Galatians 6:1-10
"If only..."
"If only I had gone this way instead of that way".
"If only I had made this choice instead of that choice".
We've all heard stories of missed opportunities. I'm sure each of you could tell your own stories of times you zigged when you wish you would have zagged.
Two friends went for a car ride together. Walter was driving, and he took his friend Arthur for a ride way out in the country. Walter drove off the main road and onto a dirt road, through a grove of trees to a large open plot of land. A few horses were grazing, and a couple of old shacks remained.
Walter stopped the car. Both men got out. Walter started describing to Arthur, with great vividness, the wonderful things he was going to build. He wanted his friend Arthur to buy some of the land surrounding his project, to get in on the ground floor.
Arthur thought to himself, Who in the world is going to drive 25 miles for this crazy project? The logistics of the venture are staggering.
Walter explained to Arthur, "I can handle the main project myself. But it will take all my money. The land bordering it, where we're standing now, will in just a couple of years be jammed with hotels and restaurants and convention halls to accommodate the people who will come to spend their entire vacations here at my park." Then he said, "I want you to have the first chance at this surrounding acreage, because in the next five years it will increase in value several hundred times."
Looking back on that conversation, Arthur said, "What could I say? I knew he was wrong. I knew that he let a dream get the best of his common sense, so I mumbled something about a tight money situation and promised I would look into the whole thing a little later on."
"Later on will be too late," Walter warned as they walked back to the car. "You'd be better to move on it right now."
And so it was that Arthur--who was Art Linkletter--turned down the opportunity to buy up all the land that surrounded what was to become Disneyland. His friend, Walter--Walt Disney--tried to talk him into it. But Art thought he was crazy.
If only...
If there was anyone who never said, "If only..." it had to be the Apostle Paul. He was a person who took all the opportunities God gave him and never said no. We don't know much about the very first opportunity given to Paul. Here is all it says at the beginning of Acts 13:
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
That's it. The Holy Spirit said, like Walt Disney, I have this great plan. I want Paul and Barnabas to be a part of it. The Holy Spirit didn't ask, like Walt Disney did of Art Linkletter, if Paul and Barnabas wanted to be a part of the grand plan. Just, "Set them apart for me" and "send them off." We aren't told if there was any stuttering going on, or negotiations. It sounded like Paul and Barnabas were given an opportunity, accepted it, and went out with it. It was the way they both worked with God throughout their lives.
Imagine if in Men's Bible Study, or in Women's Bible Study, the Holy Spirit makes it suddenly known that John Cochran and Joel Curtis were to be sent to Chicago and New York City to proclaim the gospel; or Shannon Squires and Tonie Graber were being given the opportunity to go to the Central African countries and be ambassadors for Christ. The Holy Spirit's will is clear; away you go. Here's an opportunity. Take it. Go. Would you? With no more information than the Holy Spirit wants you.
Like I said, I don’t think Paul ever missed an opportunity that was given him by the Holy Spirit. Even though we would hem and haw after hearing the meager discussion that the Holy Spirit wanted a couple of us to take off for some undetailed mission, Paul never did. He listened. He accepted. He went. That’s Paul’s thrust in this part of his letter to the Galatians: seize the opportunities given you to do good in the name of Christ.
In this part of his letter, Paul switches motivations. The main motivation Paul used in the early part of the letter is along the lines of dealing with the consequences of the judgement of God. Here in the ending part of the letter Paul is trying to use incentive rather than motivation.
If you’re not sure what the difference is between incentive and motivation, maybe this will clear it up. One corporation had a workshop for everyone in the company about employer-employee relationships. No one was getting the distinction between incentive and motivation. Finally, a factory worker stood up and said, “When the boss tells me that if I increase my production to a certain number of units a day, I’ll get a raise, that’s incentive. When he tells me that unless I increase my production to a certain number of units per day I’ll be fired, that’s motivation.”
Here, Paul is trying to use incentive. That is, that we will reap what we sow, he said. If we “sow to the Holy Spirit”—that is, if we do what the Holy Spirit asks us to do, we reap eternal life. That’s incentive. The carrot of eternal life is held out before us. All we have to do to gain that eternal life is be obedient to God’s Spirit.
But gaining that eternal life is not easy. Paul wrote, “And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.” The Holy Spirit is asking every believer to live a life of well-doing. By doing so, we gain eternal life. That is, Paul wrote, “if we do not lose heart.” In other words, it can be so hard to be a well-doing person, a person who does good to all (all). The word for “lose heart” in the Greek that Paul wrote in literally means to “faint in your souls.” J.B. Phillips translates this phrase with, “throw in your hand.” In other words, give up. Give up because the task looks too hard. Give up because doing what the Holy Spirit is asking us to do by being good to all people, is just too much responsibility.
I’m looking forward to the Olympic games this summer. Hopefully some athletes will show up, especially after reading this week that the police force in Rio has run out of money. If that doesn’t scare people away, nothing will. Anyway, there was one Olympic Games I was watching the swimming events. I can’t remember what year it was. The event was the 4 X 200 Freestyle Relay event. The gold medal was coming down to the last swimmer for the US and the German team. The final swimmer for the German team was the world record holder for the individual 200 Freestyle race. The US swimmer could have “thrown in his hand,” so to speak, and convince himself he’d never win. Just swim his best and expect to lose. It would be easy to lose heart.
