“At This Time in Your Life” – Sunday, June 23, 2024

22nd in the Series on James – Pressure Points

SERMON PREACHED AT
STOUFFVILLE UNITED CHURCH
REV. CAPT. JOHN NILES
MUSIC BY DANIEL MEHDIZADEH AND CHOIR

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

Socrates wanted a student of his to discover a profound thought so show him that he had the ability to do so. He sent him out to think. All day long this student thought. Each time he believed he had a profound thought he got up and went to see Socrates. However, by the time he got to him, he discovered that his thought was not at all profound. A few times he actually told the thought to Socrates and Socrates said, that it was not deep enough, he could go deeper.
Finally, the student was sure that he had found a thought that was indeed profound, and Socrates agreed. It was simply, “There are no ordinary moments.”
There are no ordinary moments. Every moment of life is sacred. Too often, though, we focus only at what might be called the extraordinary moments of our life—birth, first steps, first words, first kiss, graduation from high school, then college, the first job, marriage, first child or grandchild, death. Yet, in between these “extraordinary” moments are other moments. Moments that are often disregard as “ordinary” when in fact there are no ordinary moments. Life is simply an accumulation of moments.
I remember as a child, how much I wanted to grow up. I’m sure that you remember doing it too. I remember when I was ten I wanted to be thirteen, and when I was thirteen, how much I wanted to be 16, and when I was 16 how much I wanted to be 18, and on and on it went. How many of us have wished away parts of our lives without living them?
My mother’s words come to mind. “Don’t wish your life away. Every day is a gift. Be grateful for it; for once it is gone, its gone forever. Don’t wish your life away. Enjoy and be grateful for every moment of it.”
George Burns had a wonderful song that speaks to this:

I wish I was eighteen again
And going where I’ve never been
but old folks and old oaks
standing tall just pretend.
But I wish I was eighteen again.

I came across a program on the internet not long ago. It is called a death clock. You put in your date of birth and gender and basic health and it will calculate not only the number of days, but the seconds left to your life. It will then set it as a screen saver. And each time you stop, you watch your life pass before your eyes–with the passing of time. It also gives you the date of your death. Mine is date of death is March 26, 2051.
I put in the information for a few of the people I know. A want to tell you, some of them have been living on borrowed time. The days of our years are threescore years and ten…so teach us to number our days and apply our hearts unto wisdom and the beauty of the Lord will be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us.” The writer of the psalmist is asking God to tell us to remember that each day and each moment of each day is important. There are no ordinary moments. “Now listen,” James says, “you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
I

Life is a gift- accept it. As we learned last week from James, because of the Sovereignty of God we are able to face the uncertainty and the necessity of the time between times which allows us the ability to accept this life as a gift. Buckminister Fuller was a student of Einstein. They went for a walk and Fuller asked Einstein a question regarding the universe. For an hour and a half Einstein poured forth his wisdom as he answered his question. After he had finished he said, “now, I have a question for you.” OK said Fuller, “Was I going this way or that way?” Fuller said, “This way”. “Good. That means I had breakfast.” He was so engrossed in the moment that time slipped away.
When we understand that life is short then we can grasp the fact that life is a gift we want to live wisely and understand completely all we can about life. We accepted the gift of life as we, unwrapped, received, and used it for our good, and for the greater glory of God.
There were two men in business partnership. One night, just as they were locking up and preparing to go home, they stopped to greet an elderly man who operated a store next to theirs. One of the men spoke up. He said, Here you are twice our age. You arrive early in the morning, have a busy day. But I notice that every night you are just like a schoolboy getting out of school with the bell rings. How is it you appear full of vitality when we are so tired? What is your secret?” “Oh” replied the man, “I don’t think I have any particular secret. But over the years I’ve discovered this one thing; a person’s spirit never gets tired, so long as he is grateful for the gift of life.” Life is a gift — accept it.
Life cannot be bought or deserved or created, only received. Why don’t we accept it? I can’t tell you how many times I have felt, after leaving a person’s hospital bed, or home, or a grave side, that “we are all living on borrowed time.” And the sooner we realize it the better. And the sooner we will start numbering our days and living wisely with the days we have left the better

