Willy Loman is the central character in Arthur Miller’s play, “Death of a Salesman”. Willy had known only one thing all his life, and that was selling. Selling, pitching, cajoling, persuading, making the sale. That was it. His wife played second fiddle to selling. His children tried to please, but they were never quite as much fun as selling. Willy Loman was nothing if he was not out there selling something. But the day came when he lost his job. No more selling, no more days on the road, no more the thrill of the conquest. It was gone.
Willy began to brood. He began to see just how little respect he really had. His wife, his family, his friends, they were all attentive, sort of. But, in his twisted mind, Willy Loman -- and, by the way, his last name is no accident (low man) Willy Loman began to think that he would be worth more dead than alive. Worth more not only on the balance sheet, once his insurance settlement came in, but worth more, too, in prestige, worth more in esteem, if he were dead. Willy imagined his own funeral; oh, that would be a grand occasion. People would come from miles around and would say great things about Willy. Death would be wonderful! Then he could get respect! Willy Loman wrote, in fact, something of an epitaph for himself; Arthur Miller has this character say, “I still feel kind of temporary about myself.” Never quite able to get what he wanted out of life; never quite able to describe exactly what it was he did want, Willy cannot quite put his finger on it, but he does not feel fulfilled. He feels dissatisfied. He feels unhappy. In fact, chronically unhappy. He feels temporary about himself.
Growing numbers of people do feel gnawing dissatisfaction. Just why they should, in a land of tremendous affluence and a time of exceptional prosperity, we will have to think about. When you can afford to buy books you will never have time to read, just to decorate your den, why should you feel dissatisfied? When you can purchase a car with power to move you at speeds of 150 miles an hour, even though there are no roads where that’s legal and you don’t have any place to go anyway, why should there be dissatisfaction? When you can invest in an Internet stock and see its value double and triple almost overnight, why should anyone feel dissatisfaction? I saw a cartoon the other day; one fellow said, “I feel a little guilty this morning.” The other guy asked why. “Well, said the first one, “I just changed my company’s name. I put two extra words on the end of its name, and the value on the stock market doubled just last night!” “Wow,” said his friend. “How in the world did you do that? What were the two words?” The answer: “I just added ‘Dot com’”. What a market, what an economy, what opportunities there are! Opportunities out there for everyone! And yet we too feel kind of temporary about ourselves. We too feel dissatisfied.
The man from Kerioth was dissatisfied, too. There wasn’t any particular reason to be. He had a special place in the inner circle of the twelve. At every turning point in these last three years, he had been there. He had had every opportunity.
More than that, he had been given a special place of trust. He had been made the treasurer of the group. He held all its resources. The teacher trusted him. The others had to come to him for whatever they wanted. He had a place of responsibility. But somehow it wasn’t enough. The man from Kerioth was dissatisfied.
And so Judas struck. Judas lashed out. Blindly, with nothing to sustain him but his own anxiety, Judas struck at the very person who had given him a chance to be different. Judas, disappointed and desperate beyond measure, got release from his disappointment. He vented his feelings and, no doubt, for a little while, got release from those negative feelings. But what Judas missed was redemption. What Judas didn’t wait for was a redemption that would have brought him fulfillment.
It’s easy enough to get release. You can strike out at somebody you think is in your way. That may release you from all those horrible feelings about yourself. But it does not redeem you. It does not take your raw material and direct you toward fulfillment. You can get release easily enough; but only Jesus Christ can give you both redemption and release.
Think with me for a few moments about the sources of dissatisfaction. Why was Judas so unhappy? What made him so profoundly dissatisfied that he felt he had to betray his teacher? I want to suggest to you that the very things that made Judas Iscariot so dissatisfied are the things that work on us too. Do not be too harsh on Judas until we look within and see some of the same forces at work in us.
I
First, Judas became dissatisfied because he didn’t have a large enough vision of where his life could go. Judas became disillusioned and unhappy because he didn’t understand what his life could become. Judas became dissatisfied because he settled for little things and not great ones.
