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This
evening’s reading is from Paul’s letter to the
Philippians. Paul is in prison in Rome. He is writing a letter
of encouragement as he nears the end of his life. This letter
is often called Paul’s “Epistle (letter) of Joy.”
Eventually he will take another missionary journey before the
end. He will be imprisoned again. But he greets his friends in
Philippi in a reflective mood as he thinks of what may lie
ahead.
Everything
happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more
accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They
didn’t shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I’m
Christ’s messenger; dead, I’m his bounty. Life versus even
more life! I can’t lose.
As long as
I’m alive in this body, there is good work for me to do. If
I had to choose right now, I hardly know which I’d choose.
Hard choice! The desire to break camp here and be with Christ
is powerful. Some days I can think of nothing better. But most
days, because of what you are going through, I am sure that
it’s better for me to stick it out here. So I plan to be
around awhile, companion to you as your growth and joy in this
life of trusting God continues. You can start looking forward
to a great reunion when I come visit you again. We’ll be
praising Christ, enjoying each other.
Meanwhile,
live in such a way that you are a credit to the Message of
Christ. Let nothing in your conduct hang on whether I come or
not. Your conduct must be the same whether I show up to see
things for myself or hear of it from a distance. Stand united,
singular in vision, contending for people’s trust in the
Message, the good news, not flinching or dodging in the
slightest before the opposition. Your courage and unity will
show them what they’re up against: defeat for them, victory
for you—and both because of God. There’s far more to this
life than trusting in Christ. There’s also suffering for
him. And the suffering is as much a gift as the trusting.
(The
Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language by Eugene
Peterson)
*
* * * *
This
week I received a flyer from Edward Jones, the investment
firm. It was an invitation to entrust our family’s assets
with them. It was the usual financial advertisement with
suggestions that our future could be secure, our goals would
be understood, and our dreams would be realized. It sounded
wonderful. It always does. But there was a part of me that
asked: “Isn’t there more? Is simply accumulating what
I’m really living for?”
Sociologists noted, some twenty years ago,
that if a person is not an idealist at the age of 20,
believing that:
-
everything
is possible,
-
mountains
can be moved,
-
good
always triumphs over evil,
-
cutting
trees and drilling for oil can be stopped,
-
the
slaughtering of animals can be curtailed,
-
and
nuclear arms can be eliminated….
if at this age they don’t have passion,
then there is something terribly wrong.
In
the same way, if by around age 40 that idealism has not been
tempered by the reality that:
-
yes,
all things are possible, but not all at once,
-
yes,
mountains can be moved, but one shovel at a time,
-
change
requires much patience and work,
-
and
good—no matter how good—is oftentimes overshadowed by
evil….
then somewhere they haven’t experienced
reality.
That’s
the way life seems to wear on us. Being, myself, somewhere
between these two milestones, I can appreciate the transition.
We have great dreams, option after option is open to us, and
then piece by piece the dream begins to fade. We have all
experienced it. Maybe you wanted to be a major league ball
player. Maybe you wanted to join the Peace Corps. Maybe you
had the urge to march with Dr. King, Nelson Mandela, or hold a
candle standing beside an Islamic stranger just as horrified
as you on September 11th. Yet something unseen, unspoken, kept
us from moving. All the reasons why it was not
“reason-able” held us in place. Each of us has experienced
it, and yet it’s our silent regret.
Hearing
these words from Paul, I’m reminded that following Christ
oftentimes will lead us into situations that any reasonable
person would question, situations that many would call
“suffering.” But, I’m not sure God calls us so much to
be reasonable, as to be faithful. For it is there that we move
beyond success and discover our significance—Kingdom
Significance. It is in faithfulness that we engage what is
really happening, and offer an alternative to the resignation,
“It is just the way things are.”
Paul
is sitting in prison, fully aware of his limitations, yet
continuing to invest, on behalf of Christ, in the people and
world around him. Make no mistake. It’s not easy. He’s not
comfortable. But as he contemplates life, he’s seeing
something that rarely do we take time to notice.
I think of
Paul and from where he came. He was the most zealous of the
zealots. He wanted to end this talk of Jesus once and for all.
He didn’t just curse the Christians as he ran into them, but
he hunted down the followers of Christ. And he had great
success. His name was spread far and wide.