The German took an early lead in the last leg of the relay. It looked like the Germans were going to be the winner. The commentators even thought so. The race was over. But the anchor on the US team slowly gained ground. Closer and closer. In the last 5 yards the US swimmer caught the German swimmer and out-touched him at the wall to win the gold for the US. It was one of the great upsets in those games.
Trying to take every opportunity to do good to all people feels like having to swim as the last swimmer in that race. How will you ever accomplish what it is up to you to do? Especially when you start thinking about all the people you want to have nothing to do with. It is hard to do good to all people. We could say to the Holy Spirit, “You don’t know what you’re asking.” Opportunities for doing good can be costly to us. We may have to give up what we want. We may have to curb our anger, even when we feel it’s justifiable. Instead of confronting someone with anger, we would have to learn to confront in love. Going the extra mile with someone, may be difficult because you didn’t even want to go the first mile with them.
To push ourselves way beyond our comfort zone of extending kindness to all makes it so very tempting to just throw in our hand. Give up. Lose heart. Lower ourselves below what the Holy Spirit is asking us to do.
But to lose heart and grow weary in showing kindness to all, means we will miss opportunities the Spirit has brought our way. I’ve been watching a series on Netflix about Marco Polo. Before Marco Polo made it to China, his father Nickelo and his uncle Matteo made it in 1271. They were given an audience with the great Kubla Kahn. Kubla Kahn at that time ruled all of China, all of India, and all of the East.
The Kahn, as he was called, was attracted to the story of Christianity as Nickelo and Matteo told it to him. He said to them, “You shall go to your high priest and tell him on my behalf to send me 100 men skilled in your religion and I shall be baptized, and when I am baptized all my Barons and great men will be baptized and their subjects will receive baptism too, and so there will be more Christians here than there are in your parts.”
But because Nickelo and Matteo didn’t like Kubla Kahn and felt like he was deceiving them or manipulating them, nothing was done. Nothing was done for about 30 years, when a couple of missionaries were finally sent. Too few too late.
It baffles the imagination to think what a difference to the world would have been made if in the 13th century, China had become fully Christian. If in the 13th century, India had become fully Christian. If in the 13th century, the East had be been handed to Christ. The opportunity was there in spades. But Nickelo and Matteo Polo folded, threw in their hands, lost heart, and threw away one of the greatest opportunities in all Christian evangelism, simply because they didn’t think the Kahn was worth them doing this good for him.
Verse 10 reads, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” There is one little word that can be translated a couple of different ways, and the different ways make an interesting difference. The word could be “as” or “while.” “…as we have opportunity…” or, “…while we have opportunity.”
“…while we have opportunity,” carries the meaning of “while we have time.” That could be a reference of our time, of how much time we may or may not have left to live. With the time we have, may we take opportunities to share the kindness of Christ with all people, no matter who they are.
I was talking with my son Ryan about last weeks sermon about the shootings in Orlando. I told him how I tried to make the point that the main reason for the shootings was the violence that resides in all of us. Again, this week, a supposedly devoted and Christian mother senselessly shot and killed her two teenage daughters then was shot and killed by police. No one knows why this happened, exactly.
But for Ryan, the meaning that came to him about all these shootings is how precarious life is. None of us knows how much time we have. Those two teenage girls woke up one morning last week not knowing that by the end of the day they would be both shot dead by their own mother. A bunch of people were excited to be going to a night club in Orlando, not knowing many of them would be shot dead. Travelers were at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey this last week, excited about catching their plane, and a bomb goes off, killing 40 people. Life is precious because it is so precarious, Ryan said. Which means we all have to do as well as we can with who we are because we never know when our lives will end. Do what you can, do the best you can, NOW, because you don’t know. I liked his perspective. It may be what Paul was trying to say, “…while we have opportunity…”
The other possibility is “…as we have opportunity…” which carries the meaning of, “as the opportunities are presented to us by the Holy Spirit, take advantage of them.” It’s been said that opportunities are like eggs—they come to us one at a time.” But I would add that once we take advantage of one egg—one opportunity—another will come, then another, and another.
And notice it says, “…as we have opportunity…”. That means it’s all about the opportunities, not us. It doesn’t say, “As you feel like taking advantage of an opportunity,” as if it’s about you. The promise of eternal life that Paul mentions is about the opportunities the Holy Spirit gives us, that we grasp, and then grasp another, and another, as they come.
From the story I started this message with, it appeared that Art Linkletter was kicking himself because he didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to buy up land around the proposed Disneyland. I’m not sure if we kick ourselves because we lost an opportunity to do good to someone else, as we were directed by the Holy Spirit. Remember the incentive, Paul talked about: eternal life as reward. And think about how all these awful events that end people’s lives makes us think about how precious life is in its precariousness. Do good, now; take advantage of the opportunity to do good, now. Because you never know.
No comments:
Post a Comment