The Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon's obsession with discovering the fountain of eternal youth led him eventually to the land of flowers, or as we know it, Florida. Even now, there are those who claim that the bold adventurer did, in fact, discover such a fountain and that its perpetual waters contain the treasure of agelessness, or the much pursued "ever young" potion. Several years ago, somewhere in Florida, I took a drink from a fountain which was allegedly the genuine source designated by Ponce de Leon himself as containing the living water. However, I somehow manage to age, despite having consumed the magic water. Apparently, if the man did discover his treasure, he neglected to disclose its whereabouts.
Further west, sometime in the mid 1500's Francisco Vasquez de Coronado left Mexico in search of the fabled "seven cities of Cibola." The streets of these cities were said to he paved with huge blocks of pure gold, accented with magnificent gems of dazzling beauty. I have read in some sources that his expedition ended abruptly with the discovery of seven poor Zuni Indian villages, while other sources claim that he actually achieved his objective and, in turn, buried the treasures of gold, silver, and gems somewhere east of the Rio Grande. Ranchers in the area still lease "mineral rights" on their land to treasure hunters, but retain certain rights should Coronado's wealth be unearthed.
In contrast to Coronado and Ponce de Leon, consider the quest of Francis di Bernardone, more popularly known as St. Francis of Assisi. As the only child of well-to-do parents, his every whim and desire were more than adequately satisfied. He was spoiled, brash, reckless, abrasive, and worldly. However, quite unexpectedly, a series of rather mystical religious experiences began to overwhelm him and direct him toward the pursuit of the spiritual life. He came to understand the universe as the mirror of God, all life sacred, and the way of Christ as the only alternative for peace and meaning. In time, others throughout Italy were attracted to him, seeking the same treasure which he had found. Four centuries following his death, Franciscan Friars came to this country's great Southwest. Today, Franciscans continue to follow his design for spiritual discipline.
Of all treasures sought by man, it is apparent that only one is capable of being shared by all. Coronado, Ponce de Leon, and countless other seekers were off on the wrong journey. Even had they been successful, their treasure would have benefited only the few. St. Francis, and multitudes of others, discovered a treasure in which all may share: "The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field." (Matthew 13:44)
Seek whatever treasure you will - youth, wealth, security - but take care not to "lay up for yourselves treasures on earth ... but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." (Matthew 6:19-20)
IN SEARCH OF GLORY
A certain man has recently entered his name in the Guiness Book of World Records, by sitting more than fifty days in a pit with some twenty-three venomous snakes. I cannot possibly imagine what would possess a person to want to take up with this kind of company. Soon now, someone will attempt to better the record by persevering longer with more snakes. It requires a special kind of person to pursue that kind of notoriety. It reminds me of a movie I saw advertised once, so gory and bloody that the promotion read, "This movie is guaranteed to make you sick at your stomach." I thought seriously about going to sit outside the theater just to see what kinds of persons would intentionally subject themselves to guaranteed stomach distress and be willing to pay hard cash, to boot. And how about the fellow at San Rafael, California, who held his breath underwater for thirteen minutes, forty-two and five-tenths seconds? Then for all my friends who think I preach too long, there is this consolation. The Guiness Book of World Records reports that the longest sermon on record was delivered by Clinton Locy who preached for forty-eight hours, eighteen minutes. It doesn't say how many were there for the first few hours, but at the close, only eight persons were present. I noted nothing was said about anyone being at the altar.
Notoriety is fast fleeting. The headliners of today are the footnotes of tomorrow. Again, there will be someone else now, who will descend into the snake pit to out-sit the snake-sitting record; Someone will emerge to try and better the underwater breathholding record, and doubtless, some character will mount the pulpit someday and drone on and on in quest of the world's longest sermon. Lord, have mercy!
