First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
May 31, 1998
Scriptures: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Exodus 32:1-7
“Life is uncertain….eat dessert first.” But I seldom do. More often than not, I don’t eat dessert at all. (But if you have smuggled a key lime pie into the sanctuary this morning, I could be tempted.)
A few years ago, I asked you to ponder a particular kind of dessert….namely, a wedge of layer cake (chocolate, carrot, whatever). I asked you to picture yourself with fork in hand, ready to attack that wedge. Following which, I inquired: “Do you go for maximum frosting first, or last?” Given a choice, I customarily start in the lower right hand corner (where there is hardly any frosting at all). Then I proceed toward the upper left hand corner (where the frosting is customarily the thickest). That way, I ensure that the last forkful and the best forkful will be one and the same.
You, of course, can answer for yourself. And probably will. But don’t dwell overly long on such matters, given that we have more important things to discuss this morning….starting with this piece of e-mail that has been making the rounds. I have received several copies….all of them from you. And if the “return path” listings are even remotely accurate, I am not the only First Church member to have been copied. Originally penned by a lady named Ann Wells (for printing in the Los Angeles Times), it begins as follows:
My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister’s bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package. “This,” he said, “is not a slip. This is lingerie.” He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was made of exquisite silk and trimmed with a cobweb of lace. The price tag (with an astronomical figure on it) was still attached. “Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least eight or nine years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion.” He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment. Then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me. “Don’t ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you are alive is a special occasion.”
I remembered these words through the funeral and the days that followed. I thought about them on the plane returning to California from the Midwestern town where my sister lived. I thought about all the things that she hadn’t seen….hadn’t heard….hadn’t done. And I thought about the things she had done without realizing they were special.
Which is why I’m not saving anything. We use our good china and crystal for every special event….such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, or sighting the first camellia blossom.
Which is why I wear my good blazer to the market if I feel like it. And which explains why I’m not saving my good perfume for special parties. After all, clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks have noses that function as well as my party-going friends.
And which is why phrases like “some day” and “one of these days” are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it’s worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now. I’m not sure what my sister would have done, had she known she wouldn’t be here for the “tomorrow” we all take for granted. I think she would have called family members and a few close friends. She might also have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences. And I like to think she would have gone out for Chinese. But I’m guessing. I’ll never know.
So I’m trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that might add laughter and luster to my life.
All of which is lovely, true, and worthy of the wide audience it is receiving. Savor the moment. Seize the day. Smell the roses. “You never know what may happen,” says the preacher in Ecclesiastes. “So eat your bread in gladness and drink your wine in joy.”
Which I have taken to heart….as well as to heed. Kris and I now eat off the good china….every day. We had this discussion a year or so ago. Whereupon, we changed. What’s more, we are talking seriously about taking the sterling out of its felt-lined box and putting it in the silverware drawer….for mundane things like buttering toast and scooping up the Frosted Flakes. And should I die tomorrow, you’re not likely to find any underwear in my dresser drawer with the price tag still attached (not that I’m inviting you to look). Neither will you find any unboxed shirts, socks, slacks or silk ties, just waiting for some “special occasion.” Chances are pretty darned good that shortly after I buy it, I’ll wear it.
And the same is true for seeing sights, settling fights, healing fractures, building bridges….that sort of thing. As concerns the spending of my life, I don’t want to die, having left it in a storage locker or on the practice green. Which is not how I always felt. But, then (as they say in Mississippi), “old pappy time is pickin’ my pocket.” My father died in the summer of his 57th year. I am now entering the summer of my 57th year. Which may account for my appreciation of Ann Wells’ piece. Who can say?
But when I read it through for the fourth time, I backed away from it a bit….just long enough to ask: “Why are we e-mailing this thing all over the nation?” Is it because it challenges us to change our way of living? Or is it because it confirms the way we are already living? And having raised the question, I’ll answer it by suggesting that it is “confirmation,” not “change,” that is being cherished here.
I cannot speak for persons older than myself. For all I know, your dresser drawers may be full of unworn slips, socks, whatever. Just as your lives may be full of places you have yet to go, experiences you have yet to have, risks you have yet to take, and affections you have yet to share. But for people my age and younger, I doubt that such is the case. If Ann Wells is preaching to the choir, my generation is the choir. As concerns the alleged “gusto” that is out there, most of us are grabbing more than we are missing. As a generation, we have not denied ourselves all that much….or delayed going after it all that long. To the contrary, we are the ones who have said: “If it’s worth going after tomorrow, it’s worth going after today.” Which is an ambitious philosophy, but not always an applaudable one. Or a spiritually-healthy one.
