--Robert Pollock
Warm-up: Jeremiah 2:1-19
Our old dog sits beside me as I write, a far away, unfocused look in her eyes. I can't help but wonder what she's thinking about.
One thing I'm pretty sure she's not thinking about is the meaning of life. The Far Side not withstanding, dogs don't think about what life means; only what it provides.
We human beings do, however and there's the rub. We do ponder the meaning of our existence and ask ourselves those hard questions: "What is the meaning and purpose of my life?"Who am I?""Where did I come from?"And "Where do I go from here?"
It's not that we want to think about such things; we have to. Something (or Someone) keeps pushing those thoughts into our minds. And the problem, apart from some outside help, is that there seem to be no answers--only questions that lead to deeper questions, confusions and cul-de-sacs.
We work hard all our lives, endure a never ending round of frustrations and then we die, which is the biggest frustration of all. All our "harvest fields,"Francis Thompson says, "are bedunged with rotten death.""Why go on,"we ask ourselves, "when we all end up under the ground, pushing up daisies, nothing more than a small mound of compost?"
"You know what's funny?"Dilbert's colleague, Ratbert, asks. "I'll tell you. You're working hard. I'm doing nothing. In a hundred years we'll both be dead.""You may not need to wait that long,"Dilbert snarls over his shoulder as Ratbert leaves to spread gloom in some other place.
Erich Fromm, the psychoanalyst, makes the point in one of his books that given the frustrations of our existence, the real question is not why people lose their minds, but why more people don't. He writes, "Considering man's position in the world, his separateness, aloneness, powerlessness, and his awareness of this, one would expect this burden to be more than he can bear, so that he would literally, go to pieces under the strain."
Some folks do go crazy, of course; they crack up under the strain. Most of us, however, as Fromm goes on to say, "avoid this outcome (insanity) by compensatory mechanisms like the overriding routine of life, conformity with the herd, the search for power, prestige, and money, dependence on idols.... All these compensatory mechanisms can maintain sanity, provided they work, up to a point."
What Fromm is saying is that our thoughts about life and death are so powerful and pervasive that we have to find a way to protect ourselves from them. That's what's behind our drive for money, power and success. That's why our efforts--whether they're pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science, or a Black Belt in Karate--always have a compulsive feel to them. We become single-minded and obsessive in our pursuits so we can forget; so our anxiety will become less oppressive.
Fromm calls these works "compensatory mechanisms. God calls them cisterns: "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water"(Jeremiah 2:13).
Cisterns, of course, are just holes in the ground--reservoirs for storing rainwater or run-off. In ancient times they were usually pear-shaped with a small opening at the top. Most were small, but one has been excavated in Jerusalem that had a capacity of over two million gallons.
Picture yourself swinging a pick, digging from dawn to dusk, excavating the hard, unyielding ground. While others are playing golf, swimming, fishing, vacationing, gathering with family and friends you stay on the job, working through the biting cold of winter and through the blazing heat summer when the sun turns your cistern into a kiln.
After years of strenuous, demanding labor you finally achieve your purpose: you complete the hole on which you've invested your best years. Then you step back and wait for your cistern to fill--and the doggone thing leeks. There's a crack or flaw in the tank; perhaps the stone is too porous or the lining leeks. You find what every one of your neighbor has found, or will find, that cisterns, no matter how well constructed will always leak.
So, we think, we'll just dig another cistern--take our project back to the drawing board and draft a new, improved version. We'll work harder, work longer, work somewhere else, make it work this time.
But reality always settles in. It's just a matter of time. Our projects work, "only to a point"Fromm said. In the end we run out of money, energy, time or some other resource and every effort becomes utterly meaningless. We "come to the cisterns and find no water; (we) return with our vessels empty"(Jeremiah 14:3). We find ourselves in that state of bitter and utter despair Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard called "the sickness unto death."