Two thoughts: (1) longer is riot necessarily better. A cigarette that is longer does little to improve one's breath or health, especially when it sacrifices taste for length and crams more tar and nicotine into the additional milligram. Methuselah lived 969 years, but there is no record of his ever having done anything else. Jesus tactfully pointed out to the Pharisees that long, repetitious prayers accomplished little except contributing to oral fatigue and to the arrogant attitude of trying to monopolize God's personal attention for long periods of time. "Man will not be heard for his much speaking." (2) we need to be reminded from time to time that glory, things, and life, fast wither. Isaiah said it this way: "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: Surely the people are grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever." (KJV, 40:6-8) In 1 Peter we read, "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower of it falls away: but the word of the Lord endures forever." (1:24)
A man will go down into the snake pit in search of his glory and in search of the longest time. Others will seek their glory in eternity, which is beyond time. The choices have not changed much, have they?
INCREDIBLE JOURNEY
It is claimed that for every pound of fat we add to our bodies, we also add somewhere between 200 to 1,000 miles of additional capillaries to feed body cells. I find that rather astounding. If this is true (and I assume that it is), and if I weigh 190 pounds, and let us say fifty pounds of that is fat, that means my body is jammed with at least 10,000 miles of bootleg capillaries just to feed the fatty tissue. Figuratively, then, my heart is pumping blood a distance amounting to three times across the United States, with 1,000 left over just to nourish the excess. Add to that the other 140 pounds which must be fed, throw in a little stress and physical exertion, and one wonders how the heart manages to accomplish such a colossal feat, day in, day out. The heart is just one of the human body's amazing mechanisms, which goes on about its business largely unnoticed until we begin to think about it, or unless something goes wrong. It is additionally fascinating to observe how ingeniously each specific part of the body is designed for a significant function. Injure, for example, one of your thumbs, and you soon learn how very much that part of the hand, which often appears to be just along for the ride, is essential for handling.
Everything which is has been created as part of a master-design for a specific purpose. Earthworms ventilate the earth, bees pollinate, plankton are essential to the marine food chain, and plants breathe in order that we may breathe. Nothing which is, is insignificant. Ingenious!
The apostle Paul did not have the luxury of knowing everything about the human body that the modern medical mind knows today. However, he knew enough about the inter-relatedness and interdependency of its parts to use it as an analogy for the visible body of Christ, the members of the Church. "For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ ... if the foot shall say, 'Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body;' is it therefore not of the body? ... but now are there many members, yet but one body." (1 Corinthians 12:12f) Each member of the Church is a different, separate part, but performing an essential function, vitally necessary to the whole. If a capillary becomes distressed because it cannot be an artery and resolves not to function, the body suffers. If a thumb becomes disenchanted because it is not the whole hand and folds itself away, it intentionally impairs the function for which the hand was created. A post-Pauline epigram, which he could have used to conclude his comments in the Corinthian letter, is the old quip, "Cutting off the nose to spite the face is poor judgment." Every member of the body of Christ is necessary for the whole; even those who give the appearance from time to time of "just being along for the ride."
And another thing: even as the human heart transports life's essences incredible distances daily, the distances covered by a single Christian's witness is equally incredible. A small church sends a missionary to a foreign land; a child puts his offering in the plate and helps support the missionary, or underwrites a hospital in some far-away place. A church visitor makes a call to a shut-in or prospect in the name of Christ and that gesture extends far beyond the person who made it.
The human body and the body of Christ - both are rather ingeniously designed.
SNAKES, BIRDS, AND LILIES
I remember reading that a highly poisonous snake called a "krait," considered more deadly than the cobra, bit its handler. But here's the switch; the snake, not the handler, died! It is alleged that the snake died from the stress of the attack. Somehow, it never occurred to me that a snake would be bothered by anything like stress. However, in this day and time, it is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility that stress could be the most common malady of all creation.
