Sermon: You Are No Accident

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You Are No Accident

By Charles Rush

September 18, 2005

e of the more memorable intellectual moments at Wake Forest began with a Chapel service. (Do you remember the quaint days when colleges actually had chapel services?) The speaker that day began with the observation, "You are no accident." Later that day in biology class, perhaps in response to the Chapel speaker in the morning, our Professor began his lecture on genetics with the observation, "You are the product of 50,000 generations of genetic wheeling and dealing."

The next morning, one of my fraternity brothers who had attended that Chapel service and lecture with me, was overheard at the bathroom sink before breakfast saying to anyone who cared, "50,000 generations and this is the best You can do?" This was the same guy whose Senior speech to the rest of the fraternity on what the fraternity had meant to him and how he had grown began, "For the sake of our collective future, we cannot, I repeat we cannot, let in any more brothers in like me."

It is one of the most profound spiritual insights of Jesus that he taught us that we are the children of God. Furthermore, he said, we are so important to God that God knows all parts of us, veritably every hair on our head much like mothers of infants who can pick their child out of a group of children blindfolded just by holding them and smelling them. What a wonderfully intimate, positive, nurturing image that really is.

It is enough to stop us in our tracks for a moment, maybe especially those of us who suffer from low self-esteem. You may recall an incident that made the papers last spring when a chronic criminal kidnapped a woman right outside of Atlanta in a last ditch desperate attempt to run from the law. It so happens she was reading a book on this very subject. While she was a hostage, she read this criminal various passages that told him that there was a reason that he was alive, that despite the fact that he might have come from a dysfunctional home and have the odds of success against him, that he was supposed to accomplish something on this earth. Just posing that question to a man at the end of his rope, stopped him in a moment of reflection. He started wondering what his life was actually all about. He was caught up in a moment of meaning, just thinking about it, undoubtedly supported by the positive affirmations that he was a person of worth by the woman he had kidnapped, he just came to an impasse, dropped his weapon and surrendered. Television people swarmed on the story and attributed his turn around to the phenomenally successful book that the woman was reading to him at the time. But it wasn't the book and it wasn't the kindness of the woman either. It was the depth of the question.

Truth be told, he isn't really that much different than most of us. We have a game plan out of college. For most of us here, it involved getting into graduate school and getting married. Then we followed the track rules that are laid down by our profession. We had goals. We had dreams. They kept us occupied because most of us here are pretty good at discipline and we follow the plan pretty closely. We are very good at proximate goals but the vast majority of us really don't ask those bigger questions… until we have to. They usually come like a gut punch too.

For some of us it happens when our spouse suddenly walks out on us or checks out. For some of us it happens when a close friend dies out of the blue. For others, it happens when something doesn't happen like a pregnancy or a career that just doesn't fall into place. We become broadly reflective because we have to. Anxious, questioning, unsure of self, unsure of the world… one morning we are walking on the beach at 5:00 a.m. in the morning and we've already been up for an hour and a half. You just stop and say out loud, "What on earth am I here for?" And you realize that you have lived your life up to that point and you really can't answer that question, that fundamental question. You've helped the firm develop a mission statement and by-laws. You've gone through envisioning with your favorite charities… And all of a sudden, all by yourself, you realize that when it comes to your personal mission statement… Sheet blank.

Not good. You've heard of IQ, which is short for Intelligence Quotient- the measure of our abstract reasoning. A few years later, someone came up with the acronym EQ for Emotional Quotient- a way to measure our psychological maturity and interpersonal relatedness. Well, there ought to be an SQ for Spiritual Quotient- a way to measure how you think about the transcendent reality, your meaning and purpose. One way to measure that would most definitely be the way you answer the short essay, "What are you here for?" Most of us, especially men, try to avoid this question as best we can as though having a high IQ is enough to compensate for being dull in the EQ and down right challenged in the SQ. But it is not by any means adequate, especially every day past 35.

No most of us find ourselves, like an acquaintance of mine that had a mild heart attack, thought she was dying, woke up and spent the next night between dreaming and awake. She had a vision of herself before St. Peter and a picture of herself with all that had been invested in her and all that she actually owned and what she had done with it up to that point. Her anxious comment about that time of reflection and discernment, "I cannot justify my existence." Like many of us, the nature of her concern wasn't borne out of a fear of death, but a realization of how inattentive she had been with the fruits of her success and a concomitant realistic awareness that she hadn't earned that success nearly as much as others might suppose. How are you going to invest yourself going forward? How is what you are invested in reflective of what you are about? That question takes SQ and it is actually more fundamental than IQ or EQ. It is the telos, the goal that directs our bigger picture.

