6/9/24 Sermon

The other day my friend Lucas called me and asked if I wanted to go on a stroll through the botanic garden. Seeing as though its one of the best things about living here and my daughter Samantha works there, I couldn’t think of anything better to do on what was an absolutely beautiful afternoon. When he picked me up, he excitedly told me about this corpse flower that was in bloom. It turns out they only bloom for about 24 hours and it’s a pretty rare occurrence. I’d heard of these things but part of me always thought it was a myth. So, I did a quick wikipedia study of them on our drive in. I didn’t know it was the world’s largest flower. It’s also endangered. The botanic garden has two of them.

When we got to the building these flowers were housed in, you could see them through the window. They were massive. The one that was still closed looked like some weird alien pod and the one that was opened looked kind of like something out of little shop of horrors. Not that it was scary. I’ve just never seen a flower that massive in all my life. It was like 6 or 7 feet tall. Just the flower. It was stunning. I posted some pictures of it on Facebook. I mean it was breath-taking. Then you walk into the actual room it’s in and your breath is taken away. And you don’t want to take another one. They call it the corpse flower because it smells like rotting meat and dead flesh. It was putrid. I mean absolutely awful. Like a mixture of dead animal, rotten fish and bad cheese. It was honestly one of the worst things I’ve smelled in my entire life. And you had no choice but to smell it. It was so pungent that the smell permeated the entire room. It was one of those things where you’re glad you saw and experienced it but maybe one time is enough.

On these walks whether its through the botanic garden or just in our respective neighborhoods, Lucas and I usually talk about our sermons or what we’re studying and thinking about. Sometimes we share the struggles of our ministries or what we’re going through in our personal lives. It’s actually a beautiful friendship. He asked me as we walked through the botanic garden on our way back from the corpse flower what I thought I would preach about this morning. I told him it was graduation Sunday and that this one was a bit different because Isaac was going to be honored here along with Nick Shallmo and I felt like I should try to give them some advice or something. But I had no idea what would be good, universal advice.

Later that night, I found my mind drifting back and forth between graduation Sunday and that flower. I kept asking myself how a flower that beautiful could smell that awful. I thought about something in that moment that I wish someone would have told me when I was young and if they had said it me - which someone actually might have - that I was smart enough to listen. Especially as I was about to embark in life and meet all sorts of people and experience a bunch of new things. And what I wish someone would have told me or that I was wise enough to listen to is that there are going to be people and there are going to be opportunities in this life that are a lot like that flower.

They’re going to look beautiful and wonderful by all outside appearances. They’re going to entice you and want to draw you in. They’re going to present themselves as something almost extraordinary and out of this world. But when they open up, when the insides are showing, when you get close enough, the smell of death is going to fill your nose. Sometimes people put up beautiful fronts of what they and their lives are like on the outside only for you to find out they’re rotten on the inside. Sometimes situations and experiences are going to look wonderful and amazing on the outside only to leave you feeling rotten once you do them. It seems like pretty pessimistic advice if I were just to leave it there.

But I was thinking to myself that it’s easy to make that determination of other people and of things that happen in life. And I wondered to myself, what about me? Am I one of those people? Do I ever present that way? Do I give off a nice outward appearance to hide whats really going on in the inside? And the answer is of course I do from time to time. I’m not generally very good at it because I’ve always kind of worn my heart on my sleeve and I have a pretty expressive face which shows my emotions even when I don’t want it to. But of course I do from time to time. And there was a time in my life when I was around the same age as our graduates where I was probably truly rotten on the inside. I’ve even felt dead inside - I haven’t felt that way in recent memory - but I’ve felt close to it from time to time. I I began to think that maybe the advice I wished I received was less about people and things that present themselves one way and turn out to be another - I think I’ve always known that intuitively - but maybe the advice I wished I received was on how to safeguard against becoming one of those people.