What do we know about Judas? Not a whole lot. But Bible scholars have pieced together some things, and most of them think that Judas was a kind of freedom fighter. Like many in his time, he wanted his people freed from Roman rule. The theory is that Judas was looking for a Messiah to come in and overthrow Rome and set up Israel as a free nation. Judas thought that Jesus was that promised Messiah, that he would overthrow the hated Romans and give the Jews freedom at last. And yet, in the last weeks before Calvary, Judas saw this dream going down the tubes, because Jesus refused to fight. The powers of the Temple and the Romans were adding up against Jesus, but Jesus did nothing to defend himself. That angered Judas. And so he lashed out in sheer frustration. We don’t know whether he decided to punish Jesus for not acting or whether he was trying to force Jesus to act. Whatever it was, Judas had become dissatisfied because his dream was not happening.
But, you see, the trouble is that it was too narrow a dream. The dream of getting out from under oppression was too small a dream. All of us want to be free, of course. But free for what? Free to do what? Free to become what? Judas did not know. Judas had not thought that through. All he knew was that he hated Rome and he wanted out. But that’s too small a vision. That’s too limited a dream. That is too negative. You cannot build your life on a negative vision. You cannot build your life on the basis of what you are against. You have to build your life on the foundation of what you are for. You have to have a large, positive, commanding vision.
And get this part of the puzzle. This is strange but true: when you give yourself to small visions and limited dreams, you become frustrated and disappointed. It is only when you give yourself to magnificent visions and great dreams that fulfillment comes! That doesn’t seem to make sense, does it? Give yourself to something little, and, even if you achieve it, you will end up feeling dissatisfied. But give yourself to something magnificent, and, even if you cannot accomplish it, you will feel fulfilled! That’s one of life’s greatest secrets.
Jesus said it for us, “Whoever would save his life will lose it; but whoever would lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” It is only when you can see a great and profound goal beyond all the lesser goals that you can find fulfillment.
Martin Luther King knew that. He knew how to give himself to a broad vision. Some in the civil rights movement gave themselves only to lesser goals. Some thought that if we can just get this bill passed, we’ll be free. If we can just elect this person or we can just throw out that person, we’ll be free. And it’s all right to give yourself to lesser goals if you know what the great dream is about. But if you don’t know the big picture, if you do not have a greater dream, and you think you are going to find fulfillment in this political action or that piece of legislation, then you are setting yourself up for dissatisfaction. And where there is dissatisfaction, hatred and anger breed. You know how some folks began to talk about achieving their aims “by any means necessary.” It became easy to lash out in irrational anger.
But Martin Luther King’s genius lay in his vision of a larger goal. He worked toward a beloved community, where all people, black and white, young and old, rich and poor, all people, could live together in mutual respect. That’s a broad dream, that’s a large goal, not one that you could achieve in one lifetime. But that won’t breed dissatisfaction. That will bring fulfillment. Even though it cannot be fully achieved, that will bring fulfillment.
Dissatisfaction comes when we give ourselves to small dreams and do not look for the great things to which we can give our lives. As someone once said, “If God calls you to be a missionary and share the good news, well, then, don’t settle for something small like President of the United States”! Dissatisfaction comes when we give ourselves to dreams that are too small and too negative; and when we are dissatisfied, we lash out in anger and in frustration. We betray the Lord. We may feel released. But we are not redeemed for the fulfillment we could have.
II
There’s a second possibility about Judas and the source of his dissatisfaction. Judas may have become dissatisfied because he looked to someone else to fulfill his life, and not to himself. Judas may have become dissatisfied because he expected someone else to give him meaning. He did not see his own unique calling under God.
Judas’ goal was freedom from Rome. The method to get that freedom wasn’t very clear. Rome’s military muscle was tremendous. The alliance Rome had with the powerful people in Jerusalem meant that you couldn’t depend on the Sanhedrin or the priests or any of the usual leaders to do anything. If you were going to be a freedom fighter, how would you go about doing that? Well, you might join a political party. You might organize a guerilla band. You might negotiate with the Roman governor. There are lot of things you might do. But Judas did none of those things. Judas pinned his hopes on one person, Judas built up his expectations around that one person, Judas failed to grow Judas. Judas failed to grow himself, and put all of his eggs in one basket. He so expected Jesus to do what Judas wanted done that he abdicated responsibility for growing himself. If you look for your source of meaning in what you expect somebody else to do and do not take responsibility for yourself, you are setting yourself up for profound dissatisfaction.
