In
the Name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier
It is said that film maker Walt Disney was a ruthless film editor.
He would cut any scene from a movie that interfered in any way with the
flow of the story. No matter how beautiful, or funny, or brilliant a scene
was, if it didn’t fit, it was discarded.
Ward Kimball, one of the animators for Snow White, worked
nearly eight months on a 4-1/2 minute sequence in which the dwarves made
soup for Snow White. It was a humorous scene in which the dwarves wreaked
havoc in the kitchen as they tried to make soup. Walt Disney thought the
scene was funny, but ultimately decided it hindered the flow of the
picture. So out it went.
Good writers will tell us, just as good motion picture directors
will tell us, that it is often what we leave out of a work that
determines whether or not it is effective. Good writers will often edit a
piece as many as a dozen times, each time continuing to carve it down
until only their very best work is left. When actors moan that their best
scene ended up on the cutting room floor, it means that a director sliced
out a scene in the motion picture that he felt detracted from the movie in
its entirety. When a writer sends off a book to an editor, he knows that
some of his favorite words will forever go unsaid.
I’d like for us to try to think about our life as if it were a
movie or novel. Are there parts of our lives that detract from the whole?
Is our life out of balance? Is there something that needs to be edited,
rewritten, or left out? Do we need to trim a bit here in order to give a
lot more effort there?
Let’s go to today’s lesson from the gospel. Jesus uses some
pretty graphic language in this passage. It may disturb us. He says, “If
your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better [for you] to
enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the
unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it
is better [for you] to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be
thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it
is better [for you] to enter the [Realm] of God with one eye than to have
two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where the worm never dies, and the
fire is never quenched.” (NRSV)
In other words, if there is a part of the movie or the novel of our
life that is detracting from our life as a whole, edit it out. Sometimes
the difference between a mess and a masterpiece is what we eliminate!
This is particularly true when it comes to overt sin.
Remember the words of Marc Anthony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:
“The evil that men do lives on; the good is often interred with their
bones . . .”
It’s true. Many people who are otherwise fine decent people, have
had their lives destroyed because of one small, momentary weakness. That
weakness might be greed or envy. It might be lust or any of the other
seven deadly sins.
That’s an interesting phrase--the seven deadly sins, for they are
deadly. They cause problems far out of proportion to their importance
in the totality of our lives. That’s one of the ways life seems unfair,
but that’s how it is! We can mess up just one time and end up paying for
that mistake for years.
William Rodgers Johnston tells about his father’s sage advice on
the subject of sex. “It was the Victorian era,” says Johnston, “when
women wore dresses down to their high-top shoes so that their ‘limbs’
(the word ‘leg’ was taboo) would not show and ‘sex’ was never
mentioned in polite society. Sex Education, of course, was entirely
unheard of. But Poppa did have his say on the subject.” Here was his
father’s advice:
“Watch it,” counseled his father, “It is stronger than
you.”
That’s pretty good advice for many of us. “Watch it. It’s
stronger than you.”
For
some people that could be said of greed. For others it could be said about
envy, for some it could be said about food, etc. That’s worth
remembering: “It’s stronger than you.”
This is the best advice I can give about overt sin in our life.
Take the scissors or the delete key and eliminate it before it destroys
something good and precious that we really care about.
Steve Goodier tells about a woman from Switzerland who was served
dinner on a domestic American flight. She immediately opened up her
dessert, a delicious-looking piece of chocolate cake, and heavily salted
and peppered it. The flight attendant was shocked and said, “Oh! It’s
not necessary to do that!”
“But it is,” the woman replied, still smiling. “It keeps me
from eating it!”
“It is better,” said Jesus, “[for you] to enter the [Realm]
of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell,
where the worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.”
Certainly it is true that our lives sorely need to be edited if
there is overt sin in them. Sin can destroy us. But there are many ways in
which our life may need to be edited.
Some of us have allowed our lives to get out of balance, and
we’ve forgotten our priorities. It can happen to any of us.
Author Dave Stone tells about one minister’s wife who threatened
to put these words on her husband’s tombstone: “Gone to another
meeting.”
If the people around us could edit our lives, I wonder how our
lives would look? Our spouses, our children, and our friends--all people
who depend on us. What would happen if they could take scissors to our
calendars?
Perhaps we’ve seen the poster that shows a dad and his son in an
old rowboat on a little lake. It’s early in the morning, there’s a
faint mist still on the lake, and the father and son are sitting there,
quiet and still. They’re each holding little bamboo fishing poles, and
the two corks attached to their lines are floating motionless on the
placid water.
Underneath the picture are two words: take time.
Take time. Are the urgent things in our lives crowding out the
important ones? That can happen, can’t it?
Some of us need to slice a little here and trim a bit there. We
need to get rid of overt sin, and we need to balance our lives in terms of
the importance of our relationships.
Some of us have let God get crowded out of our lives. It’s
true. Oh, most Sundays may find us in church, but God doesn’t really
play that big a role in our lives. God is on the periphery, and if we need
God, we’ll call. But we’ve got places to go and people to meet.
This may very well be the biggest mistake we make. God is the best
friend we will ever be blessed with. God can take a drab and meaningless
existence and give it new purpose and power. We need God in our lives, and
we need to know God's forgiveness and love.
Let me tell you about a man named Ray Giunta. Ray goes wherever
there are hurting people who need someone to listen. He has served as a
volunteer counselor for students who were involved in school shootings or
survived natural disasters. Ray worked with survivors of the Oklahoma City
federal building in 1995. And after 9/11, he headed to New York City.
Ray dedicates himself to spreading God’s hope because he knows
what hopelessness feels like. When he was just a baby, his father was sent
to prison. Not long afterward, his mother abandoned all nine of her
children. Ray’s oldest sister was only 10 at the time, but she made a
valiant effort to take care of her siblings. When the child protective
workers discovered the children, they were scattered to various foster
homes. Ray was fortunate enough to be adopted by the Giunta family. There
he found love, and there he found God. Many years later, Ray initiated a
family reunion. In his own life, Ray had seen how God brings hope and
restoration out of heartbreak, and he wanted to share that message with
others.
At the bombing site in New York City, Ray listened to firefighters
pour out their grief over losing friends when the Towers collapsed. He saw
the danger in which they worked. He thought that they were the only reason
he came to New York.
But later that evening, as Ray headed downtown, he encountered an
elderly woman and a young boy lugging huge garbage bags down the street.
Ray stopped and offered to help. The old woman spoke up, “My daughter is
a drug addict, and tonight she kicked my grandson out of the house.”
Suddenly Ray knew that there was another reason why he had come to New
York that night. He knelt down beside the little boy and began to tell him
a story about another little boy who had been abandoned by his parents. He
told this little boy how God helped the abandoned child throughout his
life and how God was still helping him. He assured the little boy that God
loved him and was watching over him too.
You and I need to know that God loves us and wants only the best
for us. I believe that is why Jesus was so harsh in those words we read
from scripture. God wants only the best for us, and so God is telling us
through Jesus to take some shears to our lives. Cut out hurtful sins.
Readjust our schedules. Take time for those we love and take time for God.
Then we will discover that our life will no longer be a mess. It will
become a masterpiece.
S
H A L O M