"ten"

Dr. George R. Sinclair, Pastor

Gen. 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Ps. 45:10-17 or S. of Sol. 2:8-13; Rom. 7:15-25a Matt.  11:16-19, 25-30

July 6, 2008

                 “Ten” is perfect, so perfect our whole system of mathematics is based on it.  My wife tells me there are other bases that work equally well, but I like “ten”.  It’s the perfect number.  It even looks perfect, a tall, lean “one” and a slightly stretched “zero”. 

“Ten” is the engine of every computer.  Well, not really, but “one” and “zero”, switched on and off.  I understand that even less than math, but still I like “ten”.  We have ten fingers—usually—and ten toes, though I’ve read where little toes are becoming obsolete and may one day like wisdom teeth disappear.

God must like “ten”.  While there are only seven days in a week, there are “ten” commandments, which is three more than we need.  Likewise, God asks us to give one part in “ten” or a tithe of all we have, which makes “ten” everything. 

I like statistics—percentages.  I don’t know what got me started, but I’m fascinated by how many parts in a hundred a thing is.  For example, we have four hundred seventy-nine members. On any given Sunday, we’ll have about two hundred in worship or forty-one point seven percent.  I’m not sure what that means—forty-one point seven percent. That’s about four out of “ten”.  Having all four hundred seventy-nine here would be perfect.  We’d be ten for “ten”.  I’m disturbed that six in “ten” are not here.  It makes me wonder what we’re missing—depth of commitment—I don’t know what.  It also makes me wonder if maybe we should dance to a different tune, change things up a bit, jazzier worship, better preaching, and hand out thousand dollar bills. 

I wonder if Jesus was thinking “ten” the day he blasted Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.  You know, when he whipped out those “woes” and said Sodom and Tyre and Sidon, those really wicked Gentile cities, would have it better come Judgment Day. Maybe he counted them up—the citizens of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum—and it was a poor turn out, fewer than “ten”.  Jesus sounds frustrated: “We piped, you didn’t dance.  We wailed, you didn’t mourn.  What does it take?  John didn’t party and you said he had a demon. I came eating and drinking and you call me a glutton and drunkard.”

But I digress or maybe not because “ten” keeps rumbling around my head. The nearer to “ten”, the better we are—six out of ten; seven, eight, nine—out of “ten”. Ten out of “ten” would be perfect.  We’d have everybody. The whole family would be here, all present and accounted for.  It’s hard to get away from “ten”.

I envy Nadia Comaneci not that I want to be a fourteen-year old female gymnast. I envy her perfect “ten”. Some of you are old enough to remember the ‘76 Olympics in Montreal.  Nadia performed on the uneven bars and became the first in Olympic history to score a perfect “ten”, a feat she repeated six more times.  Imagine that:  seven “tens”. Now that’s perfection.

I used to play golf, but I gave it up. I put away my clubs in 1990 and haven’t touched them since.  I tell myself I quit because golf hurt my back and my knee.  Really, it hurt my pride.  When it comes to numbers, golf is even worse than baseball.  I mean, really, how good is “good” in golf—Even par?  And what is par?  It’s not exactly picked out of a hat, but close. Par is the agreed upon, right number of strokes one should play. I’m not at all surprised that the Scots created golf. Where else but in the land of John Calvin would you find that many consumed by “ten”? 

You have to love Calvinists—we measure everything—even play.  Who says the number of strokes in golf ought to be seventy-two?  Why not one hundred two?  People would have a whole lot more fun.  What’s the big deal about seventy-two?  If it was one hundred two, I’d still be playing!

“Ten” I suppose gives us something to “shoot for.”  And goals are good.  I’ve been trying for three years to lose fifteen pounds.  I lost twenty-five and want to lose fifteen more.  Will I be any happier at two hundred forty?  I don’t know, but I’ll be healthier.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  So goals are good—in health and in life, and, well, in faith.  Tithes and commandments, both “tens”, aren’t necessarily bad. 

We’ve had this running debate at Session about how much we should stress tithing.  Some think it’s a good idea. Others aren’t so sure.  You know, we don’t want to sound like John the Baptist.  We don’t want to sound too strict.  “You must tithe and if you’re not tithing you’re not a good Christian.” 

We haven’t had any arguments about commandments.  But, then they’re much harder to measure.  Tithes you can nail down. Of course, there’s that little debate about whether we ought to tithe gross or net income, but ultimately with tithing you can reach a number most everybody agrees with.  Commandments are different.  I mean, how do you know when you’ve crossed the line and broken the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me” or the second, “You shall not make for yourself an idol?”  How do you know a thing like that?  Is there a measure for when you haven’t put anything in front of God or made something into an image of God? 

Paul Tillich said “god” was whatever we are “ultimately concerned” about.  Have you thought lately what you are “ultimately concerned” about?  Find that and you’ll find a god; might be what you spend most of your time doing; might be what you spend your days thinking about; might be what you spend your money on.  We can put most anything before God and we can make most anything into an idol.  Idolatry is not about making little clay figurines. Idolatry is about where we vest our interest. Idolatry is about what holds us together, what we aim for in life. Idolatry is about what makes us tick.

