"Good Security in a Declining Market"
Christ's truth vs. the distorted ideals of the world
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, April 1st, 2001
Text: Psalm CXII
I was sitting under a palm tree, sipping my diet coke and enjoying the warm evening breezes. I had just played my first golf game in over five months. As many of you will know the feeling when you have done so, I sat there in the chair rubbing copious amounts of Absorbene Junior™ all over my body. As I sat there, thinking about how nice it would be to be able to move from the chair, all of a sudden the man on the balcony adjacent to my hotel-room turned on the television set. On came the Academy Awards and the Oscars. I don't know how many times I heard the phrase used, but it was certainly becoming an irritant: And here are all the beautiful people. In fact, one commentator got slightly carried away as one particular beauty was going down the red carpet and declared: All the beautiful people in the world are here tonight. Well, I thought about that. I thought about their beauty and about the images that all of them are trying to convey and portray. I realized that the images that we have of ourselves, the images of what constitutes something that is beautiful, or handsome, or gorgeous, or successful, really do change throughout the centuries. For example, I went back and looked at an etching, by the great Rembrandt, of Bathsheba reading a letter that had come from David. Here, the supposedly most beautiful woman that ever was, was portrayed as a rather voluptuous and large woman. In the eyes of Rembrandt, however, that signified the image of ultimate beauty. What a contrast to the 1960s image of model Twiggy, which I think was the exact opposite. You see, the image that we have of what constitutes the beautiful and the gorgeous really does change from generation to generation. Even the images that we use to describe Jesus Christ change from generation to generation.
I was looking, for example, at Gero's picture of the crucifixion of Jesus. Here was a man with hollow eyes and concave cheeks, a man who looked like a Jew in misery, a man who was dark and sombre. I contrast that with Rubens painting of Jesus saving sinners: a man with light hair, blue eyes, a fair complexion, a joyful countenance and full cheeks. Both of them are trying to depict Jesus, but very, very different are the images that they portray. Over the years, there has also been a different image of the way in which we look at what constitutes a real man, if there is such a thing. I think, for example, of the second century B.C., where the real man would be a man of wisdom; or of the eleventh century A.D., where he would be a man of steel, a man of war, a man of courage. I think of the eighteenth century, where a real man would be a man of reason, or the nineteenth century, a man of manners and etiquette; the twentieth century, where he would be a man of wealth or of power. As you can see, the images that we construct in our minds of what constitutes the ideal person really do change from generation to generation. There is no constant to the ideal person in the mind of the world. I think the problem arises, however, not so much with the different images that we have, for every era has its own, but when those images become distorted. People become fearful and frightened; uncertain and anxious. This has been brought home to me very clearly indeed over the last couple of weeks by three things that have happened.
The first of these is the terrible tragedy of the Foot and Mouth disease that is striking my homeland. On Friday, I called my cousin Jill who lives just north of the town of Skipton in the little village called High Kettlebeck - what a lovely name. This serene place in the Pennine Hills, with the beautiful valleys and dales, is about as far away from the rush and madness of life as you can imagine. There she lives with her husband in an idyllic, old, stone farm-house, with beautiful horses and large dogs and little cats running around. Every time I go there, it is like a little Utopia. I had been thinking about her during the last few weeks and I asked her to give me a straight and honest assessment about what is really going on.` What she told me sounded like Armageddon. Although the dale in which she lives is untouched right now, God Bless it and I hope it remains so, the vales to the east and to the west are affected. To the north, in Cumbria, they can see the smoke rising and, when the wind blows towards them, they can smell the burning of dead flesh. In the farm next to her, there is a man who is deeply worried His whole life has been invested in his livestock His whole life depends on what happens there: If Foot and Mouth comes into that particular vale, then he will be ruined. She is not allowed to ride the horses, she is not allowed to walk her dogs, in fact, she cannot even drive her jeep into the town to pick up groceries. Everyone is isolated in the prayer that this will go away. I asked her: "Are the stories true, Jill, that they are starting to take the guns away from the farmers because of the danger of them shooting themselves?" She said: "Yes. It is so bad that a man in a nearby town did, in fact, shoot himself. A service was held for him in the Methodist Church in town but the problem was, because of the Foot and Mouth disease, no-one could travel to it. That is how desperate the situation is." The problem is that when you have an ideal view of the world, when you think, for example, that your farm is your life, or your livestock your security, and it is dissipated, then the image is distorted all of a sudden. Despair sets in, and many do not know where to turn.
