What do you really want out of life?

This is the devotional meditation I delivered to employees of the Asia-Pacific Resource Center. I had thought simply about delivering my testimony again as I had done for the student prayer meeting. But some people in attendance today had read that on the blog, and moreover at least one person was present at both occasions, so it wasn't any good to do that. Besides, this was a better meditation for this context in that it was written with this group in mind, and it actually generated a good bit of healthy discussion afterward. The textual basis was formed by the two OT options and the Gospel lection for Pentecost 12, which was yesterday. A note on the format: a saint of God named Reuben Welch, long-time chaplain at Pasadena College/Point Loma Nazarene College/University (all different incarnations of the same place) wrote his books and his sermon manuscripts without regard for margins. I use this form in order to remind myself where I want to emphasize something in the manuscript, as well as for blocking:

“What do you really want out of life?”

Gen 29:15-28; 1 Kgs 3:5-12; Matt 13:31-33, 44-52

Pentecost12(A), July 28, 2008

Devotional for APRC

At least in the US, my generation, those born between 1965-1982, are known as “Generation X.” In American usage, the letter

X

is used to indicate

mystery,

strangeness,

secrecy,

and forbiddenness.

On a treasure map, X marks the spot where the buried treasure is supposed to lie.

Illiterate persons are asked to make the mark of an X to indicate they are present.

When identities are concealed, people are referred to with the name “X.”

And “X” or “XXX” is the rating of the movies in the back room at the video store.

When

X is

applied to a

generation of people, it

means that these people are

the problem children, the ones that

seem to have no direction and who

always seem to have problems with the authorities.

The music that was popular for my generation reflects this:

We’re not gonna take it! Parents just don’t understand!

We are the youth gone wild! There’s no hope!

In life, you can only depend on yourself!

This life is all that there is.

I will be happy one day,

and can expect to die

on the day before.

There was nothing

to plug

into.

And

then, even

the churches were

largely irrelevant to the

needs of youth like me when

I was growing up. I was a little

different because I had always grown

up in church, but I could never get my friends

to come with me because they didn’t see how God

and religion and all that stuff could have any relevance

or meaning for their lives. They were plugged only into the

moment, only into instant gratification, only into what could be had

now. This way of living not only made it into daily relations with people

but also into the economy. Everyone had to have the latest gadget, the best

stuff, the hottest fashions, the most sophisticated electronics. For it was during my

teenage years that the first personal portable stereos were invented, giving people a way

to live their own lives and enjoy their own music in isolation from everyone else. If those

years could be summed up in a word, that word would be isolation. They wanted what

they wanted and mostly what they wanted was to be left alone. They had no sense

of being connected to their neighbors, except in the brief flashes of time when

they recognized that other people were going through a similar kind of

struggle, though even then they believed that not even their friends

could really understand what they were going through. The

teenagers of generation X were the problem children,

the ones society wanted to forget. And so they,

for the most part, forgot society as well.

And especially they forgot God.

They didn’t want to take the

time to learn what it meant

to lose themselves to find

something greater than

themselves, for that

is all they ever

had out

of life.

In

contrast

to this way

of living, the Bible

has a lot to say about

plugging into a vision of

life that is greater than the individual,

greater than the isolated self so beloved by

my generation of anxiety-ridden, isolation-craving,

pleasure-seeking, misunderstood by parents, teachers, authorities,

society and God teenagers and young adults. When King Solomon asked

for wisdom in 1 Kings 3, God approved of it precisely because he didn’t ask for long

life or power or anything for himself, precisely because he was not focused only on his

own ambitions for power. And Genesis 29 tells us the story of how Jacob worked

fourteen years to get what he wanted, and how the swindler was swindled.

Even though he ultimately treated Leah poorly in contrast to how he

treated Rachel, the point is still that he allowed himself to be

expended for what he really wanted in life. And the five

parables of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 13

also indicate something of the virtue of

spending your life in the service of

a goal that is greater than you

yourself could ever imagine

it to be. Think of it! If

Generation X were

only looking out

for themselves,

because

that

is what

they were

taught to do from

the very beginning of

their lives—because they were

a mystery to the rest of the society,

and to their parents who just didn’t understand,

then what a great opportunity to show the contrasting

picture of life that is presented in the Gospel! Because, you see

now Generation X, once the forgotten misunderstood youth gone wild,

are now the driving force, the leaders of society. And if we could show them

how wonderful, how precious it is to come out of a focus on one’s own concerns and

plug into something that is greater, what a difference we could make in our world!

Understanding the world view of cultures and generations is part of what we do

in making the Gospel of Jesus Christ relevant to a broken and dying world.

The churches failed Generation X when we were children because they

only met the needs of the older generations and those who were

already in the fold, like me. I couldn’t convince my friends

to come to church because the churches were

keepers of the aquarium rather than

fishers of people. They didn’t meet

them where they were. But

now we have recognized

that to reach them

we have to

know

them.

For when we know them and understand their concerns and realize how they think and why they think that way and what they want and how they understand and the contrast between the way they live their lives and what the Gospel requires of them and of us too then, and only then, will we be able to break through the shell of isolation and protection, the cocoon that they have built around themselves.

If we can show them that their concerns are addressed in the Gospel too, then we can bring them along in the journey with us, and along the way we can apologize to them for not getting this earlier, for not meeting their needs before they went off in search of fulfillment in the things that do not satisfy.

If we show them that asking for wisdom rather than long life, working for what really satisfies rather than that which people and society try to foist upon us, that working the yeast throughout the whole lump of dough, that allowing the smallest of the seeds to become the largest of the shrubs, that selling everything to have that which cannot be bought for any price, are the things that really matter, then their lives will be changed, because they will no longer seek the things that only satisfy for a moment, and once that moment is gone then go on to seek other things.

And if they are changed, then they will change the world. For the final point of description for Generation X that I have not yet mentioned is their power to

motivate together to change things that they believe need to be changed.

Once the power of the unchained youth, the problem child, the teen

spirit is unleashed, then they will not take it anymore, they will

not take even the isolationist situation they have created for

themselves, but they will long to change it, even as they

longed to change the structures of their parents’

society that denied them the freedom to

live in the way that they wanted to

live. There is great power in

this generation, and when

we show them how

to use it, great

things will

happen.

Amen.