I am persuaded that the fundamental human problem is anxiety. I’ve watched the way we live for quite a while, and I am convinced that the most basic human issue is that we are anxious. We are fearful and afraid; we are anxious.
And it is not just that we are afraid of what others may do to us. We are not so much fearful about external things – the economy or terrorism or the environment – all those things that statesmen struggle with. At a much more basic level, we are anxious about ourselves. We worry about whether our lives have meaning. We wonder whether we have done anything that matters. Will anyone remember us when we are gone? Have we made an impact that counts for something? A friend of mine published a book of sermons entitled, “Will It Matter That I Was?” That’s it! That’s what gets to us, that’s what keeps us awake at night, that’s what, in the lonely moments, we are anxious about. Will it matter that we were here? Does my life, short or long, have meaning? Does anybody care, did anybody notice, that I took up space for a while on this planet? Anxiety. It’s our response to a fundamental human question, the question of meaning.
And if, when we struggle with those questions, we can say, “Yes” – Yes, it matters that I was here; yes, someone cares; yes, my life has had meaning – if we can say “yes” about our lives, we can come to the moment of our death content. Satisfied, calm, accepting, and content.
But if we must say, “No” – No, I accomplished nothing; no, no one cares and no one will miss me; no, my life is insignificant – if we must say “no” about our lives, then we end our days agitated, upset, fighting restraints, and profoundly unhappy. I have seen too much of this. I have seen even those who looked very successful come to the end full of doubt, consumed by fears, and hammered by anxiety. Even those you would think of as truly “together” and ready for anything, when the day of their death approaches, sometimes fracture on the shoals of anxiety.
And yet, again, there are those who are content. There are those who are satisfied. There are those who find meaning, who say “yes” to the lives they have led, and who finish their days satisfied, calm, accepting, and content. What makes the difference? Where does this kind of contentment come from? How is it possible, at the end, to say “yes” to your life? How can we take hold of contentment?
Dock Burgess’s final day, so far as we can reconstruct it, speaks to us about this. Let me tell you about last Friday, as told me by his daughter Gloria, and then let me lift up from that final day and from the Scripture some lessons on contentment. I
This last Friday, Gloria went to see her father, and spent some special time with him, making him comfortable and grooming him. He had only recently arrived at the place that is difficult for a good many people to get to – he had arrived at the place where he was comfortable with his daughter taking care of his body. Something in us rebels at that, and Dock was no different from the rest of us. But that had changed, and he submitted to Gloria’s efforts to clean him and serve him.
Gloria tells me that she just felt on that Friday afternoon that she would like to go the extra mile for her dad. Not just cleaning him, but giving him a pedicure and a facial. And not just the pedicure and the facial, but dressing him in charcoal gray slacks and a blue corduroy jacket. And not just the slacks and the jacket, but new sandals, after the pedicure. She says she wishes she had had a camera to record this ninety-two-year-old elegance. He was a picture, in fact, not only of elegance, but also of contentment. There’s our key word – contentment.
And as she left him sitting in the sun, among the flowers, enjoying the gentle breeze, she told him once again what she had told him before, but this time with some extra emphasis, this time with some special urgency. She told him he had been a good father; she reminded him that not only had he loved all his daughters, but that they all loved him. They loved him and appreciated the kind of home he had provided. Speaking for herself and her sisters, she made sure he understood that he had done well for them; he had created an atmosphere of warmth and love and joy, and all of them had drawn from that. All of them had been empowered by his kind of love. She emphasized that with him, and he seemed, this past Friday, content. Calm and content.
We know that as the evening passed, he received his meal and ate it, and then spent time with another little girl, with Brianna. Someone else’s daughter received his attention and his care for a little while, as if to say, “This is what I can do. This is where I matter, this is where I make a difference – loving little girls. Inspiring young women.” And so sometime that night or early Saturday morning, Dock Burgess let go of this life and slipped into eternity. Or shall I say, Dock Burgess let go of the last scrap of anxiety, and took hold of contentment?
He died content. Without anxiety. That is a very great gift. Just letting go and taking hold of contentment.
II
The Bible interprets this for us. It speaks with special eloquence about what it means to live and to die with contentment on our hearts. Paul’s counsel to the young Timothy underscores several things about this.
