Sermon for Sunday,  February 26, 2006

WHAT AM I HERE FOR?

8^th and final in a series on Questions from the Street

by

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Scripture:  Psalm 1:1-3

1 Happy are those who reject the advice of evil people, who do not follow the example of sinners or join those who have no use for God. 2 Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the Lord, and they study it day and night. 3 They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do.

I just ordered a new book about Abraham Lincoln. He is one of my heroes and is the one person about whom more books have been written than about any other American in all of our history. He was an exceptional human being in so many respects. The most recent book I bought before the one this week is by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of our most respected American historians. She writes in Team of Rivals about how Lincoln was such a secure person that when he put his presidential cabinet together, he was able to surround himself, not with “yes men” who thought exactly as he did but with the very rivals he had been facing in his bid for the presidency and how healthy and important this mix of leadership was for the well being of our nation in the 1860’s.

Lincoln was amazing in other ways. Someone calculated that he held interviews/meetings over his presidency with 2000 different soldiers and he was known to visit field hospitals often and even to hold the hand of a soldier while the soldier was dying. That was after the President had written a letter for the dying soldier to be sent to the soldier’s mother. 

It may be that part of his deep character and his empathy for each person were due to the losses and the suffering that he experienced over his life. 

Most of us also know that Lincoln suffered bouts of melancholy or depression, sometimes so severe that his friends feared for his life. One of those bouts occurred in 1835. His first and very serious love had died in her early 20’s and Lincoln was almost non functional. His friends removed all knives and razors that were in his proximity but here is one of the factors that kept him going and got him out of that dark valley of depression: He was ambitious and he wanted to establish a reputation; he wanted to know that his life had made a difference. He said during that time of depression that he was more than willing to die –except that “he had done nothing to make any human being remember that he had lived.” That desire is what kept him going.

Lincoln understood that we are in the world not just to grab and grub and take up space; we are here to make a contribution, to affect the world, to make a difference.

Last week we commemorated the life of one of our church members who understood that purpose as well and whose life made a real impact. Eldon O Neal died two weeks ago. He was one of our beloved World War II veterans, one of the Greatest Generation, in Tom Brokaw’s words. He had served on a destroyer in the Pacific and was at the battle of Iwo Jima. When he came back from the war, he married Ruth and finished college at CU and put his engineering degree to work for 39 years at the Public Service Company of Colorado where in his role as a safety engineer did many things to make workplaces safe for Coloradans in many different arenas, serving in state and national organizations devoted to workplace safety. Eldon’s life made a great impact. 

God asks us to do likewise, and the poem that we printed on the back of the funeral bulletin for Eldon captured that for us: 

When Death Comes

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When its over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

                                                                        -Mary Oliver

More and more people understand what the poem points to. Why do you suppose that Pastor Rick Warren’s book on the purpose driven life has become the number one religious best seller? I think it has to do with the kind of quotes that we have mentioned here before. He says early in the book that if we want to have a fulfilling life we have to understand, “It’s not about you”!

You are not the center of the universe. You and I were put here to serve God and others and not to grub and grab for ourselves. There is another quote on the front of your bulletin: “Mind your own business is not a Christian statement!!” God calls us to care for and be involved in the lives of others and to affect them positively. God has put us here with goals of spiritual growth and servant leadership in God’s mind. It may take some of us a while to discover that because the messages we get from culture is to just care for ourselves and ignore the less fortunate and be selfish and greedy and consume and acquire all we can.

And many of us pursue that until we learn better. Steven Covey talks about that in one of his books when he tells about the fellow who passionately climbed the ladder of “success” in the corporate world until he finally got toward the top and learned that he had leaned his ladder against the wrong wall—that is, that other things may have been more lasting and satisfying than just chasing the promotions and the business goals.

I read a book last week that had a bit of that wistfulness in it. Gene O Kelly was the CEO of KPMG, one of the largest accounting firms in America, and at the young age of 53 was diagnosed with brain cancer and told he had only months to live. He took some new directions, he says, in the book Chasing Daylight and adjusted his type A behaviors by learning to savor each moment and to accept that things could go wrong while he was waiting with other patients sitting in the chemotherapy waiting room. He also says that while he is proud of his achievements in his business career, that “had I known then what I know now, maybe I would have made a better executive. Almost certainly I would have been more creative in figuring out a way to have a more balanced life and spend more time with my family.” (P 142 in Chasing Daylight)

He asked himself the question that is our topic in this last sermon in the series of questions from the street—what am I here for, and he decided that his answer as a seriously ill man would have more insight and more truth than when he was at the top of his business career.

What are you here for? To make as much money as possible no matter what it takes to do that or whom you have to walk over? To win whatever competitive race you are in? To accumulate and acquire and to live in the biggest, nicest place you can barely afford? To die with the most toys? 

I like to shop at Whole Foods close by. They give us the 20 loaves of bread that we take each weekend to people who worship with us for the first time. 

Recently, every time I am in Whole Foods the person tallying my bill always asks: Did you find everything that you need? I have told some people about this already. I say to them, “People can’t find everything they need in a grocery store!” How silly. But some of us who love to shop try to do that in some other stores also. 

The word from our faith is that we will not find what we need in any store because life is about so much more than what we can eat or wear—Jesus said that in the Sermon on the Mount! 

And today’s scripture from Psalm 1 says that also. This psalm was placed in the number 1 spot on purpose!! The person who centers their life on God and God’s instructions for life will find life at its best. Persons who pursue other directions will not find abundant life. People who center on God will be like a tree that is planted by a stream and its roots center down and find water and the tree grows and flourishes and thrives. 

People who ignore God and forget God will wither and die.

We are here to put God first and then to live by God’s values of compassion and caring and justice and sacrifice. Those are God’s plans for you. God has hopes and dreams and plans for you—not just one, I believe, but more than one. In all those plans is the plan for us to be servants and to make a difference outside our own narrow interests.

Here is the job description from Mother Theresa of Calcutta:

At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received or how much money we have made or how many great things we have done. We will be judged by this: I was hungry and you gave me food; I was naked and you clothed me; I was homeless and you took me in; I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

 ─  Mother Theresa of Calcutta

Let me leave you with one other source for this spiritual answer to why we are here.  Take this quiz:

1.      Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2.      Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3.      Name the last five winners of the Miss American contest.

4.      Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5.      Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6.      Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?  The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.   These are no second-rate achievers.  They are the best in their fields.  But the applause dies. Awards tarnish.  Achievements are forgotten.  Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here’s another quiz.  See how you do on this one:

1.      List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2.      Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time

3.      Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4.      Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5.      Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

6.      Name half a dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.

Easier?  The lesson?  The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards.  They are the ones who care.

We have new people joining our congregation today who are connecting with this church because they have thought about why we are here in the first place and have decided that part of their journey of life needs to include a community of fellow pilgrims to learn with and worship with and serve with. As they make their own public affirmation as followers of Christ we might want to make that same silent affirmation again in our hearts as well. Amen.

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