Today,
success means many different things to different people and
maybe many of us feel like we’ve yet to experience true
success. But if we look around our places of work, our places
of rest, our places of recreation, I suspect we see many more
around us who are experiencing success than who have
questioned their significance.
This
isn’t to say that success is somehow not proper for those
who follow Christ. John Wesley, the father of Methodism
himself, instructed the early Methodists to strive and
achieve, saying: “Make
all you can, save all you can.”
Many
Methodists rose from the early lower classes to become persons
of affluence and wealth. Success is about building and
acquiring, setting our sights, staking our claim. Paul knew
success. He was on his way. In Acts, we’re told he held the
coats for the big guys while they stoned Christ’s follower,
Stephen. He was there and—if things went well, dare he think
it?—someday he might be in the temple itself.
Success is
about big dreams and reaching for them. Who hasn’t wondered
how to get ahead? I couldn’t sleep the other evening, so I
went down to watch a little television. Program after program
was about how to get rich in our spare time. While I’m not
sure that we have all that much spare time or that any of
those come-ons would truly make one rich, it was a reminder
that success is on the minds of a lot of people. How do we get
the position? How do we finance the house? How do we provide
the education? How do we ride the dream?
It takes
hard work and sacrifice to reach success today. There’s no
doubt about it. But what I’m speaking to—because I think
Paul is speaking to it—is that once we’ve gotten there, we
find the sparkle begins to change. When we take the time to
look around, when we begin to experience God and feel his
presence in our lives, we are changed. As we recognize his
blessings, he tends to shift our paradigms and broaden our
horizons. It might happen in a flash or over the course of
years. The question is: How is He going to get our attention?
It was
about ten years ago. Josh had made it; he was a successful
executive with his nameplate on the door. Late in the evening,
he was heading home from the office. He knew he was going too
fast through the dark neighborhoods, but he was late. He
watched for kids, and slowed down when he thought he saw
something coming. As his new Jag XKE passed a corner, it
wasn’t a child, but a brick that came towards him and
smashed into the car’s door.
Josh
slammed on the breaks, and ground the gears into reverse. The
car roared back to where the brick had been thrown. Jumping
out of the car, he grabbed the kid and threw him up against a
parked car. Shouting, he demanded: “What was that all about?
Who are you? What the heck are you doing?” Building up a
head of steam, he went on and on.
“Please,
mister, please…..I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to
do,” pleaded the youngster. “I threw the brink because no
one else would stop!” Tears were streaming down his face as
he pointed around the parked car. “It’s my brother,
mister, he rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair
and I can’t lift him up.” Sobbing, the boy asked the
suited executive: “Would you please help me get him back
into his chair? He’s hurt and he’s too heavy for me.”
Josh tried
to swallow the lump in his throat, and straining, he lifted
the young man back into his wheelchair. He then took out his
handkerchief and wiped the scrapes and cuts. He checked to see
that everything was going to be okay. Then he watched as the
younger brother pushed him down the sidewalk towards home.
It was a
long walk back to his new car—a long, slow walk. He never
did fix the door of his Jag. He kept the dent to remind him
not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a
brick to get his attention.
Some
bricks are harder than others. It wasn’t a literal brick,
but through an epiphany, an
encounter with God—the vision of Jesus—that God got
Paul’s attention. And Paul was changed. Now, after years of
following Christ, he’s still a different person. He still
sees giving as being as important as getting. He’s still
serving others and desiring to share the joy of the One who
changed his life. Where we’ve come from and where we’re
going are two very different places. Paul had success, but in
the end found his significance in a very different place.
Edward Jones wanted me to be intentional and
disciplined about my investing. It’s sound advice. But what
Jesus Christ calls us to goes way beyond what we do with our
money. It is true that John Wesley was often quoted as saying:
“Make all you can,
save all you can.” But he went on because he knew that as significance in Christ and
his Kingdom is discovered—as our lives are changed—we want
to also give all
we can.
There is a poster that hangs in my office.
It is of a man’s hand reaching down and holding a child’s,
and underneath it reads:
We
make a living by what we get.
We make a life by what we give.
How is God calling us, each of us, to do
some investing with our lives and discover where Christ would
lead? What’s He having to do to get your attention?
Amen.
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