TO LIVE BEFORE WE DIE
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
Bristol, Connecticut
March 20, 2010
Jeremiah 31: 31-34
Luke 12: 13-21
To live before we die. Who doesn’t want to live before they die? Who doesn’t want to really live before they die? If you think about it, this is a theme of Lent every year: With God’s help, we seek to live a life that’s really worth living. A life, we believe, taught us and modeled for us by God’s son, Jesus Christ. However, as we also know all too well: it’s one thing to talk about this life. It’s quite another thing to have the courage to live this really full life.
This morning, to begin, I’d like to ask you to do a difficult thing. I’d like for you to remember or imagine a time in your life shortly after someone very close to you had died. It’s not a pleasant task, I know, but try to remember, just for a moment. Then picture yourself at a social gathering of some kind, maybe even our coffee hour after church. You walk into the room wondering if anyone can see anything in you but your grief. You’ve talked about your loss all you care to and hope to talk with anyone about anything except “how are you doing?” because you don’t know if you can keep it together if they do.
In the first group you happen on someone who is talking about her teenaged daughter who hasn’t picked up her room in weeks. Everyone smiles, remembering their own trials with teenagers. Then you move on to another cluster and someone is talking about all the taxes they have to pay. And the government. Then, the subject turns to the weather.
There were other days, other gatherings, when you would have gladly joined in such conversations, but not this time. While you’re glad no one asked how you were doing, you’re almost annoyed that everyone could be so carefree. It all just seems so surreal. How can people possibly think that any of this stuff really matters. Have you been there? Or can you imagine?
Death changes things radically. In its own way, death is a teacher, isn’t it?
When death invades our closest circle of family or friends, it puts everything into a different light, puts all our other so-called problems in a new perspective. It sorts out what’s truly important, and what isn’t.
Congregational minister, Martin Copenhaver, says it would be interesting to imagine what it would be like as a pastor to pay a call on the widow of the farmer in Jesus’ parable of the rich fool read earlier. Let’s listen in on the dialogue:
“The farmer has just died. His wife is in shock. She asks, ‘What’s a person to do now? No one has told me what happens next.’
“In time, the pastor continues, we discuss the memorial service, and I ask a few questions about the man who recently died. I didn’t know him too well, although on those rare occasions when I did see him for a moment or two I genuinely liked him. But now, as we plan for a memorial service, I know that I need to speak of him as a whole person, not just of those few fleeting moments that I knew him. And so I ask, ‘What was important to him?’
“And his widow answers, ‘his family is – was – very important to him. He was very proud of his children, although I’m not sure they really knew that. But his wallet was thick with their pictures. And when we were younger we used to love walking along the beach together. We talked about retiring on the shore so we could take walks like that again.
“And his church was very important to him, although I know you might not have seen much evidence of that in recent years. He didn’t stop believing in God – I’m sure of that. But somehow, life just got so busy.’
“I ask, ‘How did he spend his time?’ She replies, ‘Oh, working on the farm. And he was very successful. We had another bumper crop this year. He didn’t want to sell it all at once because if he flooded the markets the price was sure to fall. So he tore down the barns and built larger ones to store the crops. It was a huge task and demanded his full attention. He said he even dreamed about it. It was a lot of pressure.
“As for other parts of his life, well, they were put on hold for a while. I didn’t always make things easier for him, either. I would frequently ask him when it would all end and we could get on with our lives. And he would always try to reassure me, mostly by using words like ‘tomorrow’ or ‘soon’ and phrases like ‘this won’t last forever’ and ‘someday’ and ‘I promise.’ And he meant it. I know he did.
“He often promised me and himself that as soon as he finished his work and gathered all of his goods together he would then say to himself, ‘You now have plenty of goods laid up for man years; now you can go to that house on the shore, take your ease, eat, drink, be merry, and do all those things you always talked about.’ But now . . .”
She pauses and then seems glad to change the subject: “Well, let’s get back to planning the memorial service.’”
Death is a teacher. And among the things it can teach us if we’re teachable is how wide the gap is between our answers to the questions “What’s important to me?” and “How do I spend my time?” Unfortunately, all too often it’s only by experiencing the death of a loved one that we’re enabled to gain a proper perspective on our lives – only in the wake of the loss of someone dear that we can see clearly enough to know what’s truly important in life and what isn’t.
