To be a saint is not to be perfect; to be a saint is to be someone who makes promises and keeps them. Sainthood is not some magic status, conferred by the church for merit or miracles; sainthood is ordinary people living in extraordinary faithfulness, making promises and keeping them.
Did you read Robert Frost’s poignant words on our bulletin?
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have miles to go before I sleep, And promises to keep, And promises to keep.” Saints keep promises before they sleep; but not without struggle. It is never easy to keep promises.
One evening we had had confirmed replies from eleven people that they would be at our home for a cookout. We set up extra chairs and tables, we pulled out extra dishes, to make sure we could accommodate that crowd. Guess what? Only six showed up! Five neither called nor came. We had thought that a promise made would be a promise kept; but not so for nearly half our guests. I wondered how those who failed to show up justified that? At least all was not lost: I ate bountifully of leftovers for a week!
We make promises. Yet we do not always keep promises. Why not? May I test a theory on you? May I suggest that we do not always keep our promises because the shouts of today are so loud that we do not hear the echoes of yesterday, nor do we listen to the faint whispers of tomorrow. All we really know is what clamors for attention right here, right now. We cannot deal with anything but these demands, this moment. But saints keep promises, though not without struggle.
Let me run my premise past you again: the shouts of today are so loud that we do not hear the echoes of yesterday, nor do we listen to the faint whispers of tomorrow. We drop our promises because we are trying to handle immediate issues. Saints, however, are those who learn how to keep their promises before they sleep.
King David was about to sleep with his fathers. He did not have long to live, and he knew it. But David was about to be reminded that he had promises to keep before he would sleep. One of David’s sons, Adonijah, was ambitious, and wanted to become king. Never mind that his father David had not yet died. Never mind that it was by no means clear in this kingdom that the crown would be passed from father to son – after all, David did not get his that way. And never mind, most of all, that David had not promised the throne to Adonijah; David had promised the kingdom to another son, Solomon. None of that mattered to the ambitious Adonijah. He wanted to be king and went about gathering support. The Kingdom of Israel went into full-scale crisis. Would the old king keep his promise? Or would he waffle and abandon his word? Would David hear only the shouts of today and thus forget the echoes of yesterday and ignore the faint whispers of tomorrow?
But, as Yogi Berra taught us, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over”. David’s wife Bathsheba and her son, Solomon, along with Nathan the prophet, intervened, and got David back on course with his promise-keeping. Let’s look more closely at this.
I
First, is it not true that many of us make overly-optimistic promises when we are young? Don’t we set out on courses that are not realistic? When we are young and confident, we think we can do it all. We make huge promises to ourselves and sometimes to God.
But then things happen. Things change. We get older, and our early promises are set aside by the demands of what we call the “real world”. Our wide-open promises are shut down because the distractions of everyday living get to us. Sainthood is shelved. The promises of youth seem too optimistic.
When I was about twelve years old, in a burst of spiritual enthusiasm, I promised the Lord that I would read the Bible all the way through, cover to cover. I set the goal of reading four chapters a day, and launched into my program. Genesis was fine; I had read most of that in Sunday School anyway. And Exodus was quite exciting. But next came Leviticus, which was a real drag, and then Numbers, which droned on and on. I never even got to Deuteronomy, much less everything else! A youthful promise to God foundered on reality – too optimistic, too immature. I let it drop. The promises of youth are often unlikely.
What did we once promise to God? And have we given it up? The promises we made at our baptism, to live like Jesus; were they dropped by the wayside? The promises we made when we were received into the church – to worship and study, to tithe and serve – have they been abandoned? Too hard? Too demanding?
Some while ago my wife and I gave a little girl, who shall remain nameless but who is closely related to us, a plastic tennis racket. We sort of see her and her sister as the next Venus and Serena. Well, we tried to show this child how to use the racket; I sent her three or four very easy serves, and she dutifully swung the racket three or four times, but missed the ball every time. After that fourth swat, she put her head down on the couch and announced as only a small child can, “I’m never going to play this game again”. And there we are too, you and I, abandoning our youthful intentions, too hard to do.
David had thought, early on, it would be easy to promise Solomon the throne and make it happen. He was young and optimistic. But his life got complicated and he lost interest in those promises. Why? Remember: the shouts of today are so insistently loud that we do not hear the dwindling echoes of yesterday, nor do we listen to the faint whispers of tomorrow. David abandoned what he had promised, because he was trying to handle right now, and it was tough.
But sainthood is ordinary people living in extraordinary faithfulness, making promises and keeping them. Saints keep promises before they sleep; but not without struggle. .
II
But now notice that David did not live in a vacuum. Notice that David had folks around who called him to accountability. Bathsheba, his wife; and Solomon, his son; and Nathan, his pastor – well, maybe that’s a stretch, but it’s not far off – Bathsheba and Solomon and Nathan intervened. They ganged up on David and called him account. Not only did they force David to face the facts about himself, but they pointed out that he was disappointing the whole nation.
Bathsheba put it into words, “... the eyes of all Israel are on you to tell them who shall sit on the throne ... otherwise it will come to pass, when ... the king sleeps with his ancestors, that my son Solomon and I will be counted offenders.” David, if you do not have the integrity to keep your promises, there will be consequences. Somebody will get hurt, and your people no longer trust you. Saints keep promises; saints have integrity.
One of the greatest instruments the Lord has given to help us keep our commitments is the intervention of people who care about us. I hope you have somebody in your life who brings you to account. I hope you have somebody who is not afraid to tell you what you have failed to do. There is no wake-up call like a flesh-and-blood intervention from someone who will tell you, “You hurt me,” – someone who loves you enough to tell you what you cannot face about yourself. You and I will not become saints all by our lonesome; we need others around us to remind us of our promises and to warn us that one day we shall sleep, promises kept or not.
