Everyone has a moment — a breakthrough event — when she or he realizes that many of the persons, places and things that we thought would give us serious satisfaction (the things the Temptations told us would keep us “doin’ fine on cloud nine”) have really been underwhelming.
Consider your high school crush. What about your charming husband and his “cheatin’ heart” (Hank Wiliams)? You got salmonella—seriously, you got sick—on your bucket list dream cruise down the Seine, and now all you remember is the wallpaper pattern in the bathroom (naturally, no refunds, no trip insurance). The company you left your last company to work for promised to be THE ticket to the success that would satisfy you, but it wound-up getting bought out by your old company. And they laid you off. Even your football team, Auburn, lost the game they were supposed to win. And to top it off, your Spanx are tight today, because the expensive crash diet was a scam.
And you know what I’m saying is totally true.
And you also know that nobody is allowed to talk about this stuff whatsoever, because God forbid – dear Lord, please – don’t let anyone sense we’re not smiling all the time, because then other people might realize our lives don’t always look like what we put on Instagram. News flash: there is no room for disappointment, dashed hopes and moderate to severe plaque psoriasis on Instagram. Trust me, you’ll be un-friended!
Alex, I’ll take Smokey Robinson lyrics for $200:
“People say I’m the life of the party
Because I tell a joke or two
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty
Deep inside I’m blue
So take a good look at my face
You’ll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears.”
Now, If I were leading a self-help seminar this morning at the Hyatt, in exchange for your credit card, I’d give you some tips and techniques, a formula, you could use to fix your life and be satisfied. And once you tried all my latest and greatest methods, and found them to be just as unsatisfying as realizing the $200 Ray Bans you bought on the dock in Cozumel were fake, you’d be ripe for me to sell you another strategy.
And round and round we’d go, as I sold you a self-perpetuating placebo – a bottomless virgin daquiri, if you like — to enslave you and keep you connected to the modern lie that says if you’re not on top of the world—if you’re not 100% satisfied with your life— then you’re doing something wrong—you’re defective!
But even the Rolling Stones admitted:
“I can’t get no satisfaction…
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no, I can’t get no satisfaction.”
The fresh air that the gospel brings to every situation makes it crystal clear that it’s perfectly normal for disciples of Jesus to be unsatisfied with, and discouraged by, many things in this life.
In the gospel according to St Luke appointed today, Jesus offers his disciples a radically different approach than enslavement to self-help.
When the disciples reached the day of dissatisfaction, when they were complaining about suffering, and had just been told the chapter before that more was surely on the way, Jesus told His disciples “to pray always” and “not [to] lose heart.”
Never once did Jesus counter their dissatisfaction and tell them to try harder. And He didn’t say that because real, lasting satisfaction doesn’t lie in trying harder but in trusting further.
St. Paul told exhausted believers in Corinth the same thing:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
It was C.S. Lewis who said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world” (Mere Christianity).
I’m simply saying two things: I’m absolutely saying that everybody is looking for power in a program, in the latest wisdom—pretty much anywhere and everywhere, except in the sufficiency of grace.
And I’m also absolutely saying that ultimate satisfaction—now and evermore—lies precisely in the long shadow of grace—which is ever-present but always lately discerned.
But when it is discerned, it delivers what nothing else can—what we could never achieve: the forgiveness of sins, the removal of guilt, and the defeat of death and the grave! In a word: the living hope whose name is Jesus!
I saw a completely tacky, but extraordinarily profound, hand-towel for sale in a gift shop in the Atlanta airport Thursday night on my way home from meetings for the Anglican Digest. In bright red letters, the oversized appliqué stated: “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.” That ugly, crinkle-cut caterpillar thought his lot in life was to eat dead leaves, but grace saw the situation differently.
My only point in this little homily has been to re-remind you—to re-remind myself—that God sees a butterfly. And that’s why we will never lose heart.
And this is also why – precisely why – Christians “live to give,” responding to His gift of grace by becoming more generous in all aspects of our lives.
After a little self-reflection with the man in the mirror this week, I am convinced that the attitude with which we give to the parish directly reflects how well we’ve received the gift of grace – or rejected it altogether. Notice I didn’t say the amount; I’m talking about the attitude – the attitude of gratitude.
If you’re a bit sheepish, and you’re scared about the future, you can rest assured that’s a spirit of fear, not the Spirit of God.
If your wallet is too hot to handle because you can’t wait to share what God has given you with others, you can rest assured that grace is taking hold of your life. And it feels great! For God so loved – for God was SO GENEROUS, as some translations put it – that he GAVE His only son.
Live to give. Let’s live to give in 2020. Live to give so that when the Son of Man returns to earth He will indeed find that His people are faithful.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
19th Sunday after Pentecost
20 October 2019