Success? Seriously!

Luke 12:22-34

June 19, 2016

Mark S. Bollwinkel 

We really count on our parents to define “success” for us as we grow up.  It is often their expectations and boundaries that shape who we are, good or bad. 

Here’s an example of one set of parental values that have had a powerful impact on our culture.  You may be familiar with the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling: 

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same; 

If you can…watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss; 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son! 

Nobel laureate Kipling wrote these words in 1895.   Such values defined, and in many ways continue to define, “success” for a man, specifically in our northern European culture.  Let’s not pretend otherwise, these words were intended for men, specifically English men.   Yet these concepts permeate our Northern European dominated society affecting all genders and cultures to be sure!

Humility, honest self-evaluation, perspective and perseverance are admirable qualities for anyone. Yet the stoicism that denies pain, refuses to ask for help and the work ethic of exhaustion…“filling the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run”…can become negative qualities that affect anyone too.  Especially men.

The multi-tasking region in which we live brings many benefits; high incomes, lots of possessions, varied options for recreation and the future.  Yet it also comes with great costs; multi-tasking stress contributes to addiction, relationship failures, family struggle and personal levels of anxiety and depression. 

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, women are twice as likely to develop depression as men in the United States.  One out of seven men will experience depression six months after becoming unemployed.  The highest likelihood for male depression is in retirement.  Men are three times more likely to commit suicide as a response to depression than are women.  (60% of the average annual 33,000 gun deaths in the USA this last decade were suicides, predominately by men…senior men…[NYT 10/08/15]) 

While generally women measure their worth by their relationships, men do so by task.   Male identify and worth is so tied to work performance, and the traditional roles of providing for one's family, that unemployment or retirement can become a crisis in a man's life.   We rate our self-esteem by our job titles and how close our office is to the CEO's.   We measure our worth by the income we produce and save.  

Our gospel lesson this morning, found only in the writings of Luke, would suggest that even those living in Palestine 2,000 years ago knew all about the priorities of material excess. Our text challenges us to consider how much is enough.   

Jesus refers to ravens, birds and lilies to illustrate natural glory and beauty.  And then reminds the listener how fragile and transitory this life is, “…the grass of the field is here today and gone tomorrow…” maybe a reminder from the Hebrew book of Ecclesiastes; "eat, drink and be merry...for tomorrow you will die…" (8:15, Isaiah 22:13)  Jesus is suggesting another option if we become “rich in God”; “Seek first the Kingdom of God and all else will be given you….”   

How much is enough? 

Considering the way we live here in Northern California,  one has to wonder if our definition of success includes the option for anything less than…“filling the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run.”  

We see this in the stress our young people go through about their options after high school graduation.   Every parent wants the best for their children.  Every mom and dad would do anything to see their son or daughter “succeed” in life.  Yet our kids shouldn't have to develop ulcers, depression, turn to drugs and alcohol or acting out behavior or consider suicide because their grades or SATs aren't good enough to get into Stanford.  There are other options in a young person’s life between homelessness and getting into the four-year university of their parents’ dreams! 

Of course we want our children to become all God wants them to be, to reach for excellence, to thrive.  But if in our parenting there is no room for failure, I can guarantee   you that the world will offer it in unkind ways. 

Some of you may have known about fathers who out of ignorance, meanness or a misguided pedagogy of self-reliance pushed and shamed their children to achievement. You know the kind of man I am talking about, one for whom you can never be “good enough”. 

There once was a rigid and strict Abbot Father of a monastery that required five years of absolute silence between individual meetings with his monks.  At the end of each five year period, the monks got to sit down with the Holy Father in his office and say two words…two words only…that is all they could speak every five years.   At the end of his first five-year period of silence, the new monk came into the Abbott’s office, sat down and was asked, “well my son, what do you have to say?” to which the new monk replied, “bed hard”.    Another five years came and went, again the new monk came into the Abbott’s office and when given permission to speak said, “Food lousy”.   Then another five years came and went and again the new monk came into the Abbott’s office.  When asked by the Holy Father, “What do you have to say?” the new monk replied, “I quit”, to which the Abbott replied, “Well, I am not surprised; you’ve done nothing but complain since you got here.”​

If you grew up with a father for whom you could never be ‘good enough’ you have a special challenge in life.    Parental voices of shame and disapproval can frame our living and stifle our growth especially when they are delivered as a means to “make us stronger” or “to teach us a lesson”.

For those of us who had fathers who taught us that ‘we were enough’ by virtue of our birth, we are blessed indeed.  That was certainly true of my own father whose unconditional love has shaped who I am.

The fathers we admire today…and we have many of them here in this congregation…not only provided for their families, they took the time to teach their four year old daughter how to ride a bike or the 16 year old son how to drive a car.  They are the fathers who read their boys to bed at night and played catch with their daughters in the back yard in the morning.   Thank God for all men, biological father figures or not, who teach children healthy boundaries in life by saying “no” without shaming them.  Thank God for the male teachers and pastors and relatives who can pull a young person aside to insist of their negative behavior “that is wrong and it can’t continue” without the child ever thinking that his love for them is at stake.    

The fathers and father-figures who have learned to balance the demands of life with fun and grace and humility teach all of our children what really is enough.  How much material wealth could ever buy us security in a life that by its nature is insecure?   Yet how much wealth in the things of God...which we call by the name love...can ever be enough?  It is what makes life worth living. 

Just months before his death at the end of a 16-year journey with Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Donald Minkler, Bonnie Bollwinkel's father, could speak very little.  Confined to a wheel chair and bed in an excellent dementia unit in the East Bay, Don could no longer eat solid food or care for himself.   Watching the decline of this brilliant man, a physician, San Francisco University Medical Center and UC Berkeley faculty member, recognized international expert in Maternal and Child Health, was painful and exhausting for his family.  His immediate family were certain there were moments when he could recognize them and his true self would still be there.  Their regular visits cheered them up as much as Don.   They didn't get a lot of time with their father during his professional life.  Oddly enough his illness was an opportunity for them to spend time together, which even with his limitations brought precious gifts. 

One day his daughters Bonnie and Jenny came to visit him in the unit, each bringing a favorite liquid treat that they knew their father always loved.  Bonnie a coffee-milkshake, Jenny a Mango smoothie.   They arrived at the same time and immediately identified the dilemma of bringing too much to comfort their father. 

Don had a wonderful sense of humor throughout his life, was a truly humble, self-effacing man.  His daughters teased him, holding out both cold and delicious treats, asking "So Daddy which daughter do you like the best, Bonnie or Jenny?"   

Don looked at both daughters and their bribes and was able to say clearly, "Me"!  thus avoiding the choice between two siblings and making a joke about himself.  It is a moment they will never forget. 

Don Minkler's huge success in life, like so many other male father figures and loving parental figures of either gender, wasn't defined by how much material wealth they had accumulated but by such values we find in Ralph Waldo Emerson's definition of "success": 

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to learn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have live.  This is to have succeeded.”

Amen.