First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Philippians 3:12-16
February 6, 2005
In the southern Appalachians, at the corner where North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee meet every morning for coffee, there is a little hospital where a colleague once spent several more days than he wanted, going from sick to well, worse to better and broken to whole. And to relieve the monotony of his medical incarceration, he initiated conversation with any and all who entered his room, including the lady who came daily with mop and bucket to clean his floor.
“It must be hard work,” he said.
“It is,” she answered. “In fact, it was wearing me down to the point I could hardly stand it, until last Wednesday night when, at the prayer meeting of the little church I attend, I was overcome by the sweet, sweet spirit of Jesus.”
“Good for you,” my friend said. “That must have been a great blessing.”
“Well, it was,” she said. “But given the work I do, it wore off real fast.”
I can understand that….how good it felt to get it and how bad it felt to lose it. I might not talk about it in the same way. But among the things religion does for me (and hopefully for you) is that it gives me, from time to time, a lift….a boost….an injection of exhilaration….that “sweet, sweet spirit of Jesus,” if you will….that lifts me above the daily and out of the ordinary. So that the routine (when it returns) is manageable, and what I sometimes call “the daily grind” is endurable.
Like the Presbyterians next door (who, by definition, are never anything but decent and in order), we Methodists like our religion calm and reasonable. But if we desired nothing more than that, we could fire the musicians, replace preachers with lecturers, and close our sanctuaries, the better to worship in libraries.
Yet our language betrays a deeper need. From time to time, one of you will greet me at the door and say: “Bill, that was a real high this morning.” While others, who worshiped here once but have moved apart from us since, return for a visit….often because family brings them back…. occasionally because work brings them back….but sometimes because nothing brings them back except (as they describe it) “their need for a fix.”
“That was a real high, this morning, Reverend.”
“We drove all this way….in fact, way out of our way….because we needed to get a fix.”
There’s a disconnect in that language. Words like “high” and “fix” seem so appropriate here…. so understandable here….so non-controversial here. And yet “getting high” and “needing a fix” are frightening phrases….Saturday night versus Sunday morning phrases….phrases more commonly associated with chemistry than Christianity.
Exhilaration is something all of us need and few of us can live without. Most times, we seek it appropriately. Often, musically. Occasionally, athletically. Every now and then, geographically. Marathoners testify to a “runner’s high.” John Denver sang of a “Rocky Mountain high.” And lovers have been heard to exclaim: “Your love has lifted me higher than I’ve ever been lifted before.”
And yet, there are others who will contradict everything they believe….every lesson they have been taught….every value they ever embraced in seeking the “rush” of exhilaration.
· A young mother leaves three kids with her husband and rides off on the back of the first motorcycle that slows down for a female passenger.
· A collegian, overwhelmed by more work to do than there is time to do it, proclaims an inability to take it and goes up and down the hall in search of anybody equally ready to “get wasted.”
· Then there’s the gaming table where, in Detroit, the regulars lose an average of $67 a day….every day….while some guy puts down his house against the house in one sweet roll of the dice. (“Bless me, Jesus.”)
· And there’s that unfortunate and painful confession of the Marine Corp Lieutenant General who, in talking about combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, was quoted as saying last week: “Actually, it’s a hell of a hoot to shoot those guys.”
Like I said earlier, most of us want highs….need highs….to the point of seeking highs. But not every road that gets you high is a good road. And even good “highs” are not the end of the road, so much as way stations on the road. We are not built to live at elevated levels of exhilaration and excitement. Or, as the lady said over her mop and bucket: “Given the work I do, it wore off.”
Three friends went to the top of the mountain with Jesus….had an incredible experience with Jesus….then said to Jesus: “We need to build a place up here.” To whichJesus said: “No, we are not going to stay here. We are not going to build a place up here. We are going back down the mountain.” Which is reminiscent of the preacher who, in the ecstasy of a revival, said to a parishioner: “It’s not how high you jump on the night you meet Jesus, but how straight you walk when you come back down.”
