Sermon Library
“Adding It All Up”
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
August 17, 2008
Service Theme: Pentecost XIV - 2008
Source: Matthew 6: 25-34
Pentecost XIV-2008 August 17, 2008
Adding It All Up
Matthew 6: 25 – 34
Gregg Anderson
The title Adding It All Up this morning is from Rick Moranis. Mr. Moranis is an actor and comedian. I believe he is known in movies such as Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Spaceballs. He writes this brief caricature entitled Adding it All Up. I do not know if I should admit this or not, but I found it in Readers Digest.
“I have two kids. Both are away at college. I have five television sets. I have two DVR boxes, three DVD players, two VHS machines and four stereos. I have nineteen remote controls, mostly in one drawer. I have three computers, four printers and two faxes. I have three phone lines, three cell phones and two answering machines. I have no messages. I have forty-six cookbooks. I have sixty-eight takeout menus from four restaurants. I have one hundred and sixteen soy sauce packets. I have three hundred and eighty-two dishes, bowls, cups, saucers, mugs and glasses. I eat over the sink. I have five sinks, two with a view. I try to keep a positive view. I have thirty-nine pairs of golf, tennis, squash, running, walking, hiking, casual and formal shoes, ice skates, and rollerblades. I’m wearing slippers. I have forty-one 39-cent stamps. I have no 2-cent stamps. I read three dailies, four weeklies, five monthlies and no annual reports. I have five hundred and six CD, cassette, vinyl and eight-track recordings. I listen to one radio station all day. I have twenty-six sets of linen for four regular, three foldout and two inflatable beds. I don’t like houseguests. I have one hundred and eighty-four thousand frequent-flier miles on six airlines, three of which no longer exist. I have 101 Dalmations on tape. I have fourteen digital clocks flashing relatively similar times. I have twenty-two minutes to listen to the news. I have nine armchairs from which I can be critical. I have a laundry list of things that need cleaning. I have lost more than one thousand golf balls. I am missing thirty-seven umbrellas. I have over four hundred yards of dental floss. I have a lot of time on my hands. I have two kids coming from college for spring break. I am not sure what we are going to do.”
What is Important?
When I first read this article, quite a while ago, I knew that I wanted to save it and it expressed something important, even though I was not too sure what that was. I would like to know what Rick Moranis had in mind. Perhaps it was just an observation of life that I suspect we can all find similarity. I think it has something to do with what is really important in our lives in contrast to all the stuff and things we have in our lives. Perhaps he was saying that after adding up all his things, spending time with his children is most important, no matter what it is they will do together. What is important is not what they have, but what they have in simply being together.
We can all get caught up in things and more things and making sure we all have the latest. We are bombarded with hundreds of advertisements everyday cleverly convincing us that we desperately need what they have to sell. We really enjoy the times we can buy one and get one free even though we really only need one, but you know it was free. We all know that we have more things in our lives than we really need and we all know what is really important in our lives, but it still remains a bit of a challenge for us to sort it all out and remember what is really important when we add it all up.
We All Have Numbers
We all have a lot of numbers in our lives. As soon as we are born we are given numbers in writing, born August 17, 10:05 am, weighing in 7 pounds, 5 ounces and he’s 20 inches long (Micah Scott). Those numbers are subject to change, so parents send in those numbers to the government agency in charge of numbers and they assign the child a 9 digit number that is his or hers for life and cannot do anything else in life without that number. As the child goes through grades 1 through 12, graduates number 28 in the class. He or she is in the 95 percentile height, 75 percentile weight. His IQ is 114 and grade point average is 3.22. He can run the hundred in 12.3 seconds and has a part time job at 7-11 and makes 8.27 an hour. He gets a number for his address, phone, checking account, credit card, auto registration, license plate, insurance and even a parking ticket. We have numbers around us all the time; numbers on the clock, on the calendars, in our appointment books, on our computer, cell phones and all our remote controls. We could go on and on with this, even paint by numbers, we don’t live without numbers and even when we die we are assigned another number.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
A number of years ago a psychologist named Richard Carlson wrote a best-selling book entitled Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. He got the idea for his book one day while driving his 6 year old daughter home from school. They were caught in rush hour traffic. They spent 40 minutes going 12 miles an hour. As they sat in their car, Carlson’s daughter looked out at all the people in the other cars, also creeping along. She turned to her father and asked, “Daddy, why are all the people in the cars mad?” He concurred that they did have grim, anxious looks on their faces. He knows they probably were not mad, but they sure didn’t look happy. It caused him to reflect on the causes of their unhappiness. Perhaps they were adding up the time wasted on the freeway or where they needed to be at a certain time. Or perhaps being stuck in traffic gave them the chance to think about their lives, you know, to add up their lives. Dr. Carlson must have thought that being stuck in traffic is not the worse thing in the world and perhaps he could use the time to have a good conversation with his daughter. They would eventually get home and make the best of the moment and the present right now.
