First Things First

“First Things First”
Matthew 6:25-33

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost October 8, 2006
Thanksgiving Sunday
Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe

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Know your limit, drive within it.
Know your limit, drive within it.

That was the road sign I saw above the Gardiner Expressway the other day.

Know your limit, drive within it.

In a world where excess has become a virtue, I thought that the road sign above the highway was a message for us all in this excess-driven world. “Know your limit. Know yourself and care for things within you” was the way I read it.

The way I read the road sign may have something to do with the kind of mortgage I carry. Or, it may be due to where I am in life these days as I try to settle down in my new responsibilities. Perhaps, it has something to do with news that a gunman walked into a school yet again and killed five Amish schoolchildren and injured five others before taking his own life Monday morning.

The road sign stirred something deep within me. “Know your limit, drive within it.” “Know your limit, live within it.” “Know yourself and care for things within you.”

We are living in a world where every form of extremism has become a norm. TV land has become a virtual un-reality where extreme forms of life styles are being heralded as something to be desired by all. Every form of media seems to proclaim a message, “Ignore the limit, and drive over it.”

Newspaper reported that Charles Carl Roberts IV, the gunman, wrote in his letter to his wife that he hated God and that he could not handle his own guilt and shame. What Charles hated most, I think, was himself. It is so sad that his hatred of himself spilled over and ended up murdering innocent lives. We seem to be living in a world where the value of a human being is the price of a bullet and full of hatred.

In the midst of the billboards enticing drivers to “in excess, excess, excess,” was a signpost of wisdom, “Know your limit, drive within it.” “Know your limit, live within it.” “Know yourself and care for things within you.”

Question after question kept arising as I was driving through the traffic:

“What does it mean to live within one’s limit?”
“How do we learn to value ourselves?”
“How is it that we live in a world full of people with misplaced values?

How do we learn to value ourselves in such a way so we could know enough of ourselves to value things within us?

How do we value a human being?

Here is a story that says something about understanding the value of a human being.

A student asks a teacher a question, “Teacher, what is the value of a human being?”

The teacher takes a precious stone from a box and hands it to his student saying, “Take this to the market and ask people what it is worth. But you must never sell it at any price.”

The first person he sees at the market is a woman cooking. He asks her, “How much would you give me for this stone?” She looks at it says, “I will give you three oranges.” He thanks her and walks to a grocery shop. He asks the merchant, “How much would you give me for this gem?” The merchant says, “I will give you a bag of yams for it.” The student, then, visits a blacksmith who is busy shoeing a horse, “How much would you give me for this jewel?” The blacksmith knew something about precious stones. He looked at it carefully and then says, “I will give you 500 rupees for it.” The student thanks the blacksmith and then visits the famous jeweller in town. The jeweller examines the stone carefully and he tells the student, “I have never seen such a beautiful jewel in my life time. This is priceless. You should never sell it at any price.”

The student goes back to his teacher and tells him what happened at the market. The teacher, then, tells his student, “The value of a human being is like this stone. You could sell it at three oranges, at a price of a bag of yams, or at 500 rupees. Or, you could cherish it so much that you could never sell it at any price.

It is sad to see that there are so many in our society who are more than willing to sell themselves at any price. There are times in our own lives when we value ourselves so little that we give in to things that harm us and our loved ones. So many of us are addicted to work, power, drugs – things that excess-driven society tells us to be obsessed about.

What do we value in our life? What do we really value in our life to be thankful for as we think about Thanksgiving? How many things we are thankful for are about external things affected by an excess-driven society?

There was a spiritual retreat within a month of 911 in California in 2001. The facilitator asked a question to the audience of 1,000. “What did you do when you found out about the airplane striking the Twin Towers?” There were various answers. “I called my wife.” “I called my daughter.” “I called a friend I have not called in the last 5 years after an argument.” “I called my grandfather.”

Everyone tried to contact ones they cared for to say how much they loved them. Everyone talked about making peace with others in one form or another. Not one person thought about calling the office for business. The facilitator, then, posed the question to the audience, “If none of us thinks about calling the office after such disaster, it proves that our work is not as important to our lives as our loved ones. Then, why do we spend so much time doing work and not enough time connecting with our beloved?” “Why do we live in opposition to the values we hold?”

