"Driving With The Wrong Map”

In Jesus Holy Name October 15, 2024

Text: Mark 10:17-31 Redeemer

“Driving with the Wrong Map”

If you know American politics, especially the politics of the 1980s, then you certainly remember Lee Atwater. He was the amazing man who almost singlehandedly engineered the election of George Bush as the President of the United States in 1988. That is not simply my opinion, but is the considered judgment of both Republicans and Democrats. He was the man who made Willie Horton a household name. He is the man who told George Bush, “You can talk all you want about this kinder and gentler stuff but it’s not going to get you any votes.”

Lee Atwater is remembered as the modern day father of negative campaigning. No, he isn’t the man who started it. But he is the man who popularized it in our political system. He’s the man who made it most successful on a national scale, which we still see today. I think it’s fair to say that Lee Atwater fully earned his reputation as “the bad boy of American politics.” To his opponents he was a mean-spirited, arrogant egotist. Even his friends considered him a lovable scoundrel. (Illustration from sermon by Ray Pritchard Luke 18)

By his own admission, he had two goals in life. One was to be a successful manager of a Presidential campaign. The second was to be the leader of a national political party. He accomplished both by the time he was 39 years old. Having successfully managed the candidacy of George Bush in 1988, he reached his second goal when the President-elect named him the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Certainly Lee Atwater was one of the most respected and feared political operatives in America.

At the age of 39 he was on top of the world. Then out of nowhere he developed a massive brain tumor. He was treated and instead of getting better, he got worse. And worse and worse. In February,1991, Life magazine published an article in which he evaluates his life in light of his terminal illness. And these are the words of Lee Atwater:

“The eighties were about acquiring–acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn’t I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn’t I pay for an evening with a friend? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don’t know who will lead us through the ’90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.” (Life Magazine Feb. 1991 Internet Lee Atwater)

There was a cartoon that shows a man driving in his car. He’s going down the expressway. And it says, “At twenty, I couldn’t wait to get on the road. At thirty, I learned how to go from zero to 60 in eight seconds. At forty I found that I’d been holding the map upside down and at fifty, I discovered I had the wrong map altogether.” Here’s the question: “What map is driving your life?”

Once there was a young man with big dreams about the future. He was twenty or twenty five or he may have been thirty but not any older than that. He was a tiger, a go-getter, a young man on the way to the top. He was a young man who had made his money in real estate, which is one of the best ways to make money if you know what you’re doing. He made a lot of money at a very young age. And he had risen to the top of his corporation. And he still felt empty. (ibid Pritichard)

One day that young man went to see a man who was a carpenter from Galilee, a man named Jesus. This young man, at the top of his game, with all the money you could want, a man who had it all, felt empty and unfulfilled. And he went to Jesus with a question, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

This young man wanted what so many people today want. He wanted a list. “Give me a list of the things I need to do to make sure I go to heaven. Give me a list and I will check it off. Do this, this, this, this. When I get to the bottom of the list I’ll know that I’m going to go to heaven.” So, Jesus says, “Fine. If you want a list, I’ll give you a list.