Go! Go! (Where? Where?)

Text: I Timothy 6:6-16
December 12, 2004, Dave Philips

 

 

What’s going to make you happy this Christmas? I was a house guest of a friend once during the Christmas season. Johnny, the youngest member of the family, came into the living room at about 5:00 in the afternoon of Christmas day. He had been inundated with a lot of expensive presents in the morning, fabulous presents, any one of which would have delighted the heart of a homeless kid from the inner city. But Johnny as he stood with all his presents around him looked like he’d just lost his best friend. "What’s wrong, Johnny?" I asked.

"Nothing’s any fun." he said.

I had to laugh. It was so completely incongruous. There was Johnny surrounded by presents that were given to make him happy, but he was unhappy. Nothing was any fun. Yet how many people at the end of the coming Christmas day will find themselves feeling the same way, even though surrounded by a zillion toys, but concluding, as Johnny did, that nothing’s any fun?

By contrast, consider the two Americans who answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach morals and ethics (based on biblical principles) in the Russian public schools. They were invited to teach at prisons, businesses, the fire and police departments and a large orphanage. About one hundred boys and girls who had been abandoned, abused, and left in the care of a government-run program were in the orphanage. One of them tells this story:

"It was nearing the Christmas season, time for our orphans to hear, for the first time, the traditional story of Christmas. We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem. Finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where the baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger.

"Throughout the story, the children sat in amazement as they listened. Some sat on the edges of their stools, trying to grasp every word. When we finished the story, we gave the children three small pieces of cardboard to make a crude manger. Each child was given a small paper square, cut from yellow napkins I had brought with me. No colored paper was available in the city.

"Following instructions, the children tore the paper into strips to make straw to put in the manger. Small squares of flannel, cut from a worn-out nightgown an American lady was throwing away as she left Russia, were used for the baby's blanket. A doll-like baby was cut from tan felt we had brought from the United States.

"The orphans were busy assembling their mangers as I walked among them to see if they needed any help. Everything looked normal until I got to one table where little Misha sat. He looked to be about six years old and had finished his project. As I looked at the little boy's manger, I was startled to see not one, but two babies in the manger. Quickly, I called for the translator to ask Misha why there were two babies in the manger. Crossing his arms in front of him and looking very serious, Misha began to repeat the Christmas story he had just heard for the first time.

For such a young boy, who had only heard the Christmas story once, he related the happenings accurately — until he came to the part where Mary put the baby Jesus in the manger. Then Misha started to ad-lib. He made up his own ending to the story as he said,

‘And when Mary laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay.

"‘I told him I have no mama and I have no papa, so I don't have any place to stay. Then Jesus told me I could stay with him. But I told him I couldn't, because I didn't have a gift to give him like everybody else did. But I wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept him warm, that would be a good gift.

"‘So I asked Jesus, "If I keep you warm, will that be a good enough gift?" And Jesus told me,

"‘If you keep me warm, that will be the best gift anybody ever gave me.’ So I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and he told me I could stay with him — for always.’

"As little Misha finished his story, his eyes brimmed with tears that splashed down his little cheeks. Putting his hand over his face, his head dropped to the table and his shoulders shook as he sobbed and sobbed. The little orphan had found someone who would never abandon nor abuse him, someone who would stay with him — FOR ALWAYS. I've learned," the missionary concludes, "that it's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts."

So, what’s going to make you happy this Christmas? Two weeks ago my sermon title was "Get Ready" as we thought about John the Baptist and his call for us to prepare for the coming of Christ. Last week my sermon title was "Get Set" as we thought about the new world order that Jesus has given us. Today we’re ready to go, right? But where? I want to raise a question: are you ready to go . . . where Christ is leading us?

Christmas doesn’t just sit there — it goes somewhere! Many Christians are stuck on Go and unwilling to take the step that will get them to the Board Walk, Park Place, and all the wealth of the Kingdom of God. Are you among them?

Sam Shoemaker used to say, "Get changed, get together, and get going!" Paul’s letter to Timothy is one of the places in the New Testament that shows us where we’re going if we follow the Christ of Christmas. And Paul and Jesus assure us that there is nothing to fear when we get going for Christ and his Kingdom.

Many of us are familiar with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. Maslow arranges our needs on a pyramid diagram. At the base of the pyramid are the physiological needs for food and shelter. Then come the needs for safety and security. Then come the needs for love and esteem. And finally, at the very top, comes the need we all have for self-actualization, the need to make something of ourselves, to do something significant with our lives.

By contrast, Paul reminds us that ". . . godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that."¹ Now, how can anyone be happy with just food and clothing? According to Maslow’s diagram, you can’t be happy unless those needs are met. Does Paul know something that Maslow doesn’t?

And when we read the gospels, we find Jesus at the end of his life telling his Father with hours to go till his crucifixion that he felt fulfilled. "I have brought you glory on earth," Jesus prays, "by completing the work you gave me to do."² Jesus knew that he had done what he came to earth to do. I don’t suppose there’s a person here who wouldn’t want to say the same at the end of their lives. Wouldn’t it be great to end our lives on that note?