The second thing that illustrated this was an encounter that I had last Tuesday. It was a great surprise. There had been an ad' together with my photograph in the Florida newspapers, saying that I was going to be preaching. Unbeknownst to me, right out of the blue, someone I hadn't seen for some eighteen years showed up in church, a friend who had been very close to me many years before. We went out for dinner and had a wonderful evening together. He told me the story of what his life is like. This is a young man who has an African American father, and a white Caucasian mother. Throughout his life, he has really struggled with the tensions of racial segregation and the colour bar. Over the last few years, he has been working with young black youths in inner-city Miami. He said: "You know, Andrew, one of the great problems that I have with many of the young people in the city is that they have an image in their minds of what constitutes the ideal man or the good life. They watch the rap programmes and the rap videos. They see men driving around in Bentleys and Ferraris, surrounded by gorgeous women. They think that that is the ideal image of what a young man living in central Miami should be. He said: "The only problem is, that they come to the realization that the only way to reach that ideal is to crime. The only way to make money fast enough to live into that image is to sell drugs on the street. So many of them have this conception of the ideal in their mind that it becomes distorted and their lives are ruined. It leads to despair. Many young men", he said, "sit in the jails of southern Florida because they have bought into that image of what constitutes a real man."
The third problem, and one which strikes, perhaps, closer to home, is what we have been reading about the fall of the Stock Market over the last few weeks. Now, I know that some articles say this is probably a good thing, an adjustment. John showed me an article from yesterday's Globe and Mail that says that all the investment in the dot-coms was a good thing because it created the Internet, and got it up and running. There are others who say, well it is simply another way of finding the proper value in the market. The reality is that when trillions of dollars are sucked out of the economy, it is going to have a devastating impact on many people, in terms of their retirement, their careers and their employment. There are people who are losing businesses and going bankrupt, finding that their new ideas, their vision and their goals have not been able to reach fruition. When they have an ideal of affluence and wealth as the way in which to become successful, or find security, or meaning and purpose in the world, and it becomes distorted, they become full of anxiety. You see, my friends, the problem is that it's all very well to hold out an ideal of what life should be like, and what we are like, but when the ideal becomes distorted, it can lead to fear, anxiety, despair and sometimes, God forbid, even death.
That is why I want to concentrate this morning on Psalm CXII. In this great passage, the Psalmist is portraying the vision of the truly blessed person. It's a totally different view from the ideal which is often portrayed in the culture in which we live. It is an ideal which is based on two things. The first of which is that the truly righteous person is the one who understands his obligations. The Psalmist says: Blessed is the one who fixes his heart and he goes on to say: He will have no fear. Epictetus once said: The beginning of all wisdom is in finding a standard. In other words, the images that people try to portray of the ideal person ebb and flow, and change and become distorted. The biblical image, however, is that of a righteous person who has his heart firmly fixed on the righteousness, the glory, and the wisdom of God.
A number of years ago, in my last year of high school, in New Brunswick, a couple of friends and I decided that we would do something dramatic. Many of you will know that a car company was established in New Brunswick in the 1970s. Many of you will remember the Bricklin. The Bricklin was built in St. John, New Brunswick, but the body parts were moulded in Minto, New Brunswick, where I lived. I must tell you, their work was absolutely shoddy. It was so bad, in fact, that one in every two plastic body-panels that they made was rejected and thrown on the garbage heap. How's that for production? At times they would put the holes for the door locks in the wrong place, and just throw hundreds of gull-wing doors away, as well as fenders, hoods and trunks. So a couple of us had a bright idea. Why don't we build our own Bricklin? At night we got all these different parts and put together something that ended up looking a bit like a moose. Nevertheless, we thought it was pretty sexy and cool: many different-coloured body parts, some green, some orange, some a very nice lime, some a nice yellow to go alongside it. We got a VW engine, we built a little frame, a little transmission, bought some flashy silver mag Krager wheels, a little Hurst shifter. Man, the thing looked cool. We decided that we would drive to our graduation prom in this car, so we saved the great unveiling until that night. (This is a true story, now.) We shared in the joy and the pleasure of driving our Bricklin to school. We drove it at thirty miles per hour, right down the middle of the main street of Minto, where everyone could see the unveiling of this gorgeous, exotic sportscar. There was only one problem: When we finally hit the brakes, all of a sudden the body separated from the frame. The frame went south, the body went north. There we were, sitting in the middle of a car that had absolutely no body on it whatsoever. The thing finally conked out, and we had to be towed to a junkyard. I've thought about that many times. I think it's a wonderful metaphor for human life. We often have this image of the flashy and the splashy, the superficial that looks good, but if it's not built on a firm frame, or a firm foundation, no matter how good and how sexy it looks, it's not going to get you there.
Well, my friends, living in our society is somewhat like that. We buy into an image of what constitutes the good life that is actually contrary to the firm foundation that God wants us to have, and to the firmness of our hearts: So often we place our foundations on things that are fleeting, rather than in Christ who is, as the hymn says today, the sure foundation.
