June 22, 2008 Sermon
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Proper
June 22, 2008 Allan Conkling
Why does the world have to be so darn competitive? So ran my thoughts when I got cut off a second time by an impatient driver in San Antonio on Friday. It wasn't even rush hour yet, as is so typical, we weren't going anywhere but to the next light. Still this person just had to get there first: "I’ll show you I am number one!" By the time I got to Interstate 10 to come home I was having one of those "Stop the world I want to get off" moments. Why does the world have to be so darn competitive?
Look around...It is endless: evaluating, measuring, ranking, testing; sales figures, IQ, height, weight, speed, GPA, class standing, income. I couldn't even drive down the street without someone wanting to cut in and be first in the traffic light.
As human animals, we are doomed by our biology to a life of survival of the fittest. How any of us make it through is beyond me. I guess some don't. I have a list of questions that when I get to heaven I want to ask God and this is one of them: Why does the world have to be so darn competitive?
When you look at the Bible readings for today you see that in those days life was very competitive. Jealous over Abraham's fathering a child by his slave girl, Sarah demands that Hagar and the boy be banished to the desert. In this way Isaac becomes the number one son. Abraham concedes, and even God allows it, but God shows mercy upon Ishmael and his mother. Ishmael goes on to become father of the Bedouin tribes of Arabia. Centuries later, the Prophet Mohammed would read this passage and claim that Ishmael was by right the true firstborn son. A deadly competition continues to this day.
These stories recall a time
in history when folks literally lived by the sword and died by the sword. Has
anything changed? Today we have car bombs and explosives. Early believers
would become targets for beatings, arrests, stoning, and crucifixion simply
because they followed the carpenter from Nazareth. Jesus was very aware of the
often violent competition that exists between individuals, groups, and even
within families as he quotes from
"For the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
your enemies are members of your own household."
However, far from declaring defeat and retreating tail-between-legs to a cave somewhere Jesus says, and almost defiantly:
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword."
And...
"Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
So what can we do in a world which seems to be so hopelessly competitive and adversarial? Are we doomed to live life constantly fighting and at odds with our neighbor? When it comes to religion, does it always have to be "one-upmanship"? Can we ever rise above the biological urge of survival of the fittest?
Realistically, my answer is Yes and No. Try as we might there is always a competitive side to each one of us. Heck without some motivation we would never get out of bed, never play golf, never watch a basketball game, never strive for a "personal best" in anything.
AND YET, the older I get I also realize that the great equalizer is life itself. I have done enough funerals to know that the end is always the same: Whether you are a fast or slow; whether you are best or second best; whether you are a winner or always a runner up...we all eventually get to the same finish line. Everything is fleeting and passing away, everything except God. This world is a dangerous and highly competitive place. But, might our insecurity be less tied to our accomplishments if we were to see ourselves as God sees us? Might it help to know that in God’s world nobody has to vie for acceptance, like kids choosing sides for a baseball game: "Pick me, pick me!" For we are all on the team already. Everyone is significant to God.
On this side of heaven there
will never be a good answer to my question: Why
does the world have to be so darn competitive?
On some level that's just the way things are. On the other hand,
St. Paul can boldly assert
in Romans
6:4-5, that:
"Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his."
Therein lies our motivation. Therein is found our strength. God loves us, and God calls us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Pray God to take a place in our heart.
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Revised: 06/29/08