The full title of his book is Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – and It’s All Small Stuff. You are born. That’s big stuff. You die and that’s big stuff. Everything in between is small stuff. Well, that seems to be an exaggeration to me and life is not quite that simple and there are many things in-between which are extremely important, but perhaps it can be a metaphor to help us always place life in perspective. I always like to say to myself and sometimes to others, “Let’s keep the bigger picture in mind.” You know when you add it all up – what is important?
Richard Carlson did write another book in 2002 which was entitled What About the Big Stuff. In 2006 he wrote another book entitled Don’t Get Scrooged: How to Thrive in a World Full of Obnoxious, Incompetent, Arrogant and Downright Mean-Spirited People. It was about being responsible for one’s self and being pleasant in the moment even when that around you is not. In 2006 he was promoting this book and during a flight from San Francisco to New York he suffered a pulmonary embolism and died at the age of 45. His last chapter in his book Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff was entitled Live This Day as if It Were Your Last. It Might Be!
Having the personal privilege (and I think that is the word) privilege of performing about 400 memorial services (and that is about the number) I have learned more about life because of death than 1 high school, 1 college, 4 graduate schools and some 1700 books read. When people add up a person’s life during the memorial service I have never heard anyone ever say how many things the deceased owned, how much he or she had made or how many trophies they have won. I have heard, however, every time about how the person lived, loved, served and gave.
Sermon on the Mount
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? God knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.”
Two paragraphs just before these magnificent words of advice, Jesus also said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where you treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
We have heard these words. I love this part of the Sermon on the Mount. We have to be reminded about it constantly, however, because it is so easy to slip into all those little anxieties of the day, like putting up with road construction on highway 82 and stalled in the roundabout right in front of this steeple – which should be a reminder to all passing by what is important in life. Our stained glass windows are from the Sermon on the Mount.
I am not the wisest person in the world, but Jesus was and is. When the wisest teachers in Jerusalem asked Jesus to add up all the commandments and the laws in the world and tell them what is the greatest, Jesus immediately replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” When we add up our lives, this is what it is all about and is the most important endeavor above anything and everything else.
Adding It All Up In The Store by Diane Soutar
I mentioned that I found the article Adding It All Up in the Readers Digest.
Thanks to Google, I found another article in the Readers Digest also entitled Adding It All Up. I wonder if they know that they have had two different articles with the same title. Here is the other one written by Diane Soutar.
“At the stationery store where I worked, I noticed a young boy of about ten shopping alone with his school list. He placed everything in his basket and proceeded to the checkout. The young shop assistant told him the total price, $37.60. The boy was instantly downcast and said he had only been given $20. He took out one thing at a time until he got down to his $20. With eyes brimming with tears, he asked if he could ring his mother to pick him up. When he got through, it appeared that even this was inconvenient for his mother. He bit hard on his lip to stop the tears and walked outside to wait on the bench in front of the shop. This was all too much for the young assistant who had served him. She kept popping outside to see that he was all right. Coming back into the shop, she said, “I wish I could afford to pay for the rest of his things.” One of the other girls said she had a few dollars. Then two others said they could help as well. These four young girls pooled their money and rang his extra purchases up on the register to find they had more than enough money. With great excitement they raced around and picked up the other school supplies he had to leave behind and took the bag out to the boy on the seat. His young face changed from sadness to the most beautiful, humble smile. His mother arrived much later to pick him up, but he didn’t just run to the car, he ran back into the store and called out, ‘Thank you!’ I was so proud of my team that day. They did something wonderful for that lad and also found the pleasure of giving was as great as receiving.”
Let’s see, who said that first? Oh yes, it was Jesus. Actually, he said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” It is quoted in the book of Acts, chapter 20, verse 35, page 189 in the second testament in our pew bibles. I just thought of mentioning that, you know, for those of us into numbers and like to add it all up. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson Aspen Chapel 0077 Meadowood Drive Aspen, Colorado http://www.aspenchapel.org