Hidden Gems
8.
“Learning
to be Content with Whatever”
Philippians
4:4-13
First
Presbyterian Church
The
Reverend Donald E. Ray
August
14, 2011
Aaahhhh. That
would be the sound you might hear as I slipped into the pool after a couple of
hours of sweaty, tiring yard work, on a hot and humid July morning. Pruning
bushes and cleaning up the trimmings makes for attractive landscaping when
finished, but it takes tedious effort to get the job done. Contentment
may be in admiring one’s handiwork, or escaping the heat with a cooling dip in
the pool, but probably not in the clipping and the raking. We
are likely content when we are satisfied, comfortable, our needs and many of our
wants are met. We are likely not
content when we are distressed, hurting, struggling.
Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians, “I
have learned to be content with whatever. . . “ (Philippians 4:11) I
discovered this gem several years ago while working with patients in WCA’s
Medical Rehab program. Many of those
persons having lost mobility, ability to speak or do simple things like feed
themselves, were discontent with their current lot in life. Beyond
just unhappy, they lacked motivation to do the work of therapy that would help
their recovery.
Today’s gem I call a pearl. A
pearl is produced within the soft tissues of a shell mollusk. Naturally
or cultured, a pearl may be produced when an irritating, microscopic object
becomes trapped within the mollusk’s mantle folds and is encapsulated by the
same secretions that form the mother of pearl lining of the creature’s shell.
To be content is commonly defined as being satisfied
with what we have; which generally equates with satisfying, pleasant and
fulfilling. Contentment is commonly
linked with the circumstances that surround our life - things that come to us,
or that we work to garner and enjoy, to what we can claim as ours, to the
life-environment in which we find ourselves. A
dip in the pool just naturally brings a sigh of contentment.
By Paul’s’ measure, to be content is what we
make of whatever. Paul writes, “I
have learned to be content with whatever. . .”
Our gem is an image of contentment as learned, the
pearl produced out of irritation and wounding. Paul
writes, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I
know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty.” Then
significantly, he reverses the order. “In
any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of
going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.” We
can identify with the need to learn to be content with little, hungry, and in
need. It is not natural to be
content with our needs unmet. From a
baby, we cry when we are hungry.
But well-fed, having plenty, what’s to learn? That’s
when we just naturally lean back and sigh. But
is it? Through my early life on the
farm, by defined income levels, we lived below the poverty line. Well
fed, always—but having plenty, no. Common
church humor says that ministers work cheap. In
the class room of little I learned to
be content, or was it resignation. I’ve
not usually thought of my life as plenteous in material terms. My
thoughts have followed the train of how nice it would be if we had more_______. If
you’ve been there, you can fill in the blank. Then
I realize it is the times in my life I’ve had the “more” that my
discontent has probably been the greatest. There
is something about having a little more, even a lot more, that breeds the desire
for still more.
So it is about learning to be content with
whatever. Paul had the best of
teachers for his learning to be content
with whatever. He wrote of
Christ Jesus in the poetry that formed the basis of our Call to Worship this
morning:
Who,
though he was in the form of God,
did
not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but
emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
being
born in human likeness.
And
being found in human form,
he
humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—
even
death on a cross.
(Philippians
2:6-8)
Paul, when he was called Saul, had the plenty. He
had the form of godliness as a trained and practicing Pharisee. Passionate
about his religion, he led the security force charged with eradicating the
“Jesus follower” threat. You may
remember from a few weeks ago the black onyx his world laid at Saul’s feet.
Then, on the road, Saul met this Christ Jesus and he emptied himself and
then writes: “I have learned to be
content with whatever.” In the
transformation from Saul to Paul, his passion was not lost. Being
content is not about being passionless. Paul
was as intense about preserving the freedom in Christ as had Saul been about
protecting his religion from that freedom.
The difference is, Paul writes, “I have learned to be content with whatever.” Paul
was writing in reference to the financial support that had come to him from
Silence
is a friend who claims us,
cools
the heat and slows the pace.
God
it is who speaks and names us,
knows
our being, touches base.
Making
space within our thinking,
lifting
shades to show the sun,
raising
courage when we’re shrinking,
finding
scope for faith begun. (1)
The pearl is created with the mollusk taking the
irritant and making something precious of it. It
is in the nature of the mollusk to do that. Human
nature, it seems, is to be discontent with the irritants, deprivation,
discomforting circumstances.
Being content is the learned peace of mind and
spirit. Nearly two years ago, Mark
Hanson, who graciously accepts being identified as “Cindy’s husband,”
underwent surgery for a tumor at the base of his brain, happily benign. Upon
returning home, he posted an update for those of us who were following his
journey on Care Pages. Mark wrote of
going to the Barnes & Noble store after his pre op doctor’s visit and
reading some magnetic printed quotes. Mark
writes, “and there I saw it, Peace. I didn’t discover the thought, I
recognized it. You need to know that
this is what I believe about much of things in life and how we encounter them. Things
are what they are. At the risk of
taking a ‘Sunday morning’ tack, I believe strongly with larger life, we
don’t deserve things, we don’t earn them, we don’t have them coming; we
aren’t owed better (or worse), we don’t even have much choice. Life
is what it is. It is in how we receive and encounter the events that make the
path easy or strained. They just are
what they are. Probably were already there. So
be resolved to that. It is what it
is. Now let’s calmly just walk
through, take hold of a love’s hand and do our best.
Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where
there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those
things and still be calm in your heart.” (2)
The curriculum for learning to be content with
whatever includes learning the meaning of being content—what it is and what it
is not. Contentment is not the
grudging, numbing resignation to hunger and want. It
is not like the farmer Jesus told of, building greater barns to horde his
abundance for his soul’s ease. Being
content is not about abandoning the plight of others or overlooking the
distorted values, hopelessness and strife that plague our culture while we are
making peace with our own circumstances. Learning
to be content with whatever gives us the inner peace and strength that equips us
to be compassionately and effectively in that renewing
Clair Murray, Karen and I have just come from five
days camping with twenty-two children who for the rest of the weeks of the years
suffer abuse and deprivation physically, mentally and emotionally. Friday
evening, with the trailer secured, things on the home front caught up a little,
awed by the vision of a radiant sunset, a sigh of contentment escaped as Karen
and I slipped into the pool under the full moon. But
there remained in our thoughts and conversation, those twenty-two children. There
was also a contentment, not only in the beauty of the hour, not with our lives
or their lives, but with the message threaded through the week of screaming and
disruptions that the children think are the only recourse in their chaotic world
so bring it into camp - the message that whatever, they never escape, never are
rejected nor abandoned, by the love of God. The
contentment we need learn lest we be overwhelmed by the needs in life or drowned
in the plenty is in that pearl of great value - that nothing ever separates us
from the love of God.
Amen.
(1)
Come
and Find the
(2) Posted on CarePages.com, 11/1/2009 by Mark Hanson
Copyright © 2011 by First Presbyterian Church