For instance, some of us experience a certain amount of stress when our three sacks of groceries at the market stimulate the check-out register to the amount of fifty-three dollars. When I worked for a supermarket in the fifties, anyone who came through the line with a basket of items amounting to twenty dollars was considered a high-roller. Of course, gasoline was only twenty some odd cents a gallon then, and now it is almost necessary to finance a fill-up. The most common form of "financial stress" is simply having to face the fact that frequently we have too much month left at the end of the paycheck.
All of us deal with stress in some form or another. If not with our own, with someone else's. And it is not uncommon that their stress should become our own. This is the way we are made - made to feel, and it is unavoidable that things will affect our feelings. Stress is the risk we assume when we take up the business of being human.
A great many things come upon us over which we have little or no control. Things which are, in one way or another, "done to us." Dealing with these is a delicate matter. On the other hand, there are a great many things which come upon us that we "do to ourselves," likewise a delicate matter. Early one morning, a little bird appeared on the window sill outside the parsonage. He cocked his head back and forth, pranced and preened, and began lunging against the window. When I returned at noon, the little bird was still there. There was blood on the window, the sill, and about the bird's head and breast. I went out and chased it away from the window, then went on about my affairs. Later that afternoon, I discovered that it had returned to take up the ritual, but now lay dead, having literally beaten itself to death lunging at its own image. Some things are "done to us," others we do "to ourselves." Fixing our attention on ourselves and refusing to redirect that attention to something else is to court disaster.
It was to just such a people as ourselves that the Nazarene spoke these words: "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow or reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." (Matthew 6:25-29)
Stress seems to be a universal characteristic of our time, and there just seems to be something relevant about something which begins "... do not be anxious about your life."
THE PREACHER AND THE SNAKE
One of the mountain stories contained in the FOXFIRE series tells about a North Carolina preacher living on Cullowhee Mountain who kept a rattlesnake in a box on the pulpit. It is not unusual in some mountain areas for worshipers to handle, or "take up" a serpent, both as a sure sign of their faith, and as evidence that they are in the "glory-land" way. Anyway, this real-life preacher kept the snake on the pulpit, explaining that if the Lord ever told him to take up a serpent, he'd have one handy. Finally, one Sunday morning while waxing eloquent, he "got happy," reached inside the box and withdrew the rattlesnake. The congregation rejoiced, hollered, and stomped their approval. The preacher held the snake for a while, praised the Lord, and put it back in the box. The people wanted more and prevailed upon him to do it again. After much hesitation, he finally gave in to their pleading, reached in and pulled out the snake, which promptly bit him on the arm. The preacher, narrowly escaping death, later explained that the first time he had picked up the snake, it was because the Lord wanted him to; the second time, he was doing it to please the people, and that, he reasoned, was why he was bitten.
Personally, I believe that if the good Lord had intended for us to handle snakes, he would have put handles on them. As a boy, one of my friends chased me up and down a ditch bank with a water snake he had jerked out of a root wad. I don't know if his faith made him pick it up, but a clod of dirt in the side of the head made him put it down.
With all respect to the snake-handling preacher, the Bible is replete with evidence relating that it is unnecessary to resort to the spectacular in order to confirm or "prove" the leadership of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Paul told the Galatians that the evidence of the spirit is "love, joy, peace, Iongsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance." (5:22, 23) No mention of snakes, alligators, burning coals, or miraculous deeds. The "proof" of the Christian life is the effortless, natural expression which emerges without the slightest premeditation or design from the total life of a person. With Christ in the heart, there is no need of a snake in the box.
The mountaIn preacher did, however, make his point. He concluded that he was bitten by attempting to please the people. That is the way it usually turns out.