There’s a story about a janitor who worked very, very slowly. Someone criticized him one day for the pace at which he swept the building. He replied, "Some folks work hard and then take a break. I’m different. I don’t take breaks. I just do my loafing as I go along."

And when you examine the life of Jesus, it’s evident that his sense of self-actualization was not something that he postponed until the end of his life. With Jesus it’s obvious at every point of his life that he is fulfilled. He is engaged in self-actualization at all times. Jesus doesn’t put off the project of self-fulfillment until his life’s end, he does it as he goes along.

I think Jesus might have arranged human needs differently than Maslow. As helpful as Maslow’s pyramid is, it troubles me. Looks like Maslow says that the love and self-actualization needs at the top of the pyramid can be postponed. The basic needs of food, shelter, safety, etc., are the ones we concentrate on first. When we have all those needs well under control, then, and only then, do we get around to the other needs of love and self-actualization.

But some things Jesus says turn Maslow’s pyramid upside down. You remember he said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."³

Jesus made it obvious by the way he lived that the very basic needs for food, shelter, and safety weren’t necessary at all times for him to feel fulfilled. He himself went without the basics from time to time. He was born in a barn and laid in a manger. He told people who wanted to follow him that "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."⁴

During the last week of his life, he went to Jerusalem knowing that he was putting himself in danger, but telling his bewildered disciples that all this was necessary for him to enter into his glory. His safety needs were irrelevant compared to doing what his Father sent him to do. And the crowd who loved him on Palm Sunday hated him on Good Friday.

So, Jesus showed us that he could be fulfilled even though he was doing without food and shelter, safety and security, even without love and esteem.

Maslow said that people who were self-actualizers were as rare as Olympic gold medalists. He didn’t know many true self-actualizers from his studies, and none of the ones he ran into were under age fifty. And yet Jesus, a young man in his thirties, could say at the end of his life, "I am fulfilled. I have done what I came to do."

Those aren’t the words of a frustrated unhappy man, are they? It looks to me as if Jesus is saying, "All these needs for food, clothing, shelter, safety, love, and esteem are relative — they take a back seat to your more important need for finding God’s kingdom."

I can imagine Jesus saying to us, "If you seek for self-actualization by trying to accumulate lots and lots of food, clothing, shelter, safety, love, and esteem, you’re not going to achieve your goals. You won’t be able to say at the end of your life, ‘I have accomplished what God gave me to do.’

"But if you look for your fulfillment by seeking the Kingdom of God, if you seek the highest end of humankind first, then you’re not going to have to worry about food or shelter or safety or love or esteem. You’ll have as much as you need, and you won’t have to wait until the end of your life to be self-fulfilled — you’ll get all the self-fulfillment you can handle as you go along."

St. Paul took Jesus at his word: he felt that the needs Maslow puts at the bottom of his pyramid were less important than seeking the Kingdom of God. In our scripture lesson he raises three questions that I’d like to put to you as you think about what’s going to make you happy and fulfilled this Christmas.

First question: in your struggle for self-fulfillment, are you seeking to become a man or woman of God?

Paul reminds Timothy that he is a man of God. Is that your goal: to become a man or woman of God? The Word of God teaches us that we are made in the image of God, that there is a spark of the divine in each of us. Are you fanning that spark into a flame? Are you becoming what you are designed to be, a man or woman of God?

J. Paul Getty, the billionaire, was asked by a publisher to write his complete autobiography. He agreed and sent the publisher a single line: "J. Paul Getty became a billionaire." His publisher said, is that all? And Getty replied, yes, that’s all. One line said it all.⁵ If you had to appear before God tonight, and God said, "I’d like you to summarize your life in a single sentence," would your sentence be, "John or Jane Churchmember became a man (or woman) of God"?

Second question: are you aiming high? Paul tells Timothy, "Aim at righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness."⁶ Are these the things you’re aiming for this Christmas?

Third question: are you a soldier or a non-combatant? Paul tells Timothy to "fight the good fight of faith." The word Paul uses is the one from which we get our English word "agony." Literally, what Paul is saying to Timothy is, "Agonize the good agony of faith."

We need to remind ourselves that God is a warrior, and Christianity has always been a fighting religion. The little baby born in Bethlehem was from the moment of his birth a soldier at the center of conflict. But his weapons were not guns, bombs, and rockets: instead they were non-violent love, justice, and truth.

So, what’s going to make you happy this Christmas? What will keep you from those very familiar Christmas blues that find you at the end of Christmas day surrounded by your toys and feeling that nothing’s any fun?

Commit your life to the baby of Bethlehem who is the real center of the true Christmas and who calls you to be a man or woman of God, to aim high, and to be his good soldier. Then having committed your life, follow Jesus and do what Jesus tells you to do. Nothing else will give you the Christmas Spirit. Literally! Nothing else at all.