A
First, the Bible teaches us that to be content, we have to learn how to receive. We have to learn how to take what is given us and to be grateful for it. We cannot spend our energies worrying about what we do not have, but can focus on what we do have, and can count that as a blessing and a gift. And if we learn how to receive, we shall learn to be content.
Paul says,
“we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.”
If Dock Burgess, like all of us, brought nothing into the world, then, sadly, what little he accumulated was quickly taken away. His father was killed in an accident before he was born, and his mother died when he was about eight years old. Along the way, growing up, in the world of work and home and business, there were other losses. Other times when some of the things for which he had worked slipped away. And yet, through it all, the picture I have been given is of a man able to create an atmosphere of love, able to enjoy simple pleasures like picnics and softball, able to find enough to be content. It is not what you do not have that matters; it is not even what you have lost that makes the difference. It is how you receive what does come that gives you contentment.
“We brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.”
B
But then the Bible also teaches us that there is a link between contentment and godliness. There is a connection between our need for meaning and our relationship with God. Paul spells it out for us,
“There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.”
Great gain in godliness plus contentment. If I may paraphrase: if you invest into your spiritual bank account some God-time, some godliness, then you can expect dividends, interest payments, in the form of contentment.
Dock Burgess was not an overtly religious man. Not a churchgoer and not a person who wore his faith on his sleeve. But then that has never been the criterion of spirituality anyway. Jesus did not tell us to make a big splash of our faith. In fact He warned us against it!
“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them ... whenever you give ... do not sound a trumpet before you (sorry, Terence!) ... do not sound a trumpet before you .. And whenever you pray, do not stand and pray at the street corners ... but go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Contentment comes not only from learning how to receive. Contentment also comes from a quiet, ongoing, inward relationship with God. I do not think it is too much to imagine Dock Burgess, on that last afternoon, sitting quietly in the light of the sun, enjoying the beauty of the creator’s flowers, simply and softly letting his heart go to the God who made Him. I do not think it is a stretch to remember him, that afternoon and that evening, feeling the love of his family and connecting with an innocent child, quietly and with no scrap of anxiety, trusting the Lord for safe-keeping. Whether he uttered prayer-like words we do not know. But our God knows when the hearts of His children turn toward Him. And there is great, great gain in godliness combined with contentment.
III
And so today, thinking about Mr. Burgess’s life, we learn that if we expect to be content, we must learn how to receive; and that if we want our contentment to multiply, we must invest in a relationship with God. But we learn something else as well. We learn that, at the end, taking hold of contentment is also taking hold of the gift of God’s grace, God’s amazing grace. When all is said and done, when we add up our accomplishments and tote up our losses; when the question of meaning rises up and haunts us; when we come to the end of this journey, there is really only one thing that tips the balances, and that is the grace of God. For none of us deserves what God wants to give, none of us can earn it. It is simply that if we have learned how to receive, we can now receive the last and the greatest gift of all. If we have invested in a relationship with God, out of His grace we can find not only contentment and peace, but even more, we can know that we have not been lost, we have not been discarded, we have not been set aside. We belong to Him. And we can take hold, not just of contentment; but we can take hold of eternal life.
“As for you, man of God ... pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called.”
Take hold! This is the ultimate in contentment – to know that out of the grace of God, sheer, undeserved, unearned grace, there is a gift unsurpassable in scope and matchless in value. Life eternal. If we know that that is given to us, how can we be anything less than content? Take hold! Take hold of contentment; take hold of eternal life.
You see, once there was another man whose death was approaching. To him also someone came and anointed his feet with a costly perfume. Some objected and wondered if that was not an extravagance; use this resource elsewhere, they said. This doesn’t mean anything. This has no value. But the man who had been so anointed, in his last hours – Jesus – said,
“She has kept this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
Jesus knew how to receive; Jesus knew the will of His Father; and Jesus knew that He was the vessel of grace. He was content.
Dock Burgess knew how to receive. Dock Burgess grasped the will of the Father. And Dock Burgess has taken hold of contentment; by the grace of God he has taken hold of eternal life, he has taken hold of contentment.
