Monday, June 18, 2018

My Final Four Sermons: What Is The Meaning Of Life?

"My Final Four Sermons:  What Is The Meaning Of Life?"
Matthew 6:33
John 3:1-8

I was working in my office—this was at another church.  I was engrossed in sermon writing.  My desk faced an outer wall with a window, and the door to the office was off to my left and a bit behind my peripheral vision.  Probably not the best feng shui.

I suddenly felt someone’s presence.  I turned towards the door and Grant was standing there leaning against the door frame.  I had no idea how long he was standing there—or, rather, leaning there.

He was drunk.  It was late morning.  He slurred out to me, “Steve, what’s the meaning of life?”

Grant was a well-respected banker in town.  An Executive Vice-President.  There are so many vice-presidents in banks, it’s hard to know what his position meant.

Grant’s wife was the President of the bank.  So, between them, they were doing very well.  They owned a gingerbread styled home in the older, stately part of town.  It was on a half block lot.  Lots of trees in the back with a nice pathway through the back yard.  There was a fountain here or there, and a gazebo.  Their two daughters weddings were in the back yard, and I had done them both.

By all outward appearances, they had a great, and more than comfortable life.

But that was evidently not so.  At least for Grant.  Outward appearances of a cushy life was hiding the fact that Grant was not happy.  And I had no idea he was a drinker, let alone an alcoholic, which I found out that day he was.

Grant’s question to me may seem trite or over worn.   In reality, his question is the number one question that is asked by people, both on the internet and in person.  I would guess, that for most, there is an addendum to that question, which is, “...for me.”  What is the meaning of life...for me?  Part of the reason we put the “for me” on the end is because American culture is basically narcissistic, and it is all about me.  We think, I don’t want to know your meaning of life.  I want to know mine.  I don’t want a general answer to the question that is good for everyone.  I want something that is particular to me—my answer.

If that is your sentiment, your outlook, I’m going to disappoint you this morning.

There are at least two sides of an anxiety coin to this most asked question.  First, is the anxiousness that you feel like there is this hole in your life that you haven’t been able to fill.  You think that if you could just discover life’s meaning, that hole would be filled.  Your emptiness would go away.  That’s part of what Grant was asking me that late morning in my office.

The second side of that coin of anxiety is similar.  It is the feeling there must be something more than this.  The difference between the two sides is the hole is felt in the individual self.  But here, the sense that there has to be something more has to do with life in general, life as you are living it.  There has to be more than the conclusion the writer of Ecclesiastes comes to:
All of life is far more boring
  Than words could ever say.
Our eyes and ears are never satisfied
  With what we see and hear.
Everything that happens
  Has happened before;
Nothing is new,
  Nothing under the sun.  (1:8-9, CEV)

What! You exclaim.  How can that be in the Bible!?  There’s got to be something new.  Something more.  Something different.  Something better than this!  There’s got to be something more than this boring, humdrum, repetitive life!

That’s the main thing Grant was asking me out of his stupor.  “There’s got to be something more to energize me, something more to give me purpose, something more that is new and gives me excitement about being alive!  What is the meaning of life?”

When you think about it, one of the best definitions of what it means to be human is we are meaning-making animals.  No other animal or entity on earth worries or even thinks about personal meaning, or the meaning of their life.  Wildebeest roaming in herds on the Serengeti plains of Africa aren’t standing around having existential conversations at the watering hole about what their life means.  Only humans struggle with those existential questions.

We even try to make meaning out of the rawest of life’s materials:  sickness, war, death, as well as everyday events.  What does it mean?  There’s got to be more than just the event itself.

Those are the two levels of everyday life.  There are the events themselves—the experiences we have.  Some of those experiences are big, life-altering, and even cataclysmic.  But most are everyday, common goings-on kinds of things that we all wade through.

The other level is the meanings we put on those cataclysmic or everyday experiences.  All of those meanings we give to our life experiences are highly individual.  Two people can go through the same or similar experience, but attach entirely different meanings to those events.

What does it mean to be given a surprising diagnosis by your doctor?
What does it mean to lose your job?  Get a new job?
What does it mean to just have a bad day?  Have a good day?
What does it mean to retire?
What does it mean to hear the Voice of God?  (Next weeks sermon.)

Now here’s what happens.  We take all those little meanings of our life events, and they slowly become what we would call, “The Meaning of Life.”  What we normally do is allow our experiences, and the meanings we attach to them, to become our over-arching meaning of life.  We fashion what we come to know as the meaning of life from the bottom up.  It’s all based on us, our experiences, and our meanings.

What eventually happens with that is what happened to Grant in my office:  our meaning of life, that we fashioned based on our own experiences, collapses.  The meaning of life, built from the bottom up, based on us, doesn’t ultimately work out.  Our lives, our structure, our meaning, comes tumbling down like a house of cards.

When that happens, you’ll end up in my office, or someone’s office, asking, “What is the meaning of life?  Everything I built over the last so-many-years, just came crashing down around me.”

What I have learned over 40 years of ministry, and thousands of conversations with people about the meaning of life, is that true meaning of life has to be built from the top down, not the bottom up.

Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.  Basically, Nicodemus has come to Jesus and said, “My life’s not working.  It’s clear you’re a man of God.  I need to hear a clear word of God and get my life on track.”
And what does Jesus reply to Nicodemus?  “I tell you for certain that you must be born from above before you can see God’s kingdom” (John 3:3, CEV).

Jesus’ statement tells us two vital things about the meaning of life.  First, the meaning of life can only come from “above.”  It has to be something over you.  It has to be something bigger than you.  You can’t find true meaning in life based on you, your own experiences, and your own meanings.  You are not big enough to sustain true meaning of life.

That’s what Grant and Nicodemus had tried and failed doing.  Their meaning of life wasn’t over them, or bigger than themselves.  If your meaning in life is bigger than you—over you—then when you have a bad day, or get a negative diagnosis, or whatever, you determine the little meanings of those events by the larger meaning of life that is over you and covers you.  The true meaning of life is born from above—top down.

And the other thing we learn about the meaning of life from Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus is that it has to be about God’s kingdom.  It’s so important to hear this statement of Jesus:  “...before you can see God’s kingdom.”  The meaning of life ultimately has to do with seeing God’s kingdom—God’s activity—in your life.

So, when you experience an everyday or catastrophic event, the question is not, “What does this mean...to me?”  The better question is, “How am I seeing God and God’s kingdom at work in this event?”  The best, over-arching meaning of life has to do with the vision—the seeing—of God’s kingdom all around you and through you.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”  In one sentence, there is the meaning of life.  It is one meaning of life for all people in all situations.  It is top down.  It is over-arching.  It has to do with that which is much bigger than ourselves.  It keeps our focus outward—looking for/seeing God’s kingdom and God’s activity, rather than inward on our selves.

Can you imagine what a huge world opens up when you start seeing the kingdom of God—the activity of God—all around you?  Can you imagine how your world changes if you seek the kingdom of God first?  Not just in your life, but in all that is happening.  Can you imagine the meaning in life that can be had when its absolutely about the kingdom of God, and not about your own puny, little kingdom?

if you seek first the kingdom—the activity—of God in and around your life, you won’t be leaning on your pastor’s office door asking about the meaning of life.

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