January 26, 2003
By Jack Price

Series: Asset Management and the Search for Self

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN (Robert Frost)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

“If you have to ask ‘how much?’ then you can’t afford it. Maybe that saying is true and there are some people in this world who never have to ask. They can afford just about anything they want. There are others who never have to ask because they cannot afford anything. There are certainly lots of things I cannot afford to purchase and asking “how much” has probably saved me from some embarrassing experiences when payment is due. What is true in the store and in the showroom is also true for life and its meaning.

This is the fourth in a series of sermons on that aspect of Christian faith dealing with our deepest values, what we call “stewardship.” This series called Asset Management and the Search for Self assumes that how we manage our assets is connected in more than a casual way to the search, and the finding of, our true selves. Assets are pretty much everything we have within and around us including mind and body, relationships, possessions and talents, skills and interests – the whole package of stuff we bring the table in life. The “self” for which we search is that unique person God created to be you or me.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday – perhaps the greatest single day of marketing of commercialism in the world. The hook of marketing is getting something for nothing. Buy a product and you get popularity, status, and true happiness thrown in for free. The truth of marketing, however, is, “You get what you pay for.” The same truth applies to life itself. For true spiritual development and discipleship there is a cost. There is a cost to discover your spiritual direction, a cost measured in discipline and honesty. There is an additional cost to be on the spiritual journey itself, a cost measured in self-denial and self-sacrifice. If you are having second thoughts about being here now, about the journey of Christian discipleship, that’s understandable, but take heart, there is good news. Ultimately, you do get what you pay for.

Robert Frost’s poem The Road Less Traveled speaks of the cost and the benefit of taking an alternate route. The Bible uses similar images to describe this truth. On three separate occasions, Matthew’s Gospel talks about the cost of first finding, then following “the road less traveled.” You have already heard two of these read this morning. The third is from Matthew 7: 13-14.

“Enter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to perdition is wide and spacious and many take it; but it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” About this “narrow gate,” Elizabeth O’Connor says, “the facts about that gate are starkly simple:”

1. It leads to life -- against temptations, and false prophets, and glittering goals
2. It is a hard way -- easily turned aside or corrupted by the illusion that something can be had for nothing -- we go after the high prize with so little understanding of the cost and so poorly equipped to meet and withstand the armies that will do battle against us. We do not ask for courage because we do not know we have need of it. We are given over into the hands of the enemy without having discerned his shape on the horizon
3. Few find it – “It grows easy to imagine we are on the way when we are not. This is where the religious lose out on the Kingdom. They assume that because they are aware of the two ways, and because they have chosen the second, they are on it. This is to fall comfortably into the sleep of the crowd again. It may well be a ‘religious’ crowd, but it is nonetheless a crowd.”
(--Elizabeth O’Connor, Journey Inward, Journey Outward )

The cost of seeking self, of discerning call, of finding the “the road less traveled” and entering through “the narrow gate” faces and challenges each of us. Matthew’s Gospel again describes this quest as “treasure hidden in a field which someone has found; he hides it again, goes off happy, sells everything he owns and buys the field. ” John Sanford in The Kingdom Within writes of this parable,

There is an inner reality within each of us which is like a great treasure lying hidden in the field of our soul waiting to b discovered. When someone finds this inner treasure, and recognizes its value, s/he happily gives up all other goals and ambitions in order to make it real in his life.

The cost of finding this treasure is discipline and honesty. You need discipline engage in spiritual practice regularly. You need honesty to hear the truth applied to yourself and to embrace that truth. The path of least resistance invites and the disciple seeks to find herself/himself along another way.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls; when he finds one of great value he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it.” This brief parable at first seems to be a restatement, but close attention reveals otherwise. Here God is the merchant and we are pearls. When God finds one pearl of “great value,” God pays the cost even if it means giving up everything. We seek to be the precious pearl, to find the narrow gate, to take “the road less traveled” for our particular and unique journey.