Some of the most dissatisfied people I know are people who have so tied themselves down to someone else that they are nothing on their own. They have failed to grow themselves. I have seen women who are immensely capable and competent in their own right, but who get so suppressed in their marriages that they stop growing, they stop developing, they abdicate responsibility for themselves. There are some women who so expect their husbands to live out the aims of their marriage that they just quit growing. But do you know what happens? Have you seen what takes place? One day, sooner or later, there’s an explosion, and what you thought was a mild, subordinate, meek, little woman vomits out years of frustration, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness. Sometimes it’s right after her husband’s funeral. And you realize that because she has pinned herself entirely to somebody else was, she has denied who she could have become, under God. She has built up a reservoir of frustration that wants to destroy the very one she depended on all those years. Sad to say, like Judas, who went and hanged himself, she may end up destroying her own future. She gets release, but not redemption.
We cannot fulfill what God wants us to be simply by attaching ourselves to someone else. Judas attached himself to Jesus and hoped that Jesus would do what Judas wanted done. When it didn’t happen, watch out! If you are waiting for somebody else to do for you what only you can do for you, you are going to turn and hurt the one you said you loved, and you are going to hurt yourself beyond measure. You might get release from the feelings of dissatisfaction, but nothing more. Nothing more. Dissatisfaction comes from depending on somebody else to be for you what you are called to be for yourself.
III
Brothers and sisters, the answer to the issue of dissatisfaction is to know the heart of Christ. The way beyond dissatisfaction to fulfillment is to discover what Jesus Christ really wants to do and is able to do in us. It may not be what we thought we wanted him to do, but it is infinitely better. It is far better. The way out of dissatisfaction is to know the heart of Christ.
For the core of the gospel is that from the very foundations of time there was in the heart of God one great purpose: to redeem us. To bring us out of the mire of our sin and the depth of our despair, and to turn us toward fellowship with Himself. From the very foundations of time there was a cross in the heart of God, who knew that we would pursue all the wrong avenues, who knew that we would lash out and hurt. But He loves us. He loves us so much that He is willing to take the hurt. Jesus Christ bore in His own body the stripes of the whips and the print of the nails. He absorbed in His own body the point of the spear and the taunts of the tormentors. All of those things hurt our Christ.
But, I dare say, nothing hurts Him any deeper than our blind failure to know His heart. Nothing pains Him more profoundly than our dull and dimwitted ignorance of what He is doing for us. Judas did not discern the heart of Christ; do you remember that occasion when the penitent woman poured out her expensive ointment on the feet of Jesus, and all that Judas could think about was how much it? He did not know the heart of Christ. Or see him here in this garden, with soldiers and weapons, throngs of them, to take into custody one little itinerant preacher! How could Judas have so missed the heart of Christ that he would have thought there would be any need for all of that!? Judas is like a whole lot of us; we have been around Jesus plenty, but we have understood nothing. We know all the facts about Jesus, but we do not know Jesus. We have plenty of information, enough information to betray Him. But we have never gone wide open and known His heart. We were so busy trying to get release that we never waited for redemption. We were so busy trying to relieve our feelings of dissatisfaction that we did not simply let ourselves be loved into fulfillment.
Learn the heart of Christ. Know what He is giving to show us the love of God. Know how far He goes to point us toward greater things. Learn the heart of Christ at that cross.
Learn the heart of Christ. Learn how He will deal with the most basic and fundamental need that we have, the need to be free from our sin and our shame, our guilt and our disgrace. Learn that He loves us and will claim us as children of the Most High. Learn the heart of Christ at that cross.
“In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o’er the wrecks of time.” In the cross of Christ I glory, towering over the wreck I have made of my life. That cross is mercy. That cross is love. All love. Love so amazing, so divine, demanding my life, my soul, my all.
“I still feel kind of temporary about myself.” We understand, Willy Loman. We have felt that too. But there is on who has come into our lives with love, one who so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that whoever trusted in Him might have everlasting life. Not temporary life, but everlasting life. Not dissatisfied life, but fulfilled life.
“I still feel kind of temporary about myself.” It’s not about feelings, Willy. It’s not just about releasing yourself from that gnawing feeling of dissatisfaction. You can fool yourself on that one. It’s about finding purpose and joy, it’s about finding yourself in Christ. It’s about fulfillment, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” In following Christ there is no dissatisfaction, only fulfillment. In following Christ, there is no temporary, there is eternity.
