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RésumésOctober 05, 2008 World Communion Sunday What do you want more of? Leo Tolstoy tells the story of a greedy man named, Pahom, who was obsessed by amassing more and more land. One day he learned of a wonderful and unusual opportunity to get more land. For only 1,000 rubles he could have the entire area that he could walk around in a day, but he had to make it back to the starting point by the sunset or he would lose everything that he invested. He arose early and set out. He walked on and on thinking that he could get just a little more land if he kept straining forward for the prize he sought, but he went so far that he realized he must walk very fast if he was going to get back to the starting point and claim the land. As the sun set lower in the sky, he quickened his pace. He began to run. He came within sight of the finishing goal and exerted his last energies plunging over the finish line, falling to the ground, dead. His servant took a spade and dug a grave. He made it just long enough and just wide enough to match Pahom’s body and buried him. Here’s the title Tolstoy gave his story: "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" He ends the short morality tale with this line: "Six feet from his head to his heels was all that man needed". The famous novelist James Joyce wrote to his daughter that “this was the greatest story that the literature of the world knows.” [1] The great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was a great fan of this story as well. [2] What do you want more of? What prize are you striving for? Healthy humans always want more of something, I think. If we’re alive and kicking, if we have an attitude of engagement with life, we inevitably want more of something. I’m absolutely certain that every single person in this room wants more of something – probably a number of things – and if I gave you a minute to think about it and we went around the room taking note – and you were completely honest - we’d wind up with an astonishing list. Given the seeming momentous days we Americans are now experiencing, this question has a sharper poignancy than it did, say, just three weeks ago. For what are you straining forward today? It may have a different ring on October 5th compared to September 5th. When I was in high school, I remember a time I wanted to be King of the Junior Prom. My parents had been king and queen of the same prom in their high school, my oldest brother was king of his prom, the next oldest brother was king of homecoming, and I remember wanting, straining to be king of something so bad I could nearly taste the desire. There really was nothing to be done about it, but I thought that if I couldn’t be king my world might come to an end. The memory of that desire popped into mind as I thought about all the things for which I have strained in my life. I have a visceral, physical, memory of that obsession. Of course, take a walk through Wall Street and you will sense the straining and striving stirring the air around the bronze bull. Go to a stadium and you can smell it in the teams competing for the pennants and vicariously in their fans. You can see it in students vying for a place in a top-ranked college, and in families struggling to make their dollars stretch to the end of the month. The ends to which we strain and strive are limitless, and much of this straining and striving drives us into superior aspects of our human competencies. Most can respond to the motivating spirit of dynamic mentors and leaders, often drawing out an enduring strength we did not know we had. It was this spirit that Paul referenced as he wrote to his friends in Philippi who were experiencing persecution and internal strife. He used the athletic analogy of running a long race saying, “this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal…” You can hear the passionate inflection of his voice when reading his words. Of course, that’s what Pahom did in Tolstoy’s story as well: he, too, pressed on and strained forward toward his goal. In part, that was Tolstoy’s point, I suppose. That, and then, importantly, considering the actual content of the goal for which Pahom strove. Which was Paul’s point as well. You heard Paul say that from the standpoint of the human résumé of the time, he had everything going for him: a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, circumcised on the 8th day, zealous in faith, properly credentialed in his persecution of Christians. This is a bit like saying, "of the best family, came over on the Mayflower, first in class, King of the Prom, Harvard University," and so forth. He contrasts a life which finds its ground and security in human factors, a kind of résumé building exercise, with utter dependence on God's grace. For what are you striving? What do you want more of? That’s the question Paul’s words prompt for the thoughtful listener today. How are we to make sense of all the straining and striving in our lives? Frederick Buechner defines grace this way: "Grace is something you can never get…but can only be given. There's no way to deserve it anymore than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or bring about your own birth. A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace." How could we possibly get more of that? Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? But how does one strain forward for that? Buechner continues, “The grace of God means something like: ‘Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. I love you.’ There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it." [3] And I bet this strikes you, as it does me, that this taking-of-grace is of a different sort than, say, the taking of more land, or more money, or accumulating a tremendous résumé. This sort of taking has embedded within it an authentic humility, a sense that the very best things in life have little to do with what we often spend our time and energy amassing, and much more to do with a recognition that there is little, if anything, we have ever done that accounts for our existence. In fact, in the matter of our living and breathing there is no résumé that’s better than any other, no pedigree, no fortune or lack thereof, no human prize that gives us an edge in straining forward in utter dependence upon God’s grace. This truth lies behind our celebration table where everyone who wants to press toward this amazing grace is welcomed. No one excluded, no test for correct doctrine, proper bloodlines and genetics, fortunes, degrees, spiritual maturity, ethical perfection – there is no human measure that equates to what we strain toward here. In graphic language Paul called all of those measures rubbish when compared to living into his dependence upon grace. When Christians are at their best – and granted, often we aren’t – but, when at our best we really do sense and then grasp the truth in Paul’s wisdom, that astonishing human transformation occurs in the movement from self-dependence to God dependence. From striving for vainglory to striving for a higher righteousness; from pressing to assert our superiority, to pressing for authentic humility; from straining for perishable prizes, to straining for imperishable; from despair to hope, from fear to love, from death to life. Indeed, holy striving is really all about gaining abundant life, as Jesus would say it. The abundance he speaks about is grace-based, not carbon-based. Everything else that really matters falls out from that. And guess what, once this transformation begins to take hold we discover we have the power to help it grow in the world. Miraculously we begin to share the same abundant life God offers to us. Then can grace and love abound beyond our wildest imaginings. During our communion today make note of the variety of resumes you see represented in those who come forward – I tell you, the only things we really have in common are: we all draw breath and our faltering attempts to press on for the goal of the prize of the heavenly call in Christ Jesus. For these I say, Thanks be to God! Previous sermon: This Place Is Called Christ Church, After All • Next sermon: The Choice is...God's? All past sermons |
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