|
My wife
Brenda has been planning my funeral. I’ll pause here
for a moment to let that sink in. We were driving
along one day and talking about hymns that we liked,
and right in the middle of our conversation she asked
me what hymns I wanted sung at my funeral. I couldn’t
figure out just exactly why she needed to know that
information. I’m perfectly healthy, I had a physical
not long ago, Lois Slocum, the parish nurse, just took
my blood pressure last week and it’s fine, I’m only 48
years old. I’m only telling you this because we’re
leaving after church today to go down to Florida to
visit Brenda’s parents, and if anything should happen,
if I should not make it back, especially under any
suspicious circumstances, I just feel safer knowing
that someone else knows, that’s all.
I heard
about a man who was 60 years old, and his wife was
also about 60. And this man didn’t notice that all
that much had changed about himself, he thought he
still looked pretty good, but he did begin to notice
that his wife was looking kind of older. You know how
superficial men can be. He was still young, he
thought, but she was looking kind of old. Anyway,
they were celebrating their 35th wedding
anniversary, and during the party, a fairy appeared to
congratulate them and grant them each one wish. The
fairy started with the wife, the wife was asked what
was her one wish. Well, the wife said that she wanted
to travel around the world. So the fairy waved her
wand and poof, the wife had two tickets for a cruise
around the world. Next the fairy asked the husband
what he wanted. Well he thought about it, and looked
at his wife, and thought about it some more, and
finally he said, “I want to be married to a woman who
is 30 years younger than I am.” So the fairy waved
her wand, and poof, and then the fairy was gone.
Well, the husband looked over at his wife, saw that it
was the same woman and she looked to be about the same
age, 60. So he thought that the fairy’s little trick
hadn’t worked, that is, until he caught a glimpse of
himself in the mirror and realized that the fairy had
turned him into a 90-year-old man.
I don’t
really see the connection, but it was right around the
time I told Brenda this story that she started asking
me what hymns I wanted sung at my funeral.
How to
live a long life, that’s the theme for today. Someone
told me a long time ago that if you want to live a
long life don’t wish it away by wishing for something
better to come along. In other words, live more in
the moment, live in the present moment. Don’t worry
about the past, and don’t spend all your time thinking
about the future, but live in the present moment, find
some way to be very present in each moment of life.
Norman
Vincent Peale gave something of the same advice some
years ago on how to live a long life. He lived a long
life. His advice was threefold: (1) Keep calm; (2) Go
to church (go home and tell all your friends that if
they want to live a long life go to church); and (3)
Eliminate worry. Now it’s that last one that is
really kind of a killer, literally, for some people,
worry and stress are such a part of our lives, and yet
they take their toll, from what the experts say, on
the length of our lives. But again, the emphasis here
is to not worry about the future, and not have regrets
about the past, but to live very much in the present
moment.
There’s
an old Irish proverb that puts it this way: Dance as
if no one were watching. Sing as if no one were
listening (just not too loudly, please). Love like
you’ve never been hurt. And live every day, live
every day, as if it were your last.
We read
the same thing in the Bible, in various places, for
example in Psalm 90. “Satisfy us in the morning with
your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be
glad all our days.” Find satisfaction each day, each
morning. Find satisfaction each day in the life that
God gives you, in the steadfast love of God that finds
you and embraces you, that can give you joy, right
where you are each day.
We see
the same thing in the life of Jesus, and in the
message of Jesus. Brian McLaren has become one of my
favorite authors. He’s a pastor and theologian and
writer who some of you may have heard of. One of his
recent books is called, “The Secret Message of
Jesus”. The secret message of Jesus, I was a little
reluctant at first to read this, because I thought
maybe it was going to be like “The DaVinci Code”, or
some of these other books out there on these secret
codes in the Bible, all these authors are finding some
secret code in the Bible, and they’re the only ones
who know about these secret codes, and you have to buy
their book to find out about it. So when I first saw
the title of this book by Brian McLaren, “The Secret
Message of Jesus”, I thought, oh boy, here we go. But
I like Brian McLaren, so I read the book, and he says
that the secret message of Jesus is this, that the
kingdom of God is present right now. When Jesus
talked about the kingdom of God, he was not talking
about heaven. Oh sure, that’s part of the message,
but it’s not the biggest part of it. He was not
talking about where we go when we die. Jeus was
saying that the kingdom of God is already right here
in your presence, within your reach. Jesus was saying
that the kingdom of God is at hand, it is available to
be grasped, it is knocking at your door – not just
someday in the future, but here and now.
