Community Church Sermons
Year C
June 27, 2010
Pentecost 5
No Buts About It
Psalm 77:1-2; 10-15
Luke 9:57-62
Rev. Martin C. Singley, III
“I will follow you, Lord, but…”
First let me go and bury my father.
First let me go back and say goodbye to my family.
“I will follow you, Lord, but…”
Today’s Gospel reading from Luke 9 is full of “buts.” That word appears four times in the six short verses of the story. I suppose you could say this is a story about the power of “but.” “But” is such a little word – only three letters long. And yet, “but” is a very powerful word that can ruin your life.
“I will follow you, Lord, but…”
The Bible is full of stories about people who struggle to be faithful. Jesus once told a man that loving God is expressed by loving your neighbor as yourself. Simple, right? Well, it’s not as simple as you might think, depending on your neighbors! You know, if you lived up on Oonoga Circle where I live…! I’m only kidding. But the man in the story wasn’t kidding when he tried to condition the commandment Jesus gave by asking, “BUT…who is my neighbor?”
That word “but” can keep us away from some of the most important things of life!
So I propose today that we stop saying “but” to God.
Now we would not be the first ones to ban the word “but” from our vocabulary. According to the New York Times, Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek magazine already prohibits the use of the word “but” in any of its articles. Bloomberg has a 361-page style manual for their writers. It’s called “The Bloomberg Way”, and one of the rules in this 361-page writer’s guide goes something like this: “Thou shalt not ever use the word ‘but’ in an article.”
Why? Well, the explanation for this rule is that the word “but” forces readers to deal with conflicting ideas in the same sentence. And that confuses the point that’s being made and causes the reader to lose focus on its meaning. It’s like if you write a letter and say, “Sweetheart, I love you with my whole heart, BUT I’m going to marry your sister,” you will totally mess up that reader’s life!
Many Christians in our world are messed up, too, because we let the word “but” get in the way of our faith.
You know, I pray that someday Christians will wake up to the fact that God did not create us to be religious. God created us to LIVE. Way back in the Garden of Eden – where life got its start – Adam and Eve never went to a church service, never memorized the Bible, never sang a praise song, never even said a prayer. There was nothing religious about their life in the Garden. All they did was run around naked all day having a good time. They grew plants and flowers and vegetables. They ate good organic food. They made up names for the animals. And in the cool of the evenings they went on long walks with God.
Life was made to be lived. Life was made to be enjoyed. Life was made to be shared between people and God and make us happy!
And that’s how it was…until the “buts” started coming. Isn’t it interesting that the very first temptation recorded in the book of Genesis went something like this,”You guys think you’re happy, BUT you haven’t tasted this fruit over here!” And that started what we call “the fall of humankind.” Adam and Eve said, “We want to enjoy the life God has given us, BUT we can’t unless we have that fruit!”
And they became so obsessed with what they didn’t have that they lost the LIFE they DID have!
“I want to enjoy life,” someone says, “but…this person hurt me.” “I want to live life to the full, but…I have this kid who’s driving me nuts.” “I want to be happy, but…all these sad things have come into my life.” “I want to experience the beauty of life, but…I have cancer.”
I was stuck at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. a number of months ago. Every time I fly through Dulles it seems I get delayed getting back to Knoxville. But this time we weren’t just delayed. We were stuck. Bad weather had resulted finally in the cancellation of our flight. We were going to have to spend the night in the airport.
Trust me when I say that no one was enjoying life right then! We would all have loved to be happy and overflowing with the joyful life God wants us to have, but we were stuck and what can you say about that? Well, one woman was saying a lot about it. She was virtually accosting the airline people about the fact that she needed to get back to Knoxville, and that she knew there were other airlines flying out, and that the Knoxville flight was being singled out for poor treatment because they hate Tennessee just like they cheated Peyton Manning out of the Heisman Trophy! Where did THAT come from? Now I am certain that this lady would have loved to be enjoying the beautiful life God had given her, BUT THIS AIRLINE HAD MADE HER MAD!
I crept away from that violently angry confrontation, and went and hid in the baggage claim. I slumped against the wall and started thinking about this whole situation. And while I was doing that, God inspired a thought.