How do you find your purpose? That is a legitimate religious question. I want to say something about that briefly, especially about what it is not. Religiously speaking, there are a lot of people that are fascinated by causation itself and this has overly influenced our reflection on this subject from the ancient world until the present.

Recall the movie "Back to the Future" where an eccentric professor invents the flux capacitor and can suddenly travel back in time. What he discovers is that his insertion in the past slightly alters what happened then that alters lots of things going forward. So Doc comes back to the present and enlists the help of young Marty McFly to go back to the past to help him get his parents to actually meet or else they will never marry and he will never be born.

People reflect like this all the time. If I hadn't been failing Calculus, then I never would have hired that tutor in college and I never would have met her best friend who was at her dorm one day… and the rest is history. If I hadn't been running late, I never would have run that red light and that cop never would have given me that ticket and I never would have lost my license and I would have driven to work the next Monday instead of taking the Bus that broke down which made me lose my job because my jerk manager that has no feeling for my situation.

Ancient people were fascinated by this too. They asked themselves, wouldn't it be great if you could know in advance what your destiny would be? Wouldn't it be great if you could know who you would marry? What job you will have? Who will be important and successful and who will become a loser?

The Romans reflected on this and came to an understandable religious hypothesis that we all have a destiny; we all have a fate that is defined by the circuitous intersection of a million other destinies that have implications we cannot possibly unravel but the gods can. So to think like the gods, you would be able to say with certainty what the future holds for people, what the outcomes are going to be. Wouldn't you like to know that? Wouldn't that help you decide right now which way to go and who to trust?

In the very beginning of the Aeneid, the great poem that Virgil wrote to explain the origins and the mission of the Roman Empire, the god Jupiter comes to Aeneas who is a soldier in the Trojan war, a hero that is looking for a fresh mission in life and is meandering in the Mediterannean trying to figure it out. Jupiter comes to him and opens a scroll that shows the future to him. It is written in that scroll that a small people in Italy, a relatively unimportant people known as Romans will one day become a great Empire and of that Empire, Jupiter says "there shall be no end" (278-280). And eventually there will rise a leader among them named Julius and he shall usher in a reign of world-wide peace (293-294). Never mind that Virgil penned his poem during the Pax Romana when Julius was Emperor; never mind that he was a bit of a fawning sychophant. That is precisely how the Romans thought about the world.

They thought that the gods held the secrets to the future and that our job on earth was to figure out what our fate in the future was and in that quest, we would know what our meaning and purpose really was. So they went to the temples mostly to discern the future. They wanted to know who they would marry? They wanted to know whether they would have children, how many and whether they would be boys and girls? They wanted to know about extra-marital romance? They wanted to know if they would win in battle? They wanted to know if a journey at sea would be safe, if a certain business deal would turn out favorably.

And the priests would give them answers, often inscrutable, often open to multiple interpretations. Most of the time, they did it by reading the heavens because they thought that the sky above, where the gods resided, reflected somehow inscrutably, portents and omens that gave us indications of what was to unfold here on earth. It is a perfectly reasonable presumption, given the limitations of the world-view of the Ancient people. And that is why practically every ancient culture also believed that the skies could reveal to us our fates, our destinies and other mysteries. That is why they were always alarmed every time they observed an abberant astral event like a solar eclipse. They presumed that the gods were trying to tell them something ominous.

That is why every important civic event was preceded by some kind of sign, some interpretation, and the proper sacrifice. Before every major battle, the General called in the priests for details of how it would go, to ensure victory. And the stakes were high. If a priest declared victory for the Roman army and they were routed, the priest was often killed. Bad reader, bad religious leader. I'm glad that is out of my job description.

Some of this thinking persists in holy scripture. St. Paul has a famous verse in the 8th chapter of Romans where he says, "We know that in everything God words for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined… and those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified" (Romans 8:28-30). Sounds like God, from the foundations of the universe, knew in advance, who was in and who was out… sounds like we are just living out fates and destinies that were already scripted for us and our lives are just discovering what has already been prescribed in advance.

