Text: John 12:1-8. GUC 3 April 2022 Lent 5
Introduction
The gospel portrays an intimate incident in the house of Lazarus. We are reminded that Jesus raised
Lazarus from the dead and he is at the table. Jesus is surrounded by his friends including Martha and Mary. Martha has prepared the meal, and her mention was brief: “Martha served” (12:2). Mary was at the feet of Jesus, “Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus feet and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” (12:3) There was some dispute among the disciples and Judas Iscariot suggested that the perfume was wasted on Jesus, “Why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii and the money given to the poor?” (12:5). Apparently, Judas was more interested in stealing funds from the common purpose.
Today I would like to think with you about how we connect with God. In the gospel account, I would suggest we see four different ways of relating to Jesus. This will be highlighted by attachment theory, which has been influential in education, counselling and childhood development. It has also been applied to our spiritual life. Now, for some necessary groundwork.
- Into the playground
First, I want you to recall when your children were toddlers (or think about any grandchildren). Or friends or relatives with young children. Now we will go in your imagination to a playground in a park with a number of mothers and fathers with young children.
A Style You see Amanda with her young Annie who is happy playing by herself. She swings but does not seek her mother’s help even to push her. Annie is not usually interested in physical activities and is keen to return and look at a new picture book she got today. This child is comfortable being alone. She uses her own resources to meet her personal needs. Her basic assumption might be: “Better to rely on yourself than to trust anyone.” Annie has an avoidant attachment to her mother – she tends to do things happily on her own.
B Style Barbara has brought little Brian to the park to play. He happily interacts with other children, being prepared to try new things in his play but he keeps his eye on his mother. He will happily go off and explore the territory around the play area. This child has enough relational stability to either depend on others or to be autonomous. His parent is used as a “safe base” to explore the environment. Brian has healthy or secure attachment.
C Style Charlie brings little Cindy to the park. She is hesitant to play with the other children, looking at them somewhat anxiously and clinging to her dad. Cindy has a strong need to attach to others since there is little confidence in her ability to emotionally self-regulate. Her core beliefs are conflicted, “You have to take care that people like you, but you can never fully trust them!” Cindy is an example of anxious attachment.
D Style David brings Danielle to the park. He is looking after her while her mother attends a drug recovery program. She is not attached to him and presents as somewhat chaotic, anxious and guarded one moment, then risk taking with an apparent disregard for her safety. This is a confused style of attachment with little internal consistency. Her mood and behavior may shift in unpredictable ways. She has a mixed style of attachment.
Can you recognize your children? Grandchildren? Let me share a story told to me of my childhood. My mother would put me in a playpen and give me a stack of books and I would happily read them for hours at a time. 60-odd years later I still read lots of books but the playpen for the last decade was a university! Can you guess my style of attachment?
The good news is that secure attachment is the most common. Attachment patterns are remarkably stable over a lifetime and influence how we relate to intimate partners and family. If you are unsure about your attachment style – just ask your spouse or a family member.
| A | Avoidant | Self-contained and distant | Martha |
| B | Secure (healthy) | Connected, balanced and can explore | Lazarus |
| C | Anxious | Clinging and needy | Mary |
| D | Mixed | Chaotic and unpredictable | Judas? |
- Spiritual Implications
We can think about our willingness to have a relationship to God in terms of attachment styles.
A style is avoidant. An intimate relationship has little appeal, “Let me get on with my life.” Usually this will define a relationship with a spouse or close family. There is a need for personal space. This attachment style will tend to restrict a relationship with God. It is possible that Martha had this style of attachment since she was overly focused on serving rather than being with. Another way the avoidant attachment style can be expressed is intellectual. C. S. Lewis in his autobiography Surprised by Joy described an intellectual journey to faith which resulted in a ‘reluctant’ conversion. He lived a life surrounded by books but had an extensive correspondence with countless people.
B style is healthy. The spiritual relationship can be either intellectual or emotional or both. There is the confidence of a relational stability which can extend to God. I am being speculative but I think Lazarus might have had healthy attachment to Jesus. He offered hospitality and remained at the table. It appears to have been a comfortable companionship, made even more secure by his experience of being brought back from death. I think Billy Graham is an example of healthy attachment to God. When I was a graduate student I did a Rorschach Inkblot workshop in New York city led by John Exner. He completed a research project in which he asked famous people their responses to the blots. Billy Graham was one of the people in the study and Exner commented on how healthy his responses were. Billy Graham became a Christian by responding to an altar call in 1934. Whatever you think of Billy Graham’s theology he lived a long and faithful life in service to God and remarkably free from any scandal. It is one of the few ‘celebrity’ evangelists to have done so. I should add that people with a healthy attachment to God do not necessarily have a dramatic religious conversion but can grow up in a happy home with a natural exposure to religious faith.
