It Just Never Came Up

It Never Came Up
As we continue on in our series about legacies, where we look at our own lives and our life together as the church and think about what our legacy will be…We’ve discussed that legacies, although something left behind when we’re gone…Our legacy is not about our death, but is about the way we live our life…Because whatever is said about us when we’re gone is only our legacy if it’s true…And last week as we contemplated what is important…That it’s not stuff that’s important, but that people are more important than stuff…And that is a radical and counter-cultural message to our world today…And we continue with hearing counter-cultural messages as we hear about humility…
Humility…Maybe it’s not something that you’ve ever thought or talked about…Or maybe it’s something that you’ve often thought about…There are some who may not even know what humility means…Humility is the act of being humble…Webster defines “humble” as not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive and reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission…It’s usually easy to point out what humility or humbleness is by what it is not…It’s easy to point at exaggerated examples of people who are not humble…Maybe you can think about those people that you have seen or known in your life that are certainly not humble…Many people might think right away about Mohammed Ali who is quoted as saying, “I am the greatest” or his rhymes offering challenges to his opponents…Or maybe the latest report of a celebrity acting like a “diva” and demanding that they receive special retreat because of their status…And it doesn’t have to be a celebrity in particular to be, well less than humble…Because there are probably people that you encounter often that are not humble…Many might be familiar with the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or the recently remade version, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or perhaps the book by the same title by Roald Dahl…Now, in the story of the movie and the book, Willy Wonka has decided to open up his chocolate factory up to the 5 people who found the golden tickets in their bars of chocolate…The 5 who found tickets were certainly from wide backgrounds…There’s the millionaire’s daughter, the child who ate 3 times his weight in chocolate, the gum chewing champion, the child who can’t tear himself away from the TV, and of course Charlie Bucket who is someone from humble beginnings and randomly finds a ticket and wins the opportunity to enter the factory…In this scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka is meeting the children for the first time…(Clip)…Now, in this clip Willy Wonka takes the introductions from the children and for those who we can declare as not humble right away, he dashes them, maybe without them recognizing it…
Now, you may be thinking that humility is not really a counter-cultural message, because certainly as Americans, we love to hear stories of people who came from humble beginnings to become something great…After all isn’t that the American dream? Which is true, and that’s exactly what makes Jesus’ message of humility so counter-cultural…Because although Jesus himself was a person who came from humble beginnings…It’s hard to be much more humble than being born in a stable…He also didn’t flaunt his status to get attention…As a matter of fact, after healing someone, he often told them not to tell anyone…
As we have been talking about our legacies as individuals and as a church, we have been wandering through Randy Pausch’s legacy for his children, his last lecture. Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and at 47 he was given 3-6 months to live. One of the things that he did with his time was to share this last lecture at the University that he taught—Carnegie Mellon…Although the lecture has been viewed by millions and the book has once again become a best-seller, it was not Randy Pausch’s mission to become famous…It was his mission to pass on to his children who their daddy was…What has been passed on is a wonderful legacy for his young children and also a wonderful legacy for those who never knew Randy Pausch to get a peak into his life and hear his life lessons and think about our own life and our own legacies…
He shares in his book, that his while his mother was very proud of everything that he had done in his life, she was also very good about keeping him humble…She introduced her son with his title, as he was a Doctor…a PhD…But of course she introduced him as “her son the doctor…but not the kind that helps people.” But perhaps the story of humility that is shared that is the strongest is from his chapter “It Never Came Up.” In this story he talks about his father…Now Pausch says often that he won the parent lottery and he loved his parents very much and that they were some of the best parents that he could have ever asked for…When his father passed away in 2006, as he and his family were going through his father’s papers and belongings, they came across many photos and share many stories and memories of his father…Then, buried in a stack of papers they found a citation issued in 1945 when his father was in the army…His father was given a citation for “heroic achievement” from the commanding general of 75th Infantry Division. As Randy Pausch read the citation, he read this story of his father, “With complete disregard for his own safety, Private Pausch leaped from a covered position and commenced treating the wounded men while shells continued to fall in the immediate vicinity. So successfully did this soldier administer medical attention that all the wounded were evacuated successfully.” For this, his father was awarded the Bronze Star for valor…Now this is an amazing story and one that is a beautiful part of who Randy Pausch’s father was…But, Randy had never heard this story before…In fact Randy’s mother had never heard it before either…In his book, Pausch shares, “In the 50 years that my parents were married, in the thousands of conversations my dad had with me, it had just never come up. And so there I was, weeks after his death, getting another lesson from him about the meaning of sacrifice—and about the power of humility.”
It just never came up…A story of humility…In a culture where we are told that we should shout that from the mountain tops, Randy Pausch’s father hadn’t even shared his achievement with his family…Now, this is not to say that we shouldn’t be proud of our achievements by any means…For those who have overcome difficult situations or who have achieved something with much hard work…It is important to celebrate those achievements…But going back to figuring out what is important…Why are those achievements important? For the person who graduates from college…is it the degree that’s important or the fact that they are the first in their family to ever attend, let alone graduate from college…Or someone is the first in their family to own a home…Or the first to win an award…It’s not necessarily the award or the degree or even the house that is what’s important…But knowing what they have done to achieve it…And even more than that, it’s not just knowing that there was hard work done, but ultimately who it was that helped with the task…
As Jesus told the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, he knew what he was setting up…You see tax collectors were some of the most despised people in that society…tax collectors were often Jewish men who worked for the Roman authorities…So they were seen as traitors who were cheating their own people for the corrupt officials…And the Pharisees were the officials in the church who knew the law inside and out and were presumably the ones who followed it completely…So, Jesus was setting up a huge issue by comparing a Pharisee and a tax collector in his story…And of course everyone would hear the beginning of the story and might have even been one of the common jokes at the time…A Pharisee and a tax collector walk into the temple…As the two pray, the Pharisee cries out loudly all that he has done—he has tithed, he has not a thief or an adulterer or any other sinner and especially not like the tax collector…Now at this point in Jesus’ story, there were probably many who would say the same things, so they might be nodding along with Jesus as he is talking…Oh yes, we’re not like that either, they might say…But then as always, there is the Jesus twist! Because then he shares the prayer of the tax collector who simply says, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” and Jesus shares that the tax collector went home justified instead of the Pharisee…He adds the lesson that all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted…
As a church, we need to recognize that when we do things it is not for our own gain or for our own fame or for our own attention, but it is to continue to work at building the kingdom of God here on earth…Just as we pray every week in the Lord’s prayer… “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” It is not our own kingdom that is being built, but God’s kingdom… And we pray for God’s will to be done…Not our own will but God’s will…Everything that we do as a church is to further the ministry of the Gospel…to further our mission as a church to make and create disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world…and our mission as Sheridan-Norway United Methodist Churches, (Mission Statements Here)…Nowhere in any of those missions or legacies does it say that we do this for our own glory or our own attention, but for the work of Jesus, the work of God, the work of the Holy Spirit to be done in us…Not our will, but God’s will…Not our glory, but God’s glory…That is counter-cultural to everything that we are told to do by our society and that’s what makes the message of the Gospel so revolutionary…It’s what makes it an amazing legacy for all…
How are we living that legacy and are we sharing that message of the Gospel…Are we preaching ourselves or are we preaching the message of the Gospel? There are certainly amazing ministries that are happening at Sheridan-Norway United Methodist Church…As we continue those ministries, may we always be pointing to the One whom the message is about and not about ourselves…As Jesus said, those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted…May we continue to strive to lay ourselves aside so that the message of the Gospel will be shared…that we live the mission to make and create disciples for the transformation of the world…that we (Mission Statements.)