THE JONAH COMPLEX

    The Convenience of Playing Small

THE SIN OF WHAT WE HAVE FAILED TO DO

The word of the Lord came to Jonah: Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; for their wickedness has come before me. But Jonah made ready to flee to Tarshish, away from the Lord. He found a ship, paid the fare, and went away from the Lord.

Jonah 1:1-3

In the first pages of the Bible, we are told that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. This mystery both triggers fear and fascination causing us to attempt to be more than we are or less than we are, but not fully who we are. As Abraham Maslow said, “We both crave and fear becoming truly ourselves.”

This is a very old problem. It goes all the way back to the story of Adam and Eve. According to that story, at the end of creation God, humans and the animals lived in harmony. They were interconnected and interdependent. As a colorful Baptist preacher said at one of my graduations, “In the beginning, God was happy being God. The animals were happy being animals. Human beings, however, have never been happy being human beings. They've wanted to be God one day and animals the next!” Because we are created in the image and likeness of God, we all have the chance to become our very best selves. We all feel something inside, a quiet “maybe” that is often silenced as quickly as it surfaces. We enjoy and even thrill before the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves and simultaneously shiver with fear before these very same possibilities. As a result, the overwhelming majority of people fail to achieve a life even close to what they are capable of achieving.  In face of their godlike possibilities, they let their fear of possibilities overpower their thrill of possibilities. Afraid of being different, afraid of being uncomfortable and unsafe, afraid of failure and ridicule, they give into their innate tendency towards mediocrity and conformity, even to the point of sabotaging their dreams for the sake of comfort and safety. However, if they deliberately settle on being less than they are capable of being, they will be deeply unhappy for the rest of their lives.

“We both crave and fear becoming truly ourselves.” I read recently that obesity is growing in our culture, but narcissism is grower even faster.

Narcissism is the term used to describe excessive vanity and self-centeredness. The condition was named after a mythological Greek youth named Narcissus who became infatuated with his own reflection in a lake. He did not realize at first that it was his own reflection, but when he did, he died out of grief for having fallen in love with himself. 

Narcissistic personalities are characterized by unwarranted feelings of self-importance. They expect to be recognized as superior and special, without necessarily demonstrating superior accomplishments. They exhibit a sense of entitlement, demonstrate grandiosity in their beliefs and behaviors and display a strong need for admiration which might explain a rise in bullying among the young.  

Some believe that our culture’s present narcissism epidemic, the fixation on indulging and exalting oneself, can be traced to the heyday of the self-esteem movement that baby boomer parents, teachers and media gurus promoted several years ago. Rather than stoking healthy self-confidence, as was their intent, such messages may be responsible for a decline in the work ethic and a growth in feelings of entitlement and inflated egos.

When narcissistic people talk about church attendance, they usually say things like “I don’t go because I don’t get anything out of it!” “I, I, I!” When they say things like that, they put themselves in the center of the picture. It’s all about them! Church attendance is really about giving, not getting. We go to Church to give God worship and praise! We go to learn to give and serve others!  

When narcissistic people talk about marriage, they talk about what it will do for them. They are like that woman in an old Guinness Book of Records with the most marriages. When she was asked about it, she said, “All I ever wanted was someone to love me!” No wonder she failed at it so many times. People who marry successfully get married to be love-givers, not love-getters! As Jesus said, “It is in giving that one receives!” Receiving is not a goal, but a by-product, of the marriage or ordination commitment. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “There are two sacraments directed toward the salvation of others: Holy Orders and Matrimony. Just as priests are not ordained for their own benefit, but for the benefit of those they serve, married people marry for the benefit of their spouses and their children.”

When narcissistic diocesan priests talk, they tend to focus on what the Church owes them, focus on the imagined privileges other priests have that they don’t have and even act out to stand out. They demand to be treated as special, even without demonstrating any special qualities.   

When narcissistic young people talk about what to do with their lives, they usually ask themselves “what do I want to do or what do I want to be” that will make me happy? The real question is not what do we want to do, but what is God calling us to do and be” that will lead us to happiness?  Jesus was right, “Those who seek to save their lives will lose them, while those who seek to give their lives away, will save them.”  Albert Schweitzer was right when he said, and narcissistic people will never get it, “The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found out how to serve.”

Pope Francis talks a lot about a “self-referential church,” in other words a narcissistic church. He says that when the Church does not look beyond itself, when it is always focused on itself, it gets sick. The Church is the moon and Christ is the sun. The Church exists to reflect the light of Christ to the world, not to live within herself, of herself and for herself. 