II

Life is a gift- accept it. Life is a mystery explore it. There is so much to life; so much to experience, and to discover. Yet people spend too much of their time doing nothing, and experiencing nothing. George Sanders, a well-known actor of years ago, before taking his life, said “I am leaving because I am bored.” “Bored? How can anyone be bored with life? One can only be bored when one refuses to explore. No one has been ever able to fully comprehend life, and all its physical, mental and spiritual complexities. There is yet, so much to explore. There is so much to understand and experience. There is much in life that is still a mystery. And we as human beings have been given the ingenuity and creativity to take advantage of this great opportunity of discovery. Each week there is a new discovery made. Just last week I heard on the National of a new discovery that helps Alzheimer’s patients slow and in some cases stop the progression of Alzheimer’s. Life is filled with mysteries just waiting to have people make new discoveries.
Even as we near the end of our study of the epistle of James I’m reminded of the beginning; where James points to the heavens and flowers on earth and says, 9 Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, 10 but the rich in his humility, because as a flower of the field they will pass away. 11 For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes….”

III

Life is a gift- accept it. Life is a mystery explore it. And life is an opportunity – use it. Each day of life brings new experiences and special opportunities. That is why the psalmist asked God “Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” It is only when we live life as if it is an opportunity and not as a burden that we find life to be fulfilling and rewarding.
Dr. Adler Alfred Adler told a story — an intriguing encounter that took place in the main train station of inner Austria. A well-dressed businessman got off the train and was walking through the lobby, when an alcoholic beggar stopped him and asked for just enough money for one more meal. The businessman said he usually did not respond to such requests, but he would this time on one condition. He said, “Tell me, how has an intelligent-looking person, as you appear to be, allowed yourself to get into these straights?”
With that the beggar turned red in the face with anger and responded, “Listen, if you had happened to you what has happened to me, you wouldn’t be asking that question. You would be exactly where I am…. I was one of several children. My mother died when I was young. My father was an abusive and very cruel man. The state finally took my brothers and my sisters and me away from him and put us in an orphanage. During World War I a battle raged around the orphanage, the building caught fire, and I had to flee into the night. I have never seen any of my family since. I don’t know whether they are alive or they are dead. It’s been that way all my life. Every time I get on my feet, something knocks me down. If you had happened to you what’s happened to me, you would be standing in these very shoes.”
The businessman said, “It’s interesting that you should say that, because as you tell your story, it does, in fact, parallel my own.” Shocked that their stories were so closely related, they began to talk more fully. As you probably have anticipated by now, they discovered that they were in fact brothers, separated years before and now, mysteriously, their lives had intersected.
Dr. Adler used this story to raise the perplexing question, “Why is it that some humans respond so differently to the same circumstances?” Here were two individuals who had the same genetic background, who had much the same things happen to them, and yet, while one had allowed those circumstances to crush him to the ground, the other had somehow used events that went against him as energy to move forward. Why did these two brothers respond so differently to the same set of circumstances?
George Buttrick gets at the same question with a different metaphor: “Why is it, do you suppose, that the same sun melts the wax and hardens the clay?” Two people look on exactly the same landscape; one pair of eyes gravitates to the lowest and grimiest; the other pair, for some reason, reaches up to the highest and the best. Why is it that we respond so differently to the same set of circumstances?
While my family was posted in Germany after WWII my father was station near where the Berlin Wall was still being built. That wall that remained for four decades where East Berlin was controlled by the Communists. West Berlin was free. One day he told me that some people who lived in East Berlin took a truckload of garbage and dumped it on the West Berlin side. The people of West Berlin could have retaliated by doing the same thing. But instead they took a truckload of canned goods, bread, and milk and neatly stacked it on the East Berlin side.

On top of this stack of food they placed the sign: “Each gives what they have” You think about that. Amen