A man went into a department store, picked up a game of chess took it to a salesman and said, “Tell me how to play it as you wrap the package.”
That’s descriptive of our situation. We want to know how to do it quickly. We don’t want to take the time to follow each necessary step. No fascination is keener than our fascination with short-cuts.
We want to be “saints suddenly”. We dream long for instant maturity. And that’s what I want to talk about today as we continue our consideration of Christian growth. Two weeks ago I asked the question, where do we grow from here? Last Sunday we looked at a guide for growth. Today I want to sound a firm disclaimer:
There is no instant maturity.
I. FASCINATION FOR SHORTCUTS
Note first, though, that our life situation intensifies a fascination for short-cuts. Over 50% of the products in our grocery stores were not there ten years ago. The great bulk of these new products are in the frozen and instant food departments.
I get in the grocery stores only when a near emergency state is declared at our house. A while ago Jerry became anxious about the possibility that she would not have enough dessert for a meeting at our house. People called at the last minute saying they would be coming. She telephoned me at the church in the late afternoon asking me to stop at a grocery store on the way home and pick up some instant pie filling. She cautioned me about the fact that there were two kinds and I must be careful to select the right one.
Armed with notes I had taken from our phone conversation, I entered that strange world of the supermarket with confidence. That confidence was soon shattered, however. There were not only two kinds there must have been a dozen kinds – including instant custard as well as pudding – and I didn’t know the difference. I had to move between two counters, two or three times before I could make a decision. Even then, I took three brands home in order to be sure.
That’s the kind of world in which we live. Instant pudding, instant rice, instant coffee, instant breakfast. It’s little wonder really that this has permeated all of life and we want instant religion and instant maturity.
We are fascinated with short-cuts and the microwave oven has become a household symbol for how we live. We don’t want to know if it will work; we want to know if it will work now, quickly. Roy Angel was a Baptist preacher down in Miami, Florida He tells of a woman who wanted instant prayer—power, but didn’t find it. After a raging hurricane, she called Dr. Angel on the phone and cursed him out for preaching such false hopes. She went on a tirade like this.
“1 heard you say in a sermon on the radio that God answered prayer. I had heard that said before but paid no attention to it. I never prayed. But you said it convincingly and some how it lodged in my mind. Well, last week, when the hurricane came, I remembered what you said about God answering prayer, and I began to pray that God would save me and not let my house be destroyed. Well, I had to evacuate my house, and it was destroyed. I want you to know, you are a liar. God doesn’t answer prayer.”
Dr. Angel’s undaunted response was beautiful. “Lady, God was too busy with his regular customers to get to you.” Now, we may not like that tongue-in-cheek theology, but there is something there. We want instant prayer power when we are up against it. We want deliverance now - never mind that haven’t tried to make contact with God in the past year. As Charles F. Kettering once said, “If you fiddle today, you can’t expect to give a concert in Carnegie Hall tomorrow.”
This is what Jesus was talking about in our scripture lesson:
“Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the Kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father.”
Jesus might have well have said, “As you don’t pick a bunch of grapes from a thorn bush, you don’t pick grapes from a vine that you planted only yesterday.” Despite our fascination with short-cuts, there is no instant maturity. This is patently true in Christian maturity.
II. PROCESS NOT PRODUCT
We need to recognize, first, that maturity is a process not a product. Maturity is a process not a product. The seed of sainthood is within each of us, but only the seed. Jesus enunciated in the spiritual realm what Luther Burbank discovered in plant life: Every weed is a potential flower. Every man has the potential for wholeness, the possibility for fulfillment, the capacity for maturity. But maturity is a process, not a product.
When we fail to take responsibility for the maturing process all along the way, time outwits us. Our opportunities pass, doors close, roadblocks are set up, and what might have been is a gibbering ghost.
A mother sent an excuse for her little boy’s tardiness to the teacher of a Manhattan kindergarten. She wrote, “Please excuse Johnny for being late for school this morning. Nine o’clock came sooner than we expected.” That is honesty! It’s also the truth of life. Nine o’clock always comes sooner than we expect.
