First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta
Dr. Todd B. Jones
September 26, 2004 – FOCUS Weekend
“Live Like You Were Dying”
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
1 Peter 4:7-11
This past week, Time magazine devoted a page-and-a-half article to country music star Tim McGraw, whose newest number one hit, Live Like You were Dying, is the title of this morning’s sermon. The song is all the more poignant because it is sung by McGraw in the wake of his once-famous father’s recent death to a brain tumor. Tug McGraw, a passionate, flamboyant relief pitcher for the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies, lived with his son for the final months of his life. Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman, the songwriters, capture powerfully the notion that life is short and its ending can surely come at any time.
The chorus is haunting and lyrical. It also rings true with wisdom. “Someday I hope you get the chance, to live like you were dying.” I think Peter would have heartily approved of the song, for in the fourth chapter of his first letter in the New Testament, he says, “The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourself for the sake of your prayers.” Actually, I like the way the Revised Standard Version says it better: “The end of all things is at hand; therefore keep sane and sober….”
Now for Peter, as for virtually every writer of the New Testament, he was speaking of the end of history, the end of time. Jesus promised, as we believe, that He would come again to bring history to its final judgment. But virtually everyone in the early Church believed that Jesus’ return, or His Second Coming, was imminent! I think that is part of what made those early Christians so powerful, and surely part of what made the Church so dynamic. They lived as if the end of all things was near. They lived like they were dying!
And, of course, we all are! The ultimate mortality rate is still 100 percent! Life is precious in no small part because it is so fleeting. And no one in this sanctuary honestly knows their end. But you have one, and so do I! In the first sermon I ever preached here, on Easter Day in 2002, I told you about a tombstone that sits prominently on a street intersection near the college from which Sarah graduated. Serving on their Board, I get to pass it a few times a year! It has, in bold uppercase letters, carved on a huge block of polished granite, the name Todd Jones! It is a sobering reminder, every time I see it, that one day I will surely die. So will you! Most of the time, we do not even think about this! But it is one of the great facts of life.
We are blessed that Peter thought to offer us specific reminders on how to live like we were dying. What he is really writing about in this passage is how to live by the will of God. Living by God’s will for Peter is the only way to live, and for him it involves a number of specific attitudes and patterns of behavior. Let us take a look at them this morning, for who here really knows when the end will come, or how much time we really have?
First, Peter says, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.” It is easy, even a joy, to love who we want, when we feel like it. It is a delight to love those we find attractive. I absolutely adore my kids, especially when they are doing what I want them to do! But that is not what Peter is saying! For Peter, love is not a feeling. It is a decision, an act of the will, it is something you do. And Peter is saying, “Maintain constant love for one another….” He does not qualify it. It includes for him the whole Church! Love those you are crazy about, and love those who drive you crazy. Love those you like, and those who are hard to love. Love those who do not much like you. That is what Peter is saying! I think it is what Martin Luther King, Jr. was speaking of when he said, “I have decided to love, for hate is too heavy a burden to bear.” Albert Schweitzer said, “Only through love can we attain communion with God.” Hatred, bitterness, resentment and indifference keep us from God. And it is so easy to give in to them. It is always easy to sit back and be critical, or to remain aloof and apart from others. (Especially in an imperfect church like this one!) But Peter reminds us that we do not have forever to get our hearts and lives right. The time is short, and no one knows that time when time will be no more.
Goethe said, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” And I know he is right! It is why so many of us are misshapen. We love too little, too late, too narrowly. I have learned over time, and by repeated failures, that it is important to love your enemies, to work harder at acting in a loving way toward those who have hurt you or been unkind. I had a very talented colleague once who went through a very excruciating time in her life. And for reasons I will never probably know, but for which I may have been somewhat responsible, she began to turn some of her anger upon me. I would be lying if I did not admit to you that it hurt. I am sure that was her intention. Sometimes, in fits of rage, it felt like a double barrel shotgun aimed straight at me. But for some reason, a voice in me kept saying, “It is not about you, Todd. She is having a tough time, so care for her and make sure your actions are always in her best interests.” In a life where I have too often lacked wisdom, this is one circumstance where I know I behaved not as I felt like behaving, but as I believed I should. I made a decision to love, no matter how unkind or cutting this person was in her rage. And it kept the relationship, and the church, and maybe, in a way, even her life, from coming apart.
