"Pace of Life"
(7th message in an 8-part series, "An Ordinary Day With Jesus")
Sermon Transcript for March 17, 2002
By Rev. Mike Beck
Scripture Reading: Luke 10:38-42
I hope many of you took advantage of the spiritual pathways inventory to discover what ways you connect best with God. If you didn’t get a copy of that last week, they are out there in the display rack. The sermon last week, which talked about the seven pathways, I had to go so fast to try to get done in time that you may want to pick up a printed copy of the sermon to digest it a little more slowly.
As we’ve gone through each of these messages, you probably have been feeling some tension between what you’re hearing (that you really want to do) and the reality of your life. If so, God understands that. He’s patient and works with us. But we’re going to look today at perhaps the biggest barrier there is that keeps us from spending our ordinary days with Jesus – the frantic pace of our lives.
The pressures that we feel to cram more and more into a 24-hour day are very real. Lots of people, when they are driving their cars--there is a survey recently that revealed the three most dangerous things people do while driving: talking on their cell phone, women putting on their make-up, and the most dangerous of all, numerous people reading the newspaper while they are driving trying to cram as much as possible in to their days.
A man named E. Myer Friedman has coined the term "hurry sickness". It describes the tendency we have to try to do too many things at once. I want to read through a list of ten statements. And as I do I’d like for you to take inventory in your mind of how much that statement applies to you.
1. You go through your day with a constant sense of urgency with no time at all to relax or let down.
2. You notice underlying tension in close relationships. There are lots of quarrels and frequent misunderstandings over insignificant things just because you are so hurried.
3. You watch a lot of TV because you just want to "check out" from everything around you.
4. You are often frustrated because you’re not getting things done. And you frequently find yourself thinking, "I’m just not disciplined enough".
5. You sense that time is passing too quickly; kids are growing up too fast; life is passing you by with a whole lot of your goals unrealized.
6. You have a persistent desire for a simpler life. You imagine moving to the country or changing jobs.
7. You have little time for love – for doing caring, thoughtful things. If you’re married, you struggle for romance or sexual intimacy.
8. You find that you’re often trying to do way too many things at once. In fact, if you’re really honest, you sometimes are working on your "to do list" for the next week during Reverend Mike’s sermon. I’ve got to plead guilty to that! I’ve sat out there while I’m listening…and I really was listening to the sermon, and jotting down things I needed to do that afternoon.
9. You’ve lost a sense of gratitude and wonder about life. You know it in your "head", but you’ve lost it in your heart.
10. You have a gnawing feeling this isn’t the way life was supposed to be lived.
Friends, we all struggle with the pace of our lives. Believe me, this morning as I preach this message to you, there is a mirror up here. I’m looking right in the mirror because I struggle with it too. And let’s think about what it does to us; let’s think about the price we pay.
It strains relationships. Family members and close friends, not overnight, but slowly they become strangers to us.
We’re in such a hurry that we never have time to visit, to listen, or even to be courteous.
We’re caught up in the "tyranny of the urgent". The urgent things get our attention but the important things often get neglected.
We are physically drained and we make ourselves vulnerable to serious physical illness directly related to the pace at which we are living our lives.
Now, I won’t ask for a show of hands of all of you I’ve put on a guilt trip. And I want us today as we think about this to be realistic. You are not going to remove stress from your life. Someone once said, "If there’s no stress in your life, you die!" Stress has a positive value. You are not going to remove busyness. We’re all busy. And to think that we can achieve perfection in this area only sets us up for more disappointment. We’re not striving for perfection today; we’re just trying to look within and say, "Can I do a little better, with God’s help, in slowing down?" We can go to the Health Care Center this afternoon and find persons who are not busy, and I don’t think we want to trade places with them!