We find salvation when we find the treasure of authentic self – created, gifted, and called by God to lives of meaning and service. Salvation also seeks us as God recognizes the precious though sometimes hidden value that is each of us, and sacrifices heaven and earth to have us. It’s not a question of faith or works, but both and a whole lot of God love.

Have you ever been to New York City? Everything there is a la carte. There is a separate charge for each course, for each side dish, and probably for sitting in the “non-smoking” section of the restaurant. Most of us are used to package deals with everything included in one cost. Life is kind of like living in New York City. There is a cost for finding your life path – not the easier road well traveled with bright lights and a smooth grade, but the uninviting road of honesty and growth. When and if you do find it, the cost of actually traveling that road is an additional one altogether.

Once again Matthew describes the cost. (Matthew 16: 24-26) “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?’”

You and I there is another way, a “road less traveled,” a “narrow gate” through which to enter and journey. This way holds the promise of hope, of discovering a life full of meaning and of fina life full of meaning and of finding who we are and what we need to do. The potential is there. In some way, this congregation exists because of a conscious decision to choose the narrow gate and the alternate route. Four years ago, when many of you chose to leave the church you attended together in a difficult and painful split, instead of dispersing or assimilating into other existing churches, you decided to ask what purpose God might have for you as a church, as a new congregation. That was a choice to walk the less-traveled road. I chose to walk that same road almost a year ago when I accepted the invitation to be your pastor and to ask my family to come with me to Kansas City. It seems this road less traveled is getting pretty crowded.

The cost of walking the path of spiritual growth and discipleship is self-denial and self-sacrifice. That may sound depressing like some “old-time” puritanical religious practice. But spiritual guide Francis Dewar does not think so. He says,

The old lie about self-denial … says that Christianity is about squashing your feelings, doing your duty and soldiering on regardless. It leads eventually to chronic exhaustion, cynicism, depression, …a well-recognized condition known as burnout and when we get into that, no matter how virtuous or good the work itself may be, it will not convey good news to anyone. …There is nothing wrong with self-denial, but we do need to exercise some care in defining what is meant by the first of those two words: …God calls you to discover your true self, that greater self that you could become, and to let it flower generously in some specific activity at [God’s] gracious invitation. To deny your self does not mean nipping this process in the bud. But allowing this flowering may mean foregoing popularity, or status, or your good name, or money, or power, or security; the kind of things that advertiser try to persuade us are essential. In other words, it will mean denying the self that runs after or clings to these things. …Our ego will need to be subdued and crushed – a painful process, very painful, but not a destructive one. …To the extent that our ego is not subjugated it will blight both the flowering and the fruitfulness.
--Francis Dewar Invitations: God’s Calling for Everyone

There is a cost involved to be on the road to life. Curiously, when all is said and done, the cost that seemed so great and seemed to be such a burden turns out to be the treasure we most wanted. Self-denial is like pruning your garden. We have to prune the false self in order to allow the true self to flower. Such pruning may involve letting go of precious things: popularity, status, power, security, or reputation. But in the pursuit of life, you get what you pay for.

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross literally “wrote the book” on issues related to Death [as] the Final Stage of Growth. “You must give up everything, she writes, “ in order to gain everything.”

What must you give up? Everything that is not truly you; all that you have chosen without choosing and value without evaluating … all you self-doubt that keeps you from trusting and loving yourself or other human beings.
What will you gain? Only your own true self; a self who is at peace, who is able to truly love and be loved, and who understands who and what s/he is meant for.
But you can be yourself only if you are no one else. You must give up “their” approval, whoever they are, and look to yourself for evaluation of success and failure, in terms of your own level of aspiration that is consistent with your values. Nothing is simpler and nothing is more difficult.

God help us as a congregation to pay whatever is the cost of discipleship; to do what it takes to discover life as you make it. Help each individual who desires to enter the narrow gate and walk the “road less traveled” to find courage as needed to release false self and embrace the person you have created us to be. Make us good stewards of all the assets you entrust to us. Amen.