This way of thinking is still very popular in Christianity and anyone here who has Evangelical relatives knows what I am talking about. They talk easily in this language of predestination and that God already knows where we are all heading.

I would only point out the obvious, that when Paul talks like this, he is writing a letter to the Christians in Rome. Romans already thought like that, so this is probably not the part of the letter that is unique to the Christ, it is the common cultural vehicle that ordinary people presume when they reflect on this subject.

When you think about it, these notions of fate and destiny reflect a god that is rather impersonal and indifferent. That is certainly the way that Romans thought about the gods and the way that we still think about god in our common sense mode. Fate and destiny are for people that are concerned about outcomes in religion, about victory in particular. They want to know who the winners and losers are going to be and which behaviors are going to be rewarded. It suggests that God's activity is principally about reward and punishment as well. Evangelicals today are still very concerned about this and I suspect it is a perennial feature of religion because it is a perennial spiritual disposition that some people bring to their common sense approach to spiritual matters.

But when you look at the depiction of Jesus in the Gospel account, our scripture today, paints a different approach. Jesus says, don't worry about these things. Don't be anxious, especially about the future. It is not important for discovering meaning and purpose. The spiritual life is not about winning and losing in that way.

Now it is true that these wider social and natural causes do define the parameters on which we live out our lives, sometimes definitively. I think of all those people walking on above the restaurants in Banda Aceh when the Tsunami hit. After the surge, everyone who was in the water was simply pulled out to sea by a force way beyond their control. I think of all those children who are born into war zones or our own children who have to navigate an immediate culture that is permeated with entitlement. These all shape us for good and ill. They define the parameters of our creativity.

Jesus suggests that our meaning, our purpose, our fulfillment has a certain content irregardless the shape of our destiny. It has to do with the manifestation of love, compassion, community, a peace with justice, a reconciling presence, a wise mercy, understanding, a healing forgiveness. You will know you are on the road to finding your meaning and purpose, you will know that you are close, when these spiritual qualities begin to manifest themselves not only in yourself but also in those around you.

There is a content to our meaning, a disposition in ourselves and those around us that manifests itself as we begin to embody our meaning and purpose. But here is the profound observation of Jesus. You were created to embody and be part of some particular mission that utilizes what is uniquely you. And your life is an adventure to find out what that is. And it is not just one thing either because our lives come in chapters that change. As we go through life, we are literally becoming different people, and there are particular challenges and meanings and purposes to each chapter. What is it that you are supposed to be about in this chapter of your life? Where are you growing and maturing? How are you making a difference? What will be your legacy?

Jesus never suggested that we could look into the heavens and figure this out, or read some entrails of an animal or consult tarot cards. The actual Spirit of God is not controllable in this manner.

Jesus told us that it is amorphous but also tangible. We can pray and open ourselves. That is very helpful. We can surround ourselves with others doing the same. Jesus called people who do this the beloved community because on its' best days- those that are spiritually close to us, who really know us, who we can be honest with- they will tell us what gifts we really have. They will encourage us to dare and risk.

It is so free, hopeful and powerful when that happens. Like someone who told me of the time they first floated the idea of adopting a child to some friends that really knew them well. After hearing out their worries and hopes, their friends telling them they could do it and how they would help out and how it would all work. That support and permission, that validation that your dream is also a shared vision. Our purpose unfolds before us that way.

And sometimes it just plops itself down in front of us. The gospels tell us that Jesus was traveling across the countryside and met some of the disciples and said to them simply, "Come and follow me" and they just left everything and went. Sometimes it is just like that, like a Physician I heard of that went on a medical mission trip to Haiti and when she got down there had something come over her that was as hard to describe as she was certain about it and she just stayed for an extra year because… because… it was the right thing to do… The Spirit of God is also like that.

And sometimes it feels like it has been growing inside of you from when you were in the womb. I've known people who had a vision of themselves as adults when they were small children, way led to way, and they took quite a winding path. And suddenly, they came to a place, a whole series of things unexpectedly fell into place, next thing you know they are standing on the threshold of living the vision they had as children. It is like the reason for their being here on earth is unfolding before them…

There is no one way, nor one time. God's purpose is developing in you and around you in your piece of the beloved community. What is it that God wants you to do? What on Earth are you here for? Brothers and sisters, may we find out together. Amen.