There are times we need to thank God for the busyness. And we need to keep in mind that God hasn’t put us here on this earth, even in our retirement years, simply for relaxation. From a personal perspective, if you talk to Mickey, we’ve noticed my voice is actually better the more the stress in my life. When I go on vacation, the voice just gets horrible. Stress actually helps make it better! But we can do better than we are doing.
The people with "hurry sickness" usually tend to fall for two illusions. The one has to do with time; the other has to do with money. Hurry sickness is driven, first of all, by the illusion that "someday things will settle down". Have you ever said that to yourself? We tell ourselves, "Now when things settle down, I’m going to get around to the things that are truly important in life." Friends, I’m going to clue you in on a truth you may not want to hear. Do you want to know when things will settle down? When you die or if you get seriously ill. Then life will slow down, but until then things, take it to the bank, things are never going to truly settle down for you or for me. That’s why some of the wisest spiritual advice you will ever receive is contained in these words, "We must ruthlessly work to try to eliminate hurry." For "hurry" is the great enemy of spiritual intimacy with God. If you read C.S. Lewis’ wonderful book, "The Screwtape Letters", Satan tells his messenger, "The way to get at the most committed Christian is just get them too busy. Just hurry up there to where they have no time left for intimacy with God."
But now listen carefully. There is a difference between being "busy" and being "hurried". Busy has to do with an outward condition. And almost all of us are busy. But "hurry", which is what we are talking about today, is an inward condition. It has to do with the state of our soul. Jesus was usually busy. But when you look at His life, He wasn’t hurried because of His inward relationship with His Heavenly Father.
The second illusion has to do with our stuff. We believe that, "Someday, more will be enough". We live in a world that’s constantly telling us we need more to be happy. If you just get the next thing, you’ll be happy. And, again, there is nothing wrong with having a nice home, nice clothes, being able to travel. Where we cross the line is when the desire for those things so speeds up our lives that the inward condition of our soul becomes starved and neglected. We can have all the "stuff" the world has to offer and still be empty. There are two verses of Scripture that you ought to memorize and seek after. One of them is I Timothy 6:6 "Godliness + Contentment = Great Gain". That’s not a hard one; say it with me. "Godliness + Contentment = Great Gain". The other one is found in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus said, "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and (then) all these other things (you are concerned about, they) will be added unto you"--Matthew 6:33. But seek first, the Kingdom.
I want to suggest today five training activities that can help us in our goal to lessen the sense of "hurry" in our lives.
1. Slow Down: This one is so simple but so true. To break the hold of a frantic pace of life, we have to deliberately choose to slow down. Consciously seek to walk just a little more slowly, to chew your food a little more thoroughly. Isn’t it amazing what we’ve done to mealtime in America? How fast can we get it down? That’s one of the things that traveling to Europe will teach you. Europeans know how to relax and enjoy a meal. Americans just see how quickly they get through it and get on to the next thing. As Dan had us do at the beginning of the service, breath a little more deeply. Hold it for a moment. Set the cruise control on your car five miles an hour slower than you normally do. I’m reminded of the words of the Simon and Garfunkle song of a few years ago, "Slow down, you move too fast. You’ve got to learn to make the morning last". Slow down.
2. Learn to Say "No": Just because we "can" do something doesn’t mean that we "should". If our relationship with God is to grow, we have to learn to set boundaries. Hear me carefully. Every commitment you make, large or small, is a decision that either helps or hinders your ability to love God and love others. When we say "yes" to one thing, what we often forget is what we are saying "no" to. For example, there was an activity last evening that Mickey and I really wanted to go to. There was nothing on our calendar that prevented us from going. But we knew what the rest of Saturday looked like, and we knew that if we went we’d be back at midnight and I’ve got a commitment to close to 500 people on Sunday morning and so we said "no". And I’m sure some of the people who hoped we would go with them were disappointed. But everything we say "yes" to often also means we say "no" to something else. So we need to learn to set boundaries, to say "no" to good things so we can have time for the best.
