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Biography |
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"Not for Sale!" The local commissar was not satisfied. True, these fish had survived up to this moment on rarefied gas, but what about reactionary tendencies? He suspected a secret yen for water. “You have neglected education,” he said. “Start over, and this time do not neglect education.” Again they bred, cross-bred, hormoned, and chromosomed, and this time they did not neglect education. Their result: a red herring that would rather die than get its tail wet. Even a thought of humidity filled the herring with dread. Thought control had done its perfect work. And with the possible exception of the red herring, everyone was happy. Certainly this year's science prize would go to the scientists at Smelinsik University. It was decided that the commissar, who suggested education, should let the world see this prize of soviet research. Somewhere in Hungary the tragedy occurred. Quite by accident, a fishery report said, the herring fell into a pool of water. Deep and still in the green translucent stuff it lay, afraid to breathe, every instinct said it couldn't breathe. Never did a fish so wet feel like a fish out of water. But, breathe it must and there was nothing else to breathe but water. So the herring took a tentative gillful, its eyes bulged. And then another. Its jaw flew open. Its tail wiggled. Its fin wiggled. And then it darted away. The fish had discovered water. And with the same kind of wonder, human beings (men and women) conditioned by a world that rejects God, discover him for, “In him, we live and move and have our being.” The parable about the fish that discovered water reminds us that as water is necessary as a context for a fish, so a relationship with God the Creator is a necessary context for meaning for human life and for integrity in human purpose. In the passage that was read earlier from Matthew 7, a portion of The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking about false prophets, phony religionists, but basically he is talking about integrity. Jesus warns against false prophets and he uses the illustration of a fruit tree. The fruit tree is going to produce what it advertises, and the fruit is going to indicate the kind of tree from which it came. There is integrity in that process. Jesus could have used the illustration of a rose bush. Perhaps Jesus would have enjoyed growing roses as I do. I have a small garden at the Academy in the shadow of the cadet chapel. I f ind a couple dozen rose bushes (and most of them are All American roses) provide a wonderful way of release and relaxation. It's a great thrill to be able to go out early in the morning and check out the roses even while the dew is still on the roses, perhaps cut one to bring it in a rose vase, or a whole bunch of roses to give to my wife. I find it very relaxing in the evening to putter in the rose garden. It's a great means of enjoyment and appreciating the beauty of God's creation. Roses, like athletes, can become All Arnericans. There is an American Rose Society which, each year, judges all the new roses, and based on certain classifications, determines whether a rose or two can actually become an All American rose. The rose is judged on its form, its substance, its stem and foliage, its shape, and its color. We can determine the excellence of a rose, but how do we determine the excellence of a person—a man or a woman? By his culture? How much class that person has? Or by his education? Or his utility? Just what contribution or how great a contribution this person has for society? Excellence of anything can be determined only when we know why something exists. A rose exists for beauty. Light exists to dispel darkness. A knife exists to cut, a pencil to write. What is the purpose of a human being? What are we for? What am I—an infant crying in the night, an infant crying for the light with no language but a cry? Science can tell us what man is made of. But what is man made for: to fight, to work, to love, to reproduce? What is he for? “When all else fails,” Mother used to say, "read the directions.” As we go back into the ancient manuscripts, we find a blueprint given to us by the creator. The ancient scriptures tell us that man came as a direct act of God, not a process from an accident of force and evolution, but rather by a deliberate act of God. And the scriptures tell us that man was made in God's image so that he had the ability to choose and create, to love and to hate. Man is not bound by the "must" of instinct, but by the "ought" of obligation. Arid, of course, we have the capacity to think about the future. We have the capacity to ponder our own existence. A dog doesn't wonder and worry about tomorrow's meal. An ape doesn't ponder or debate the hypothesis of his immortality, but we do. That is unique to man as part of God's highest creation. God gave us freedom and therein we became God's problem for we chose to misuse our freedom and break a very beautiful relationship so that there came a barrier between God and man because of our self -centeredness, because in a sense we said, "I'll do it my own way." Man has become God's problem. Oh, God could have wiped us out and started all over. Or, in fact, he could have compromised with his own holiness and tolerated our rebellion. But instead God introduced a strategy - we might call it the strategy of the cross. For God took on human flesh, the Incarnation. That's the story of Christmas. After 33 years we come to the cross and the resurrection and we find that there God bridged the gap between his holiness and the rebellion and sinfulness of man, and in the cross of Jesus Christ we can become friends of God. By faith in Christ we become friends of God. But that's not the end of the story. The old manuscript also tells us that we can become God's glory, that a man or woman who is committed to live for the glory of God can reflect God's glory in his life. When one determines to do the will of God, to reach out in love and meet human need, to love one's neighbor as himself, as also he loves God. He finds that he can be God's glory in this very life. Perhaps the best known song to come out of West Point is not “On Brave Old Army Team,” our fight song, but it's another song that has gone around the world perhaps through church and missions. The words are: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” The sister of Anna Warner, who wrote that song, also wrote a Sunday School song again known all around the world. Its words are pertinent to my point: “Jesus bids us shine with a clear pure light; Like a little candle burning in the night. In this world of darkness, we must shine; You in your own corner and I in mine." When we do that, we can actually be the very glory of God, and the integrity of the Christian. Your integrity and mine is as we live for God's glory. What's the virtue of a rose? It's being all that the rose is advertised to be. Why even the last rose of summer has something of integrity. In New York, as I'm sure in the Midwest, sometimes if the frost is not too heavy, roses will continue to bloom on into September, October, or even occasionally into November, and one would go and find that after these several frosts, that rose bush is still producing the loveliness of the rose. And the miracle