Jeremiah 1:4-10, Hebrews 12:18-19, Luke 13:10-17
I always knew. I always knew…deep down inside myself…I went long stretches not thinking twice about it…yet, deep down inside myself…when I allowed myself to listen…I knew there was something else I was going to do with my life. I had followed the logical path. With a major in math, my first job out of college was at Continental Bank here in Chicago. Some of you might remember Continent Bank, which became part of Bank of America. I was in a training program in Accounting and Technology. Technology was still young enough at that point that the idea of teaching people in the Accounting department about how accounting transactions are automated and teaching people in the Systems department about the accounting transactions that they were automating was a rather novel idea! So, my math major was being put to use. From there, I returned to school to get a graduate degree in business and then continued my career in financial services consulting. And, yet, this sense of something else hung around. It even briefly occurred to me one day twenty years ago that perhaps someday I would go to seminary. But I boldly dismissed the idea as absurd. I was a math person, a business person, pursuing a career that suited my skills and interests. Yet, this sense of something else did not go away. When I finally allowed myself to really listen to my heart and to listen to the world around me, I recognized a call to ministry. And, in that moment of revelation, of wonder, even shock…this is that something else…there was great peace.
The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” God knows us. God knows us as individuals. God knows our strengths and our weaknesses, our motivations, our intentions, our gifts. God knows the fabric of our being. And, God knows the whole of Creation. And so, I believe we each have a purpose in life, a purpose in the development and movement of Creation. That purpose might be our career. It might be the time we give to volunteer activities. It might be our place in the community, our relationship with our friends, our role in our family. Perhaps our purpose is an ongoing position or relationship. Perhaps it is a one-time event. Several years ago, I was in the Wilmette Library one afternoon looking for a movie to rent. A documentary entitled “Stone Reader” caught my eye. I decided to rent it, and found it quite interesting. The film is about an author named Dow Mossman who wrote a novel called “The Stones of Summer”. The filmmaker, Mark Moskovitz, had read and enjoyed this book, but had never found any other books by this author. He decided to search for the author and find out where he was and what he was doing. After a long search and many dead-end interviews, Moskovitz does track down the author. At that time, the author Mossman was working at night bundling newspapers. His book, “The Stones of Summer,” had received praise from the New York Times Book Review. Yet, the book quickly fell into obscurity and Mossman never wrote another book. The filmmaker Moskovitz becomes intrigued with one-book wonders, authors who write a book that receives critical acclaim, yet never write another book. “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee was published in 1960 and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961. This was Lee’s first and only novel. There are authors who seem to have one great novel in them. This is not to say their lives are simply about one moment of glory. They might live a long, satisfying, fulfilling life. But, perhaps, there is a lifelong purpose in a single event.
How do we know our purpose in life? Do we need to know? I’m not sure we necessarily need to know exactly our purpose in the movement of life. In fact, in this complex world, we may have many purposes. But, I do believe we have some responsibility to listen to our hearts and to the world around us and to respond. In this week’s epistle from Hebrews Paul warns, “See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking.” Jesus offers us the gift of freedom. We are no longer bound to a law that ties us to sin – “you shall not do this, you shall not do that” – rather we are free to live with Christ, free to live into our selves, free to live to our fullest potential. Of course, we should not steal and we should not murder – but our focus now is not on the sin, but on the potential. I believe if we listen, we will hear. If we allow ourselves to be guided through this life, guided by the Holy Spirit working in innumerable ways, we will find our way, we will find our place to share our gifts.
It is not easy to listen, not in this world so marked by productivity. Philip Kenneson in his book Life on the Vine: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in Christian Community discusses cultivating patience in the midst of productivity. He talks about the concept of time and how our lives have become so structured by time. Of course, there are advantages to living by the clock. Getting a group together for a common purpose is more effective with a designated gathering time. Yet, we can also become bound to the clock. He warns, “Like so much of culture, that which came into being as our tool is now in danger of becoming our master” (p. 116). “By precisely segmenting time and transforming it into a scarce resource, the West has created the conditions for the appearance of a new virtue: productivity….the more work per unit of time, the greater the productivity. Few virtues are more exalted in Western societies, a situation that exerts subtle and not-so-subtle pressures on every citizen” (p. 117). We need to learn to listen, through our productivity, to the world around us.
An exceptional movie comes to mind…Schindler’s List was released in 1993. This movie is about Oskar Schindler, an entrepreneur who during World War II acquired a munitions factory which supplied the German front. Schindler schemed to make a bundle by taking advantage of cheap labor from the ghetto Jews. Schindler partnered with Itzhak Stern, a member of a local Jewish council. Stern was saving Jewish lives by employing these people in jobs necessary to the German war effort. Schindler was simply focused on the bottom line. Yet, Schindler stopped long enough to see what was happening in the world around him. One day he witnessed the brutality of the movement of the Jews from the ghetto to the concentration camps and his life was forever changed. He became intent on saving as many Jewish lives as possible, spending his profits to pay off the Nazis. He listened to and watched the world around him and he saved over 1,100 lives.
I read a less dramatic, but perhaps equally powerful, story in the New York Times from January of this year. It is a story about a doctor and the greeting card he carries with him. The card is from a patient the doctor had treated nine years prior to receiving the note. The patient wanted the doctor to know that she was well and that she was grateful for all he had done for her. The doctor tells us: “On days when my patients are feeling overwhelming pain, suffering or grief – or on days when the violence in the Middle East becomes unbearable, or when I have done my best and the patient’s family threatens a lawsuit – I pull out the card and reread it. Her simple words help me to reconnect to this truth: It is an honor and a privilege to help and heal people, not just because I am trained to prescribe drugs, administer injections and wield the scalpel, but because I am able to help them at the most difficult time of their lives” (January 23, 2007, “Recognizing a Sacred Bond Sometimes Obscured”). The article concludes with the doctor noting that the card reminds him of his purpose in life. The patient took the time to write the note, and the doctor takes the time, a respite from his busy schedule, to read the note which affirms his purpose in life. We listen and respond and move with God in Creation. Amen.
