Wednesday: A Cause of Neurosis: Refusing Responsibility
WEEK 4
WEDNESDAY
A CAUSE OF NEUROSIS: REFUSING RESPONSIBILITY
Daniel 6:10; Acts 4:31
We noted yesterday that a first mastery that came into being with the coming of the Spirit was the mastery of their supreme, immediate problem—Jerusalem. They weren’t looking within at their own supreme happiness, thus not looking at Jerusalem; they weren’t looking down at the dust, symbol of their downcast souls, afraid of Jerusalem; they weren’t looking above Jerusalem to the New Jerusalem, thus escaping the unpleasantness of having to face the Jerusalem of the here and now; rather they were looking at Jerusalem level-eyed and unafraid, knowing they had something Jerusalem did not have and desperately needed. They gave it, and Jerusalem took it—by the thousands.
The mastery of their hardest problem right off is psychologically sound. There are two great schools of psychological thought—led by Freud, who found the basis of neuroses in childhood, and Jung, who said, “I no longer seek the cause of neurosis in the past, but in the present. I ask, ‘What is the necessary task which the patient will not accomplish?’”* In other words, what is the patient running away from and refusing to face? Why is the patient dodging into subterfuges and unreality?
The Christian movement at this juncture could have retreated into Galilee, where people were more favorable, could have retreated into inner mystic states, could even have retreated into the temple “praising God” for such a wonderful fact as the resurrection. It would have ended in spiritual neurosis instead of spiritual nerve. It would have chased around in circles instead of walking straight into its world tasks.
A visitor to a mental hospital saw workmen hauling materials for a new building. Among them was a patient with a wheelbarrow, but turned upside down. When the visitor asked him why he had it upside down, he replied: “Do you think I’m crazy? If I had it turned up, they would fill it.” Had the disciples not accepted the responsibility of facing Jerusalem, they would have been running around in circles instead of joyously and maturely undertaking the assigned task of making a new order on earth. They would have been, as many religious movements are now, spiritual mental asylums instead of a curative and curing movement.
Lord, save me from all halting before responsibility and tasks. Help me to walk up to everything in your name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My wheelbarrow is going to be turned up for God to put into it any responsibility he will.
* C. G. Jung, The Essential Jung: Selected and Introduced by Anthony Storr (Princeton University Press, 1983), 52.