“Marty,” God said, “don’t be like her! Enjoy this moment! I’ve created it for you. It’s my gift to you. Live into it!”
And as those words sank in, it struck me that it was incorrect to say, “I want to be enjoying this moment of life God has given me BUT I AM STUCK IN A BAGGAGE CLAIM FOR THE NIGHT.” The better and more accurate thing to say was, “I want to enjoy the life God has given me in this moment, AND I happen to be stuck in a baggage claim for the night so I’m just going to have to make that work!”
And all of a sudden, being stuck in a baggage claim was no longer a reason to NOT enjoy life, but was simply the circumstance within which my life was to be LIVED!
That night, I started noticing people - all kinds of people who like me were stranded. There was the very, very old couple. He was all bent over and clearly in pain. And she, with her obviously arthritic hands, was lovingly massaging his shoulders. I saw looks of a lifetime of love passing between them. What a gift to see that! There was the family with the two little twin girls who were under a blanket together, laughing and giggling. One of them peeked out at her dad and said, “This so much fun! We’re going to stay awake all night long!” There were the two men leaning back in uncomfortable chairs with their heads thrown back, sound asleep. One had a magazine over his face and when he snored the pages ruffled. The other had on a lone ranger mask. They made me laugh, and I took a picture of them and uploaded it to Facebook and some of you got to enjoy them too! There was the little old black lady who was sitting all alone, sobbing. She spoke not a word of English, and I’m guessing she had flown in from one of the islands because she spoke French. No one could understand her language, but everyone understood her tears. Well, I know a little French – un peu – and was able to ascertain that her daughter was supposed to meet her but hadn’t come. She told me the daughter’s name. The security guards made some calls and moments later the daughter came rushing through the door and ran to embrace her mom. It was a beautiful moment of reunion and their tears of joy flowed freely! The mom had gone to the wrong area of the terminal, but now everything was okay. They walked away arm-in-arm, babbling together in French. I wiped away a tear, too, and felt really good to have witnessed such a beautiful thing. God is so good!
And then, in the wee-wee hours of the morning, I saw a worker come along to clean a baggage carousel. She was a hard worker and scrubbed the conveyor until it was spotless. And then she did something amazing. She got up onto the conveyer, pushed a button, and started it up! And around the carousel she went, holding her dust rag on the top of the contraption as she went all the way around, automatically cleaning parts that you and I would never see! What inventiveness! What devotion! What a beautiful sight to see!
I enjoyed life that night! What a gift it is that God gives us life and calls us to enjoy it and live it to the full! The next morning, our flight to Knoxville finally boarded. The angry woman from the night before was still fuming and carrying on about how she was going to write the President of the airline and give him a piece of her mind. Thank God I didn’t have to sit next to her.
And what a shame that she lost twelve hours of life’s rich beauty by living into the “BUT” of her misfortune instead of the glorious LIFE God had given her as a gift that night.
Life is made to be lived. God wants you to enjoy life. Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly!” That’s where faith starts – not in church services, not in Bible study, not even in prayer. Faith starts with learning to LIVE LIFE TO THE FULL!
So put away the “but” that confuses your life and keeps you from living it. Yes, there are problems and misfortunes and injustices and illnesses and losses that come to us every day. God does not want us to ignore these things or to pretend they don’t matter. God wants us to know, however, that even within the darkest moments, life is good – and receiving life each day as God’s gift of love to you provides you with the power you need to successfully face the challenges.
It’s like my friend Richard who was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given thirty-days to live. He came to me one day after one of his radiation treatments and said, “I think I know why I have this brain tumor!” Well, I’m not sure that there are always reasons for people getting sick, but I wasn’t going to get in the way of Richard’s discovery. So I asked why he thought he had that brain tumor.
“Because they need me,” Richard said, referring to the other people he met each day at the radiation clinic. “They’re sad, depressed and discouraged and need me to help them smell the roses!”
Richard’s thirty days turned into ten years, and a multitude of friends he met along the way. The last time we spoke, he said, “Don’t forget to smell the roses.”
Putting away the “buts” and living into each moment of your life is not easy. It takes work, and discipline, and practice. And most of all, it takes God – because God is the Source of life in its richest and fullest beauty, and God loves you so much, he wants to share it with you.
Go today, and LIVE!