THOU ART THE POTTER, I AM THE CLAY
Leonardo da Vinci began work on his famous painting, "The Last Supper," in 1495. At its completion almost four years later, it was hailed as a masterpiece and its creator was lauded as a genius. However, I have lately learned two fascinating things about Leonardo: (1) Art was only one of the many things he had mastered. He was a sculptor, musician, poet, architect, chemist, engineer, and inventor. He is said to have developed working designs for the airplane and steamboat. He studied botany, anatomy, was a geologist and an astronomer. (2) The other fascinating thing to learn was that this man who possessed such magnificent control over the brush, each mark being a perfected stroke - this same man whose skilled hands were capable of producing an utter masterpiece - was unable to write even his own name legibly. His handwriting was so atrocious that only recently have the experts been able to decipher it. He wrote lefthanded, back-handed, and from right to left. Frankly, I would have supposed his penmanship to have given the appearance of the finest caligraphy. Nonetheless, his inability to use his hands precisely enough to write legibly did not hinder his remarkable capacity for capturing the minutest detail on canvas. I love the "inspite-of" stories.
William Barclay was another kind of genius in our own time. He was a scholar, teacher, prolific writer, dynamic preacher, magnetic TV personality, genuine gentleman, and dedicated Christian. He was also deaf.
Fanny Crosby was a reflective poet, lover of the Scriptures, and writer of hundreds of hymns, such hymns as "Near the Cross," "Savior More Than Life to Me," "Blessed Assurance," and "Tell Me the Story of Jesus." She was exceptionally gifted. She was also blind.
Moses stuttered, Peter had a notorious temper, and Paul had a "thorn in the flesh." Zacchaeus was short, the woman of the streets had a wretched past, sand Samson was arrogant. Solomon was worldly, David was stricken by seizures, Job was afflicted, Thomas, doubted, and the Samaritan was despised. John Wesley did battle daily with cockiness; Captain Webb, a great revivalist preacher, wore a patch over his eye, and one of my all-time favorite preacher friends in the North-Arkansas Conference, now in the nearer presence of his Lord, was so short that he carried a box with him to the pulpit to stand on in order to be seen by his congregation. I love the "inspite-of" stories, partly because they are reminders that God can use our infirmities for his glory, but mainly because they are reminders that we have no excuse for not serving him.
Tempted to offer an excuse? A word to the wise: God does not create anything he cannot use.
NEEDLESS BATTLES
On June 1, 1812, President James Madison asked Congress to declare war against Great Britain. Among other reasons for the President's request were (1) British blockading of American ships as decreed by "Orders in Council," and (2) the removing of British deserters, as well as American sailors, from American ships to be forced into service for the British navy. On June 18, or seventeen days following Madison's appeal, Congress issued a Declaration of War. However, unknown to Congress, Britain had repealed the "Orders in Council" two days earlier. Faulty communication had prevented the news from reaching America until after the War of 1812 had already, and needlessly, begun.
The Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815, was the last battle of the war. An army of 8,000 men was dispatched by Britain to capture the city, only to be thoroughly routed by the forces of General Andrew Jackson. However, a treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent, Belgium, fifteen days before the famous battle. Again, poor communication had resulted in a needless battle.
Several years ago, a professor at Emory University created considerable stir among religious-minded people when he boldly announced his much publicized "God is Dead" theory. Throughout the Church, particularly in the South, ministers braced their shoulders, thumped their Bibles, exhibited their best preacher voices, related their finest emotional stories, and frequently quoted the Psalm which says, "The fool has said in his heart there is no God." A flurry of forums, lectures, leaflets, debates, position papers, and bumper stickers appeared. So far as bumper stickers go, probably the most popular was the one which read, "My God is not dead, sorry about yours." The general public was never really sure whether the professor was saying that (1) God had intentionally removed himself from involvement in his creation in order that it might "come of age," or (2) our understandings, concepts, and images of God are primitive and worn-out interpretations are not worthy of the God of the contemporary world, or (3) we live in a world which behaves as if God simply doesn't exist. Although I understood the man to be expressing alternative number 2, poor communication stirred up another needless battle. It was unnecessary because the Church should not have felt so threatened as to move with such dispatch to "prove" something so obvious as the actual existence of the Almighty. The Church can neither prove nor disprove such a matter anyway. Woe unto us if the Almighty must depend upon the Church or any other institution to certify his credentials. Then too, the battle with the "death of God" people was unnecessary because if God should indeed become absent, we will ALL know about it immediately, quite without the formality of an announcement.
