Living Life to the Full 10/9/49
Scripture: John 10: 1-10
Text: John 10: 10b; “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
We are easily impressed by numbers, by obvious size, by quantity. American production figures are made so impressive that one needs to take a second look to examine the quality of what is produced and the character and integrity of those who produce it. We prize the zest of living so that we are impressed with length of days and years of living in others and covet long life for ourselves, and we wish it for our family. For this reason, a few figures on man’s span of life are interesting to us.
In the past 8 decades, some 13 years have been added to the average span of life. Back in the 16th century, the average length of human life was 20 years. Of course a great many people lived to be much older than 20 years, but an appalling number of people died in infancy, in childhood, and in early youth. Frequent plagues of virulent disease swept multitudes away, so that the average length of life was only 20 years. Three centuries later, in 1850, it was 40 years - twice as long. Twenty years after that, in 1870, it was 45 years. Today, the average is something like 58 years. What may it be a hundred years from now? Man’s great scientific knowledge has succeeded phenomenally in controlling plagues of disease, and in preserving the live of infants and children. Men and women now have years and years more of time in which to accomplish the arts of living. What are we doing with it?
There may be, and I think probably is, an instinctive desire for long life. More important, I think, is the desire of people to live happily, constructively, usefully. Surely Jesus referred to this latter urge when he said, “I have come that [people] might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.” The spirit of disillusionment and cynicism on the part of many, coupled with suicide statistics and the escape type of drunkenness suggest that a great many people would be better satisfied with fewer years of living if those years could be more satisfying.
I once had a very sobering talk with a young woman who planned to marry a fellow of bright spirit and brilliant mind, but who was in desperately poor health. They had set the time for their wedding and had asked me to solemnize their marriage. I knew what the medical outlook for the young man was, for I had talked with two capable physicians about his health. I felt that the girl must know what, in a sense, she only partly realized, that she was engaging to be united in wedlock to a man whose life was so uncertain that he might live only six days; perhaps six months; possibly six years, according to the opinion of the doctors.
Somewhat shaken by so direct a statement, she nevertheless replied promptly, “Even if it is to be for only a short time, I want to share that time with him.” She seemed fully convinced that the quality of living in marriage with her beloved far outweighed the great uncertainty as to his length of life and the obvious sacrifices they would both have to make in deference to his health.
There may be, and doubtless are, some who are primarily concerned with length of life. But the quality of living, during the time each of us has, is the main problem for all of us. How can I really live all of my life?
1) In the first place, what a person finds in life depends greatly on his attitude. He finds the most in life whose attitude is one of appreciation rather than that of negative criticism. The very words suggest the contrast. Criticism suggests analysis, which is sometimes necessary, but also dissection, pain and often discouragement. Appreciation suggests also understanding, open minds, open ears, open hearts, wonder, adoration, love.
We so often see what we are looking for because we are looking for it. Jesus said: “Seek and ye shall find” - what you are looking for; “Knock and it shall be opened unto you” - the door upon which you knock; “Ask and it shall be given unto you” - the thing for which you ask. [Matthew 7: 7].
Do you know the children’s story of a queen who sent two pages on a trip through her country? She commanded one to bring back all sorts of flowers, of every variety, that grew in the land. The other page she ordered to find, and bring back, every variety of weed that grew in the countryside. Of course this latter page returned with his arms loaded with weeds and the warning to the queen that her land was over-run with the pests. The first page returned loaded with flowers and was quite certain that no other land could produce so many beautiful blossoms. Each saw what he was looking for.
Or you may recall the children’s story of “The Princess Beautiful” who was unhappy because her face was not beautiful. Some good fairy taught her these three lessons: first, to smile upon everyone she met; second, to look for all the beautiful things she could find; third, to do all the deeds of kindness possible for other people. And in the end she became so absorbed and happy that she forgot all about her face. But her citizens saw that she had become the most beautiful in the land. An attitude of appreciation not only changed much of the earth around her, but incidentally made her own satisfied self a creature of beauty.
2) In the second place, living life to the full involves living it on all possible levels of experience. So many people do not do that. They remain satisfied with a bare bargain of life’s good things. John Stuart Mill said that man must be happy as a man, that is as a person; that mere animal existence is not the permanent state of man. You wouldn’t believe it to watch some people pursue happiness. A billboard in New England was plastered with a sign picturing a great steaming dish of Boston baked beans, the appetizing vapor forming these words: “The Joy of Living.” A huge sign in Los Angeles used the same words in advertising a brand of beer. You see suggested everywhere the notion that the joy of living consists in plenty of appetizing food, plenty of the kind of liquor used by “men of distinction,” plenty of smart clothing, good hotels, fine cars and so on. At this point I confess myself a critic. Some of these things are necessary, in degree, to creature comfort and healthy awareness of life. But by no stretch of the truth are they to be confused with the real joy of living. For that involves so much more than creature comfort alone.