C style is ambivalent. This individual is emotionally driven. Sometimes they embrace a new idea, but it may not last. There is always mistrust based on previous experiences of being let down. The attachment need is for a God who will be there in times of desperation to comfort and protect. I have suggested that Mary might have had an anxious attachment to Jesus. She was extravagant in expressing her love for Jesus and remained at his feet. While she has been the subject of countless sermons, commending her devotion and contrasting Martha, I believe that both relationships are anxious but in different ways. Martin Luther King Jr might be an example of an anxious attachment. He advocated being “creatively maladjusted”. He had periods of depression and twice attempted suicide. While he was a great advocate for social justice, he was somewhat inconsistent in his personal relationships.
D style is mixed (disorganized). This confused style of attachment plays out in the spiritual realm as well. There is no consistency in relationships including a stable relationship with God. The person’s inner spiritual world is chaotic. Perhaps the best hope is with an anchoring relationship with God. I think that Judas might have had this attachment style. Something drew him to Jesus and he responded to the call for discipleship at some level. But his motives were mixed and in the end he betrayed his master. John Newton wrote the hymn Amazing Grace. His early life was characterized by trauma and chaotic relationships. He prospered financially as a captain of slave ships, but was later ordained. After becoming a Christian Newton was slow to abandon the slave trade, and think about the implications of such reluctance, but eventually he became an abolitionist.
If you’re interested in exploring this further, you might have a look at the book by Tim Clinton and Joshua Straub. God attachment: Why you believe, act and feel the way you do about God. New York: Howard Books, 2010.
Reflect: do you find the attachment category is helpful? Can you recognize any of your children? Can you see any links to your spiritual life?
- Spiritual Implications
What do we do about this? How might attachment theory apply to our spiritual relationship with God? I think the first, and most important, step is to accept how we most naturally relate to people and of course this has implications for our relationship with God. Let’s think about this in terms of the four attachment styles:
(a) A Style or avoidant. This is, of course, close to home for me. I can simply accept that I don’t have a deeply intimate relationship with Jesus or ultimately God. I can recognize when others have far closer relationship which may be fed by comfortable periods of prayer. Contemplation is not my natural style, so there is no point beating myself up. I accept that I am a Martha and will happily serve God in the best way I can. If this is your style of attachment, stretch yourself to relate more to people, especially in Christian fellowship and service. For the last 8 years I attended a weekly Holy Communion service at the Australian Centre for Christian and Culture. It is an intimate encounter with the few who came and of course God.
(b) B Style or secure. If this is your style, give thanks to God. You are blessed to be able to feel secure in your relationship with God. This also has wonderful benefits such being able to explore different ways of thinking and acting, and since you are secure you can be either happily progressive or conservative and not demand that others think the way you think. You also have the freedom to explore the best way to relate to God, what spiritual disciplines are useful to you and how best to deepen your walk with God.
(c) C Style or anxious. If you identify with this style, you can be grateful that your spiritual life will never be dull. Nor will your relationships be tranquil and predictable. You can accept that you will alternate between hot and cold, close and distant, content and discontent. If you can accept this, then you can plan to have regular disciplines and possibly to stick to them when you are able. Think about what would benefit you the most and then try and institute a regular schedule. This will be both difficult and very rewarding. You can remember the saying of Angelus Silesius “The longest way to God, the indirect, lies through the intellect. The shortest way lies through the heart. Here is the journey’s end and here its start.”
(d) D Style or mixed. Thankfully this is a very rare style of attachment and usually the result of a chaotic and neglected childhood. If you recognize this as your attachment style and my recommendation would be similar to that in the anxious style, but recognize that it will be even more difficult to find a stable pattern of spiritual nurture and growth.
We can be reassured that John later recorded in his gospel, “now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” (John 11:5). My final point from a perspective of attachment is that the Jesus loves each of us regardless of our way of our style of attachment and spiritual practices.
Professor Bruce A. Stevens (PhD Boston University, 1987) was the Wicking Chair of Ageing and Practical Theology at Charles Sturt University (2015-2019), Canberra, Australia. He is a supply minister at GUC. He is an endorsed clinical psychologist who has written 12 books, most recently The Storied Self (Fortress Academic, 2018) and Before Belief (Lexington, 2020).
To Read Further
Tim Clinton and Joshua Straub, God Attachment: Why you Believe, Act and Feel the Way you do about God (New York: Howard Books, 2010). Easy to read and relevant.
Pehr Granqvist, Mario Mikulincer, Vered Gewirtz, and Phillip R. Shaver, “Experimental Findings on God as an Attachment Figure: Normative Processes and Moderating Effects of Internal Working Models,” Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 103, no. 5 (2012): 804-18. An introduction to the research.