The other extreme to narcissism is self-deprecation or the minimization and devaluation of oneself. Humility is about accepting the truth about who we are, without exaggerating it or minimizing it. “Humility” comes from the Latin “humus,” meaning “earth.” “Humility” means “grounded.” A truly “humble” person, truly in touch with his strengths and weaknesses, neither inflates his worth nor devalues it. Humility is ultimately about truth.

It is this truth that Jesus spent his ministry trying to teach. He taught it to the religious leaders of his day who were so arrogant and self-inflated that they started out talking about God and ended up thinking they were gods. He taught it to the marginalized of his day who were so beaten down that they did not recognize their own goodness and the image of God within themselves.  All this is summarized so well in the Magnificat when Mary talked about the “mighty being pulled from their thrones and the lowly being lifted up from their dunghills.”

God has entrusted gifts to us to be used! When we do not use our gifts, even deny we have them, we neither serve God nor the people we are called to serve. Jesus told us that we are the light of the world, our light is not to be hidden, but shared with the world.  When they are shared, the credit is not to be absorbed by us as if we were the source of that light, but that credit is to be reflected back to God. Seeing our light, people are to give God the glory and praise.         

This is why I love that little sawed-off guy in the gospels, named Zacchaeus! He wanted to get a glimpse of Jesus coming down the road, but he was too short to see above the crowd! He could have said, "Oh, well, maybe next time," but he didn't. He found an alternative. We are told that he "ran ahead" and "climbed a sycamore tree"  alongside the road where Jesus would be passing by.  Because of his ingenuity and determination, Zacchaeus not only got to see Jesus,  but because Jesus was able to see Zacchaeus in the tree and because Jesus admired his determination, Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus' house for dinner!

”Nothing stings like the realization of a missed opportunity, but what stings even more is the realization of a refused calling. In that arena, the prophet Jonah is a patron saint.

Jonah was called to preach to the people of Ninevah.  He considered himself a poor preacher on one hand and the Ninevites not worth saving on the other. To get away from his unwelcomed call, he went down to the docks and bought a ticket on the next ship sailing in the opposite direction from Ninevah. He thought he could outrun God!

In his version of a get-away-car, Jonah is pictured going to sleep in the bottom of his boat while a storm raged, a symbol today of “denial.” The psychologist Abraham Maslow calls such spiritual and emotional truancy the Jonah Complex: “The evasion of one’s own growth, the setting of low levels of aspiration, the fear of doing what one is capable of doing, voluntary self-crippling, pseudo-stupidity, mock humility.”

We are afraid of failure and success. A calling makes us wonder if we are good enough, smart enough, disciplined enough, educated enough, patient enough, and inspired enough. We manage our fear by “going to sleep,” “settling for too little” and “self-sabotage.”

The truth is this: all of us have answered “yes” in some areas and “no” in others. We both crave and fear becoming who we are called to be!

There is also the underlying fear of being seen by others as self-centered, arrogant, and living a life’s that extraordinary and hence unacceptable. Here we reserve a special kind of ridicule and resentment against those who are more successful or talented than the majority. We often punish our best talent and coddle mediocrity. There is a lot of pressure to conform, as mediocrity is granted more acceptance while giftedness often means being differentiated to the point of isolation, and standing out can mean getting shot down more easily because the target is clearer that way. It is understandable why many people would prefer succumbing to a simple life meeting their basic needs, and actually being rewarded by the institution for it, instead of battling it out in the bloody road towards self-actualization.

Thomas Merton was right, “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.” Sometimes,  under mock humility, we set low aims for ourselves and call it virtue. The possibility of becoming remarkable shoots a thunderbolt of fear into many unremarkable people.  As the Confiteor says, maybe our biggest sin is not what we do, but what we fail to do! Michelangelo put it this way. “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” 

 

CAN'T SEE OR WON'T SEE?

 

If you were blind, that would not be a sin. But

since you say you can see, when you are actually

blind, you remain in your sin.

John 9:41

So far, we have been to the desert, the mountain and the well. Today, Jesus invites us to admit that we either can’t see or won’t see and invites us to go to the eye-doctor to have our eyes “checked.”

Tyler Perry is a successful African-American playwright, actor and screenwriter. Perry attributes his success to what he calls “spiritual progress,” especially the “spiritual progress” that resulted in making peace with his own father. One of his profound insights was around learning that “parents do what they know how.” He finally realized that he could not change his history with his father, but he could change the way he wanted to remember it! “My life changed,” he said, “once things changed in me!”