I think the most important piece of advice to not becoming rotten or dead on the insides that I can give comes straight from this scripture in 2nd corinthians. And that’s this: be grateful. Be grateful. Live your life with an attitude of gratitude. Realize what privilege you’ve been given in this life just by being born where and when you were. Remember that it’s by God’s grace that you’re able to do the things you do and live the kind of life you have and extend that grace to others. Remember that not everyone has been given the things you’ve been given or had the opportunities or families or advantages you’ve had so far in life.

And so if you run into one of those people who are beautiful on the outside but seem rotten on the inside, give them grace. Because they’re probably like that for a reason. It’s most likely for protection or because they haven’t been shown the same love and care that you have. So while the easiest and safest advice is to protect yourself against these people who present one way but are another, maybe the best and yet the hardest advice is to extend to them grace and love. Don’t lose yourself to them or be overcome by how they are. But give them grace and hold true to yourself by being grateful for all that you are and all that you have.

The enemies to gratitude, the things I think that will make you rotten faster than just about anything are twins. They accompany each other and walk hand in hand. And that’s entitlement and expectation. In recovery circles, they call expectations premeditated resentments. They can set you up for failure because life doesn’t work by expectations. Life is a case study in expecting the unexpected. And so expectations can lead to disappointment and a sense of failure. We expect things to go one way and when they don’t, we become disappointed, frustrated, and resentful. I suppose it isn’t always awful to have expectations - like we should expect the people we love and who love us to treat us a certain way - but we need to keep those expectations in check. And we cannot think that we’re entitled to things.

I wish when I graduated from high school someone had really drilled into my head that I wasn’t entitled to anything - that life or this world didn’t owe me anything. I have to work and earn it. Standing here in my 40s after trying to work hard most of my adult life, I feel even more strongly that the world or God or life doesn’t owe me anything. That I’m not entitled to a thing - even to what I think I’ve earned. If I truly got what I earned or deserved - if I’m brutally honest with myself and with you - I should really be dead or in jail by now.

But I had people who intervened. People who took enough interest, enough care, gave me enough grace, who didn’t run at the smell of my own rot - People who tried to give me a chance at something better. I didn’t earn my opportunities. They were given to me through grace - through God’s grace and the grace of others. And not all the time, but there are these moments where I’ve been able to realize what amazing privilege I have - how amazing my life truly is - and I’m filled with a profound sense of gratitude for that gift of grace. And I realize I’m owed nothing. But rather, I owe it to the world and I owe it to others to use what privilege I have in order to make this world better for others. That’s at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. That’s the core of the Christian message. God has given you so much. So be grateful for it and use it to make life better for others.

Now, I know that what I’ve just said is contrary to what our society would have us think a successful and meaningful life is - especially when you’re young and about to walk out the door to conquer the world. We think that ambition and the will to succeed, tenacity and a cut-throat attitude are what’s needed to get ahead in life. Its about going out and taking what you think is yours and producing more and out-working others is how you get to the top. But to the top of what? The biggest and one of the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen in my life is one of the worst smelling things I’ve ever experienced to the point I can’t even stand being in the room with it. Sure the lilacs and roses are smaller, not nearly as exotic or rare and they don’t draw the crowds. But they smell amazing. I would take a room filled with lilacs over another moment with a corpse plant.

So as you move forward in this life- wherever it takes you, whoever it puts you with, and whatever you decide to ultimately do - do it with a constant sense of gratitude, remember all the grace thats been given to you to get you to this point, extend that grace to others, moderate your expectations, and let go of entitlement. And I promise you if you do those few simple things - no matter where you go or what you do, life won’t stink. It’ll be beautiful and you’ll be a beautiful person that others want to be around. And if you ever struggle to find something to be grateful for - remember this church - remember that tucked away just north of Chicago is a whole community of people praying for you, rooting for you, and willing to help you do and be your best in this life. And if that’s doesn’t give you gratitude, I’m not sure what will… Amen…