Duty

On January 15th, 2009, US Airways flight #1549 departed New York City’s LaGuardia’s Airport. Within a few minutes, the plane collided with a flock of geese, taking out both engines. Captain Sully Sullenberg made an emergency landing in the chilly waters of the Hudson River. Before he left the plane and got to safety, he walked the plane twice to make sure no one was onboard. As the captain, he knew that he must be the last person on the plane. “Sully” became a national hero.

Three years later—almost to the date—on January 13th, 2012, a massive Italian cruise ship called the Costa Concordia crashed into the rocks and started to sink. An investigation would determine the cause of the crash: the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, was trying to impress a younger female dancer on board when he veered too close to danger. The ship started sinking with its 4,000-plus passengers on board.

In the confusion and chaos, Schettino escaped on to a lifeboat before everyone else had made it off the ship. A coast guard member angrily told him on the phone to “Get back on board, d--- it.” Schettino later claimed that he fell into a lifeboat because the ship was listing to one side. But the court didn’t believe that story. Instead, he was found guilty of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning the ship with passengers on board. He was sentenced to ten years in prison.

A small glimpse into what our heroic war veterans went through can be found in the seven-part Ken Burns documentary The War. It covers World War II from the perspective of the soldiers.

In the episode "When Things Get Tough," the narrator quotes Pulitzer Prize winning Bill Maulden, a cartoonist and writer for Stars & Stripes. It is an analogy written for those who have never fought in a war on the miseries and hardships of the American soldier, in this case with scenes from the Italian Campaign:

Dig a hole in your backyard while it is raining. Sit in the hole while the water climbs up around your ankles. Pour cold mud down your shirt collar. Sit there for 48 hours. So there is no danger of your dozing off, imagine that a guy is sneaking around waiting for a chance to club you on the head. Or set your house on fire.

Get out of the hole, fill a suitcase full of rocks, pick it up, put a shotgun in your other hand, and walk on the muddiest road you can find. Fall flat on your face every few minutes, as you imagine big meteors streaking down beside you. If you repeat this performance every three days, for several months, you may begin to understand why an infantryman gets out of breath. But you still won't understand how he feels when things get tough.

Recent court documents unveiled disciplinary actions against two LAPD officers, actions which resulted in their firing. Former LAPD officers Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were supposed to be responding to a call about a robbery in progress. But according to recordings obtained from their squad car and body cameras, they waited 20 minutes before they responded to the call.

What occupied their attention during that 20 minute span? The popular augmented reality game Pokemon Go. The officers spent approximately 20 minutes chasing virtual creatures on their mobile devices. “A Snorlax … just popped up on 46th and Leimert,” one of them was recorded as saying.

After the firing, the officers protested the decision on the basis of their contention that recording their conversations was an invasion of their privacy. However, the city’s board of rights upheld the firing in their decision, affirming its necessity. In its filing, the city responded: “Playing Pokémon Go showed complete disregard for the community, wasted resources, violated public trust and was unprofessional and embarrassing to the Department.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

As the people of God, we are called upon to give our full attention to serving. If we're unwilling to sacrifice our immediate desires for the sake of others, we can't in good conscience call ourselves disciples of Jesus.

Author Alan Fadling asks us to consider this parable:

There was once a king who had two servants. One of the servants, for fear of not pleasing his master, rose early each day to hurry along to do all the things that he believed the king wanted done. He didn't want to bother the king with questions about what that work was. Instead, he hurried from project to project from early morning until late at night.

The other servant was also eager to please his master and would rise early as well. But he took a few moments to go to the king, ask him about his wishes for the day and find out just what it was he desired to be done. Only after such a consultation did this servant step into the work of his day, work comprised of tasks and projects the king himself had expressed a desire for.

The busy servant may have gotten a lot done by the time the inquiring servant even started his work. But which of them was doing the will of the master and pleasing him?

Genuine productivity is not about getting as much done for God as we can manage. It is doing the good work God actually has for us in a given day. Genuine productivity is learning that we are more than servants, that we are beloved sons and daughters invited into the good kingdom work of our heavenly Father. That being the case, how might God be inviting you to wait for his specific direction? Or is God inviting you to take a specific step now?

In his book “Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel”, Ray Ortlund writes:

The key to understanding the sexual wisdom of [the Bible] is to combine both form and freedom, both structure and liberation. Conservative people love form and restraint and control. Progressive people love freedom and openness and choices. Both see part of the truth, but wisdom sees more. Wisdom teaches us that God gave us our sexuality both to focus our romantic joy and to unleash our romantic joy.