I don’t know about you, but I actually believed Copenhaver’s farmer when he said that he intended to lead a different life some day soon. Just as I believe myself when I express similar intentions. Some day soon I really get in touch with a few old friends now scattered across the country who once were as important as the next breath to me, but have, alas, fallen off even our Christmas card list.
Some day soon I really will get serious about learning how to relax. And, I swear I’m going to work on playing more and working less. Someone invited me to play golf when the weather got better and I said I liked him too much to mess up his day with my golf game. I work too much. I play too little. My father died of a heart attack at age 65 and I’m almost 63. With 5 stents holding my coronary arteries open I’ve already had a wake up call.
I’m really going to do these things -- as soon as the barn is built, as soon as the bills are paid, as soon as I don’t have two jobs here and the Conference, as soon as things slow down, as soon as – well, as soon as things are different than they are now.
I suspect the farmer and I are not alone in this tendency. Over the years, I’ve heard many people speak of how their lives are going to change as soon as their barns are built: you know, when they retire, when the children are grown, when the home is paid for, when things slow down, when things are different.
It’s not that we’re incapable of doing what we want or should do. It’s simply that we seem incapable of doing it now. I’m afraid that the poet Dylan Thomas had it right when he wrote, “Too soon, time, like a running grave, tracks you down.”
It surely is one of life’s greatest ironies that the most important things in life are also the most easily postponed. Think about that. The most important things in life are also the most easily postponed.
What I mean is we tend to fill our days with all kinds of barns that we try to build – some of us by working too hard, and some of us by endless lists of chores to be done or some of us perhaps by trying to impress friends or neighbors with our homes or yards or cars or clothes or vacations or whatever. Modern day equivalents of barns to be built by busy-ness.
Now, if we’re honest, we may have to admit that all this activity, all these things we do may not add up to much of a life. But, there they are, way up high on our lists of priorities, day after day, week after week, year after year. Meanwhile, things like developing real friendships, working on our marriage relationship, spending quality time with our children and grandchildren, taking time for a neighbor in need, volunteering to make the community or world a better place, just enjoying God’s wonderful world without an agenda – these are the things which we think can be postponed – can be put off to tomorrow.
Some day, we say. But some days often never come. And then time, like a running grave, tracks us down.
Copenhaver also tells of a television program he saw in which an interviewer talked with several prominent public figures – politicians, business leaders. One question he said the interviewer asked each one was, “What would you like to have appear on your epitaph?” Of course, he could also have asked, “On the night your soul is required of you, what would you want to have said about you?”
Copenhaver said the question seemed to catch them off guard, as if suddenly they were in the presence of death. Gone were the well-rehearsed statements. And, interestingly, their answers were remarkably similar. Each spoke in grand terms about love, and bettering the lives of others, and even about serving God.
Copenhaver says he didn’t find himself cynical about their responses – he believed them. Believed that they did desire and intend these things for their lives. And yet, he says, he doubts very much if the day after the interview, when their aides asked what was on the agenda for the day, that any of them responded, “Well, today I think I must better the lives of others and make time to learn more about God.” More likely, with the thoughts of death removed, like most others, their concerns were with getting reelected, advancing their careers or making more money – all those barns to build.
Irony. The most important things in life are also the most easily postponed.
It’s Lent. A time for self-examination. We may not need Jesus to remind us of what’s truly important, but when he does somehow it all seems so obvious and believable: our lives were made for more, for much more than what we usually make of them. More, not tomorrow – because we can’t live tomorrow today – rather, more today, for that’s the only day we’ve been given.
Death is a teacher – a great teacher. And from it, we can learn important lessons. Surely we’ll be wise to learn to give attention to the little things today. To savor life’s so-called little things with the grateful appreciation that is due them: a good meal with friends; a walk around the block; the smell of Spring in the air, the start of baseball season. But wise also if – remembering that death is never far away – we’re led to think about what’s really most important in life and thus make sure we’re involved in some way with doing God’s work on earth: To invest some major chunks of our lives and resources in works of mercy, compassion, justice, love…. To make sure we’re not shortchanging significant relationships with family, with friends, with spouse, with children.
So that in the end, if we have savored the so-called little things of life and given ourselves to God’s cause in some big ways, on that night when our souls are required of us, we’ll discover that, true, we maybe didn’t build all the barns we could have.
But, with God’s help, we did build a life.
