Remembering the Past...
        Planning the Future

    Park Christian Church
                                                                    (Disciples of Christ)

February 8, 2009

Scripture:         Isaiah 40:21-31

Sermon:           “Dust in the Wind”

            Two days ago we said our final goodbyes to an old friend George Mullineaux.  He’d lived 82 of the fullest years you can imagine.  George was something else.  I had the honor of saying a few words at his funeral and I remarked on how his life is a shining example of the way life is to be embraced.

            The end of such a life gives us a chance to take stock of our own life, you know.  Am I giving it all away in love and service and contribution?  I don’t know.

            But, I was also confronted with the beginning of life this week.  My daughter Maddy turned two years old yesterday.  I feel as if I’ve sat at the bookends of life in the past couple of days.  She’s just wide-eyed at the world, still discovering herself.  And every day seems like a new thing is emerging from her spirit and her soul.

            You and I are mostly between these two bookends of birth and death.  Some are closer to one side than the other.  But, I’ve been struck this week by the text that is before us.  They are the words of a prophet recorded in the book of Isaiah.  Turn with me to chapter 40 and we’ll read it together.  It’s on page 780 of the Old Testament there in the pew Bible.

            I recall that these were first delivered to the people of Israel while they were captive in Babylon.  You see they’d been stripped of their homeland and made to live in a land that was not their own.  And I can only imagine what that does to a person, or to a people.  How do you dream like that?  How do you discover your life’s meaning and passion when it’s all been devastated?

            And that makes me think of the many and varied ways that each of us encounters hardship, suffering, trials.  Our dreams can vanish.  Our whole take on life is diminished at times.  The darkness can overshadow us.  I’ve seen that.  Depression.  Hopelessness.  Meaninglessness.  These are pretty good words for the people of Israel when Isaiah’s words here were delivered.

            But, it also makes me wonder how folks like George Mullineaux, who’d encountered more death and suffering than most any of us ever will—it makes me wonder how people like George took all of that and decided to live to the fullest in the face of it all.

            Well, let’s hear the Word of the Lord…

            Have you not know?  Have you not heard?  Has it not been told you from the beginning?  Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?  It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

            Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

            “To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.  Lift up your eyes on high and see:  Who created these things?  He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.

            Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”?  Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.  He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.  Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

            After the funeral on Friday afternoon, I was standing in the parking lot with the funeral director and Randy Mark Miles, the pastor over at Central Christian.  I guess we were reflecting on life and death—which is, surprisingly, something that funeral directors do not seem to do.  But, since George Mullineaux himself was once quite a funeral man here in New Albany, it seemed right.  And that man said, “Well, we’re all going to die some day.”

            That’s not a very pleasant thought.  We’re all going to die some day.  But, it was something that Mr. Mullineaux had come to terms with long ago.  You carry around thousands of folks in an ambulance, make arrangements for many of their burials, and that thought will likely occur to you.  We are all going to die some day.

            I think that the fact George had bought this incredibly fancy and durable vault for his own coffin some 40 years ago made us aware of it.  Over forty years ago the man had begun to prepare for his funeral.  You’d think he must have been the most depressed human being alive.  But, he wasn’t.  He was full of life.

            I remember something that my high school biology teacher said to us.  She asked, “Do you know what separates us from all of the other animals on the earth?  Do you know what one thing that is?”  And we offered all sorts of ideas.  But, Ms. VanDerveen said, “The fact that we know that we are one day going to die.  That’s what makes us different than any other animal on the face of the earth.  We are aware of our own mortality.”

            Gosh, that’s bleak.  Isn’t it?  It’s one thing to die.  It’s a whole other thing to be aware of it.  Seems depressing.

            But, my biology teacher said, “that’s probably why we have accomplished all that we have in our history.  We know that we’re not going to be around forever.  So, we have reacted and adapted out of that deep knowledge that we’re going to come to an end some day.”

            The scripture here this morning is full of that stuff, too.  And it sounds a little bleak at first.  We’re nothing but grasshoppers.  We’re nothing but grasses that wither and die.  If you look down on the world from God’s perspective, we’re not much at all.  Life and death in the blink of an eye.

            There’s been a song on the radio in the past couple of years called “The Riddle.”  Five for Fighting is the artist.  Great song.  I could probably just play it for my sermon today.  But, there’s this one line that imagines a son talking with a father and says:  Picked up my kid from school today.  Did you learn anything cause in the world today you can’t live in a castle far away.  Now talk to me, come and talk to me.  He said, “Dad I’m big but we’re smaller than small.  In the scheme of things well we’re nothing at all.”

