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The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
"Think With Sober Judgment"
The Rev. Stephn Elkins-Williams
I bid everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.
I keep a cartoon on my office door, changing it periodically. My hope is that, even when my door is closed, I can help increase the joy of those coming into the parish office and perhaps provide a different and thoughtful slant on things. The current one on display is a weekday Peanuts comic strip. Lucy, leaning on her elbows on the familiar wall, says to Charlie Brown, “I am intrigued by this view you have on the purpose of life, Charlie Brown. You say we’re put here on earth to make others happy?” “That’s right,” Charlie agrees. For another panel, they both lean their faces on their hands, lost in thought. Then Lucy turns to Charlie Brown and asks, “What are the others put here for?”
Lucy, of course, is the original “it’s all about me” girl. She just cannot grasp that the universe might not revolve around her. We easily laugh at her blatant narcissism, especially when contrasted with Charlie Brown’s humble and even exaggerated self-effacement. But perhaps we also laugh slightly ruefully, knowing that Lucy reflects a side of us, that we tend toward being self-centered, that we need to be constantly coaxed beyond ourselves and beyond our narrow field of vision. That no doubt explains some of the popularity of the book by Pastor Rick Warren, entitled The Purpose-Driven Life. It begins with the life-giving acknowledgment, “It’s not about you.”
That sentence strikes a modern chord. Given the lifelong cultural forces that habituate us into thinking “What’s in it for me?” “What am I getting out of this?” “How can I benefit from this?”, it is not surprising that we need to be told that it is not about us. Like fish swimming in water, we are not even aware of our daily environment until someone points it out to us. That is what keeps preachers and cartoonists and other social commentators in business!
But lest we take this too far and think we are the only generation and society that needs this reminder (and thus keeping it about us!), Paul lets us know in today’s letter to the early Christians in Rome that this is deeply imbedded in all human beings. They and he and we and those in between and after us, all have an innate tendency to put ourselves at the center, to relate to reality through our own self-interest, to think it is all about us. Otherwise Paul would not have urged his early Roman converts not to think of themselves more highly than they ought, “but to think with sober judgment.” If it were not a problem, he would not have addressed it. And this was not the only letter in which he raised this issue; it was a common theme for Paul.
So what does this mean for us? How are we to respond? How are we to think with sober judgment?
Sober judgment would first have us acknowledge the deep truth of our place in the scheme of things. As human beings, we have only existed in this created universe for a comparative blink of an eye – a few thousand years compared to the billions of years of the sun and the planets. We are the new kid on our tiny block, even more so in relation to God, the source of all that we know about and all the much more that we do not even have a clue about. “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers [says the psalmist], what is man that you should be mindful of him, the son of man that you should seek him out?” (Psalm 8:4-5)
Even within those few thousand years, each of us is one very small human being, with a brief, limited lifespan and a very limited influence on the many generations before and after us. When we die, as have all the millions of those who have preceded us, those who know us and love us will be genuinely grieved, but life will go on. The sun will still rise and set each day. The ocean tides will ebb and flow. It truly is not about us.
But sober judgment (which does not mean “somber judgment”) would also have us acknowledge that God, who “was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever,” from whose bounty all things flow, of whom we can say, “It is about you,” also freely created us and all other human beings. This God not only made us, in the words of the psalmist, “a little lower than the angels” and adorned us “with glory and honor” (Ps. 8:6), but has also revealed a burning love for us and a burning desire for us to love one another.
As Christians we believe that wondrous revelation was most fully expressed in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, acknowledged in today’s Gospel by Peter to be “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” In God’s decision to come among us in the person of Jesus to deliver us from sin and death, in Jesus’ teaching about the deep calling of God for us to love God and our neighbor, and in the very person of Jesus, whose goodness and love has inspired the committed devotion of millions of people down through the generations, God has shown us as clearly as is possible in this life when we see in a mirror dimly, that Divine mystery that God is Love.
So Charlie Brown is right in saying that our purpose in this life is to make other people happy. In fact by loving others, we will find that that not only makes them happy, but that it also leads us to happiness and true fulfillment, which God wants for us all. But Lucy is also right in questioning whether that can explain all the mystery of life. God must also be part of the picture, or it does not make sense. We need both of the great commandments, loving God with our whole heart and soul and mind and loving our neighbors as ourselves. That is our purpose in this life.
Can we do that very well? Sometimes grace prevails, and we are able to break beyond our selfishness and our narrow vision and love God by loving others, even when they may not be at their most loveable. But at other times we all know that we stumble and in the words of the Baptismal Covenant, “fall into sin” and need to “repent and return to the Lord.” We get very discouraged and can very easily sink into a Charlie Brown dejection, thinking we deserve whatever bad luck comes our way. But “Cheer up, Charlie Brown!” You are still loved and claimed by God, in whose image you are made. You are still to think with sober (but not somber) judgment. You are still to “turn to Jesus Christ and accept him [not yourself] as your Savior” and “put your whole trust in his grace and love. You are still joyfully to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.”
And when you fail yet again? Do not worry. Remember, it is not about you!
Romans 12:1-18; Matthew 16:13-20
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