The danger that is constantly confronting the church and us Christians as individuals is that of holding up some clearly defined model of maturity, and saying, “This is it. When you get to this point you will be a mature Christian.” It’s the kind of thing we have done in education. We have indoctrinated our young people in an elaborate set of fixed beliefs, we’ve stuffed their heads with vast bodies of knowledge. Doing this alone, we have guaranteed the child’s early obsolescence. John Gardner said it well: “All too often we are giving our young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. We are stuffing their heads with the products of earlier innovation rather than teaching them to innovate. We think of the mind as a storehouse to be filled when we should be thinking of it as an instrument to be used.” (pp 21—22)
Well, that’s the mistake we’ve made in the whole of life. We’ve made an idol out of the product, the goal, and so the process and the meaning of it are lost. Think of the ways we do it. Is to be a bible reading Christian a goal, and in being such is one mature? That’s what we have often said. Why haven’t we seen that Bible reading is not a goal of the Christian life; it’s a resource for Christian living. What about prayer? Is this a goal or a resource? I contend that this is a resource, a channel of growth, not a goal but a part of the process. What about public worship? A person isn’t a Christian simply because he goes to church on Sunday. That helps, but it’s a part of the process not the result. You heard what Jesus said in our scripture lesson: “Not everyone that says, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” And he goes even further than that. “On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you evil doers.”
So, nail it down: maturity is a process, not a product.
III. PERSPECTIVE NOT PROFICIENCY
Then there is this truth: perspective not proficiency alone is required for maturity. This is the second thing I want to emphasize. Le me tell you what I mean by perspective.
John McKay is the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At ne time he was the coach of the U.S.C. Trojans. An outstanding coach, especially at the college level. He brought many exciting moments to football fans across the country. One of the things I like about McKay is that he has a very healthy perspective on football. He still calls football players youngsters. He refuses to see what they’re doing as anything other than a game.
I remember one year when U.S.C. beat U.CL.A. in the last game of the season, thus winning national championship as well. It was the game of the season. McKay was questioned by a reporter after the game as to the great significance of that moment. And McKay replied, “I doubt that the outcome of this game today will affect the lives of a billion Chinese.”
Now that’s called perspective. It’s not a putdown on football, or winning - it’s simply a call to keep things in perspective. Perspective not proficiency alone is required for maturity.
Proficiency can become an altar at which we bow, rather than a tool to facilitate growth. It can become a goal that stifles development once we’ve made Studies have shown that highly proficient men, men whose professions require a high level of intellectual achievement, are often out of touch with their emotions, their feelings, and are unable to be sensitive communicate in a deep intimate fashion.
It’s true in every area of concern. I’ve known many people proficient in the bible whose spirits were poisoned, and who knew nothing of the mind of Christ. Perspective is necessary. Do you remember the story that Jesus told about the Pharisee and the tax collector going into the temple to pray? The Pharisee was very religious. He told the Lord so. He was proficient in his religion. He had cleaned up his life in terms of the outward signs of morality. He could say with pride that he was not greedy or dishonest, or adulterous, or unjust. He compared himself to the tax collector, who was in the temple at the same time, to make point. He fasted twice a week. He tithed faithfully. He was proficient in his religious practices.
But he lacked perspective. He didn’t see himself in relation to God. So, he was proud and haughty. He looked down his nose at others. After presenting this proud proficient person, Jesus then described the tax collector. Standing afar off, he would not even lift up his head to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner!
Jesus then made his case clear: “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:13- 4 RSV)
Perspective not proficiency is required for Christian maturity.
IV. PEFORMANCE NOT PROFESSION
Now, another word. Performance not profession is a key to Christian maturity. That’s the third thing we need to note and it’s only an echo of all Jesus said in part of the Sermon on the Mount which was our scripture lesson today. Listen to him in verses 16-20.
“You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:16—20 R.S.V.)
There is no instant maturity here. This life to which Jesus is calling us is worked out in the nitty gritty of every day. This is what Harry Golden talked about. He was one of the most skilled persons I know in using humor to bring us face to face with truth. In an article on anti-Semitism, he spoke of noontime clubs that exclude Jews from memberships. With his cutting humor he pierced our facade of righteousness. “There have been many attempts to convert me to Christianity,” he said. Then he asked the stinging question, “How do they think they are going to get along with me through all eternity if they can’t stand me at a luncheon on earth?”