            And that reminds me of another teacher I had once.  He was a Physics professor in college.  Great man.  Dr. Sigler.  A Disciple, too.  He would begin classes on some days by reading a Psalm.  It’s one of my favorites now, Psalm 8.  Listen to this:  When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

            We are the only creatures aware of our ending.  The only creatures aware of our smallness.  And, usually we push that to the far reaches of our minds because it is a frightful thing to consider.  Life on earth is a fleeting thing.

            And that’s kind of what Isaiah was saying.  We’re grasshoppers.  We’re withering grass.  You want to question the Lord who is infinite!  Instead you should rely upon the Lord who is infinite.  Even the best among you cannot compare to the greatness of God.  Rely upon the Lord.  You will be lifted up on the wings of eagles!

            I guess that I want to know how to get from the fear of dying to the embracing of life since it really does only last so long.  How do we get there?

            Over at my wife’s church the staff is looking ahead to Lent, which begins in just a few weeks.  And the senior pastor there is considering some big ideas for an overarching theme.  What he seems to have settled on is this:  Live Like You Were Dying.  Does that strike you as a bit morbid and depressing?  Live like you were dying.

            When he suggested it to a meeting of the worship committee, his own wife spoke out in defiance.  “Oh, Leigh, you can’t do that!  It’s so depressing!  Nobody wants to think about dying.”

            Maybe.

            He got the idea from another song by that title, Live Like You Were Dying.  Same kind of stuff as Isaiah, too.  Consider the smallness of time you really have on earth.  Now, what are you going to do with it?  The song says, “I went sky diving.  I went Rocky Mountain climbing.  I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.”  I should point out that this is a country song.  “I loved deeper.  And I spoke sweeter.  And I finally gave forgiveness I’d been denying.”

            See, we can get wrapped up in our mortality.  We can wrap it around us in fear and live as if we’ve got to keep death way out there away from us.  Denial of death.

            Or, we can look at mortality and say, “Okay.  I need to get on the ball and do the things that really matter.  There may not be another chance.”

            But, how do you get from one place to the other?

            I suppose it has something to do with connecting to the source of life and death itself, God.  Maybe we take it inside that this relatively short span of time we’ve got is a gift from God.  And it’s a gift not just to ourselves but to the world.  That’ll mount you up on wings like an eagle.  It’s faith that drives people to live in the face of dying.

            I’ve sat with terminally ill patients who have the greatest peace about them.  And I’ve sat with folks who are perfectly healthy but cannot embrace the life they’re living.  I wish I knew how to get from one place to the other.  But, I’m guessing God’s got a big part in it.

            I mentioned a few moments ago that my daughter turned two years old yesterday.  I’d just finished a funeral for an 82 year old man when I sat down in my office to write a letter to my beloved Maddy.  Some day she’ll be able to read it.  My hope is that she will live the kind of life that matters.  And I probably wrote this to myself as well.  I want to share it with you, my friends.  It’s for you, too.

Dearest Madeleine,

You are my Booger Bear.  And I will forever be changed by the moment I first laid eyes on you.  So small and so very vulnerable.  I was there as you drew your first breath and made your first cry.

            Every day with you has blessed me with discoveries of a life that God has given the world.  You are so full of love and so full of potential.  I cherish every facet of your personality that emerges.

            I want for you to never hurt, but you will.  So, more than that, I want for your pains in life to always be pathways for greater growth.  The Bible speaks of this often.  And I pray for you to discover the depth of that wisdom.

            I believe the light that shines on you will shine on you forever.  My greatest hope is that you will see it the way I do.  You are only two years old now.  What happens with the rest should be an amazing thing.  Like all of us, you are the light of the world.  When you are able to read and understand this, embrace all that life has to offer you.  Live your life as a dance—a grateful response to a gift from God.  And know that there is something that only you have to give to the world around you.  Spend your life discovering that and giving it all away.

            Few things really matter.  Your family matters.  Love them.  Your friends matter.  Love them.  Every living thing matters.  Love them all.  Above this life is the God who created it.  Love God and you will learn to do all the other loving you can.  These few things are all that really matters.  When we lose sight of this is when we all begin to fall apart.

            I will always be proud of you.  You are my Booger Bear.  I will especially be proud of your love.  So love yourself enough to discover what God has made in you.  Stand for what is right, what is good, what is just.  And do not fear those who stand against you.  The Lord is by your side, always.

            When the day comes and you give your love to another, do so with intensity and integrity, as your whole life should be lived.  I want nothing else for you than you find the beauty inside and guide others to their own.  How that happens is between you and God.

            I love you always.

            Daddy

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)