Many of us have a tendency to wage unnecessary battles within ourselves; feeling guilt for which we ponder God's ability to forgive, insecurities about matters which we wonder if God is able to strengthen us to overcome, failures which we wonder whether or not God can use. Such things, having been settled long ago, are needless battles, apparently due to faulty communication - between ourselves and the Almighty.
HE MAKES ME TO LIE DOWN IN GREEN PASTURES
In Phillip Keller's book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, each major phrase of the much-loved Psalm is elaborated upon from the perspective of a shepherd. In his comment about the phrase, "He makes me to lie down in green pastures," Keller observes that it is impossible for sheep to be made to lie down unless at least four requirements are met: (1) They must be free from fear, (2) free from friction among their own kind, (3) free from pests, and (4) free from hunger. I do not know much about sheep, but if Keller is correct, sheep and people apparently require about the same things for security.
(a) Free from fear. Do we confess Christ with our lips while maintaining our fear or uncertainty about specific circumstances, the future, or the unknown? Suspicion, cautious pessimism, or calculation prevent one from being able to "lie down" securely in the Lord, inasmuch as we have refused to entrust our affairs into his keeping. To pray about a matter and then lie awake worrying about whether or not God is capable or willing to handle it is a sorry prayer. One or the other could be left off; to do both is contradictory. A sheep can lie down and go to sleep in the midst of an unknown terrain with danger lurking behind every rock, if it has confidence in the shepherd. If both the shepherd and the sheep are going to stay awake as a watchman, one of them might as well get some sleep. The sheep is smart; it entrusts its welfare to the one who knows where the green pastures are and is capably leading the way.
(b) Free from friction among their own kind. Sheep will inevitably bump, brush, and rub against one another as the flock moves along toward its destination. The friction cannot be avoided; it is part of the journey - that is, unless one chooses to wander off on his own, away from the flock, to avoid contact with the others. But to do that is to court disaster far worse than an occasional bruise. Similarly, friction is part of our journey too. It cannot be avoided, especially in a flock as large as the human race. It is helpful to remember that we are a part of the same flock, trying to reach a common destination as best we can. What is one bruise when compared with the destination, or better yet, the privilege of even getting to be a part of the journey at all?
(c) Free from pests. Ever try to sleep with a mosquito in the room - just one? Something has to be sacrificed, either your sleep or the mosquito. It is impossible to lie down in serenity in the midst of bothersome irritations. How wonderful is the shepherd who leads his flock beyond irritations to lie down and be rested. It is a good thing not to strain a gnat while swallowing a camel; it is also good to know the difference between the two. Some pests in our lives can be eliminated, others must simply be avoided. The sheep which trusts the shepherd is made to lie down in green pastures; all others swat gnats even in their sleep.
(d) Free from hunger. It is tough to do anything on an empty stomach. We don't know much about that in this country. Our six percent of the world's population consumes forty percent of the world's goods. Throughout the world, thousands die daily from hunger, while we spell relief R-O-L-A-I-D-S. The shepherd has truly made us to lie down in green pastures. But we, like sheep, have gone astray, encountering those things which prevent us from being able to "lie down" in the Lord - fear, friction, and irritation. Read now Psalm 23 in its entirety where the Psalmist lays down what it means to "lie down."