There is the loveliness of the mountain ash tree outside the Manse door which I wish everyone could enjoy seeing today, the friendliness of good books, the lift of excellent music, the satisfaction in offering a helping hand, the soul’s reward in love. Friends are nuggets of gold for the soul. The man who finds most in life is he who lives it on as many levels as possible.
This past week several of us who attended the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Congregational Conference enjoyed the hospitality of a bounteous home near Waukesha. Owner of the house is a prominent manufacturer in Milwaukee. Because he likes to live in the country, he lives a dozen miles out, on this “gentleman’s farm” devoting his recreational time to supervising good dairying, orcharding and other constructive farm pursuits. He enjoys, and shares, a great deal of the comforts of living. But the complicated business of manufacture and distribution, and the variety of experience to be found in farm life were by no means he only interests. He, a Scotsman, could tell the most engaging stories in Norwegian dialect; he had unusual ideas concerning the temporal management of his church. He said he had no appreciation of music, but what do you suppose we discovered him doing? When we returned to his guest cottage on the second evening of our meetings, he and his wife were just returning from hearing the Don Cossacks! And they had taken with them as their guests a Latvian Displaced Persons couple for whom they are presently providing house and employment on the farm! The extent and variety of interests in that home seemed never-ending! Those folks are living!
Of course, to be merely active is not necessarily to know the peace of God. It is possible to be engaged in a round of business that gets ahead about as fast as a squirrel running in a wheel cage. But fullness of joy - real living - is more likely to be discovered in a rich variety of interests than in minimal existence.
3) A third comment is this: it is an old and well-worn truth, but always new; you find the most in life by putting the most into it. There are at least two ways of getting money from a bank. One is to hold up its tellers at the point of a gun and seize what money you can. This way is precarious. It never really succeeds, for even its apparent momentary success carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. The other way to get money from a bank is to put money into it! This is the constructive way to proceed. The more you put in, the more you may take out - with interest.
One of the characters in a novel exclaims, “I would like to take life by the throat and choke something out of it!” Foolish wish! Every sensible person knows life cannot be manhandled that way. One can not get roses by dynamiting the garden; nor harmony by taking an axe to the piano; nor love by clubbing a friend. Those things come only as a return for our own giving!
Personally, I am glad of the change in the slogan of one of our well-known national luncheon clubs. For decades the club has operated under the motto, “He profits most who serves best.” The club is in the process of shifting now to this motto, “Service above self.” I think that this represents a moral advance. The return of satisfaction for one’s service is not the accrual inherent in some kind of bargain, but is a by-product of the very selflessness of serving. Rightly interpreted, the club’s old slogan has a good idea, but it had been too difficult for many to interpret it rightly. Now the next item on the agendum for members of that club is to be personally busy serving, selflessly.
That is no new idea. It is the very essence of the church’s teaching. And we who are in the church ought to be living it so thoroughly that others would find its attraction irresistible. Do not expect to get much out of church unless you put much of yourself into church. What your children will get out of the church in character development and sincere Christian purpose will depend chiefly on what you and the children put into it together of time and attention and attendance and service. There isn’t any shortcut here. By and large, those young people who grow into lives of Christian usefulness and service are those whose whole families have taken their church seriously and have been in it actively together. Though there are some individual exceptions, there are far too many children who have attended Sunday School and even joined the church alone who have then drifted away from any kind of devoted service through the church.
The secret of joy in a life that is centered on serving with others and for others is not in the busyness of serving, but in that one discovers important significance in the spending of self. The sense of futility brings cynicism and defeat. If a man sees no purpose in life, he can see little reason for going on. He can see mighty little purpose in life unless he can see his life fitting into a place of usefulness.
A young fellow of ability and promise dropped in to see a minister one day saying that he had intended, when he left home that morning, to do one of two things - either see the minister (whom he really didn’t even know very well) or buy a quart of whiskey and get really drunk. He was a young doctor with a fairly-well established practice. He was getting enough money to be comfortable, but he was in the midst of a domestic tragedy which was making him sour, cynical and sorry for himself.
After talking about his troubles, he decided to go out again, not after whiskey, but to the public park of his great city, there to talk to some of the unfortunate, run-down men so much worse off than he. He would buy meals for some of the hungry ones, and beds for some who would otherwise have to sleep out in the cold. “I don’t know but what the thing for me to do is to get really interested in the troubles and hopes of somebody else,” he said as he walked out. I don’t know how well it worked, but he was on the right idea.
“I am come that [people] might have life and that they might have it in abundance,” said One who spent every bit of his own life in such giving. And he is admired, loved and adored as has been no other being who ever walked the earth.
In such spiritual serving can we, his followers, hope to find abundance of living and the peace which the world can neither give nor take away, passing all mortal understanding.
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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, October 9, 1949.