I am reminded of a story told by the accountant for John D. Rockefeller, Jr. who at the time was the richest man in the world. One man came to the accountant and said: "I would like you to tell me the truth. How much did John D. leave behind? The accountant looked and he smiled. He said: "Everything." You know the old adage, You can't take it with you. It's true. So what do you take with you? What does constitute a foundation? It is fixing yourself on the commands of God. The Psalmist is so clear. He says: "You know, if you give to the poor, if you care for the needy, if you are obedient to God's righteousness and God's commands, then you will be remembered, then your life will be solid. These are the things that make for a foundation of a life." My friends, in a world that so often gets caught up in the superficial, that thinks that those things are what constitute the foundation of life, the word of the Psalmist is that it is in the commands and the righteousness of God that you find a firm foundation for which you will be remembered. The legacy that we leave on this earth is not predicated on how many toys we have won at the end of the game: It is the good that we have done, the obedience that we have shown, the faithfulness and fidelity that we have to God's law and to God's command. That is why Jesus said: "A new commandment I give unto you: that you love one another as I have loved you." That is the security in a world that's often fluctuating and changing. But if those are the obligations, what about the blessings?
The Psalmist, I think, sometimes overstates the situation a little bit. He wrote of the righteous person: His children will be mighty in the land The generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house and his righteousness endures forever. Well, for those of you who have read, as I have done, the Book of Job, there is sometimes a problem in equating our righteousness with wealth and excess. It doesn't always happen. But there is a truth here nonetheless. The truth is, that the true wealth, the true blessedness, the true joy, is not by the world's standards, but by God's standards. The image of the righteous will last forever and those who are ultimately faithful will be blessed with something greater than what the world can offer. One of the things that they are offered even in this life is that there is no need to fear. The Psalmist says, His heart is secure. If it is, he will have no fear. In the end he will look in triumph.
My friends, to young black men who are living in the inner cities of the United States of America, who feel the anxiety and pressure to live up to those role models, my friend is telling the word of God; the word of God that the ones who really are to be remembered are those who have been righteous. He is saying to these young people who are looking at the rap stars as their idols: "You know, the ones whom you are really going to remember are the Booker T. Washingtons, the Frederick Douglasses, the Desmond Tutus. If you want to know the names of the people who will go down in the annals of history as great, black men, these are the ones because they have practiced the righteousness and the holiness of almighty God.
To those who are frightened about the state of the stock-market, to those who are frightened about losing their jobs, to those who are frightened about Foot and Mouth disease on the farms, this word goes forth from the Psalmist: Remember, remember, it is the righteous who have no need to fear, for their consciences are clear, and God is their guide. But this blessedness ends in one thing that constitutes the ultimate blessing: this foundation that is unshakeable.
I had a rather moving experience this week. I remember that in 1967, in County Durham in the northern part of England, where I was living, there was Foot and Mouth disease. I remember spraying my feet coming from school and not being able to walk the bike paths to the gym. I also remember that in the town of Ripon in North Yorkshire, there was a big ecumenical service. All the farmers, who normally on Sundays are on their combine harvesters and their tractors, were in church. The place was full. My father had been asked to preach and so I went and looked through some of his old sermons. They are looking a little raggedy now. I found the one that he preached on that day. It was entitled: Let not Your Foot be Moved - Trust in God. My friends, to those farmers in 1967, some of whom lost everything, some of whom were able to rebuild, some of whom were untouched, I do not know what that word from my father meant, but this I do know: There was a strong sense that whatever may befall us there is a foundation that is unshakeable. Place your heart and trust in that. No matter what your problem is, what challenges you face, or how distorted your image of yourself, or your life, or the image others have of you, the fact of the matter is that it is the foundation that constitutes security in a declining market.
After the Oscars were over, I wanted a cool drink, so I went down into the lobby of the hotel. I walked into the little shop that was open twenty-four hours a day, and went and got my drink. A woman was standing behind the counter It was very quiet. Everyone else seemed to have gone to bed, and so she and I struck up a wonderful conversation. She had a foreign accent and it was obvious that she hadn't been in the United States very long. She told me that she had come to Florida from Cuba. Here was a young woman who had left on a boat with her children one night, who had swam in shark-infested waters, who had not known the ultimate destination, but who finally got off at Key Largo knowing that she had arrived at freedom. I asked her what it was like to be on that boat, and what it was like to leave your family behind and to go into uncharted waters. She said it was terrifying, but that there were two things that kept her going: The one was the crucifix around her neck, to which she cleaved all the time. The second one was that, above all else, she knew she was doing the right thing.
My friends, it is a powerful thing to know you are doing the right thing. With that cross and the grace of God as a foundation, you can face anything with hope and with commitment. Remember what we leave behind; what our legacy ultimately is. It is not what we have accumulated. It is what we have done. It is not just because we have served ourselves. It is because we have served others and our hearts are fixed on God alone. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.