Episodes
Sunday Jun 23, 2013
Pace Yourself
Sunday Jun 23, 2013
Sunday Jun 23, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder 1 Timothy 6:6-16
“We brought nothing into the world … we can take nothing out of it …” The Apostle Paul near the end of his life journey is writing his young friend Timothy who is at the beginning of his life journey. Paul is trying to give Timothy practical advice for the journey of life.
He tells Timothy that there is great gain, a great interest rate, on “a life of godliness combined with contentment ... For we brought nothing into the world so that we can take nothing out of it.”
The professor of preaching at Perkins Seminary at Southern Methodist University Jim Moore wrote a book several years ago he gave the title: “Have you ever seen a hearse pulling a trailer?” Have you ever seen a hearse pulling a U-haul?
We brought nothing into the world; we can’t take anything with us when we leave it.
Paul’s advice is partly about wealth and possessions. But you’ve heard that sermon 50 times. I’ve heard it 50 times. It is an important sermon. It is a sermon we need to hear again and again. Our society spends 140 billion dollars a year on advertising …. 140 billion dollars to wet our appetites: to create within us a desire for what we do not really need.
So the sermon about not being able to take our Schwab accounts with us is an important sermon, but it is not the sermon I want to preach this morning. I don’t want to talk about money and possessions today. I think Paul’s message goes even deeper.
I think Paul is not only talking about money and material possessions. I think he is also talking about spiritual possessions; non-material possessions.
I think he is talking about things like accomplishments … achievements ....significance … reputation … self-image ... self-worth.
We came into the world with no accomplishments to our name, and we will not be able to take our accomplishments with us.
We came into the world with no particular significance and if we think we have become significant in some way –and I hope we have -- we will not be able to take our significance out of this world with us.
We came into the world with no reputation and we will not be able to take our reputation with us when we leave.
My generation’s Glee was a TV show in the 80s called Fame. The lyrics of the theme song of Fame were “Fame: I’m going to live forever.” Glee kids sing and dance for the fun of it. Fame kids sang to become famous because fame brings immortality.
Ironically, Wikipedia says about Fame: “Despite [the show’s] success, very few of the actors maintained high-profile careers after the series was cancelled.”
We brought no fame with us into the world and we will take no fame out of it when we go. We brought no reputation into the world and we will take no reputation out of it when we go.
We brought no self-image into the world. I have an image of myself … things like – honest, responsible, just, compassionate, reasoning, clear. I brought no self-image into the world with me and I can’t take my self-image with me when I leave it.
I think when old Paul tells young Timothy that “we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it,” he is talking about more than material possessions.
For me, this is very hard to think about because I am into accomplishments. I am into results. I am into making a difference.
I want to show up in heaven with a resume of my accomplishments. I helped end homelessness; I helped end discrimination; I helped kids who are stuck in poverty; I helped make things better in Haiti. I pastored Foundry Church. Do you know, Saint Peter, what a special church Foundry is? Just look at my resume.
But ... I brought no resume into the world and I will not be able to take a resume out of the world with me when I leave it.
Think about that for a moment, Washington DC people who work so hard to accomplish so much in your lives. We can’t show up in the next life with our 10-page resumes.
In this section of Paul’s letters to Timothy, Paul says a particularly interesting thing about this. While he is writing Timothy he goes into a sort of hymn or poem praising God, and he says:
“[God] is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is [God] alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to [God] be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”
It is God alone who has immortality, Paul says. It is God who lives forever.
Does the Apostle Paul not believe in life beyond death? He does. He makes this very clear in First Corinthians 15.
But he does not believe that the human soul is immortal. This would be a very foreign way for any Jew, including Paul, to think. He does not believe human beings are inherently immortal. He does not believe fame is immortal, he does not believe human accomplishments are immortal.
He does not believe in immortality. He believes in resurrection – that we are raised by God after death into the communion of the saints who live eternally.
Resurrection to eternal life is not an accomplishment. It is not something we achieve. It is an expression of God’s love, it is an act of grace, and it is an act of inclusion. God includes us in her eternity because she loves us and wants us to be in her presence eternally.
So the most important thing in life is to open ourselves to the love of God and others. Paul calls it “godliness with contentment.”
Greed is a destructive passion and we can be greedy for spiritual things as well as material things. We can be greedy for accomplishment. We can be greedy for meaning. We can be greedy for significance. We can be greedy for salvation. We can be greedy for intimacy with God.
We did not come into the world with any spiritual accomplishments and we cannot take any spiritual accomplishments out of the world with us.
We cannot make ourselves immortal.
God invites us to live in her eternal presence with her forever because of her love for us. For sure, not because we are necessarily fun to have around. God is just into company.
We are working on the analogy right now of life as a road trip and the kinds of pit stops you need to make on a road stop. And the word today is “Pace yourself.”
Road trips can be gruelingly tiring. I remember saying to myself when our kids were a certain age that I would never drive in a car again with kids in it more than five hours a day … I didn’t care how many days it took us to get where we were going. It just wasn’t worth it.
I don’t care how good or important our goals in life are, how critical what we hope to accomplish in this lifetime is. I don’t care if it feels like a life or death crisis as so many things do these day. Don’t drive in a car full of kids more than five hours a day. We brought no accomplishments into the world with us and we will not be able to take our accomplishments with us into the next world.
A friend, knowing I was thinking on the topic for today’s sermon sent me a John Wesley quote this week. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said: “Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry.”
Keep moving, but don’t be in a hurry.
Bernice Regan, the original founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, when she spoke here at Foundry said, something like, it doesn’t matter how fast we get there. It matter that when we put a foot down it is at least a little bit in front of other foot. It is important that we keep moving forward.
The House of Representatives voted down the Farm Bill this week. If a new bill isn’t passed, food stamps begin to phase out somewhere around September 30.
I emailed the Capitol Area Food Bank this week and asked them: “What happens if food stamps end? How much money would the congregations of Washington need to raise to keep people fed? Is it even possible?”
I am waiting for an answer but I think I know the answer. Every congregation in the city could devote our entire budgets to feeding programs and we would still not have enough to feed the people who are dependent on food stamps now.
I don’t want to spend my time getting people fed. We should be past that by now. That shouldn’t be an issue. We are working to get children housed, to get them decent educations, decent opportunity, stability, dignity, and suddenly we have to start worrying about how to get children fed again? One step forward, ten steps back?
It makes me want to turn over tables in the Rayburn Café. It makes me want to turn over a pot of bean soup in the Longworth dining room.
But Paul says to young Timothy, Fight the good fight of the faith; but keep hold of eternal life while you fight the fight.
Make haste on behalf of justice, inclusion, equality, safety, but do not hurry.
One of Jesus’ best stories was about two kids. One who wasted his life; the other who worked hard and was diligent and accomplished a lot. When the kid who wasted his life came home, his parents welcomed him home and threw a party. The other kid was mad and resentful.
The parents said: You are both my kids and you are both equally welcome here.
We get to go to heaven because we are part of God’s family … the communion of saints and sinners who God likes to have around.
Do not lose eternal life even in your work to achieve justice and inclusion and equality.
My favorite Reinhold Niebuhr quote is from his book The Irony of American History:
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, could be accomplished alone; therefore, we must be saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our own standpoint; therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.
Don’t drive in a car full of kids more than five hours a day. Pace yourself. Fight the good fight but don’t lose eternal life in the fighting because the war is already won.
We came into the world with no resumes, no accomplishments, no CEDs. We will not be able to take our resumes into the next world with us.
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