Triggering Inner Resources in Tough Times

3D"Text
Psalm 119:1-3, 33-40
Mark 10:17-27 5:15-20

To have choices in life is important to us. To have = many choices is a mark of distinction and superiority! And what is important to = us is not just the capacity for choice, but the ability to be what R. Stephen Warner calls “extreme maximizers”, those who carefully research= and consider every choice that they make. Research shows, in fact, that maximiz= ers make objectively better decisions than 90% of the population. There is a downside, however. The research shows that extreme maixmizers are also less satisfied with what they have chosen, so conscious are they of what they did not choose!

Maximizing decisions can also be expensive. An execu= tive of a supermarket chain has pointed out that if his company attempted to calculate the very best alternative before deciding where to place a new st= ore, the research costs would put the company into bankruptcy, and in the meanti= me, more intrepid companies would have moved into the area and taken over!=

Choices! There are too many of them today, and who, for heaven’s sake has time to maximize their choices! Not long a go I did a little research project of my= own – very unscientific. I went to the drug store to buy a tube of toothpaste. For as long as I can remember I have been buying Crest toothpas= te. No particular reason, it just became a habit. Those habits are so easy. You= go to the correct aisle, grab the toothpaste on you are on your way out the do= or. The only choice for years was the size of tube; the type of tube. I had all that worked out and for = years it worked for me. No great effort involved. No bad feelings about what I did not choose; no pondering; no need to maximize my decision.

Well, one day I went to the drugstore, reached for my toothpaste and it wasn’t there; at least I could not find it among the bevy of choices for Crest toothpaste. I could not believe what I was seeing= . I said to myself, “I cannot believe I am standing here looking at all t= hese different choices of toothpaste!” So I grabbed one and ran, after pay= ing for it of course. When I looked at it the next day, I discovered I had purchased Crest with Rejuvenating Effects with as Energizing Mint flavor! W= ell I could hardly wait to experience what it would do for me. The color turned= out to be an awful sort of institutional green and the flavor was that of mints months old.

I had not more energy that morning than I ever have,= which isn’t a whole lot. I mi= ssed my old toothpaste.

So the next day I went back to the drugstore, pen an= d pad in hand. What I discovered among the various Crest choices was Whitening Expressions with Scratch and Sniff on the box and Cinnamon Rush flavor. The= re was Whitening Expressions with Herbal Mint flavor; and whitening plus Scope= and cool peppermint flavor. There was Dual Action whitening with Cool Mint flav= or, and Multicare Whitening with Fresh Mint flavor. I especially liked the Cavi= ty Protection and Mint Striped flavor. Well all in all there were about ninete= en choices. And down in the corn= er I did find my old favorite. But then of course you had to consider size, and whether you wanted a screw on top, or one of those stand-up squeeze things = that often doesn’t work.

Then being in an extreme maximizer mood, I wondered,= do the ingredients really differ in all those tubes of toothpaste? Well, people were already giving me anxious glances, as though I might know some secret formula of combining toothpastes that would blow up an airplane. So I decid= ed it was time to move on. Too m= any choices from cars to deodorant; and if you consider who buys what, the whole process becomes debilitating.

Well, there was this man who ran to Jesus. He was yo= ung, affluent, articulate and attractive. Mark says “Jesus looked upon him= and loved him, perhaps admired him for all that he was.” And we would als= o! He was affluent and had choices available to him in life that few of Jesus’ friends would have had. But with all of that, the meaning of l= ife kept slipping away from him. Ii suspect he was an extreme maximizer. And th= at he found little satisfaction in all of the choices he had made in life, even though they were wise and good choices. But the central and core meaning of this human journey had eluded him. “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”<= /o:p>

Now, this was not a theological question. It was an = urgent plea to find a better choice than he had made thus far. Jesus was a bit abr= upt and said: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone!R= 21; There was an important clue. = But the man didn’t’ get it. Do we? Jesus challenged him with the Commandments. “Do you know them? Not do you keep them, but do you know them? For Jesus knew as we do that it is impossible to keep the commandments under our own strength. The man’s response was, “All these I ha= ve kept from my youth.” Wow! What an answer! This man had chosen the commandments as a guide for life. This man had made the choice to keep his = life within the orthodox bounds of Judaism. We do not know if he was religious or not. But he had chosen the Commandments, all ten, and all ten of them had n= ot brought him peace.

“So Jesus, I am a maximizer. Give me the choic= e of one or two more commandments that will put my life in perspective and give = me peace. You can add an eleventh or twelfth, whatever it takes. You know I can make good choices. I can pray for hours in a darkened room or fulfill a fast twice a week. What are the new choices for me?” So Jesus goes right to the point a= nd gives him another clue. “One thing you are missing. Go sell all that = you have and give it to the poor, and you will have peace, and come follow me.” He had much to sel= l, and he went away sadly. It was not about choices, it was about the choice. He missed the point. The one thing missing was not selling all he had. The one thing missing was making the choice, and following Jesus and thus doing the will of God. Jesus was really saying: “If you want easy answers you h= ave come to the wrong address. You cannot find peace as long as you avoid the o= ne and decisive issue, namely, how you stand with God. In God alone is the good that you seek. God is the end you pursue and the meaning for which you are longing. It is God that has to do with our troublesome lives; with our marriages, our professional life, our loneliness and our anxieties. How different would it be if you could pray, if there were a “Thou”= who said to you, ‘Fear not,’ or ‘I have called you by name and you are mine,’ or ‘Peace be within your walls.’ “ If we came out of = the peace of God, couldn’t we bear all things and believe all things and endure all things?

We do not need more choices in life. I know that is difficult for us to accept. We look at others who have so much more than we, and think if we were like them, able to make more choices, life would have = more meaning. The truth is we would only become more debilitated and disappointe= d. Helmut Thielicke once said: “Jesus reduces everything that we hope and fear for to the first point: Fundamentally I have only one problem, only one sure point, only one possibility of salvation…what I undertake with t= his one and fundamental thing, everything else falls into place.” And fur= ther he says: “God cannot be addressed by the one who hasn’t put the harshness of the all-or-nothing to himself.” Jesus did it. On the cro= ss it was all-or-nothing. Nothing else was left. Have we put the harshness of = the all-or-nothing to ourselves? = Amen.