When our desires are both focused and unleashed—both form and freedom—our sexual experience becomes wonderfully intensified. A marriage can flourish within both form and freedom, because sex is like a fire. In the fireplace, it keeps us warm. Outside the fireplace, it burns the house down. Here's the message of the Bible: "Keep the fire within the marital fireplace, and stoke that fire as hot as you can."

In Marilynne Robinson's beautiful novel Gilead, the old preacher John Ames starts digging through a box of sermons in his attic. One day he figures out that he's filled 67,600 pages with his sermons, the equivalent of 225 books. He wrote, "There is not a word in any of those sermons I didn't mean when I wrote it. If I had the time, I could read my way through fifty years of my innermost life. What a terrible thought."

As Ames continues reflecting on his sermons he says,

I had a dream once that I was preaching to Jesus Himself, saying any foolish thing I could think of, and He was sitting there in His white, white robe looking patient and sad and amazed. That's what it felt like. Well, perhaps I can get a box of them down here somehow and do a little sorting. It would put my mind at ease to feel I was leaving a better impression. So often I have known, right here in the pulpit, even as I read these words, how far they fell short of any hopes I had for them. And they were the major work of my life, from a certain point of view. I have to wonder how I have lived with that.

One of the reasons that preachers need to pray is because of the inadequacy of our words. Apart from God, our words will fall short of their goal. It's good and healthy to realize this.

Possible Preaching Angle: Preaching; Ministry; Service—The power in preaching—or in any form of Christian ministry, for that matter—must ultimately rest in the power of God through his Spirit.

New York Times columnist David Brooks argues that there are three different lenses through which to think about marriage decisions—the psychological, the romantic, and the moral lens.

Most of the popular advice books adopt a psychological lens. These books start with the premise that getting married is a daunting prospect. So psychologists urge us to pay attention to traits like "agreeableness," social harmony, empathy, and niceness.

The second lens is the romantic lens. This is the dominant lens in movie and song. More than people in many other countries, Americans want to marry the person they are passionately in love with. But in their book "The Good Marriage," Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee concluded that 15 percent of couples maintain these kinds of lifelong romantic marriages.

The third lens is the moral lens. In this lens a marriage exists to serve some higher purpose. Brooks points to Tim Keller's book "The Meaning of Marriage," where Keller argues that marriage introduces you to yourself; you realize you're not as noble and easy to live with as you thought when alone. Brooks writes:

In a good marriage you identify your own selfishness and see it as the fundamental problem. You treat it more seriously than your spouse's selfishness. The everyday tasks of marriage are opportunities to cultivate a more selfless love. Everyday there's a chance to inspire and encourage your partner to become his or her best self. In this lens, marriage isn't about two individuals trying to satisfy their own needs; it's a partnership of mutual self-giving for the purpose of moral growth and to make their corner of the world a little better.

In a TV commercial a young man is struggling with whether to go through with an arranged marriage. In his home country arranged marriages were the norm. But after living in America, he was having second thoughts about adhering to this ancient custom, especially since he'd never met his wife-to-be.

Still, when she flew into the airport, he dutifully waited for her, flowers in hand, and a gloomy expression on his face. But when she stepped through the terminal, everything changed. She was beautiful! Suddenly his glum demeanor disappeared. The thought of marrying this woman was no longer a dreaded duty; it was a delight. What had changed? He'd seen her.

Often we serve God out of obligation. We drag ourselves to church, force ourselves to serve others—but our hearts aren't in it. We're like that guy at the airport, grudgingly holding flowers for God. We're trying to live holy lives because we know we should, but it's burdensome, joyless.

What can change this? Seeing God. When we get a vision of who God truly is, suddenly we're energized to do his mission. Once we gaze upon his grandeur and glory, obedience ceases to be arduous. Once we grasp his great love, serving is no longer a duty—it's a joy!

You've probably heard the story, but in a security breach in Washington, D.C. a man jumped the fence that surrounds the White House and sprinted through the main floor of the building. He could have caused much greater commotion but he was stopped by an off-duty Secret Service agent who was leaving for the night. The intruder was tackled outside of the Green Room by the agent. One person said, "There's no telling how long this guy could have run around if the detail guy hadn't happened to be there."