I feel blessed to have had any number of such people in my life. I think of the deacon in my home church back in Louisville who told me he couldn’t follow my first attempts at preaching because I tried to pack too much in. I remember the music director who told me I was too full of ideas, and lacked warmth. Most of all, I remember the night my wife stopped me in my tracks and reminded me that my promise to her and to our two little children was to be with them, not everlastingly out there doing what I proudly called the Lord’s work. Oh, thank God if you have in your life people who will call you to account, people who will make you face your promises, people who will point out that if you do not stay on course, you will hurt others.
Thank God if you have a life partner like David’s wife Bathsheba; marriage may not be orange blossoms and roses all the time, but a good marriage is founded on promise-keeping and on accountability. Thank God if you have in your life a child like Solomon, able to confront his father and bring the old man down a peg or two. I could tell you some personal stories about that. And thank God if you have in this church a Christian friend who tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Thank God for a church where you can be yourself, but you can be more than yourself. You can become what you promised God you would become. You can become a saint who keeps promises, if you get confrontive support from your brothers and sisters.
Thank God for those who will call you to account, for without them the shouts of today would be so insistently loud that we would not hear the dwindling echoes of yesterday, nor would we listen to the faint and distant whispers of tomorrow. But with Bathshebas and Solomons and Nathans in our lives, we just might keep our promises before we sleep. We just might become saints.
III
Well, David did respond. David kept his promise. David saw to it that Solomon and not Adonijah was made king in Israel. And when the nation’s leaders came to the old man to thank him for keeping his promises, David responded in a prayer of praise. David bowed in worship and offered up this prayer, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who today has granted one of my offspring to sit on my throne and permitted me to witness it.”
David, weary, worn out, ground down by meeting demands, distracted from commitments made early in his life – David might have ended with nothing but shattered dreams and deep disappointments. But David found the courage to keep his promises and came to his last days with thanksgiving, for his life was fulfilled. Did David get everything he wanted? No. Did all of his sons and daughters find success? Certainly not. Had David succeeded in all his efforts? You know better than that. But David can now thank God that he has at last done the right thing. And David experiences what God wants for each of his saints – joy and fulfillment! Brothers and sisters, it is not too late to keep the promises you once made. Until you sleep, it is not too late. Those youthful dreams, those things people have been confronting you about, it is not too late to keep those promises. It is not too late to echo the prayer of David, thanking God for letting him see the results of a promise renewed.
During my years as a pastor, our church saw several people come forward to announce that they were called to the Gospel ministry – not as many as you have had here, but a good number. Of those, I can think of at least five who, when they made this announcement, said that they had promised the Lord, early in their lives, that they would answer that call. But then came jobs and family and other distractions, and they had set that promise aside.
But, you know, the Lord uses all kinds of circumstances to get our attention. One of these men was a biochemist, but lost his job; that experience led him to listen to God’s call again. Another was a highly placed State Department official, but he found himself unhappy, and took a leave of absence to rediscover what he had known all along, that the Lord wanted him to complete his early promise. I could go on and on, but here’s the real point: when these folks owned up and moved on to keep the promises they had made to God, there was joy, fulfillment, wholeness! Every one of them persisted in his or her call, and even though the road has not been without its bumps, they know fulfillment. They with David can pray, “Blessed be the Lord, who has ... permitted me to witness [this].” That’s what God wants for us. He does not want us to flounder around forever grieving for things we think it’s too late to fix. He wants to give us joy, and that joy will come when we return to our promises and keep them.
One of my parishioners had been incarcerated for repeated parole violations; he had called to ask me to visit him. Now they don’t make it easy for preachers to go to the D. C. Jail, because you must go either on Wednesday evening or Saturday afternoon. Wednesday evening was out, because I had to be the Priest and the Levite doing my religious thing at the church! And Saturday afternoon ... why, you know, that’s sermon panic time! But I promised this man I would visit him that coming Saturday. Well, you have to call at least twenty-four hours ahead of time, and I tried. I really did. They gave me three numbers to call; on one of them I got nothing; on the second I got a message, “This number is not in service”; and on the third I got a recording, asking me to state my name and the purpose for which I was calling. I did that, but no one ever called back, and so when Saturday came, I had no permission to visit. I decided there was absolutely no point in driving to southeast Washington without permission to enter the jail. So I stayed home. On Tuesday morning I got the longest, most complaint-filled letter you have ever read: “Obviously, pastor, you do not care, you are more interested in the people that pay your salary” – and so on and so on. That really hurt! So I put our secretary on the phone – it took her an hour to get through – and we moved heaven and earth to get to that jail. I was not going to disappoint this man again. I was not going to break this promise again.
On that next Saturday, everything came unraveled. I was not supposed to be the preacher for that Sunday, but my guest backed out, and that task fell back on me. The weather turned bleak and rainy, just miserable. There were a hundred other things on my “To-Do” list, all clamoring for attention. But I just could not let this man down again. I went to the jail, I labored through all the security procedures, I endured the atmosphere of sheer hostility that pervades that place. Across the day room he saw me, and he began to sing, out loud, where the other prisoners, the guards, and the angels of heaven could hear, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow”. I wanted to sink into oblivion. But he sang on, “Praise Him, all creatures here below.” As he approached, I saw joy on his face and hope in his eyes. His song brought me to David’s place, “Blessed be the Lord ... who today has granted one of my offspring – one of my children in the spirit – to sit on my throne – to see my God’s love – and [has] permitted me to witness it.”
That day I knew the joy of keeping promises. That day I knew that I would sleep with a satisfied heart. That day I knew that both he and I might one day to become saints.