BLUNDERING INTO GRACE
A couple mornings ago I reached in the cabinet, picked up a box containing a new tube of toothpaste, removed the tube from the box, and promptly tossed the toothpaste into the waste basket beneath the sink. Unable to squeeze any toothpaste from the box I held in my hand, the mistake was soon discovered. Sometimes I confuse the hairspray with the spray deodorant. That is always uncomfortable, but at least my hair doesn't perspire. At other times, I go outside, get in the car, reach to turn on the ignition, then have to go back in the house to get the keys. That's all right, unless I've locked the house on the way out (and you know whose housekey is on the ring with the car keys). And then, I have locked the car with the keys in it. So far, I have successfully managed not to lock the keys in the car while leaving the motor running. You've noticed that sometimes ministers turn off the pulpit microphone during the singing of hymns on Sunday mornings. For those of us who do that, there is a logical explanation. It's just that, well, sometimes we don't always sing the same verses as the congregation, and every once in a while, we are not even on the same page. Preoccupation with the sermon and all that kind of thing, you know.
Wouldn't life be wonderful if we could eliminate the blunders! Humanity, though, is perfected by its imperfections. We do not live forever, do not always stay young, and do not always do the proper thing. That is indicative of our kind. It is "perfectly" human. To be anything more would be superhuman, and it is nowhere written that any of us can achieve that in this life.
There are some mild comforts, however, about our fumblings. For one thing, at least some of the time we are by ourselves when they occur, which mercifully spares us from embarrassing guffaws. For another thing, we have the satisfaction of knowing that everyone behaves a little balmy at times. I once visited a church member in the hospital when two other visitors entered the room. No one bothered to introduce anybody, and one of the visitors, a lady, began a colorful harangue about the how the patient's condition was similar to her own. She cursed, swore, complained, whined, and harped for about ten minutes. She uttered an oath against everybody from the hospital staff to the Pope, and I decided to take my leave. "Thanks for coming by, Brother Powell," said the ailing church member. "Brother Powell?" asked the visitor. "Yes, he's my pastor," she was informed. "My Lord," came the reply, "I thought he was an insurance agent or something." I would have been embarrassed to be that woman's pastor, but then, I would not want to be her insurance agent either.
The remarkable thing is that God can use the likes of you and me to do his will. He has placed his treasure in, as Paul phrased it, "common clay pots, to show that the supreme power belongs to God and not to us." (2 Corinthians 4:7) To forget that would be the biggest blunder of all.
SUCCESS: ONE MAN'S OPINION
Ralph Waldo Emerson's early life was marked by poverty, frustration and sickness. His father, a Unitarian minister, died in 1811, leaving Ralph's mother to raise five sons. One of Emerson's younger brothers was mentally retarded and spent most of his life in institutions. Another brother, a victim of mental illness, died in 1834. A third brother died in 1836 of tuberculosis. Until Emerson was thirty, he also suffered from poor health, including lung disease and periods of temporary blindness. In addition, his first wife, Ellen, died in 1831, and his first son, Waldo, died in 1842. However, in spite of hardship and tragedy, Emerson penned some of the most beautiful lines to come from the hand of an American poet. Among my favorites is this familiar piece:
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.
Success, by the world's standards, is illusive. Success, by Emerson's definition, is within reach of us all.
Jesus reminded us that by the world's measure, success is often thought of in terms of what we have been able to acquire, how much we have managed to accumulate. However, we never seem to have enough and do not take the time to enjoy what we have gathered about us.
I am grateful to Emerson for his definition of success. I may not achieve it, but it helps me to recognize others who have. I am thankful that our Lord set success and aspiration in the proper perspective. I may not achieve that either, but I am grateful for those who are seeking it. Kingdom people bless our lives.
Are you a "success"? By Christ's estimation? If so, let us gather in places of worship and celebrate it. If not, then let us gather to worship and SEEK it.