I have tried to put myself in the shoes of the lady with the slip….the expensive slip….tucked away in a drawer….for use on a special occasion….a “future” special occasion. Either such an occasion never came. Or, if it did, she never deemed it sufficiently “special” so as to justify unwrapping the slip. Then she died….leaving some undertaker to put it on her. But why did she save it? And, had she known she was going to die without wearing it, would it have bothered her?
Maybe purchasing the slip was more fun than wearing it. Maybe knowing it was there gave her more pleasure than knowing it was on. Maybe saving it for a day when she would be older, somehow made her feel younger. Maybe knowing that she had banked a small box of “specialness” against her future, added pleasure to her present. I don’t know. And I don’t know that she knew.
But let’s push it a step further. I suppose there’s a world of difference between somebody looking at her slip….or my sterling….and saying, “What are you saving it for?” and somebody looking at a 16 year old’s virtue and saying, “What are you saving it for?” Not everything should be taken out the box immediately. Some pleasures should be saved for later.
Is this a problem for children? Sure….as anyone who has ever argued “homework before television” will attest. Is this a problem for teens? Sure….as anyone who has ever argued the case for sexual abstinence will attest. Is this a problem for adults? Well, you tell me. But in a world where credit card debt is a major factor in marital discord….in a world where some well paid couples confess that they are “house poor” (as a result of indulging too big a dream too early in life)….in a world where schedules are harried and nerves are frayed by an inability to make choices between a host of wonderful options….and in a world where I recently heard a 29 year old justify an embraced extravagance with the comment, “Who knows when I’ll ever get another chance to go to Hawaii?”….maybe a “milk the moment” philosophy deserves some added scrutiny. Why? Two reasons. One, developmental. The other, spiritual.
Let’s start developmentally. Twenty years ago, when Scott Peck penned his magnum opus, The Road Less Traveled, he said that there were four basic skills that each of us had to master on the way to becoming mature and healthy adults. The first of these skills he called “the art of delaying gratification.” Concerning it, he wrote: “Delaying gratification is the process of scheduling life’s pain and pleasure in such ways so as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first, and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.” And by “pain” he did not mean “hurtful things,” so much as “necessary things.” Which corresponds to the advice we have heard from job counselors forever. They tell us: “If you want to be productive…..if you want to be effective….if you want to be satisfied in your work….tackle your most difficult task in the first hour of your working day. Leaving it for last drains all of the joy from the other stuff, because you always know it’s out there, hanging like a cloud over everything else you do.”
“And when should we begin to master the art of delaying gratification?” Peck asked. He answered: “I would suggest that the age of five is not too soon to start.” He even spoke of children in kindergarten who volunteer to take the last turn on the playground rather than the first….not solely out of kindness or shyness, but as an intuitive means of allowing pleasurable anticipation to build.
But enough on the developmental side. Let’s address the part of the problem that might be called “spiritual.” For I would submit that the desire to do it now….have it now….taste it now….wear it now….represents (at some deeper level) a distrust of the future….and (by implication) a distrust of the God of the future. It is rooted in the fear that tomorrow will not be kind, and that the God of the “good old days” cannot be counted upon to produce some “good new ones.” The issue is not impatience, you see. The issue is distrust.
Halfway through my “head work” (as opposed to my “hand work”) on this sermon, I changed biblical gears. For the Spirit moved and whispered things like: “Moses….Aaron….holy mountains….golden calves.” Which explains why I read to you from Exodus 32 rather than Hebrews 11.
Among the world’s more impatient peoples were this cluster of migrating Jews, delivered by Moses from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke in Egypt. There they were, crisscrossing the Sinai, searching for the Promised Land. For how long? Forty years, the Bible says. Really, that long? Darned if I know. But I think you can read “forty years” as biblical shorthand for “beyond even the most elastic comfort zone.”
Besides, Moses kept disappearing (as in climbing mountains to talk to God….for rules….or relief). Following one such departure, the people got especially antsy, leading them to lay their complaint before Aaron….Moses’ field general….assistant pastor….whatever. Their complaint read as follows: “The one who brought us here cannot be counted upon. Some days you see him. Some days you don’t. So take things into your own hands. And put gods in our hands….gods that we can see and touch and feel.” So Aaron said: “Give me all your gold. Take it out of your ears. Take it off your fingers. Take it out of your belly buttons. Hand it over to me. And we will smelt your gold into a most tangible god.” Whereupon out popped a calf from the fire (more like a bull, really).
