Today I sat at the bedside of one of my congregation members.
In all likelihood, I will be officiating at his funeral in two to two and a half months.
He has stage four lung cancer. It moved into his brain. He is recovering from brain surgery to remove those tumors.
And he doesn't look like someone who has only a couple of months to live. Not in the least.
He's making remarkable progress in healing from his brain surgery. When I saw him in the hospital, he was having trouble remembering things, places, and people. He had little to no control over the left side of his body including an inability to lift or move his left leg.
He was as lucid as anything when I visited this morning. He remembered me right off the bat. He remembered my visit in the hospital including my assistance in cutting up the salad he was served in his hospital room. He remembered me mentioning my desire to purchase a more economical car for travel. He was totally with it.
And he was much stronger. He had control over his left side. He could easily move his left leg, and he talked about getting stronger and adding weight. He talked about how he had a very hefty appetite. He looked and spoke like a man who was intending to get stronger and live longer than anyone gave him hope for.
But, he's refused chemotherapy and radiation. There is something growing within him that in all likelihood kill him. Hey, I believe in miracles, and it will take one of those for him to live a good, long time. But he still doesn't look like someone who only has two months to live.
An hour in the car driving back to Cat Spring is an awful long time to think and reflect, and I started thinking, "What does one look like who is going to die?" There's no simple answer to that one. Life is actually pretty fickle when it comes to such matters.
I am sure those 3,000 who went to work on September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center didn't look like they were going to die.
Neither did a high school classmate who succumbed to cancer this past week.
Neither does the 40 something exercise freak who keels over from a heart attack.
Neither does a teenager out for a joy ride who takes his eyes off traffic for one split second.
Moments like these cause deep times of reflection. Reflection about life, about faith, about values.
Most of us live our lives in a constant state of absorption: absorbed in our kids' lives; absorbed in politics; absorbed in work; absorbed in television; absorbed in whatever particular addiction we stumble upon for that day. We work very hard to convince ourselves that we are making a difference--somehow we are changing the world.
When in reality, all we will end up with is a piece of real estate roughly three foot by eight foot, and not even that if cremation is the chosen option. We hope when that time comes, someone will be there to remember, to shed a few tears, and to talk about how great a person we were. And for a time, we will be remembered. But 1000 years from now, who's going to care? Who's going to notice? Might as well dip your finger in a bucket of water and see just what kind of impact you have there.
No wonder the Teacher in the book of Ecclesiastes begins his treatise with the words:
2Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? 4A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises. 6The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow. 8All things are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing. 9What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. 10Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been, in the ages before us. 11The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.
He says quite a few other things about how much of the things we work and worry about are nothing more than vanity.
But we like to convince ourselves otherwise. We want to have hope that what we do makes a difference. We want to have hope that the words we speak and the actions we partake of have meaning. Indeed, if they do not, we might as well not exist.
And so we throw ourselves into our work. We throw ourselves into politics. We become entrenched in our ideology, and anyone who thinks or acts differently is the enemy. Conservatives war on liberals, and liberals on conservatives. Republicans war on Democrats, and Democrats war on Republicans. Fundamentalists of every religion consider anyone outside their realm of faith the damned, the infidel, the cursed. We must engage in these battles to give ourselves meaning.
We clergy must be modern day John the Baptists pointing out the evils of greed, the abuses of "those rich people", and the callousness of multi-national corporations as they seek to destroy the middle-class. We pat ourselves on the backs for being the "voice of the voiceless" and in solidarity with the poor. And then we take off our white collars and custom shirts which cost more than most items of clothing; hang up our albs and cinctures and stoles which a combined cost could feed a child in the third world for six to eight months; climb into our automobiles which could feed that same child until he or she becomes an adult, and head back to our wonderfully furnished homes with our computers and televisions and appliances--items which many people throughout the world can only dream about. Yet, we are somehow morally justified because we dare to speak out on behalf of the poor, the downtrodden, the widow, and the orphan. Sheesh. What hypocrites we truly are. We're willing to demonize those who are part of the corporations of the world to assuage our guilt in buying into and enjoying a lifestyle which is far and away above most people in the world.
And we fail to realize that even Jesus ate with "those rich people."
Yep, those tax collectors were actually part of that society of wealth and power. Jesus enjoyed more than a few meals with them as I recall. He didn't demonize them. He embraced them as God's children as well.
I remember a particular vertically challenged tax collector who Jesus ate with one day. This tax collector, as were most of them in that time, was considered a sell out; a pawn of the Roman occupiers; getting rich off the backs of his countrymen and women; having a lavish lifestyle by trampling on the poor. Zacchaeus wants to meet Jesus, to see him, and Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus' house.
While dining that evening, Zacchaeus makes an interesting proclamation, "8Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” --Luke 19:8
Those who interpreted this passage did so in a wrong headed manner. They were trying to show that after meeting Jesus, Zacchaeus changed his life. But the translation is wrong. The original Greek actually reads:
"Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I pay back four times as much."
Notice it isn't in the future tense. In the Greek, Zacchaeus is actually doing this stuff already. He's being charitable. He's being just. And he is still ostracized by the Jewish Community. But he is not ostracized by Jesus.
9Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
In this case, the "lost" was a Jew who had been kicked out of his community by serving the oppressive Roman government. It didn't matter that he was a fair tax collector. It didn't matter that Zacchaeus tried to do good things and commit to charity. He was rich. He was a sell out, and he had no place--at least according to the Jewish folks of the day.
But Jesus changed that. Jesus dared to say, "This too is a child of Abraham." In other words, "You can't turn him away and push him out. He's a child of God too no matter what his profession is."
Ah, to follow Jesus and seek to recognize the good in others no matter where they might be. In seats of power or in sitting on the street corner, a person is a child of God. A person is worthy of receiving God's love from and through us. And though we be abused; though we be tortured; though we be manipulated; though we have our faces slapped, our coats taken, and are forced to walk a mile carrying another's burden, we are called to love the one who does such things to us.
Does such a path give our lives meaning? Does walking the path of Jesus in this manner change how we view the world? Does it lessen our working for justice and compassion, or does it enhance it? When Jesus said from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," did he really mean to forgive those Romans who occupied Israel and were murdering him? Did he really mean to say that God should love them too: the rich, the powerful, who had no desire of giving up control or wealth? Did Jesus really set such an example? Did He dare to love them too?
And is it such a love which gives meaning to our lives? Is it such a love that transforms vanity into hope?
As I sat looking at my congregation member in that nursing home, my heart broke a little. Not for the fact that he was dying, but for the fact that this is a precious child of God who I did not have as great an opportunity to come to know as I would like. I have not gotten to form a deep, meaningful relationship with him, but I will have a couple of months to do so. And when that time comes, I will grieve in my heart. But, I will then have a chance to proclaim that this child of God has entered into eternity where we will one day meet up again--the hope of all who believe. And in this hope, I remain. For all is not vanity, for through Christ there is instead faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.
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