We Are All Sweaty Messes

James 4:1-10

Ok, let’s talk about the villain in The Help!!  The woman we loathed:  Hilly Holbrook!!  We see that she is controlling, selfish, cruel, more concerned with what people see than what is inside her heart, and covers it all with a covering of spirituality… taking up donations for people far away.  Aren’t we glad we are not like Hilly???  Well, that is what I thought until I truly started looking at myself…Controlling???  Moi???  I like to call it taking care of people but if I really look deep inside, it is because I want things to go my way…always.  Edith Ann, the 70’s little girl in the great big chair said, “I am not bossy…my ideas are just better!”  But there is much more to Hilly than her controlling nature.  Much more…when we see this in us we must begin to ask our selves why we need to have so much control…not only on our situations but on others as well.  Could it be that if she let go, people would see her as she really was? Could it be that she was so doubting of being loved that she wanted to keep others around but used control and fear in doing it?  Could it be she couldn’t trust anyone or anything??  Could it be that she’d rather swim in a sea of denial rather than admit that she needed the other women, too?  Hilly’s problem is one of Pride…and it is the downfall of most of us! Last week we spoke of the woman at the well…I mentioned that there were other women, too…the ones who came in the morning who looked down on her, who lived “above” her and shunned her so as not to “catch” what she had.  I am afraid this is where a great number of us live our lives.  Last week we said that admitting gave freedom…well, denial gives us only bondage and eventually we will discover we never really had control at all; it was an illusion.  

I think one of my favorite lines in the movie, The Help, is when Skeeter’s mother comes onto her front porch to confront a “wet-hen-mad- Hilly “with these words, “Why Hilly, you are just a sweaty mess!!”  The “always in control president of the Junior League" had discovered she was not infallible!! Truth had hit her in the face and her life was falling apart.  She reacted with rage, violence, and threats.  That is what happens when we have built our lives on perception instead of reality!   

Jesus was confronted with lots of Hillys!! People who wanted life to be just the way they wanted it to be…they wanted the honor from the world but wanted to keep their spiritual lives as well. They weren’t the president of the junior league but they were the leaders in the synagogues. We call these people Pharisees. Let’s read what Jesus had to say about them:

Mark 7:1-9. 

They had everything wrapped in a pretty little box and as long as no one came along to disagree with them, they were fine.  They smiled and walked through life with arrogance…swimming in a sea of denial.  But Jesus came along and spoke truth to them…just as He had spoken to the woman at the well.  Instead of being glad someone had finally released them from the ball juggling they had been accustomed, they fought back.  They fought with anger so great that murder and violence was the only thing they could think of to retaliate.  When we don’t want truth and we prefer delusions we find ourselves in a sweaty mess.

I am very familiar with these people for I often refer to myself as a recovering Pharisee.  Being a person like this comes from deep inside…it comes from feeling completely inadequate and empty…to fill that emptiness Pharisees take control…they put burdens on others that they cannot fulfill.  They have all the answers even though they haven’t clearly understood the questions. All that matters is what people perceive…not what is truth.  Women do this through mask wearing!!  I was an expert at putting on the masks…I believed perception was reality until my life fell apart and my masks were cracking all to pieces.  Hilly’s denial led her into a false sense of security and that lead to her downfall and her looking like the sweaty mess she always was.  At the end of the movie…Abilene asked a very important question:  Mrs. Hilly, Aren’t you getting tired??

Maintaining this delusion is tiring.  No, it is exhausting. Jesus asks of us authenticity and that requires admitting the truth and giving up control…control we never really had anyway.  I don’t know how Hilly’s life turned out after the movie but I do know how my life did!! I now know freedom I never knew existed.  I have discovered I can only control me and I freely give that over to the Holy Spirit!!   The masks are thrown far away.  When Jesus said in John 8:31-33:  To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

When we experience this freedom, then we truly can experience the next phase of spiritual life…that Jesus came to give us!

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  Or as the KJV says:

John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

The thief is the same thief that was there in the garden with Eve…wanting to destroy us.  Do Not allow this in your lives…get rid of pride for it is a delusion.  Accept the truth of what Jesus says about you and live this life abundantly!!  Then you will begin to understand your true purpose and meaning in life…which is what we will discuss next week.