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One of my favorite contemporary theologians, and I use the word
“theologian” judiciously, was and still is Charles Schultz who wrote of
the Peanuts comic strip. Anyone who
followed Peanuts closely could
discover Schultz' deep-seated theological bent in almost everything he wrote
and drew. In many ways the comic strip was alike a modern day parable. In
fact, many years a Robert Short wrote a book he titled The
Gospel according to Peanuts. One of my all-time favorites is a three-paneled strip. It is Monday
morning and Sally and Linus are at the bus stop waiting for the school bus to
arrive. Sally asks Linus, "Has the school bus come yet?" And Linus
replies sarcastically, "If it had, do you think I'd still be standing
here?" A little taken aback, Sally says, "Well, I was just trying to
make conversation." And Linus says, "Well, stop trying." Sally
concludes, "You must be having trouble with fractions, huh?" I don’t know about you, but, as they say: been there; done that.
There are days when we all have trouble with fractions, whatever those
"fractions" in our lives are for that moment. Those fractions can be
the one-fourth times one-eighth type. They can range from the boss who is on a
rampage, to the wife who is upset because the kids have been awful, to the car
that won't start when you're already late for work. People and events can eat
away at us from deep within. They cause us to take out our anxieties and
frustrations on someone else. And it usually does not matter who that someone
else is. It wasn't Sally's fault that Linus was having trouble with his
fractions; but she was on the receiving end of his displeasure anyway. It
happens all the time. Been there, myself. As I have said perhaps too often now, one of the reasons why bad
things happen to good people is that we good people do bad things. And I would
not hesitate to suggest that more often than not, we good people do bad things
to good people because at the time we do those bad things, we are having
trouble with the fractions in our lives. Linus is normally a good-natured
young man. He doesn't usually get short with Sally or Charlie Brown or even
his sister Lucy who so often rightly deserves short-tempered treatment. But
perhaps on this Monday morning, Linus has just come off a weekend of really
struggling to understand fractions. In that situation who wouldn't be
rightfully and justifiably frustrated and not a little upset? Done that,
myself. I dare say we've all been there, and done that. Many times. We
understand. And when we've been there in that situation, frustrated up to here
with something just a little beyond our control, the first Sally we met, the
first Sally who dared cross our path, paid for our frustrations. She was
dumped on and dumped on royally. Good people do bad things because of some
outside pressure or aggravation or irritation. Linus spoke before he thought.
He probably knew on second thought that Sally did not deserve his sarcasm, but
she received it anyway simply because she was next in line at the bus stop. We've also been next in line many times, perhaps so many times that
we've lost count. Most of the time it wasn't and isn't so bad. It only gets
bad when the first one in line really needs someone on whom to take out his or
her frustrations. And then when we get dumped on, we wonder to ourselves,
sometimes we even wonder out loud, "Why me? What did I do to deserve
this?” The only real answer to that question is: I just happened to be next
in line. And there are many times in our lives when we have been first in
line waiting for Number Two to come along so that we could unload our
frustrations. The problem is not that we rush to get to the front of the line
so that we can dump on another person. Initially we may very well have been
bound and determined to simply keep our mouth shut and say nothing. But then
something happens to set us off and we begin to let loose on poor Number Two,
whoever he or she unfortunately may be. It is simply a fact of life, a reality of our humanity, that we
good people do bad things, dump on others and are dumped on by others, never
really ever intending it to be that way. But it happens. It happens all the
time. And it happens precisely because of what we prayed about in today's
Collect. We prayed: "Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly
things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among
things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure." So often we get so anxious over the fractions in our lives,
fractions that will pass away. That is not to say that while we are involved
with those fractions, they are not important. They most assuredly are. Linus
will have to learn how to understand fractions, if he wants to understand math
and if he wants to understand life. It is simply difficult for an elementary
school child to put that problem into perspective. We are no different. We,
too, can easily lose perspective. At any given moment in our lives our present
fraction-problem can seem all-consuming. If it no longer seems all-consuming, but, in fact, becomes
all-consuming, then we really have a problem. It is at that moment in our
lives when we have to step back and take a good look at what is really going
on. In a way, that is what James is hinting at in this morning's Epistle.
James is warning us about all-consuming fractions. He says that if we get all
bound up in selfish wants; all consumed with worry about what others might
have and we don't have; all bound up with an upset wife, a car that won't
start, or an angry boss -- if we do that, disorder will abound and, to put it
in very simple terms, bad things will happen to good people. Every time we pick up a newspaper, we can read another article
about someone having trouble with fractions. We read about people who lie and
cheat and steal because what they were doing became an all-consuming passion.
Enough money, enough power, enough prestige was and is never enough. We want
more than enough. In the words of
the Collect, it is so easy to become totally anxious about earthly things, to
become all consumed in the fractions of our lives, whatever those fractions
for the moment are. We can do some very bad things to a whole lot of good people who
are standing next in line at the bus stop, at the bank teller’s window, on
the assembly line, around the dinner table, wherever. We never intend to get
so caught up in those fractions, but we do. And we wind up hurting ourselves
and hurting the ones we love as well. Sometimes we even wind up destroying
ourselves and others in the process. As James reminds us, "Where jealousy
and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and wickedness of every
kind" -- be that on Wall Street, Market Street, First Street or on the
street corner at the school bus stop. Once we allow anything in our lives to become all-consuming -- job,
money, car, family or even fractions -- the end result will be that bad things
will happen to good, innocent people, and to us as well. So, again, let us not
be anxious about earthly things, but love things heavenly; and while we are
placed among things that are passing away, hold fast to those that shall
endure.
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