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LINKS TO THE SERMONS |
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| Moments to remember Psalm 90; 1-6, 9-10, & 12 Proverbs 9: 1-6 June 10, 2007
“There’s a time for joy, a time for tears, A time we’ll treasure through the years. We’ll remember always, graduation day.
At the senior prom we danced ‘til three, And then you gave your heart to me. We’ll remember always, graduation day.
Though we leave in sorrow, all the joys we’ve known, We can face tomorrow, knowing we’ll never walk alone.
When the ivy walls are far behind, No matter where our paths may wind. We’ll remember always, graduation day.” Some people will tell you that your school years are the best years of your life – they aren’t. If you have done it right, they are the launching platform for the best years that are still to come. Some people will tell you that the friendships established in high school will last a lifetime – a few might, most won’t. Because of geography and the changes brought on by the passing of time, new friendships will overshadow and take precedence. What you will keep from these years is a storehouse if wonderful memories, stories that become treasures and keep getting better with the telling. Another song from my youth ended with these words, “When other nights and other days may find us gone our separate ways, we will have these moments to remember.” In the years ahead when hard times engender a certain nostalgia for a time when things seemed clearer, more manageable, it will be these years to which your longing heart returns. I still have the tassels from each of my graduations, heavy with memories: grade school in 1957, high school in 1961, college in 1966 and seminary in 1969. And now, those of you who have been wondering just how old I am, you can do the math. From the perspective of youth, the distance from where you are to where I am must seem enormous; but from where I stand it seems like the blink of an eye. Some part of me wants to stop and do the math just once more myself – how could that much time pass so quickly, almost without my notice? That being the reality, the word of the psalmist is salient: “All our days pass away; our years come to an end like a sigh; they are soon gone and we fly away. So teach us to count our days that we might get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90) Some of you stand at one of life’s pinnacles now, the lofty point where the things you know and what there is out there to be known is at its most favorable ratio. From now on every door of knowledge you open will open on a room full of ignorance. By the time you are my age you will realize that Socrates was right, there is not very much we mortals can understand fully with any certainty. The wise person is the one who says, “I don’t know,” and says it a lot. After all these years of school, the majority of your young lives, you are no doubt feeling as though you have arrived somewhere pretty important. Here’s a little reality check – where you have arrived is at another beginning – that’s why graduation is called commencement. If you move into the work force from here, your job application and resume will be shuffled to the bottom of the stack. Even if you have a GPA in the top 2%, are a star athlete and the most popular person on campus, that and $4.00 will get you a latte at Starbucks. You will be entering a world where experience counts (you don’t have any) and the only question is, “can you deliver the goods?” If you are going on to the next level of school, you will be entering a society in which you are the least knowledgeable, least experienced and least important person on campus. But wait, I have more bad news. Education is never complete: formal or informal. The curious mind is your most valuable asset. Hopefully you have gotten that in your school years: that and the willingness to set aside dearly held opinions for the corrected versions unfolding life will offer. The instant you stop learning is the instant you slip behind in the race and you will never catch up. Sooner or later they will mercifully bury you but they might as well have done it back on that day when you decided your education was complete. You’re feeling like an adult now, those of you in your teens. Eighteen is the magic age isn’t it? Back in my youth it was 21. In most cultures historically it has been13. More bad news: there is no magic dividing line between youth and maturity. I waited for it to happen on my twenty-first birthday. Couldn’t wait. I thought adults had their hands on the controls of life; they understood how things worked. I wanted that. I wanted to get to that place where I didn’t make stupid mistakes any more, where I didn’t embarrass myself so frequently, where I had a handle on my emotions and didn’t get so carried away with things. There is no such place. The screw-ups still pervade my life, both public and private. When you are a child, people cut you some slack because you are young, and again when you get old. But, that time in between… What you do get with time, is a little historical perspective on yourself and hopefully