Peter is right. “Love covers a multitude of sins.” If you feel loved, you can endure almost anything. So why not take that knowledge and offer it to others, especially those you really don’t like? You know that hate never works … it just escalates the hostilities. Why not try a different tact? I have been in the church long enough to know that no verse in the Bible is any truer! Love does cover a multitude of sins. I have seen it with pastors and their congregations. If a church senses their pastor really loves them, they can endure a lot of faults and weaknesses in their minister! And so, I will tell you, it is when pastors know they are loved. I have seen pastors love some very hard to love congregations! Love makes all the difference in the world, and “love covers a multitude of sins!”
Secondly, “Be hospitable to one another without complaining.” What the word hospitality meant for Peter was clear: He was talking about welcoming the stranger. What Peter was saying is an important extension of the first word: Do not let your love be narrow!! Do not just love your own, but be open to the outsider, the stranger. When Jews sit at the Passover meal, they always have at the table an empty chair. It is a powerful symbol of how God wants them to live: It is there for the alien, the stranger who might come in need of fellowship.
There is an incredible important passage found in Leviticus 19:34. I love it! “The alien who resides among you shall be to you as a citizen among you: You shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.” Do you remember what it felt like the first time you ever walked into this sanctuary? Do you recall what it felt like to be new in a place, a school, a city, a church? I can tell you, it is one of the hardest things in the world! My first months in your midst were some of the hardest of my life! That first Easter I went from knowing everyone in the church the week before, my last in Spartanburg, to knowing no one! It was a sea of strangers for four services! And every smile, every gesture of kindness, every act of hospitality, made a powerful difference. And today, because of you, this feels like home.
Why do we forget how tough it is to be the stranger? A group of us in the church have recently seen a film about a village in France that offered hospitality during World War II. Le Chambon was a village of five thousand in central France. The Church was Huguenot by tradition. André Trocmé was called to be the pastor of the church in the center of that town. When the Nazis occupied France, they wanted the French to cooperate by allowing them to take the Jews off to concentration camps. Tragically, in most places, the French, like the Germans and the Poles, cooperated. But not André Trocmé! He preached the Gospel. He preached Biblical hospitality. And the people responded. This village of five thousand welcomed, hid and rescued five thousand Jews. When asked why they would have taken such risks, these humble people said, “What else could we do? We are Christians, and that is what Christians do.” You know as well as I do that is what too few Christians did!
I wonder and worry about how hospitable we are as a church. It is so easy in a place like this to get lost! And so many of us only find our friends, our familiar circle. I know of a relatively new member of this church who tells me he looks for people he does not know in Courtenay Hall!
I have been humbled by the staggering hospitality Christians in third world nations have universally offered through the years. This summer was no different! Our Kenyan hosts rolled out the red carpet for us! Actually, I am thinking this morning of Pastor Jane Kashord. Pastor Jane served the Embulbul Church among two other congregations. She is one of forty women ministers in the PCEA. She never met us before we came, but the first Sunday, she invited me to preach, Mike Baron to serve communion with their Elders, and Archie Adams and Brandon Harrington to read the scriptures! Jane is from the Kikuyu tribe, the people she serves. And as we worked among them, they put on the dog for us … well, actually, the goat!
The word hospes, from which we get hospitality, means both ‘guest’ and ‘host’ in ancient Greek. The implication seems to be that whenever two or more are gathered in fellowship, it should not be discernable who is host and who is guest.
Finally, Peter says, “Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.” Be faithful and good stewards of your gifts, and know that God did not give them to you to bring glory to yourself! God has given to us our gifts so we can use them to His glory, and to use them to serve each other, to build up the church. Paul says we are to use our gifts to serve the common good.
I am going this week to visit baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. It is something I have wanted to do all my life! I am reminded of Ted Williams this morning, who worked as hard as anyone ever did to hone his gifts. He said, “You can always take what you have and make it better.” Or I think of Willie Mays: “To play baseball, you have to get your uniform dirty!”
God has given you gifts, and God wants you to pour yourself into making use of them! God expects you to get your uniform dirty! I love how George Herbert put it:
Teach me, my God and King, in all things Thee to see,
And what I do in any thing, to do it as for Thee.
I think what Peter is saying is not so different from what Tim McGraw learned from his father, Tug. Life is precious, but it is fragile and short. So live like you were dying, because you are. Live prepared. Live a caught-up life, not a put-off life, so that wherever you are, you are ready for God, ready for whatever happens next, ready for today, which for all you know, could be the last day you ever enjoy! Do not put off living the kind of life you are meant to live.
“Someday…. No, this day! …I hope you get the chance, to live like you were dying.”
Amen.