3. Keep the Sabbath: I’m sure all of you remember the old saying, "All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy." Have you ever thought that "dull" has many connotations? We can become dull physically, we can become dull emotionally; we can become dull spiritually when we have no time for Sabbath rest. Educator Dorothy Bass observes that while we’re liable to break any of the Ten Commandments, the Fourth Commandment, "Remember the Sabbath to keep it Holy", is the only one we brag about breaking! We brag about breaking it because we’ve bought in to the idea the busier we are the more important we are. And remember the myth we talked about earlier, "one of these days things are going to be different". On this matter of building some times of Sabbath into our life, if we wait until we have time, we’ll never get it. We’ve got to become intentional.
4. De-clutter: The more "stuff" we have, the more time and energy is required to maintain it. And when I refer to "stuff", I’m not just referring to the "stuff" that is out in your garage. Commitments we make also are "stuff" in our lives. And pruning that out will not come natural or easy. We have to be intentional. Mickey and I are getting ready to move into a new home in June and we are so excited about that. Now, the home we are moving into is significantly smaller than the last two homes that we’ve lived in. And if you would go up in to our attic, you would find some boxes that we moved from Greensburg to Corydon and never opened. And moved them from Corydon to Franklin and never opened. We’ve got stuff hanging in our closets we haven’t worn in years. And so in the coming weeks we’re trying to operate on the principle if we don’t need it, it got taken to the rummage sale yesterday or it goes in the garage sale in May. Ask yourself, "What can I eliminate to remove some of the clutter in my life?"
5. Learn to Use Leisure in Life-Giving Ways: Now this one you’ll need to stay with me. Here’s what happens, because we’re so hurried, when we do slow down we often opt for activities such as watching TV, or shopping when we don’t need anything, or eating when we’re not really hungry. And those kinds of things do nothing to give life back to us in fact they can take it out of us. Now, I don’t want to be misunderstood. My wife’s looking at me now. Because leisurely browsing through the mall can be very refreshing, a nice quiet meal out or watching TV can be very refreshing. From a personal standpoint, I find March Madness—for those of you who don’t know what that is, that’s all those wonderful NCAA basketball games on TV—and watching the Masters Golf Tournament here coming up in a couple of weeks, personally I find those tremendously refreshing. But what I am trying to say is as we work to slow down the pace of our lives, we need to choose activities that refresh us and refresh us spiritually. And there is a tie in between this message today and last weeks. As you slow down, try to remove the clutter, you learn to say "no", you take time for Sabbath, what you need to try to do then is to fill some of the space you created with the spiritual pathways you identified last week. Let me give you an example. If you are an intellectual and you slow down a little bit, and you’ve got a little extra time, pick up the book and read it. If you are a relational type, have lunch with a good friend. If you are the serving type, go ahead and fix dinner for a few people you really enjoy. If you are the worship type, put on a worship tape or video. If you are an activist, take a friend or family member with you. If you are contemplative, visit a beautiful sanctuary. If you are a creation type, get out in nature.
I want to close today by giving God a chance to speak to us about these matters. In just a moment, I’m going to read again our Scripture lesson. I’m going to read it slowly, pausing at several points. And as you listen to God’s Word, I invite you to allow the Holly Spirit to speak to your heart about the pace of your life, and of the intentional steps that you can take – with God’s help – to lessen the hurry in your life and in doing so, draw closer to God.
Close your eyes and quiet your heart. In your mind, pray to God the words of Samuel: "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening". "As Jesus and His disciples were on their way, they came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to Him." (Pause) "She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He said." (Pause) "But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to Jesus and asked: "Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to come and help me!" (Pause) "Jesus answered: Martha, Martha. You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed." (Pause) "Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her." (Pause)
Let us pray, "Lord, I pray for every person in this room, that You will help them to respond faithfully to what they have heard from You. Keep us from going through life hurried and distracted. Help us choose what is best. In Jesus’ name, Amen."
E-mail Comments to: Reverend Dan Sinkhorn