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is a good reminder that we are always "on-duty" in God's service. Even if you feel like you're not on right now—keep your eyes peeled. You never know when you may be needed.

One video version of the NPR radio show This American Life captured the story of a prize-winning photojournalist. At one point he soberly confessed that many photojournalists remain spectators as they observe and record the misfortunes of others. Then he told the interviewer a disturbing story about an incident in which he continued snapping pictures as a woman eventually drowned.

He says, "I was sent out on an assignment from when I was working for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune. They wanted pictures [of a coastal storm], so I went out to nearby Plum Island. [I] walked out on the beach, and there was this one figure standing by the ocean looking out."

The video then scans to a photo that shows a lone woman standing on the shore's edge with waves crashing in front of her. He continues, "She was drinking a beer …. A split second after this picture was taken, a wave came in, hit the embankment below her feet, knocked the sand out, and she went sliding into the water."

The video scans to a second photo that shows the woman lying in the shallow water after the wave had retreated.

Then he says, "I was probably at least 50 feet away from her, shooting with a telephoto lens. She was in the water either in shock or drunk or whatever. I thought about, okay, am I going to make a rescue? I already got the shot I need."

The video turns to a third photo that shows two men approaching the woman, who has her hand outstretched.

"I turned around, and within 100 feet of me there was a lifeguard. So I continued to photograph the sequence. There was someone who was with the lifeguard who got there first. He rushed to her. [He] was ready to reach out and grab her and pull her to safety. But at the last second something stopped him."

The next photo pictures the two men backing off as a large wave prepares to crash on top of the helpless woman.

The photojournalist finishes the story: "The wave looked to me like it was 20 feet high. Within seconds after this photograph was taken, she was covered by the wave. I realized that she was gone. The sequence of pictures received quite a bit of attention, and a lot of criticism came into the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune about their photographer, who watched someone drown in the ocean while he just continued to take pictures."

Later in the interview he admits that he could have made a difference, but instead he chose to observe and take pictures. He now only takes "easy and fun" pictures because they are less of a burden.

What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, "What does it matter so long as they are contented?" We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven—a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves," and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all."

—C. S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain

In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien writes about a kingdom called Gondor which for many years has had no king. While waiting for the rightful heir to come and claim his throne, a series of stewards has been placed in charge of the land. The steward in charge at the time of the events described in the book is named Denethor. He has two sons, Boromir and Faramir, both of whom figure prominently in the story (and subsequently, in the movie). As steward of the land, Denethor had the power of the king but without the title and without the full measure of honor. He was able to make decisions and to pass judgment. He received the respect and admiration of the people of the land. His primary task was to do whatever was best for the land in the absence of its rightful ruler. In all he did he was to remember his position—to remember that he was not, and never would be, the king. As a constant reminder of his temporary position he was forbidden to rule from the king's throne. [Tolkien writes:]

Awe fell upon him as he looked down that avenue of kings long dead. At the far end upon a dais of many steps was set a throne under a canopy of marble shaped like a crowned helm; behind it was carved upon the wall and set with gems an image of a tree in flower. But the throne was empty. At the foot of the dais, upon the lowest step which was broad and deep, there was a stone chair, black and unadorned, and on it sat an old man gazing at his lap.

That man, of course, was the steward. Where the king was allowed the full honor of sitting upon the throne, surrounded by splendor, the steward was consigned to rule from a plain, unadorned chair that sat at the foot of the throne.

Denethor was not a very good steward. He dreaded the day the king would return, for he knew that with the return of the king would come his own return to obscurity. He jealously guarded the power that had been given him and did not look forward to the day when he would have to relinquish the kingdom to its rightful owner. This attitude affected his every decision, and he often ruled based on his own desire for preservation rather than on the basis of what would be best for the kingdom he was sworn to protect.

Denethor said," The Lord of Gondor is not to be made the tool of other men's purposes, however worthy. And to him there is no purpose higher in the world as it now stands than the good of Gondor; and the rule of Gondor, my lord, is mine and no other man's, unless the king should come again."

To this Gandalf replied, "Unless the king should come again? Well, my lord Steward, it is your task to keep some kingdom against that even, which few now look to see.

Denethor went beyond the care of his office and became corrupted by the enemy. His abuse of what had been entrusted to him led to his own corruption.

