can not fill a cup that is already full.
When the cups our lives have been so full of ourselves, material desires, quests and ambitions that we think are going to bring us happiness, there isn’t room to allow power from the source of all life to flow into us and to nurture our inner persons.
On the other hand we can quite suddenly experience our cups as empty. That can be when we come up against an event, a situation, or a person that taps all our reserves. We can, after struggling with a certain issue for years, feel completely worn out and “sick and tired of being sick and tired”. Certainly those with addiction problems, if they want to triumph over their illness, need to come to the realization that they have “run out” of the necessary resources within themselves to help themselves. In fact, the first step in Alcoholics Anonymous is to admit that you are powerless over alcohol and your life has become unmanageable. The second step is to come to a belief that a Power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity.
There are many things that we feel powerless over and bring us to the realization that our cup is empty and needs to be filled by a power greater than ourselves. We may have been under stress for so long in our jobs, in our relationships, in trying to meet expectations that others have of us, or that we have of ourselves, that we just feel that we have “run out”. We might be walking around in this life like we are in a dream, just doing what we think we have to do. Or it might be an overall sense of meaninglessness that over comes us and robs us of our sense of well-being:
Henry David Thoreau, the American writer and philosopher wrote in his book Walden (Gibbs Smith, Salt LakeCity, 1981):
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived….I wanted to live deep and suck out the marrow of life….
It was a powerful and wholesome experience for Thoreau that affected the rest of his life.
No matter how we may experience emptiness, it does put us into position to receive a greater power that will advance us toward wholeness.
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It seems to me that in the Gospel today Jairus , a leader in the Synagogue, had reached that point of emptiness over his daughters illness. Jairus seeks from Jesus that his daughter be “made well”.
Similarly the woman whose story is placed in the middle of the story of Jairus and his daughter expressed the same desire. She had a serious haemorrhage and had “suffered many things from many physicians” for twelve years but things only got worse. Woman having these kind of conditions were considered to be “unclean” and were not allowed to have contact with any others in case they made those people “unclean”. She wasn’t able to worship or have contact with the faith community without breaking the ritual laws devised by the religious authorities. She was desperate. She wanted to be “made well”.
I understand that the desire to be “made well” here includes the idea of rescue from impending destruction (annihilation). Another words, their cups were empty.
Their emptiness was a condition favorable for the power of Jesus to enter their lives and move them toward wholeness. In both cases they were physically healed.
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I use the word “wholeness” here on purpose, because I believe that the true desire of us as human beings is for wholeness rather than just “physical healing.” To be whole is much more inclusive. It includes the discovery of who we are, the meaning of life in general and the meaning of our lives in particular, our promise, our potentiality, the power of our lives, and the power of God.
I have discovered people in my ministry that have been healed physically through medical advances and prayer that have not moved toward wholeness. They may be relieved of their illness but they don’t have any more of an understanding about life and God than they had before they were healed. And then I have met people who have not been healed physically, but through their sickness have discovered great spiritual insight into the meaning of their lives.
Physically health and well-being are important and I don’t want to downplay that. We are a unity of spirit, mind and body. We need to seek health in both body and mind. But our spiritual growth is also important and in many ways more important. I am more convinced each day that instead of seeing ourselves as human beings having a spiritual experience, we are actually spiritual beings having a human experience. When we pray for people who are sick, our hope is certainly that they will gain their health in body and mind. Even more than they we hope that they will grow towards wholeness as spiritual beings.
I was emotionally moved in reading a little book Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man and Life’s Greatest Lesson (Doubleday, NY, NY 1997) by Mitch Albom a sportswriter for the Detroit Free Press. Mitch Albom is a former college student of Morrie Schwartz. Morrie develops ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) a brutal , unforgiving illness of the neurological system. Of course he is dying. Every Tuesday his former student visits his dying teacher in his final months to learn another lesson about life from this man who has lived so richly and completely. It is a moving account of a man who’s body is wasting away and yet his spirit is soaring. He didn’t despair. He wanted to talk with others and learn more about life, and share the tremendous wisdom he had gained. They talk of such things as avoiding regrets and self pity, the value of family, importance of forgiveness, the fear of aging, the meaning of death. Each dialogue means so much. Here is snippet of one conversation:
“Mitch you asked me about caring for people I don’t even know. But can I tell you the thing that I’m learning most with this disease?”
“What’s that?”
” The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think that if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, ‘Love is the only rational act.”
He repeated it carefully, pausing for effect. ” ‘Love is the only rational act.’ ”
In nodded like a good student, and he exhaled weakly. I leaned to give him a hug. And then, although it is not really like me , I kissed him on the cheek. I felt his weakened hands on my arms, the thin stubble of whiskers brushing my face. (the slightest human contact was immediate joy to him)
“So you’ll come back next Tuesday?” he whispered.
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You might say that Morrie experienced his cup empty when hearing the news of his disease. He asked, “Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? He was determined to open himself to learning about life and death. By the time of his death his cup was running over spiritually – so much for others to drink from and learn.
The sign of the empty cup in your life maybe be a call to you to open yourselves a power beyond yourself and move toward wholeness. It is time to explore the meaning of life, love, forgiveness, your greatest fears, the nature of the soul and God.
Discover what is real so that when you die you will not have the feeling that you have never lived.
Let us pray:
Jesus, my cup is empty. Fill it with your spirit . Open my life to new learning, new hope, new possibilities, and the power of your love. Amen
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