Sermons for the Month
The Big Aristotle
DATE: December 31, 2000
SERVICE: Christmas I
TEXT: Colossians 3:12-17“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
Shaquille O'Neal is the given name of the most dominating player in the National Basketball Association right now. But the Shaq likes to play around with other monikers. The NBA giant has referred to himself in the past as the Big Continuity, and the Big Legendary. Sometimes it's Shaq-speare because the Bard of Bel Air enjoys quoting the playwright of Stratford. On the night when he accepted last season's Most Valuable Player award, however, the center for the Lakers said that "from this day on, I want to be known as 'The Big Aristotle' because Aristotle once said that excellence is not a singular act, it's a habit - you are what you repeatedly do." Over 2,000 years ago, The Little Aristotle wrote that "some [people] drink together, others dice together, others go in for athletics." O'Neal certainly falls into one of those categories, and - who knows? - perhaps the other two as well. Yet the Hollywood hoopster is on to something: Virtue, as Aristotle suggested, is a state of character gained by repeatedly performing good actions. Thomas Hibbs, a contemporary philosopher who teaches at Boston College, calls virtue "an acquired excellence of character that renders a person capable over the long haul of behaving in certain reliable ways." Our Big Apostle for this morning couldn't have said it better. In today's passage from Colossians, Paul crams together a list of 14 qualities and behaviors that Christians cannot get enough of: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, love, harmony, peace, unity, thankfulness, wisdom and praise. Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience are virtues one through five, characteristics that show the world that Jesus is now alive within us (v. 12). Forbearance comes next - an ability to "bear with one another" (v. 13), showing tolerance and restraint in the face of provocation. Next is forgiveness, a discipline that is divine in origin, not human - it always begins with the awareness that our merciful Lord has forgiven us first. Virtues eight and nine are love and harmony, clear and crucial requirements for the repair of a fractured and hate-filled world. The "peace of Christ" comes next, a power that is to rule in our hearts and connect with the 11th virtue - unity in the one Body of Christ (vv. 14-15). Paul continues his list with a call to be thankful. Then he rounds out the list with wisdom-teaching and praise-singing, with a reminder to sing "psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God" with gratitude in our hearts (v. 16). Sometimes these virtues seem to be in seriously short supply, especially when we find ourselves overwhelmed by the competing pressures of life, or when we unwittingly adapt to the cold and callous culture we live in. Perhaps we simply lose touch with the One who can supply our spiritual needs, or we have been battered by a brutal week and feel mentally, emotionally and spiritually spent. All the more reason to work on our virtues, the Big Apostle suggests, rather than to play to our vices. Yet, too often, we practice our vices more than our virtues. The medieval poet, Dante Alighieri, cleverly dealt with this curiosity in The Divine Comedy where he juxtaposes the so-called Seven Deadly Sins with their virtuous counterparts. For example, pride is a vice that sins against the virtue of humility. Greed battles generosity, envy fights love, anger crashes into kindness, lust lashes out at self-control, gluttony wrestles with faith and temperance, and sloth struggles with Christian zeal. This pairing of vices and virtues suggests that the best way to battle the Seven Deadly Sins is through strengthening at least seven life-giving characteristics. And fortunately, for us, in today's passage from Colossians, Paul crams together a list of 14 qualities and behaviors that Christians cannot get enough of, 14 virtues that should certainly be able to overpower the Seven Deadly Sins. But just how do we activate these qualities and put them to work in the world? The answer is practice. In virtue - as in athletics, as in most things - practice makes perfect. Thomas Hibbs, the Boston University professor, likens the acquisition of virtue to athletic training: Both require repetition and hard work, and both are most easily learned by following examples. While books and classes and sermons can be helpful, virtue is still best learned by practice, not through abstract thought - if you want to learn to shoot hoops, playing basketball beats reading a book about basketball. Virtuous living is a team sport, not an individual activity. This means that virtue requires a community of accountability and support, a healthy and unified body like the church. When our children go to Explorers' Club, Confirmation, Student Youth Fellowship, when adults participate in the LIFE groups, they absorb from their teachers virtues of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, love, harmony, peace, unity, thankfulness, wisdom and praise. A member emailed me this Law of Life a while back. It bears sharing: Whatever you give away today or think or say or do, will multiply about tenfold and then return to you. It may not come immediately nor from the obvious source, but the LAW applies unfailingly through some invisible force. Whatever you feel about another, be it love or hate or passion, will surely bounce right back to you in some clear or secret fashion. If you speak about some person, a word of praise of two, soon tons of other people will speak kind words to you. Our thoughts are broadcasts of the soul, not secrets of the brain. Kind ones bring us happiness, petty ones, untold pain. Giving works as surely as reflections in a mirror. If hate you send, hate you'll get back, but loving brings love nearer. Remember, as you start this day, and duty crowds your mind, that kindness comes so quickly back, to those who first are kind! Let that thought and this one direct you through each day... The only things we ever keep are the things we give away! "The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now... It is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of practice." His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog. There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death. The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved. "I want to repay you," said the nobleman. "You saved my son's life." "No, I can't accept payment for what I did," the Scottish farmer replied, waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel. "Is that your son?" the nobleman asked. "Yes," the farmer replied proudly. "I'll make you a deal. Let me take him and give him a good education. If the lad is anything like his father, he'll grow to a man with whom you can be proud."....and that he did. In time, Farmer Fleming's son graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin. Years afterward, the nobleman's son was stricken with pneumonia. What saved him? Penicillin. The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill. His son's name? Sir Winston Churchill. As we peer into a new year, it is helpful to remember that such virtues are not so much taught as they are "caught," in settings with families and churches - small communities that contain both teachers and learners who help each other to strive for excellence. We are in the best possible position - right here in this community of Faith - to be an incubator for the lifesaving virtues that our Lord wants to give us. With virtues like these, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, love, harmony, peace, unity, thankfulness, wisdom and praise, while we probably shouldn't strive to be the Big Jesus, it wouldn't hurt to shoot for being a Little Jesus. AMEN