This concept of stewardship is one that has been largely lost to our time and our culture. We understand ownership, borrowing, leasing, and mortgaging but have little knowledge of stewardship. Yet it is a crucial concept in the Bible. Scripture tells us that we are to regard all that God gives us as if we are stewards, not owners (see, for example, Luke 12). This is true of wealth; it is true of talents; it is true of opportunities and children and spouses and property and businesses and everything else. Where God has given richly, much is expected in return. At no time does God give us full and final ownership of what he has given us. He gives us but the opportunity to be stewards of his gifts.

Stewardship is more difficult than we may think. How tightly we like to cling to those things that we regard as ours. How tightly we cling to our money and how quick we are to set our hope in the uncertainty of riches (1 Timothy 6:17). How difficult it is to release our children to the care of God, knowing that we are but stewards of them for the short time God grants them to us. How prone we are to hold fast to all of the wrong things. How hard it is for us to understand that we do not occupy the throne. No, we are those who sit in the steward's unadorned stone chair, far below, in the shadow of the throne.

Denethor held fast to the wrong things. Drunk with corruption and power and unwilling to hand over the kingdom, Denethor, steward of Gondor, eventually took his own life, ending his years of poor stewardship. He would rather die than give up the power that he thought was his. He would rather die than humble himself before the king.

Denethor's son, Faramir, took his father's place as the next in a long line of stewards. And no sooner did he do this than Aragorn, the heir to the throne, returned to Gondor. Faramir was faced with all that was so important to his father. Would Faramir be like his father? Or would he be a faithful steward? [Tolkien writes:]

Faramir met Aragorn in the midst of those there assembled, and he knelt, and said: "The last steward of Gondor begs leave to surrender his office." …

Then Faramir stood up and spoke in a clear voice: "Men of Gondor, hear now the Steward of this realm! Behold! One has come to claim the kingship again at last. Here is Aragorn son of Arathorn… . Shall he be king and enter into the city and dwell there?" And all the host and all the people cried yea with one voice.

Moments later, when the new king has been crowned, it is Faramir who leads the cries of "Behold the king!"

Faramir was everything his father was not. He was a good and faithful steward who looked forward to the return of his king and who was willing and ready to hand what had been entrusted to him to its rightful owner. Faramir proved his character.

It is said that Queen Victoria, who reigned over England for over 63 years said, "I wish Jesus would come back in my lifetime. I would lay my crown at his feet." Would you do the same? Will you lead the chorus of "Behold the King!"?

I read a story in the L. A. Times a long time ago. A guy goes to the house where he grew up and knocks on the door. Because he hadn't been there for 20 years, he finds himself getting sentimental. He asks the owners if he can walk through the house, and they let him. While in the attic, he finds an old jacket of his. He puts it on, reaches into the pocket, and pulls out a stub. It's a receipt from a shoe repair shop. He realizes he had taken a pair of shoes there twenty years ago, and in the midst of the move, he had never picked them up. On a whim he decides to go to the shoe repair shop. Just to be funny, he takes the receipt out and hands it to the guy behind the desk, saying, "Are my shoes ready?" The guy goes back to the workroom for a minute, comes back to the counter, and says, "Come back a week from Thursday."

That's the mind of the sluggard; they're always saying, "A week from Thursday."

In their book Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner explain how a simple change to U. S. tax rules in 1987 exposed the depth of the public's willingness to deceive for financial gain:

In the 1980s, an I.R.S. research officer in Washington named John Szilagyi had seen enough random audits to know that some taxpayers were incorrectly claiming dependants for the sake of exemption. Sometimes it was a genuine mistake (a divorced wife and husband making duplicate claims on their children), and sometimes the claims were comically fraudulent (Szilagyi recalls at least one dependent's name listed as Fluffy, who was quite obviously a pet rather than a child).

Szilagyi decided that the most efficient way to clean up this mess was to simply require taxpayers to list their children's Social Security numbers… The idea never made its way out of the agency.

A few years later, however, with Congress clamoring for more tax revenue, Szilagyi's idea was dug up, rushed forward, and put into law for tax year 1986. When the returns started coming in the following April, Szilagyi recalls, he and his bosses were shocked: seven million dependents had suddenly vanished from the tax rolls, some incalculable combination of real pets and phantom children. Szilagyi's clever twist generated nearly $3 billion in revenues in a single year.

The Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life's different stresses. Our duty is not to abandon ship, but to keep her on course.

—Boniface