But even here, the word “high” comes into play, given Paul’s suggestion to the Philippians that ours is a call to walk upward as well as onward. Paul starts out by saying: “I am a work in progress.” I mean, that astounds me right there. Can you imagine the apostle Paul describing himself as “a work in progress”? I suppose that makes all of us “works in progress.” In the Christian life, there is no room for people who rest on their laurels. Over and over again, Paul says: “I have neither reason to boast, nor permission to quit.”
Which is followed by all that Pauline rhetoric about forgetting what lies behind him and pressing on toward what lies ahead. “Reaching out,” Paul calls it. And the Greek word Paul uses for “reaching out” is the same word that is used to describe a runner going for the tape….going flat out (as it were) for the finish.
Now, I never ran track, but both Bill and Julie did. And they were taught that, in a race, you never run to the tape. You run through the tape. If you run to it, you will unconsciously slow down before reaching it. Which could cost you the race. But if you see yourself running through the tape, you will be at maximum speed and performance when you hit it. It’s an image that works for the completion of anything (including, for me, my last year of ministry). My goal is to run through the tape, not just to it.
Pressing on. Reaching out. This morning we celebrate fifty years of scouting at First Church. And the amazing thing about Troop 1032 is its astonishing record of having produced 159 Eagle Scouts over those fifty years. Eagle, as most of you know, is as high as it goes and as good as it gets. Over forty years, I have been a participant in a ton of Eagle ceremonies. And I have heard a lot of words about goals accomplished, badges earned, projects completed and leadership demonstrated. But I have yet to hear anybody say: “Boys, you are a work in progress.” Yet that’s what Paul seems to be suggesting they are.
Frankly, that’s tough to hear, being that I’m the kind of guy who would rather have someone come into my office and say: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I’d just as soon not hear the rest of that sentence. Following the words “Well done, good and faithful servant,” comes the phrase: “You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much.” I hope and pray that the lion’s share of those Eagle Scouts have gone on to become “faithful over much.” I also hope they have used their awards as a jumping off point, rather than a lay-it-down, give-it-up, pack-it-in point. Better yet, I hope they will be willing to stand up and tell us what a difference the award made, and what a difference they went on to make, having earned it.
Pressing on. Upward calling. High road.
I don’t know about you, but it sometimes seems as if the low-roaders are multiplying faster than the high-roaders. The “low road” being where you do just enough to get by….where you look out first and foremost for yourself….and where you take shortcuts, make cheap compromises and keep bad company. The low road being the shabby road. And while shabby may be “chic” in home decorating, shabby is never “chic” in moral choice-making.
Consider a rather simple (some might even say innocuous) example of low-roading uncovered recently at an institution I know and love. At the church-related college where I have served as a trustee for the last 22 years, we have various board plans for student dining. But we also have, in the Student Center, a grill where you can get hot dogs, burgers, fries, that sort of thing. And as a bonus to our meal plan students, we give them (from time to time) gift cards to use at the grill….$25 being the usual amount. Which brings more traffic to the grill. And pleases the users.
Well, it seems that a few ingenious undergraduates figured out how to create counterfeit reproductions of the gift cards. Some, they used themselves. Others, they distributed to their friends. But most, they sold at a discount throughout the student body (“Wouldn’t you like to buy a $25 card for $10?”). Small deal? Not really. Rather big deal, really. Two thousand counterfeit cards with a $25 face value represented a potential of $50,000 in lost revenue to the grill (and, at the end of the day, to the college).
When the college discovered the scam, they suspended all such cards, legitimate and counterfeit. Which made students upset, not with their classmates who had sold them the bogus cards, but with the college for rendering them worthless. More than one kid complained: “With the amount of money we pay to this school, I don’t see a problem with taking a little back. It’s not like my $25 is going to bankrupt the institution.” Which was followed by the kid who was quoted for publication: “At the end of the day, the college should be proud of the ingenuity demonstrated by the counterfeiters.” I suppose they figured that the perpetrators should get extra credit in econ or marketing classes, maybe even in an art or graphics design class.