HOW WE PLAY THE GAME
There is something to be said for the claim that organized sports have evolved to the point of a national religion. Indeed, some sporting events contain elements resembling a worship service. There is a prelude (National Anthem) call to awareness (cheers), a hymn (alma mater), introit (teams entering the stadium), offering (price of admission), and prayer (invocation). There is praise and adoration (of the favorite team players, and coaches). There is the sacrifice, the nature of which is determined by who loses. In the seats are persons faithful, loyal, and committed to their respective teams, who have gathered again to observe the ongoing set-to between good and evil. As in any religion, the ultimate objective is victory. However, nowhere is there more emphasis upon winning than in sports. Winning has become an obsession, an obsession which not infrequently alters our behavior. Before a big "game," ardent supporters sometimes become afflicted with a kind of spectator virus. Symptoms range from headache, nausea, hyper-activity, and speculation, to fantasizing, motor-mouth, and various sensations of general heebie-geebies. Coaches stalk, ponder, psyche and double-psyche themselves, carry a piece of chalk in every pocket, experience blurred vision due to watching countless replays of game film, and have been known to forget meals. The players wrestle with butterflies, become impatient, and develop fixations on the clock. It is all a part of the pre-"game" ritual as fans, coaches, parents, and players prepare for the common objective - to win.
An instructor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, has suggested that our obsession with winning is perhaps due to an attitude of national frustration. I quote, "We're not accustomed to winning any more. We don't really win. We have not won a war, a peace, or a war on poverty or inflation. We have not won individually or collectively. More and more we will turn toward the field." He may be correct in suggesting that what happens on the field is a projection, in some way, of ourselves, in which case our involvement, or lack of it, in the "game" itself is understandable. At any rate, something has happened which causes us to wonder if it really is just a "game" anymore.
Not all our children are going to play on winning teams, nor is each of them going to emerge from the multitudes as a "star." It doesn't matter. All we wish for them is to be healthy, happy, responsible, and live meaningful, fulfilling lives. True, sports can be an important part of that chemistry, but they are not the be-all, end-all of conditioning for life. The lesson of how we win, lose, agree, disagree, negotiate, find meaning, values, and objectives, involves the total relationships of life. The command is not to "win," but to produce at all, win or lose. If you don't believe it, ask any of the children at the Crippled Children's Home or any of the wheelchair patrons on the sidelines.
Achievement, excellence and proficiency are things for which we all should strive, but when they become our religion, it is a religion misplaced.
THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazi SS Black Guards in 1945 at age thirty-nine. His religious convictions had been judged to be inconsistent with Hitler's "New Germany." Fortunately, however, many of his letters and papers have been preserved and long since translated into English. Perhaps the most celebrated, oft-quoted volume appears under the title, "The Cost of Discipleship." In it, Bonhoeffer lays down the numerous costs a Christian must be willing to pay. An initiative which has proven so costly to God, including the giving of his own Son, can hardly be expected to result in a free ride for the believing Christian. Christianity costs something.
However, there are times when not following the way of Christ proves costly too. For instance, I saw it cost a lady on a TV game show $12,000 once. Oh, I don't know if she was a Christian or not, but if she was, she wasn't informed. Her vast secular knowledge was acknowledged by the fact that she was the reigning champion of the game, which in turn, qualified her to go for the really big "jackpot" amounting to $12,000. She had already replied correctly to questions which I wouldn't even know to ask, much less how to answer. Art, literature, opera, theater, science - one by one she fended them like so much child's play. Then came the chance for the $12,000 grab. All she had to do was correctly answer five questions in succession. The first four, of which I have not the foggiest notion, were snaps for this young lady whose broad sweep of knowledge appeared unfathomable. Only one to go for the big money. At last, the question: "The Queen of Sheba visited him in Jerusalem; who was he?" She couldn't miss! Or could she? Hummmmmmmmm, she pondered. "Come on, say Solomon," I said out loud. Finally, she parted her lips to answer the $12,000 question. "Julius Caesar," she guessed.
That reply cost her $12,000. Just as surely as the disciplined religious life costs something, the undisciplined study of God's book costs us something, too. Frequently, it is something of greater value than prize money - reputation, friendship, peace of mind, security.
Yes, Christianity costs something. But it is a small price to pay in consideration of what it costs not to be a Christian.