Near the beginning of Arthur Miller's powerful drama, The Death of a Salesman, we find that Willie Loman's adult sons have come home and are sitting in their old bedroom reminiscing. They are talking about the good old days when they were growing up together, but then their talk turns to the present and the future - subjects not nearly as pleasant as the past. The younger of the two, Happy, has a job, is trying to get ahead, and is as hopelessly optimistic as his father. The elder son, Biff, has rejected a traditional livelihood and has chosen a counter culture life working as a ranch hand out west. He says: "I'll tell you, Hap, I don't know what the future is. I don't know what I'm supposed to want...To devote your whole life to keeping stock or making phone calls. To suffer fifty weeks a year for a two-week vacation. And always trying to get ahead of the next fella. But, I guess that's how you build a future."
His younger brother, Happy, responds: "All I can do now is wait for the merchandise manager to die. And suppose I get to be merchandise manager? I don't know what in the world I'm working for. Sometimes I sit in my apartment all alone. And I think of the rent I'm paying. It's crazy. And I am so lonely."
As the play unfolds, an ominous future begins to loom. Willie Loman, the quintessential salesman, is not going to realize his dreams of financial success, security, and prestige. It's all bluster and hype, a game of self-deception which everyone understands - his wife, his sons, his friend. He can't pay his bills, and finally he loses his job, his dignity, his purpose. And he begins to invest what hope he has remaining in his own death. He begins to imagine all the people who will come to his funeral.
He boasts, "That funeral will be massive. They'll come from Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire. And all the old-timers with the strange license plates. That boy will be thunderstruck, because he never realized, I'm known."
And, of course, when it happens, there is no large funeral. Only his family is present.
A colleague tells of seeing the stage production of this drama in a theater in Chicago. And he says that when the play ended, an interesting thing happened. Most of the audience was in tears and so was the cast. The applause was strong and sustained, and even when the final curtain fell, most of the audience hung around for a few more minutes and took a long time to exit the theater. It was almost as if everyone understood that they had not only shared a powerful artistic experience, but something else as well.(1) They had encountered one of the fundamental human questions: What do we do with our lives so that they will amount to something?
It is a question that all of us ask ourselves at one time or another. How can we insure that when we reach our final days, our life will be recognized as triumph, not tragedy? The answer is that we must latch onto something which will give our lives meaning and direction. In this morning's passage from the Gospel of John, it appears that such a concern was on the minds of two men who were disciples of John the Baptist. The passage tells us that John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples when Jesus walked past them, and John exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God." And at that moment, these two disciples of John left him, and began to walk along behind Jesus. After a few moments, Jesus turned to them and asked them the critical question: "What are you looking for?"
They respond, "Teacher, where are you staying?" And Jesus says, "Come and see."
In other words, when Jesus asks, "What are you looking for?" They respond by saying they think they have found the very thing which will give their lives meaning and direction, but they want to take a closer look. They want to spend some time around Jesus, to see if he is the answer to their deepest longing.
What are you looking for?
As we close out the twentieth century, we find that people in our country are very restless. We enjoy a higher standard of living than ever before, yet many people are searching. More and more people are recognizing that neither entertainment nor pleasure nor sports nor financial security are enough for a good life. You can have all of these things yet still experience a restlessness within your soul.
Listen to these words of a very wise man. "There is so much frustration in the world because we have relied on [lesser] gods rather than [the one true] God. We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate. We have worshiped the god of pleasure only to discover that thrills play out and sensations are short-lived. We have bowed before the god of money only to learn that there are such things as love and friendship that money cannot buy...money is a rather uncertain deity. These transitory gods are not able to save or bring happiness to the human heart. Only [the one true] God is able. It is faith in Him that we must rediscover."(2)
These are the words of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. And although he spoke these words over forty years ago, they apply to our lives today as much as ever. Had Dr. King's life not been snuffed out by an assassin's bullet, he would have turned 70 years-old this weekend. And it was this occasion which prompted me to read several of his writings during the past week.
I was humbled by his wisdom and his convictions which sprung from his faithfulness to God. He was neither searching nor drifting like so many in our culture today. He had found his purpose, and he knew the direction for his life. Like the disciples in this morning's passage, he had found the Messiah and he was committed to following Christ faithfully.
The reason so many people today have a void within their lives is because they fail to follow Christ. They may use God for their own purposes, or they may have bought the popular notion that fulfillment is found in positions of authority where we are able to tell others what to do. But they forget that Christ gave us a new formula for greatness. He said, "Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant." (Matt 20:26). Faithful followers of Christ seek to live as he lived and seek to do what he did. They are not always looking for some personal advantage in their dealings with others. When we commit ourselves to following Christ, it changes not only the way we live, but it shapes our approach to everything.
If Martin Luther King, Jr. had not been a committed Christian, he surely would have done things differently. He had tasted the bitter injustice of racial segregation. He had experienced the reduction in freedom simply due to the color of his skin. He had had enough, and his people had had enough and he could have easily proclaimed a doctrine of hatred for white people. Some leaders, both black and white, inflamed the animosity between the races, and some even called for violence to be used in the struggle. But Dr. King never preached a gospel of hatred. He took the words of Christ "to love our enemies" literally, and he taught the importance of non-violent resistance.
Here are the words from a speech he gave in 1957. "The nonviolent resister does not seek to humiliate or defeat the opponent, but to win friendship and understanding. This is the cry we had set before our people in Montgomery, not to defeat the white community, but to win the friendship of all the persons who had perpetrated this system in the past. The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of the beloved community. A boycott is never an end in itself. It is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor, but the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption."(3)
Such words of love and understanding and concern for the adversary emerged not from a carefully calculated political strategy, but rather from a vibrant religious faith. Dr. King had a life of intense meaning and purpose not because he sought power or riches or a life of leisure, but because he sought to follow his Lord faithfully.
What about you? Your presence in worship indicates that you're on the right track. You have already figured out where to look for purpose and direction. So, what would Christ have you do with your life? Where specifically is God calling you to focus your attention? Look around. Become aware of the needs which exist that you can do something about, and then commit yourself to following the way of Christ. You will discover the purpose for your existence.
NOTES
1. This story is shared by John Buchanan in his sermon, In the End, Our Beginning, preached at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, on November 15, 1998.
2. Coretta Scott King, The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr., (New York: Newmarket Press, 1958), p.63.
3. From a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1957.
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