As a trustee who is also something of an ethicist, I’d like to get my hands on the kid responsible for that quote….unless, of course, it was a female (which, given the fact that gender equity has caught up with shabby-chic morality, it very well could have been). Then I would have said something of the following (in Christian love, of course):
Look, you stupid brother or sister in Christ, I have seven things I’d like you to consider.
First, most of that enormous wad of money you pay to this school isn’t coming out of your pocket.
Second, while the college can probably “eat” your $25 scam with a minimal burp, $50,000 worth of scam will give the college major indigestion.
Third, even if you are paying full ride to go here, you are paying less than 80 percent of what it costs to keep you here.
Fourth, you probably aren’t paying full ride because over 90 percent of the student body isn’t. And because the discount rate (campus wide) is 41 percent, you may be falling a whopping 61 percent short of what it takes to keep you here.
Fifth, which means you may already be in hock to this very fine institution to the tune of $22,000 a year (or $88,000 over four years).
Sixth, which means that expectation and entitlement is a street that runs two ways.
Seventh, how “clever and ingenious” will it be when those who merely screw the college over today screw you over tomorrow, or screw your family, company, community or favorite charity the day after that?
Well, I didn’t say any of that. Neither did I grab any kid in Christian love. But I did pay careful attention to the comments of the Director of Campus Safety when he was quoted for publication: “It surprises me that people would be willing to rip off the grill. But it surprises me even more that it would happen to the extent that it has….going on for as long as it did….with as many people involved as there were. That makes me feel really unsettled.”
As most of you know, I spent several days last week in North Carolina. On Sunday morning, before heading down to teach and preach at First UMC, Wilmington, I was having a leisurely breakfast with my host, a retired corporate mogul, who actually passed through here several years ago while working at the outer edges of the auto industry. Finance being his game. Accounting, his degree. Business ethics, our conversation. He wondered out loud just when it was….and how it happened….that accounting standards came to be compromised in so many places, by so many people, working for firms that once had impeccable reputations for honesty as well as accuracy.
Which is when I thought of King Ruhly, who I buried a week ago Wednesday….done much too soon at 86. It was when King had four kids and a wife that he decided there were things in his company that were not as right as they should be. And unable to affect change there, King quit cold and went to work for the association that governed his industry, the better to influence change there.
My friends, getting high is more than feeling good. It’s also doing good. It’s exhilaration, yes. But it’s elevation, too. There is an upward call and a higher road. We hear one and walk the other. Which is why, in the spirit of our text….in fact, in the language of our text….I say to you as your coach: “For Christ’s sake, elevate your game.”
But I must warn you what will happen when you do. You will raise eyebrows. And some, who aren’t quite sure what to make of you, will say: “So what are you, some kind of Boy Scout?” To which at least some of you can say: “Well, as a matter of fact….”
Seriously, though, it’s good to know who you are in a world where so many don’t. Everybody nowadays is worried about identity theft. Daily, the voice on the radio tells me to shred my records, guard my charge cards, never put a number that identifies me on the internet, and remove the copy of my charge slip from the table in the restaurant.
Which advice I take to heart. After all, I don’t want somebody out there pretending they’re me. Although, as a Christian….
Note: This sermon, while not necessarily tailored to Boy Scouts, was preached on Scout Sunday. During the service, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of scouting at First Church. Following the service, 125 representatives (boys and leaders) of Troop 1032 gathered for an anniversary banquet in Fellowship Hall.
The sermon followed a Friday morning summit meeting in our Christian Life Center attended by over 300 teens, educators, social workers and substance abuse professionals on the issue of alcohol and drug usage in the greater Birmingham area. To some degree, the title “Getting High” represented an effort to play off that important gathering.
The story about the scrub woman in the Appalachian hospital comes from Fred Craddock and, while nowhere reprinted, can be heard on an audio tape of Fred’s sermon at Chautauqua during the 2004 summer season.
The story about counterfeit gift cards was taken from a November 2004 edition of the college paper. For purists, the name of the grill in question is The Eat Shop.