And once the bull was in hand, the people rose early the next morning (verse six) and prayed to it....danced around it….presented offerings before it….and played with it (which, when you take the Hebrew apart, literally means that they “fondled it”….and further than that with my explanation I will not go). What led them to do such things? They lost faith in the God who said to them (at the beginning of this exercise): “Leave here. Go there. Trust me. And I will be your future.”
Like I said a moment ago, it’s not a “patience issue” but a “trust issue.” If you don’t believe that life is ever going to bloom for you again….if you don’t believe that life is ever going to flower for you again….if you don’t believe that life will ever be fragrant for you again….then I suppose you had better smell every last rose in sight (and probably pick them too). But if you believe that God can be trusted with tomorrow’s flowers and fragrances, then you can let some of the roses be….and even prune some of the roses back….knowing that your patience will not go unrewarded.
Matt Hook is right. God is good….all the time. But I may not always feel that God is good….at the time. Still, God’s goodness has a way of catching up with me over time….or, perhaps, beyond time. Which is why, when the Epicurean says to me, “Ritter, the reason you should eat, drink and be merry is because tomorrow you may die,” I can legitimately say: “I can live with that.”
Which is why every day doesn’t have to be seized….every moment doesn’t have to be milked….every trip doesn’t have to be taken….every slip doesn’t have to be worn. And once we free ourselves from the burden of playing “beat the clock” (in order to “get it all in”), I suppose we can begin to enjoy the things we can “get in,” without feeling that they are somehow “too little or too late.”
Which brings me to another story that came to me, the very same day I happened upon the story about “the slip.” Same subject. Same message. But, for some reason, I like this one even better. It’s a Mark Trotter story….which means that it’s a true story. For, as a preacher, Mark doesn’t ever “gussy up” the truth.
I had to go to Nashville to attend a meeting. I got to the Nashville airport late at night, along about 10:00. I got my bags and went out to the curb where you wait for the shuttle busses that take you to the hotels. There were a few other people standing there, lined along the curb, wrapped in overcoats, trying to keep warm.
Sitting on their luggage at the far end of the line were a woman and her male companion. He was silent. She was not. She was talking to her companion a mile a minute, and to anybody else within sound of her voice….which could have been the entire population of the county.
She turned to the man standing next to her and said: “Where you from?” He told her. She then began to tell him all about his city. Next, she turned to someone further down the line. “Where you from?” she asked. He told her. And she told him everything she knew about that city. She was working her way down the line, interrogating everybody standing along the curb. All the while, she was sitting on her luggage, smoking one cigarette after another, complaining about how cold it was, and announcing that she could hardly wait to get to the hotel so she could go to the bar and have a drink.
“Where you from?” she asked the next person in line. Given that she was getting close to me, I started inching my way down the curb, trying to get as far away from her as I could. When a hotel shuttle drove up. Everybody on the curb boarded that shuttle….except for the man, the woman, and me. I am certain that not everyone who got on that van was going to that hotel. It was like one of those westerns when Main Street clears and there is nobody left but the sheriff on one end of the street, and the outlaw at the other end.
“What hotel you going to?” she asked. I told her. “Hey, we’re going there too.” I didn’t say anything.
She said: “I bet you’re a lawyer.”
“No,” I said. “I just like to dress this way.”
“Well, what do you do?”
I said: “I’m a preacher.”
“Well, Jesus Christ!”
I said: “No ma’am, I just work for him.”
The shuttle arrived. We got in. It was just the three of us in the van. She said: “Preacher, I want you to meet my friend.” She introduced me to her companion. I said: “Hello.” Shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
He didn’t say anything. So she said: “He don’t talk. Cancer got his voice box. But I love this man. He’s my friend. I love this man more than anything else in the world.” Whereupon she asked him: “Don’t I love you?” Then she asked him again: “Don’t I?”
Turning back to me, she said: “The doctor says he doesn’t have long to live. You’re a preacher. I want you to pray for him. Maybe it will do some good. We’ve come down here to Nashville to go to the Grand Ole Opry. I’ve got tickets for tomorrow night. He said that he always wanted to go to the Opry. The next day, I’m going to rent a car. We’re going to drive over to Memphis. We’re going to Graceland. He’s always wanted to go there, too. Then we’re going home. Oh, we’re going to have a great time, aren’t we? We’re going to have an absolutely wonderful time. You be sure and pray for him, you hear?”
* * * * *
To everything there is a season….and a time for every purpose under heaven.