Whenever we see these words “eternal life” in the
Bible, such as here in John 3:16, from the ancient
Greek we get a sense not of quantity, not a long
number of years. The meaning of the term we translate
“eternal life” is quality of life, not quantity. God
can come into your life and change the quality of your
life, right now. This is why God sent his son Jesus
into the world.
So
often we think that some of the things that God calls
us to are just impossible, in this life anyway, some
of the things God calls us to are just not possible,
things like being able to forgive those who have
wronged us, being able to give more generously to
others, to give even sacrificially, things like being
able to find joy in the midst of sorrow, finding
contentment and peace in the midst of tragedy and
difficulty, finding that inner resilience when it all
just seems so lost, finding some way to change those
things that are so wrong in the world. So much of our
lives, so much of what we would like our lives to be,
seem to be so impossible. But Jesus tells us that
these things are not only possible, they are at hand,
they are available to be grasped, they are knocking at
your door.
And we
do see those sometimes who are able, through the power
of God, to live in this here and now kind of way.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day, and Martin Luther
King is one of my heroes, for a variety of reasons.
He preached the way of love and equality among all of
the people of the earth, despite our differences. And
I remember seeing a videotape of the last speech he
gave down in Memphis, Tennessee. It was almost as if
he had a premonition of his own mortality. Now most
of us don’t put too much credence in premonitions of
this or that, but it was almost as if he had a
premonition of his own death. He was a modern-day
Moses almost, who, having lead the children of Israel
out of Egypt and through the wilderness, stood on the
very border of the Promised Land, and saw what the
future for the children of Israel would be, even
though he would never arrive there himself. Do you
remember the words of Dr. King that night, the night
before he was assassinated? He said, “Like anyone, I
would like to live a long life. Longevity has its
place. But I’m not worried about that now, because
I’ve been to the mountaintop, and I’ve looked over,
and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there
with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as
a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy
tonight, I’m not worried about anything, I’m not
fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the
coming of the Lord.”
To live
this abundantly in the present moment, without fear,
without worry, embraced with the purpose and passion
of God, this, to me, is life, no matter how long one
may live. It was Martin Luther King who said, the
tragedy is not to die young, the tragedy is to live
long and yet to never really have lived.
I heard
of a young man by the name of William Borden who was
as bright as they come. He came from a good
background, had a promising future, he could’ve done
anything he wanted with his life. He graduated from
Yale, then went on to Princeton Seminary. And he felt
God calling him to be a missionary to China. People
tried to talk him out of it, he could be the pastor of
a large church here in the United States, they said,
he could do anything he wanted. But he was convinced
that he should go to China as a missionary. His
training for the mission field, for some reason, was
in Egypt, and while he was there, he caught some
exotic disease and died at the age of 25. A friend
came to visit him on his deathbed, one who had tried
to tell him not to go, and they talked. But this
young man, William Borden, was still convinced he had
done the right thing, even as he lay dying. With his
last bit of strength, he wrote these words to his
friend, “No reserve. No retreat. No regret.”
I don’t
know about you, but I would like to be able to use
words such as these in my last hours, whether it’s at
the age of 48, or 78, or 108. I would like to be
inspired by words such as these each day. No
reserve. No retreat. No regret.
This
reminds me of what was written by a man who also lay
dying, prematurely, of cancer. I don’t have his name,
but he wrote this, and it was read at his memorial
service, perhaps you’ve seen it. Cancer, he wrote, is
limited. We tend to think of it as this fearsome,
terrifying thing that has some power over us. We talk
about it in such hushed tones, in whispers. But this
man wrote that cancer, and anything else that we most
fear, is limited. It cannot cripple love. It cannot
corrode faith. It cannot eat away peace. It cannot
destroy confidence. It cannot kill friendship. It
cannot shut out memories. It cannot silence courage.
It cannot invade the soul. It cannot reduce eternal
life. It cannot quench the spirit. It cannot lessen
the power of the resurrection. It cannot do any of
these things because of the power of God at work in
our lives.
There
is an old Celtic prayer that speaks to me of this:
Christ
as a light
Illumine and guide me.
Christ
as a shield
O’ershadow me.
Christ
under me
Christ
over me
Christ
beside me
On my
left and my right.
This
day, be within and
Without
me,
Lowly
and meek,
Yet all
powerful.
Be in
the heart
Of each
to whom I speak,
In the
mouth of each
Who
speaks to me.
This
day, be within and
Without
me,
Lowly
and meek,
Yet all
powerful.
Christ
as a light
Christ
as a shield
Christ
beside me
On my
left and my right. |