We all know God with a capital “G” ought to make us tick.  God ought to be our “chief end.”  But if we’re deadly honest or rather when we meet the real God with the capital “G”, we know we come up short.  We agree that the commandments are good.  They are a “ten”. We delight in them.  But then we also know, again, if we’re deadly honest, that we’re held captive by another power. Paul called it “the law.” I’d call it the power of “ten”.   

When it comes to commandments we never score a “ten”.  “Ten” is always out of reach.  We never get there. It’s like, well, it’s like we’re standing on this pedestal and God is another thirty feet away and between us is this great chasm. We can take a running leap and maybe make it out eight or nine feet.  Or we train really, really hard and become the best jumper in the world and go twenty-nine feet. We’re the best in the world, but we’re still short.  That’s the power of “ten”.

Being good can’t get us to God.  We can’t get to God on our own.  We can’t score a “ten”, not even on our best day.  But then, God doesn’t ask us to score “ten”. God doesn’t even ask us to perfectly believe. God asks us to “learn from him.”  He asks us to walk in forgiveness, to be healed by grace. “Come to me, all of you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

Some years ago, twenty or more I guess, I moderated a congregational meeting where we were to vote on paving the church parking lot.  It doesn’t sound like a big decision now, but it seemed like a big decision then.  I don’t remember all of the particulars and it’s just as well, but I do remember the day of that congregational meeting and what I did. 

Worship had ended and the meeting had started. I was standing at the pulpit; folks were raising their hands, voicing their      opinions.  I really wanted that parking lot paved. I thought it was a good thing—progress. It would improve the look of things; bring us out of the Stone Age, no pun intended.

So, this guy gets up to speak.  And he’s hard of hearing.  He turns around to make his appeal.  He thinks paving the parking lot is a bad thing, that the time is not right.  And I, being the idiot I was, say to him, “Address the Moderator.”  He’s standing up in a front pew with his back to me so he can face the congregation to make his pitch.  And in my anxiety, in my need to be in control, in my will to win, I say to him again, “Address the Moderator.”

The guy can’t half hear and he’s     already nervous because he’s speaking in front of a group. And he gets addled. He doesn’t make a very good speech.  That wasn’t my intent, but that’s what happened.  He was all ready to make his speech and I threw him off track.  I embarrassed him, embarrassed him in front of the whole church. And the minute I said, “Address the Moderator,” which technically speakers are supposed to do in congregational meetings, the minute I said that I knew I had embarrassed the man, who was an elder, who had been on my search committee, who was a good-hearted guy. 

The congregation voted and I got my parking lot, but I felt absolutely terrible.  I went to the man that day and apologized for being such a jerk.  The man I had embarrassed said it was okay, but it wasn’t “okay,” not for awhile between us, but especially not between me and his best friend who had also been on my search committee and who protested my behavior by not coming to church and by withholding his pledge and refusing to speak.

I got a terrible fear built up over that.  It went on for months.  We had a Session    retreat not long after that congregational    meeting.  And the man’s friend who was      protesting sent a letter to the Session. He was supposed to be at the retreat.  He was on the Session. And right when the retreat started, he had a friend read a letter—his letter of resignation.  We’re supposed to be planning for the future, trying to be a church and this guy drops a bomb shell, which is just what his friend said he wanted it to be—a bomb shell.  It worked. I was blown away and sank into a deep pit.   

This went on for months—this terrible fear in the pit of my stomach.  It got so bad I didn’t want to be around folks.  We had a church dinner one night, a choir party maybe, thirty or forty people.  And I thought if I didn’t get out of that room I was going to blow apart. 

I stayed miserable for a long time and then finally one day I’d had enough.  The guy who was so mad at me lived just up the street. I could see his house from my house. The Enemy.  The Dread.  One day, I said, “I can’t take this anymore. I’m going to have to see him face to face.”  So I walk up there and he’s sitting in his house.  And he opens the door, invites me in and has an uneasy smile, which I thought strange. He was older than me by fifteen, maybe twenty years. I was just a young guy. And he was older, a football coach, real gruff exterior. 

Anyway, when I go in his house I    realize he’s not going to devour me. In fact, he’s kind of timid, which I found strange.  So we talk.  And I tell him that I’m sorry about embarrassing his friend and that I could just as soon do without the stupid parking lot. And the whole time I’m talking I can see him becoming a whole lot less tense; and I became less tense. I felt lighter.  We talk for maybe forty-five minutes, an hour. And we near the end of our     conversation. And he says to me, “You mind if I ask you something?”

And I say, “No, go ahead.”

And he says, “Will you be my pastor again?  I’m ready to let you, if you’re willing.”  By that time we’re both fighting back tears and embrace each other good bye.

I think, no, I believe, we have to       embrace our failings in order to know grace.  We learn from what we suffer.  Failure puts us on speaking terms with our greatest weakness, which makes us far more conversant with the failure of others.  Failure makes us aware of our smallness and the vastness of God’s goodness. 

Oddly, by embracing our failures, we are freed from the central illusion of virtue.  We are rescued from the power of “ten”.  We are rescued from the need to be good or right or beautiful or whatever we think makes us safe or better or saved.  God rescues us.  We don’t save ourselves.  We have a Savior who gives rest to our souls.  Amen.