You may remember Robert Ringer and his greed-inspiring book, Looking Out for Number One. In it he tells the following story:
In my early 20s I had the good fortune to be introduced to a wealthy old Wall Streeter. A "Wall Streeter"is used here as an investor who spends each day watching the ticker tape and maneuvering money in and out of stocks at hopefully opportune moments.
Harold Hart epitomized a typical Wall street success story. Though struggling as a youngster he was now a millionaire many times over. He had it all. The biggie came one evening when I came to visit Mr. Hart to do a deal.
When I arrived I found him resting tranquilly in his favorite chair, with servants waiting on him hand and foot. I sat there awhile waiting as he stared blankly into space. Finally he muttered, "You know, nature has played a great hoax on man. You work all your life, go through an endless number of struggles, play all the petty little games, and if you're lucky you finally make it to the top. Well I made it a long time ago and you know what? It doesn't mean a damn thing. I tell you nature has made a fool of man and the biggest fool of all is me. Here I sit, in poor health, exhausted from years of playing the game, well aware that time is running out and I keep asking myself, Now what genius? What's your next brilliant move going to be? All that time I spent worrying, maneuvering--it was meaningless. Life is nothing but a big hoax. We think we're so important, but the truth is, we're nothing,"
Ringer tells the story because it convinced him that he, unlike the old tycoon, would enjoy his wealth when he finally accumulated enough to enjoy, but my money goes on the bet that he never accumulated enough to enjoy. Enough is never enough. "Earthly riches,"said Augustine, "are full of poverty."
Isaac Walton writes in the Compleat Angler, "There are money-getting men, men that spend all their time in getting and then in anxious care to keep it, men that are condemned to be rich and then are always busy and discontented."
That's the explanation for those busy, discontented men and women who have more money than they can ever spend yet remain driven by an insatiable desire for more. Their wealth means nothing; the game is the thing. All our projects--whatever they are--are doomed to failure. Whatever the object of our quest, we learn when we find it that it does not contain the satisfaction for which we seek.
"Success is an empty bag,"Ted Turner said recently in an interview with Barbara Walters. "But you've got to get there to know it."Emily Dickinson put the same thing another way: "Success is only sweet to those who ne'er succeeded."
"Sweet success"in an oxymoron. Success can only leave us with a ravaging thirst for more and a growing sense of bitterness and despair. We follow emptiness, Jeremiah says, and we became empty (Jeremiah 2:5).
There's a reason for that emptiness. God in his infinite love and wisdom has foiled us. He has seen to it that our endeavors fail to satisfy us because he loves us too much to let us go. He will deny us and thwart us until there is nothing left but God.
Perhaps you're a cistern-digger, driven by soul-thirst, pining for satisfaction. Only God can satisfy your heart. Everything else will only deceive and disappoint. But Jeremiah paints another picture. A "spring of living water,"rising from hidden depths, pouring into our hearts, always flowing in abundance, always available (Jeremiah 2:13).
James Taylor writes, an unwitting truth-sayer like Gamaliel...
There's a river running under your feet--
Under this house,
Under this street,
Straight from the heart;
Ancient and sweet,
On its way back home.
There's a river of God's love flowing at your feet. Put down your pick and shovel. Stoop down and drink. "Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life"(Revelation 22:17).
In C. S. Lewis' The Silver Chair, the young girl Jill finds herself transported into a strange land because of her own pride and foolishness. She is lost and very thirsty, and looking for a stream. She finds a brook, but she also finds the Lion, Aslan, a symbol of Jesus, lying beside it. Aslan growls and tells her she may come and drink.
"May I... could I... would you mind going away while I drink"said Jill.
The Lion answered with a look and a very low growl and as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
"Do you promise not to--do anything to me if I do come"said Jill.
"I make no promise,"said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
"Do you eat girls?"she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,"said the Lion.
It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
"I daren't come and drink,"said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst,"said the Lion.
"Oh, dear!"said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream,"said the Lion.
David Roper
9/15/97