I, too, had to learn how resentment can keep you stuck and how you can free yourself by going to an “eye doctor” and have your eyes opened. The ability to see in a new way is like being let out of prison, having your chains cut and throwing off a heavy load of stinking garbage. Like Tyler Perry, it was only when I chose to “see my past in a new way” that I was no longer a victim of it.

We cannot do anything about our pasts, but we can choose whether we want to be victims of it. Once I began to understand that my own father “did what he knew how,” I was able to move from anger to compassion. I constantly thank God that I was able to bury all that resentment, even before I buried him!

“Seeing in a new way” is exactly the conclusion Jesus came to in his search for clarity during his forty days in the desert. Coming out of the desert, he began to preach “conversion.” That conversion is summed up in the Greek word “metanoia.” “Metanoiete” means “you, change the way you see!” Change the way you look at things and heaven will open up to you. Once things change in you, things around you will look very different.” The devil tried to get Jesus to change things. Jesus resisted that temptation. Instead, Jesus called for an internal change within people, believing that if people would change inside, things outside them would also change. A new life begins with having your eyes opened!

Today we have a wonderful story about a bunch of blind people: one who can’t see and others who won’t see. All of them need Jesus in order to be able to “see.” In this wonderful story, Jesus uses the occasion of healing physical blindness to tell us something about the healing of spiritual blindness.

The man born blind, not only regains his physical sight, but step-by-step he begins to see Jesus in a new way. At first, he says he tells people he doesn’t know who this Jesus is who healed him. As the story unfolds, he calls Jesus a “prophet” and finally “Lord.” 

The Pharisees and his parents can see physically, but they are spiritually blind and refuse “to see in a new way.” The Pharisees are blinded by their own rigid religious structures. They can’t see the beauty of this great healing, a blind man getting his sight. All they can see is that this healing took place on the Sabbath day and healing was illegal on the Sabbath. The parents are blinded by their fear of being ostracized by neighbors, friends and organized religion if they admitted to this healing. They conveniently choose not to know and not to see. “Ask him,” they say, “he is old enough to speak for himself.” Both Pharisees and parents are afraid of “seeing in a new way” because it would mean their cozy little routines would be disrupted. It was convenient for them not to see and so remain stuck in their chosen blindness.

I am amazed when I talk to “stuck” people. I believe that most people who are stuck are basically people who are blinded by “the way they see,” by their inability to “see in a new way.” They whine and cry and wait to be rescued, but they cannot change their minds and look at their situations from a new angle. They can’t “let go” of their old way of thinking and seeing, and so remain stuck in their blindness. They are like the monkeys I read about several years ago. To catch these monkeys for the zoo, people would cut a hole in a tree, just small enough for a monkey to put its his hand into. Then they fill it with peanuts. When the monkey sticks his hand into the hole and grabs the peanuts, he cannot pull his hand back out. Instead of letting go of the peanuts, they howl and cry till someone comes and hauls them off to the zoo. All they had to do was to let go of their grip on the peanuts. People are a lot like that! They cannot let go of the way they see things and so remain trapped, whining and crying all the while.

Some people simply cannot “let go” of the way they see things. They clutch at beliefs like: life ought to be fair, parents ought to be perfect, spouses should not let each other down, the church ought to be perfect, things ought to make sense and people ought to respect you, love you and meet your needs. And, of course, when life isn’t fair, when parents and churches aren’t perfect, when spouses let them down, when things don’t make sense and when people do not meet their needs, they fall apart and remain stuck in their belief that if they just don’t like it enough, it will go away. All they would have to do to free themselves is to “let go” of their old beliefs and “see things in a new way.”

Jesus was right, “If you were physically blind, there is no sin in that, but when you choose to be blind, your sin remains, you keep your own suffering going.” Tyler Perry is right, too, when he says, “My life changed once things changed in me.” As one of my favorite old saying goes, "It's easier to put on slippers than it is to carpet the world!" It's easier to change ourselves than it is to change everybody else! 

What about you? What situations do you need to “look at” in a new way? What people do you need to “look at” in a new way? Is the way you have been “looking at” these situations and people still causing you pain? Maybe it's an old relationship that didn't work out, someone who did something to hurt you in the past, a business partner who stole from you, a relative who cheated you, a change in the church you didn't like or a child or sibling who disappointed you! If so, ask God for healing! Ask God for a new set of eyes! Once things change in you, life around you will change for the better for you! Sometimes, all you have to do is to "let go" of those "peanuts" you are holding onto by "choosing to change the way you look at the grip you have on them!"