a sense of humor. The first time I fell in love was in the ninth grade. She rejected me for the captain of the basketball team and it broke my heart. I thought I would die – but I didn’t. That’s what you learn over time. The things you think are going to kill you usually don’t. Missed opportunities are not the last chance but the beginning of a new phase of life. One day I laughed again and loved again and I don’t know or care what ever became of that girl who broke my heart. So, when you don’t get the promotion you had hoped for or the recognition you deserve (Socrates said life is injustice); when life takes an unexpected and unwanted turn, go with it. It may lead down a road more amazing than you had ever imagined. That’s what you learn with some life under your belt. Sometimes life will hit you hard and you will want to curl up in bed and put your head under a pillow. You never out-grow that. A mother yelled up the stairs to her son, “Get up, you’ll be late to school.” The voice comes from beneath the pillow, “I don’t want to go to school, I hate school.” “Why do you hate school?” “The teachers hate me, the kids tease me and it’s boring.” “But you still have to get up and go to school.” “Give me one good reason why I should.” “I’ll give you two good reasons: one – you’re 42 years old and, two – you’re the principle.” What you also get along the way is the discovery that the game called life gets more and more complex as you move along: more treacherous more unscripted; there will be fewer people looking over your shoulder advising against critical mistakes, people like parents or teachers. Right now that may sound pretty good but there will come times when you long for that wise council. The journey becomes more frightening but also more wonderful as the opportunities for adventure present themselves one after another and experience has made you more able to recognize them and grasp them. And as you move along you begin to notice that the part of life that falls under the heading of that which can be easily defined by scientific evaluation or mathematical formula or rational thought is relatively small compared to that part that exists firmly in the realm of the mysterious, enigmatic and spiritual. Neither your education nor your life can be complete until you confront that reality that is beyond the grasp of everything school has given you. Those who learn to travel the landscape of the transcendent, and the catch a glimpse of the unknowable, are the boldest of explorers; as the song lyric proclaims, “Wealthy the spirit who knows his own flight, stealthy the hunter who slays his own fright, blessed the traveler who journeys the length of the light.” The spiritual travelers of the light discover adventures unknown to those who cower in the relative safety of that which we can handle with rationality and the simplistic programs built into our little onboard computers. A head full of knowledge and proficiency in the three “R”s won’t be enough to navigate the sometimes treacherous and often uncharted waters up ahead – it will take some heart knowledge not gotten through the five senses but by way of inspiration, revelation and epiphany. Paul spoke of it in his letter to the Ephesians, a knowledge that was beyond knowing. It sounds like a conundrum, but what Paul is speaking of is a spiritual knowing that comes separate from and without empirical data. It is planted in the heart by the very hand of God. And finally you figure out that there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. We all know people who are brilliant who don’t have the sense that God gave a goose, to quote my grandmother. The writer of the Proverbs went on for chapters in praise of wisdom. Wisdom speaks, “Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my door; for they who find me find life and favor from the Lord. But, they who miss me injure themselves; all who hate me love death.” (Proverbs 8: 34-36) Wisdom is knowing what to do with all the knowledge you have gathered in school and throughout life. Wisdom is knowing when knowledge is not enough – when to turn to the One who is all wisdom, knowledge and understanding. It’s sort of like the phone calls they let contestants make on “Who wants to be a millionaire?” Except the only way to make that contact and access that wisdom is by way of the spirit and the heart. Wise is the person who cultivates that connection in partnership with his accumulation of knowledge. That’s what we do in this very building – delve into the marvelous mystery we call God to see if it’s possible for the mortal / temporal to interact with the divine / eternal. The Bible asserts that respect for God, the earnest seeking for God, is the beginning of wisdom. So welcome to the adventure
up ahead, beyond any of our imaginations. Make up your minds now
to touch it all, not just the safe predictable parts. And when you
are ready to take on the part of life that is uncharted because
it is uncharitable, that will be a moment to remember. As always if you would like a DVD of a service please contact the church office.
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