The first thing I did when I heard about the airplanes striking the Twin Towers was to call my daughters and my close friends. Whenever disaster happens around the world, one of the first things I do is call my relations.

But there are times in my life I realize that I do not spend enough time and effort to cultivate my relations. I seem to be doing the exact opposite.

How do we learn to live out the kind of values we hold as followers of Jesus?

The scripture passage in today’s reading comes from a collection of Jesus’ sayings, commonly known to us as “Sermon on the Mount.” The Revised Standard Version of the New Oxford Annotated Bible states that “the Sermon on the Mount sounds the keynote of the new age which Jesus came to introduce.” (P.1175)

Jesus and his disciples have been travelling across Palestine, proclaiming a vision of the world where the reversal of what people take as normal will happen. They proclaimed that the world they envision is the world where weak will be cared for and the ones who struggle for right relations will be cherished for their vision. They proclaimed that God favours those who aspire to live under God’s rule.

In today’s business language, this is what I hear Jesus saying to us.

“The core value of the Way of Jesus is to facilitate human beings to help each other to learn to value the person within. Realignment of the value of human way and the value of God’s way happens when each person in the world learns to cherish him or herself. The first thing for a human being to do is to learn to value one’s life to the extent that one begins to care for oneself and one’s neighbours.”

The message of Jesus today is not about “Don’t worry be happy!” The message is about learning to value your life to the extent that you care for yourself and your neighbours. Loving yourself is demonstrated by caring for your neighbours.

Here is a story of Thanksgiving I’d like to share with you as I close my sermon today. I heard this story from my mom as a youngster. I have heard various versions of this story from different places since then.

I hope the stories I share with you will conjure up stories within you so you cannot but share your life and faith stories around the Thanksgiving Dinner table.

There were two brothers who farmed a land together. Their father died a few months before the harvest. He left the two brothers a large farmland, reminding them that they ought to never sever the land into two but share the land.

A harvest came. They divided their rice in half and put the sacks of rice in their granary. A strange thing began to happen after the harvest. The two brothers could not sleep well after the harvest. The older brother woke up thinking, “I am married and have children to look after me when I get old. My brother lives alone and who knows what will happen if he were to live alone in his old age?” He would wake up and go to his granary and take sacks of rice and take them to his brother’s granary. The younger brother would wake up and have similar thoughts. “I live alone so I do not need much. But my brother is married and with children. His family needs more rice than I do.” So, he would go to his granary and take sacks of rice and take them to his brother’s granary. After a week of taking sacks of rice, they began to wonder why the sacks of rice seemed to remain the same.

On a beautifully moonlit night, as the older brother is carrying sacks of rice across the field toward his younger brother’s house, he sees a figure carrying sacks of rice toward him. They meet in the middle of the field and realize why the sacks of rice remained the same after a full week of taking them to his brother’s granary. They run to each other and embrace each other.

Many years after the two brothers met in the middle of the field, the town decided to build a church. Everyone agreed that the place where two brothers met ought to be the place for the church. They felt that where love was practiced was a holy place for their church. Compassion is something that is practiced and experienced.

My mother ended the story by telling us, three brothers, that we ought to support one another as long as we live.

Jesus and his disciples dared to dream of a world where everyone could relate as sisters and brothers in God’s love. They dreamt of a society where weak could be cared for by the strong. They dreamt of a world where each person is valued by their vision for creating a just and equitable world.

"We will forgive you."

“We will forgive you.”
This is what an unnamed Amish neighbour said to the father of Charles Carl Roberts IV, the gunman who killed five Amish schoolgirls and injured five others before he took his own life on Monday morning in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, USA. I heard a Christian person living out his conviction on non-violence rooted in his faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Here is a man who is able to love himself enough to love others.

Each one of us is called to also dare to dream such a dream where we could learn to cherish ourselves enough so we could love ourselves and our neighbours in our society.

I am thankful for my wonderful daughters and friends. I am thankful for having this wonderful opportunity to minister with you at Kingston Road United Church. May we learn to value and love ourselves so that we can cherish what is within us and our neighbours.

Amen.