is, the color, the fragrance, the size is just as it was all through summer - in fact, just as advertised last January when we got the new rose catalog. For those of us who are rosarians, it always seems to be at the peak of winter when the snow is on the ground and the temperature is freezing, that the new rose catalogs come. And there we have the opportunity to see the new selections, to see their pictures, to read about the fragrance, and to make some choices. And then, at least in New York, early in April, the new roses come. Generally they're only three bare canes full of stickers with some bare roots. The rosarian carefully plants it in the ground with the right culture and then waits. And the new growth appears, then the foliage, and pretty soon those small buds which in time begin to swell, and then that great moment when it opens up. Sure enough, it's exactly as it was advertised. It Is precisely the color and the shape that was advertised in the rose catalog way back in the middle of the winter. There's integrity in that process. And that's why Jesus used the illustration of the fruit tree and could very well have used the illustration of the rose bush. Be what you advertise. Now, that's not easy, is it? It's not easy for me, and I suppose it's not easy for you. The apple tree and the rose bush have something built in that guarantees that they're going to be something of integrity, that they are going to do what is advertised. But that's not automatic for the human being. Human beings must choose it and that's not easy. That is why Christ built his church so that we might have teaching, and fellowship, and discipline. A Christian is a human being under reconstruction. Some final observations about the rose. First, it has thorns. Even the most beautiful rose has thorns, sometimes the longest and the sharpest. Nor has God made any of us perfect. But I think even a greater miracle of the rose is that when a hybrid rose is made, it involves a process. The hybridizer takes an old rose bush and he makes a little slit in the side of the rose and he grafts in a new rose, and as that rose begins to grow into a separate rose bush, he takes the old rose and cuts it off just above the graft. So what one has is the old rose roots and the new rose that has grown from that old rose bush. That's where the hybrid comes from. And yet that same process speaks to us of the miracle of the gospel. God, through Jesus Christ, takes a human being and with all our weaknesses and all our rebellion and all our indifference toward him, when we respond to Christ, God grafts into our life a new nature. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.” And God implants into our life his own Spirit with all its potential for love, and joy, and peace, and goodness, and faith, and meekness, and self-control a new creation - the beauty of a new life that can reflect the very glory of the creator. Again, occasionally in a rose garden, one will see the beautiful hybrid tea rose but a sucker will come. The same thing happens in fruit trees. A sucker is a growth that comes from the old roots, from below the new graft. It's not productive. It saps the strength from the new rose. The rosarian, who trains his eye to find the sucker, cuts it off down at the bottom so that we can have all the benefit and the loveliness of the hybrid, and the beauty of the rose that has been advertised. Of course, there are suckers in our life. That old nature is still there. God doesn't obliterate it. There is the selfishness, the greed, and the lust; yes, even the indifference toward God. That attitude is "I don't care" and yet the straight life gets heavy. If there is going to be integrity in our Christian life, we need to cut off those suckers, those things that will draw the strength from our life so that there can be the quality of the Christian man, of the Christian woman, who lives for the glory of God, who would be an instrument in the hand of the living God. That's our integrity, and to become more like Jesus. Matthew, chapter 4, records the early days of Jesus' public ministry. It tells about his confrontation with Satan in the wilderness. Perhaps the greatest temptation that Jesus of Nazareth ever faced was the temptation to take a short cut, to somehow bypass the road to the cross, to find some other way to bring salvation. Perhaps the temptation was to be a superstar rather than to be a savior. Jesus could have won the crowds with his wonder works. He could have done all kinds of things to build his great crowd of followers: jumping off the temple, coming off the cross. But he chose rather to walk the road to the cross because his purpose was not to be a superstar, but to be a savior. You and I do not need a superstar; we need a savior. So Jesus walked to the cross. In the third of the three temptations that are recorded in Matthew 4, Satan took Jesus to a very high mountain. And there he showed him, probably in a vision, all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said, “All these things I'm going to give you if you will just fall down and worship me.” Now, it was for these kingdoms of the world that Jesus of Nazareth had come, to be the savior to draw them to God. Satan, in essence, is saying, “Why go through all the hassle of the cross? Why go through the pain and that long, lonely road to the cross? There's an easier way. There is a short cut.” And Jesus' response was, “Get behind me, Satan. It is written, ‘You should worship the Lord, your God, and him only shall you serve.’” In essence, he is saying, “Get lost. I'm not interested. I'm not for sale!” The great truth that as Christians we cherish today is that because Jesus was not for sale, we don't have to be for sale. Because Jesus didn't buy the lie, you can have it now. We don't have to buy the lie, but rather can be instruments in the Savior's hands to touch people for his glory. At West Point in dress parades, the seniors wear their dress sabers. Their job is to keep those sabers clean and sharp. That's what God wants of us. As we live our lives, as we use the gifts he has given to us, to keep these instruments to be used in the Master's hands, to keep them clean and sharp. That's our integrity as we endeavor to live to the glory of God. 'Twas battered and scarred and the auctioneer hardly thought it was worth his while to spend much time on the old violin, but he held it up with a smile and said, “What am I bid for the old violin? Who will start the bidding for me? $1.00. $1.00. Who will make it two? $2.00. Who will make it three? $3.00 once, $3.00 twice, going,” and almost gone. But from far back in the room a gray-haired man came and picked up the old violin and tightening the loosening strings, he played a melody pure and sweet as a caroling angel sings. The music stopped and in a voice that was quiet and low said, “Now, what am I bid for the old violin? Who will start the bidding for me? $1,000.00. Who'll make it two? $2,000.00. Who'll make it three? $3,000.00. Once, going and gone,” cried he. The crowd cheered, but some of them cried, “We don't understand. What changed its worth?” Quick came the reply, “It was the touch of the master's hand.” And because the Master has touched us, we have a worth and a privilege of incalculable value. Say with me, “I'm not for sale!” Amen. |
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