Performance not profession is the key. How we live, where we are is what counts. Paul has an interesting word at the close of his letter to the Philippians. “All the saints greet you,” he said, “especially those of Caeser’s household.” Are you aware of the import of that? Christians in house hold, Christians who were slaves of a pagan ruler. Those early Christians became saints not in the security of the temple, but in the palace of a pagan; not in the catacombs, but in the kitchens as servants, in the arena as martyrs.
Any spiritual maturity we are to find, any sainthood, is to be found where we are, in the process of living, in the performance not profession, not somewhere else in some other place at some other time, but where I am is my arena for growth. We have a tendency to want to run away for growth. I believe in retreats and profit greatly from them. But if I can’t grow where I am, if I can’t be renewed in my daily involvements, my maturity will forever elude me. It is so popular that is has become trite, yet it is still true: Bloom where you are planted. Performance not profession is a key to maturity.
Perspective not proficiency is required for maturity. Now there is one simple way to keep perspective and to keep testing our level of maturity. Deliberately expose yourself, stay open to persons and ideas that may not fit into your neat well—defined comfortable world. Let me ask you, how do you feel in the presence of a person whom you know has ideas radically different from yours? Or you threatened by them? What about whose dress obviously sets them apart? Or, people of another race? Or religion? Again, are you threatened?
I am not saying that the mature Christian knows complete ease in the presence of radical difference or disparity. I con fess I am often ill at ease in such situations but to be threatened to the point that I will not expose myself to different people and different ideas is a sure sign of immaturity, and a sure sign that I will never grow. Paul said, “I am a debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise” (Romans 1:14 KJV).
When we never allow ourselves to be open we shut ourselves up in the security of relating only to our “own kind” we become provincial and growth is stymied.
It even happens to the church. Some churches are as open to new ideas as a tomb in a pyramid is open to fresh air. Someone has said that the seven dying words of any church are: We never did it that way before.
When we become rigid, creativity dies. We lose our capacity to meet challenges from unexpected places. We grow accustomed to set rituals and patterns and so we are closed and rigid. Not expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen, it usually turns out that way. If anything new or different is introduced we are threatened by it, or we shut it out. We won’t give it a hearing. Jesus knew that danger, so he said, “You must become as a little child.” What is one of the primary characteristics of little children? They are open, flexible. They can grow and change.
If we are going to grow, we need perspective. We can’t have perspective without exposure. And exposure means nothing unless we are open.
CONCLUSION
The last thing I want to say, and it really ties everything else together, is this: COMMITMENT IS THE CATALYST FOR MATURITY.
Two thousand years ago, two impetuous men linked themselves to a wandering Jew named Jesus. His proposal for a new kingdom, a new order of things attracted them. The two men were very much alike: bold, boisterous, excitable, tenacious, aggressive, quick-tempered. They came out of very much the same environment. One of these men was Judas Iscariot, the other Simon Peter. What made the difference? Commitment.
Put any two persons in the same situation. On may come out a bigot, the other a broad-gauged and brotherly person. How do you account for it? Commitment.
I saw it happen dramatically in Mississippi. There were two brothers - same environment, same parental and social influences, same educational opportunities, only two or three years difference in their age. One brother became a lawyer and a counsel for racist organizations. The other became a Methodist preacher. The lawyer defended Byron de le Beckwith, accused assassin of Medger Evers. The preacher became a voice for sanity and brotherhood. What made the difference? Commitment. This is the way growth and maturity take place, this is the catalyst that brings it all together. We mature by living out, however different and demanding, our Christian commitments.
In fact, we may not always appear to be progressing. Certainly we will not be successful in all our efforts. Some high callings to which we respond will fail. The kingdoms of this world may be in dramatic conflict with the kingdom of Christ, and we may grow weary in sticking with the vision, and holding our commitments. Many times we may be crying for mercy, rather than celebrating victory. But if we stay with it – with the narrow way Jesus called us – we will find life. And deep within we will know the satisfying joy, and feel the resonance of joining our hearts with the hearts of those who continue to pray with their lips and their lives, “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven – for thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen.”