The Snap - Back

The Reverend Gideon L. K. Pollach, Sunday, June 29, 2025

July. Day whatever of summer vacation. Vacation had just begun, but the boredom of an idle mind was everywhere present. The cereal bowls lay crusted in the sink, cartoon reruns droned from the living room, and my older brother Sam and I wandered the house like caged animals looking for something—anything—to do.

Summer places invite a different kind of childhood - less supervised, more inventive, more dangerous. This was true of ours in West Harwich. Dangerous things lay in reach. Bored children looked for trouble.

The kitchen drawer. Usually off-limits. But my mother was nowhere to be seen. So, I slid the dangerous drawer open. There it was: a tangle of rubber bands wound into a perfect sphere. I pulled one free. Stretched it. Further. The resistance built in my fingers until—SNAP!—it rocketed into my palm, leaving a red welt that throbbed and burned.

I stared at the mark, then at the remaining rubber bands as one thought crystallized with perfect clarity: "I have to do this to Sam." My older brother would have done the rubber band trick to me if I didn't get him first. There's something deeply satisfying about that snap—the sudden release of tension, the immediate gratification of letting go. Rubber bands taught me their cruel lesson: stretch all you want, but release the pressure and they snap right back.

Summer vacation brings us back to that childhood sense of freedom—but also to childhood's immediate gratifications. It's the season when Sarah wants us to be vegan for a season. I want to eat ice cream for breakfast. Vacation reveals our rubber band souls—stretched between aspiration and indulgence.

Many of us spend our whole lives trying to become gentle and generous people. We stretch ourselves toward patience, toward kindness, toward love. But violence—physical, emotional, or spiritual—is like that rubber band. It snaps us right back to our basest instincts, undoing years of careful spiritual growth in a single moment.

Jesus knew this feeling too. Jesus and his disciples have just been rejected by a Samaritan village - refused hospitality, turned away at the door. It's the kind of rejection that makes your face burn with embarrassment and anger. When God became human, God chose to live with a rubber band soul, too. Christ experienced the same tension we feel—stretched between aspiration and the snap-back to our basest instincts. The Incarnation means God knows from the inside what it feels like when someone cuts you off in traffic, when family dynamics get tense, when rejection burns your face with embarrassment.

And that's exactly how James and John respond from a vestigial instinct. Their immediate response? 'Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?'" Who else would encourage fire from heaven but the two disciples Jesus nicknamed the Sons of Thunder? Most likely among the disciples to discipline others. Most likely to fail the rubber band test. Most like us.

The precedent was there—Sodom and Gomorrah, Elijah calling down fire. But Jesus turns and rebukes them, choosing the harder path: redirect, don't retaliate. Move to another village."

We see this same rubber band dynamic on the world stage. This weekend, President Trump ordered bunker-buster bombs dropped on Iranian nuclear sites. The precedents were there—justified security concerns, the satisfying snap of decisive response. The strikes may indeed make us safer in the short run.

But Jesus shows us there's still a choice: stretch toward the harder path of diplomacy, or snap back to military force. What saves us today traps us tomorrow. Today's solution becomes tomorrow's compulsion. As Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene warned: 'Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war. Peace is the answer.'"

Peace making isn't passive acceptance—it's active non-violence requiring tremendous spiritual strength. Jesus shows us that the way of love means refusing to let others' hostility snap us back to our worst selves. But this way comes with a cost. The three encounters that follow in Luke's Gospel make this clear. To the first eager volunteer, Jesus says, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." Following the way of love means accepting vulnerability, choosing homelessness over the security that comes from dominating others.

To the second, Jesus says, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." To the third: "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

The message is clear: if we're going to live stretched toward love rather than snapped back toward violence, we can't keep one foot in each world. We can't plow the field of peace while constantly looking back at the easier path of retaliation. Paul understood this tension. In his letter to the Galatians, he writes about the ongoing struggle between flesh and Spirit. "For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh." We feel this opposition every day—the rubber band tension between our aspirational selves and our reflexive selves.

So how do we stay stretched? How do we avoid that snap-back to violence when life gets difficult? Let me suggest three practices, particularly relevant as we enter this season of summer freedom:

First, **morning intention**. Each day, before the rubber band moments arrive, we set our intention: "How can I stretch toward gentleness today?" Paul's fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity—doesn't happen accidentally. We don't accidentally become patient any more than we accidentally grow tomatoes. It requires daily, intentional cultivation.

Summer offers us a unique opportunity for this spiritual work. Without the usual pressures of the school year or work routines, we actually have time for the slow cultivation that spiritual growth requires. We can practice that morning intention when we're not rushing out the door. We can sit with the redirect question when family dynamics get tense during long vacation days together.

Second, **the redirect question**. When we feel that rubber band tension building—when someone cuts us off in traffic, when our teenager rolls their eyes, when the political news makes our blood boil—instead of asking "How can I win this?" or "How can I make them pay?" we ask: "How can I stay true to who I want to be in this moment?" Jesus modeled this perfectly. James and John were asking, "How can we show these Samaritans who's boss?" Jesus redirected: "How do we stay true to our mission of love?" Our question in crisis determines our character.

Third, **the long view**. We must remember that spiritual growth isn't linear. We will have snap-back moments, and that's part of the human condition, not a moral failure. The psalmist in today's reading acknowledges the dark times: "I refused to be comforted." But then chooses to remember: "I will remember the works of the Lord, and call to mind your wonders of old time."

The psalmist reminds us that God's way "was in the sea, and your paths in the great waters, yet your footsteps were not seen." Often we can't see where this path of non-violence is leading. It requires faith to believe that choosing gentleness over domination, vulnerability over invulnerability, actually accomplishes anything.

But here's what we know from the long arc of history: every cruel kingdom crumbles. Violent victories vacate virtue. Not to greater violence, but to the patient, persistent power of love. The Roman Empire that crucified Jesus? Gone. The systems of slavery and segregation? Overcome by those who chose to stretch rather than snap back.

This summer, as we face our own rubber band moments—whether in family dynamics, community conflicts, or our response to global troubles—may we remember we have a choice. We can let the satisfying snap pull us back to our worst selves, or stay stretched toward the difficult, transformative way of love. Summer offers us time to reset our exhaustion and lean into the slow work of growing toward our aspirational selves.

Late nights for reflection, not just ice cream. Dawn rising with intention, not just indulgence.

The way of love still requires us to put our hand to the plow without looking back. But this is the way that leads to life—not just for ourselves, but for the world God loves so deeply. May we choose the stretch, trust the process, and discover that staying stretched toward love is the only way our souls can truly grow. Amen.