Legacy

Legacy
What legacy do I want to leave? It’s a question that most people don’t start asking themselves until they are facing their own mortality…their own death…Unfortunately, that seems to be the time when it’s almost too late to do that…Not that there’s ever really a bad time to contemplate and think about the legacy that you want to leave, but it’s important to think about a legacy before then…Because a legacy isn’t something that’s a passing thing…a legacy is something permanent…I was watching a TV show recently where a woman came on and read her obituary. She had written it several years earlier and not because she was looking at facing a terminal illness or because she was considering suicide…She wrote it because it’s the way that she wanted to live her life…She wanted to make sure that everything she wrote in her obituary was the truth and that she could truly live her legacy…
Randy Pausch was a 45 year old father of three when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer…After an unconventional and experimental treatment, he was in better health than he had been in quite some time until August 2007 when he was given 6 months to live…As he and his wife Jai contemplated every remaining moment of their life together, Randy was scheduled to give a lecture at the University he taught at—Carnegie Mellon…They had a series that originated as a “last lecture” series…Professors were invited to give a lecture as though it was their last—what knowledge would they like to impart if they knew it was the last lecture that they would give…Randy Pausch signed up before he knew his diagnosis and after much consideration, he decided to keep his scheduled date…This lecture took on new meaning as it was probably going to be the last lecture that he would ever give. The decision to do the lecture did not come easy…It meant that he would spend time away from his family—his three small children, ages 6, 3, and 18 months and his wife…Ultimately the decision to do this lecture came not because he wanted an honor or attention…The reason why he did the lecture was to have something to give to his children…A way that he could pass a piece of who their dad was…He wanted to leave them with this legacy…
Now, the video itself will be a wonderful gift for his children as they wonder who their dad was or try and remember what his voice sounded like…and a beautiful gift for his wife Jai as she grieves the loss of the love of her life…It is also an amazing gift to all of us to get a peak into the legacy of Randy Pausch…The video itself is a tool to understand the legacy of Randy Pausch…But his legacy is much larger than that…If you were to watch the lecture or to read the book The Last Lecture you would understand that his legacy is not the book or the video…his legacy is the way that he lived his life…Each of the lessons that he conveys in his lecture and in his book are ones that he truly lived…Over the next few weeks, we will explore some of the lessons that Randy Pausch leaves behind as his legacy…Randy Pausch professes a faith and shares in his book that he has many counselors and confidantes to help him cope with his death and prepare his family for life without him, and one of those people is his pastor…The lessons that he shares in his book are not explicitly Christian or linked with Scripture passages and Randy Pausch does not use this book as an evangelistic tool…But, the lessons that he leaves behind are not all new lessons…They are lessons that he has learned throughout his life and the ways that he lived his life…Some have a deeply faith based foundation and others aren’t quite as obvious…But each has a lesson that we can learn from on what we want our legacies to be…
Because truthfully if I said that I wanted my legacy to be that I was the world’s greatest scientist and created a cure for an incurable disease…Well, that would only be my legacy if it was something that I actually did! Our legacies are not things that we just say that we want people to remember and learn from, but our legacies are ways that we truly live our lives which doesn’t start with our death, but starts with how we live our lives.
In the passage from Genesis, we have the covenant God made with Abraham…A covenant is a promise…and in a promise there are 2 parties who promise something…In this covenant God promised that Abraham’s descendents would outnumber the stars…in return, for Abraham’s part—he had to believe that God would do what God promised…Part of Abraham’s legacy is part of our legacy…God did what God promised and many nations came from Abraham as Abraham is credited with being the father of what are called the “Abrahamic faiths”—Judaism, Islam, and Christianity…God did make good on God’s promise, but only because Abraham did too…Abraham’s legacy is only his legacy because it’s true…Abraham believed God would do what God promised and in return God did it! Now certainly there’s more to Abraham’s story than that, but much of Abraham’s legacy goes back to his full trust that God would do what God promised…He believed that his wife Sarah would have a baby, he believed that God would lead them to the land that would be there home…He believed God would do what God said…That’s a pretty amazing legacy and a pretty important lesson for us…I mean to have a faith like that, that we believe that God will do what God says God will do! It means that we have to give up some of our control, which isn’t easy to do…
But in Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth it’s what Paul implores as well…As Paul says that when we are weak it is God who is strong…I mean it’s a pretty arrogant statement to say that we are stronger than God…It’s also pretty arrogant for us to think that we can handle things better than God can do…And even in the arrogance of those thoughts…It’s hard to really do those things…
But what an amazing legacy if we do! What if that is the beginning of the legacy that we as individuals leave…That we trusted that God would do what God has promised? And we lived our life in that trust? We might be like Abraham who moved his whole life to follow God’s instructions…or like David who became the greatest king of Israel’s history…or like Mary who became the mother of Jesus…What would happen if we lived our belief?
And it’s not just important for our personal lives to leave a legacy, but what will our legacy be as the church? As Sheridan/Norway United Methodist Church—this is what our mission statement is…Mission Statements here…Our mission statement is a way that the church leaves a legacy…How are we as Sheridan/Norway United Methodist Church living our legacy? Contemplating what our legacies will be and how we live into them are important questions to ask ourselves…It doesn’t have to take a life threatening situation to ask this question…Because our legacy isn’t about our death…It’s about our life and how we live our life.
Randy Pausch gave the charge at the 2008 graduation at Carnegie Mellon…As Randy gave the charge to the graduates, he shared that in August 2007 he was given 3-6 months to live and that he was on month 9 of that prognosis. He said that when he shares that, people say, “Wow, you’re really beating the Grim Reaper!” And his response to that is this…“We don’t beat the reaper by living longer. We beat the reaper by living well and living fully. For the reaper will come for all of us, the question is what will we do between the time we’re born and the time he shows up. Cause when he shows up, it’s too late to do the things that you’re always kinda gonna get around to…Remember it is not the things we do in life that we regret in life. It is the things that we do not.” On July 25, 2008 Randy Pausch passed away from complications due to pancreatic cancer. He has said that his solace comes from the way that he lived his life not how he prepared for his death…That he lived his legacy…
How will we live our legacy? In the coming weeks, we’ll explore that question in many ways…through worship, prayer—both individual and corporate, through meetings, through conversations…But most importantly through listening to God and trusting in God’s promises…Because that’s where we as Christians have to begin…We have to begin with knowing that God has done everything that God said God would do…God fulfilled God’s promises to Abraham…God was with David on the throne…God sent Jesus Christ to live among God’s people…Jesus Christ rose from the dead just like he said he would…God has lived up to all of God’s promises…How are we living into our legacy? In the coming weeks as we contemplate that question together, may we live into our legacy together…