25 Pentecost A Matthew 25:1-13 10 November 2002
Rev. Roger Haugen
There is a slogan written on the walls of a football locker room somewhere that says, “Championships are won when the stands are empty”. When you think about it you know it is true. If it were not for hard work at many practices when no one is watching, a team would never get to the championship game. It is those muscle bruising days in the cold and the wet when repetitious drills threaten to bore the athletes to death, that make the difference between a champion and an also ran.
I heard Clayton Gerein speak at a local school this month. He grew up in North Battleford, played hockey and the usual things. When he was a young man, he was thrown from a horse, landed on his head and was paralyzed and destined to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He spoke of his rehabilitation through swimming and how this led to racing and finally how he was introduced to wheelchair sports. He could have given up hope after his accident, but he didn’t. He is now a world class athlete traveling the world racing his wheelchair. He would be the first to admit that life has not been easy. He spends endless hours training for those few minutes when others see him race.
He chose not to give up on life. He chose to put the hours into training and practice. The result is a life that is full, one with significant achievements – Olympic medals, world championships. He knows what it means “championships are won when the stands are empty.” His unbelievable accomplishments came from decisions made and worked at.
We have quite a number of funerals here at Zion. Many funerals are wonderful celebrations of the life of the deceased. They have lived faithful lives, knew the hope that came with faith in God. Their relationship with Jesus held them throughout life and carried them through the last stages of life. These people trusted the promises that once death had done its worst, God would do his best. Eternal life, that they experienced throughout their life as faithful followers of Jesus has come into its fullest expression.
Some funerals are very difficult. Some have never taken their spiritual life seriously. There was always something more important to occupy their time and priorities. They may have heard the promises of hope but chose not to claim them for themselves. Worship was never something they chose for themselves. Death was to be feared and here they came to the end of their lives and it is an empty fearful place. For the family it is a time of life-sucking emptiness. They look to me for hope, but I cannot give them my hope, all I can do is speak of the hope that I have, the hope that is shared by all the faithful. Hope that has not come easily or quickly. Hope that has ebbed and flowed, hope that has been dashed only to rise again. My hope that is nourished in worship, at the Lord’s Table, among God’s faithful people who lift me up when my hope is wanting.
Worship is a rehearsal of our death. We hear the words we need to hear, we sing the words that give us hope in tough times. Someone once said we should go to the Lord’s Supper as though we were going to our death so that one day we can go to our death as though we are going to the Lord’s Supper. Those are foundations that will not let us down.
In difficult funerals I am faced with people who have made choices throughout their lives which, when they are put to the ultimate test, are found to have been foolish choices – choices which do not stand up to the test when all of life is overturned. Good foundations had not been laid and life crumbles.
Most years we have about six weddings here at Zion. Each couple that comes in gets my marriage speech. I tell them that I get to work with a lot of great marriages and some that are in trouble. It opens with a quiz.
What is the survival rate of marriages these days? About 50%. What is the survival rate of marriages of people who show up at church on Easter and Christmas? About 50%.
What is the survival rate of marriages where people worship together regularly, more weeks than not? 94%. There are still some that don’t make it but most do.
We then talk about why that might be. When we worship we are with other people who care for us. We practice confession and forgiveness most every week. If we can speak words of confession at worship and hear that we are forgiven, we can more easily speak those words in our marriage and share the joy of knowing we are forgiven. In worship we come to understand that the world does not rest completely upon our shoulders, that God is greater anything that can confront us in life.
A disturbing statistic came across my desk from Statistics Canada this past week. The divorce rate for those who live together before marriage is 61%, significantly higher than the rather troubling statistic of 50%. At a time when the majority of couples make this decision for a variety of reasons, this is a choice that Statistics Canada has found erodes the foundations of marriage.
Then I ask them what they want to shoot for. If they are satisfied with 50%, I would rather be golfing that day. If they want to shoot for 100%, a strong God-filled marriage, I am all for them.
Weddings can be planned very quickly, but a marriage takes years of preparation and the work is never done. Foundations need to be laid, choices made that may not be terribly exciting, choices that may be difficult or inconvenient, but choices that are made because they are essential for a good foundation. One of these choices involves the place that God will have in their marriage.
We know what foundations need to be laid for a good marriage. It requires a lot of choices, many which will not be glamorous, some just plain hard work. Part of the difficulty is that you only know how good the foundations are when they are put to the test. When a marriage falls apart, it is too late to build foundations. Sometimes we are able to do a restoration. It is just an incredibly sad time when choices made have brought about logical consequences. No couple can give another couple their own foundations.
Jesus speaks a lot about foundations. He tells the story of the man who built his house upon sand. It is easy to build on sand, just level the sand and start to build. The choice of building location seems ideal. The problem is when the winds come. To build a house on rock, is a lot of hard work. Weeks are spent drilling into the rock and nothing appears to happen for a long time, but by working to fasten that building to the rock, you end up with a house that will withstand the biggest storm. One house cannot give its foundations to another house.
Jesus tells a story about a Jewish wedding. The groom is busy haggling over the bride-price with the father of the bride and it might take a long time. Others are waiting so that once the negotiations are over, the wedding can begin. Some chose to expect a short time and decided they could save their money for something later. Others would not have missed the wedding for anything and so brought lots of oil. The groom is delayed, the father thinks his daughter is the finest there is, and the bride-price should reflect that, so it take a long time. Those who chose to bet on a quick wait, find they have not enough. The others, by being ready for the wedding, are rewarded by being able to attend. Nothing was going to get in the way. The additional price of the oil was nothing compared to being able to celebrate the wedding. Their relationship to the bride and groom made sure of that. They couldn’t give that to the others, simple as that.
Life is full of choices. The result of choices made today may not be obvious for years down the road, and we are often unsure of which choices are truly significant and which are not. Jesus says we are “to keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” All we can do is make choices that are in line with God’s will. We read in Amos, “let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” We make choices to be found with people whose values are life giving. We attend worship that may not always be exciting, sometimes seeming repetitive, because we need to hear and repeat the words that establish our foundation on God.
We remind ourselves of the words in the “Service of Word and Prayer” to “keep the words of the Lord in your hear; teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.” We are not only building our own foundations, we are building the foundations of the children around us. Researchers in faith development have discovered that the first five years of a person’s life are the most significant years of our lives. Choices made that may not test our foundations for years to come.
And so we live out lives, knowing that there are so many choices to be made every day. We ask God for the strength to discern good choices. We seek to remain close to God because God is the only foundation that will stand the tests of life and death. God is the foundation that will not fail. And for that we are thankful.
