A happy Palm Sunday! I'm so glad you're joining us. Next week, we're going to celebrate Easter all together online. It's going to focus on hope. It will be creative; it'll be glorious. I hope you'll be with us.
I want to say thanks to all of you who are part of our church family and who have been supporting our church financially in this season. You know, we're all watching the virus spread, the stock market fluctuate, and unemployment go up in ways that have been very painful. Now, uncertainty increases, and we all know part of what this means for our church is that our mission to help people find and follow Jesus is needed now more urgently than ever. Almost every organization, nonprofits included, face real challenges, and I'm so grateful. Thanks to very prudent stewardship, we are well prepared for this season.
I want you to know that our team is working hard to run as lean as possible. We want to care for our congregation; we want to care for our staff. We believe God is calling us to retain and to compensate every single person on our staff just as we have been doing. We want actually not just to maintain but to expand our capacity to care for the needs of our world.
So Nancy and I have been thinking about and praying about how we can help, and we've decided to give back half of my take-home pay to our church for as long as our church is not able to gather corporately at campuses for worship. That's just a tangible way of saying we want to try to do our part in a season that is full of challenge.
If you are in a situation of financial hardship—and a lot of you are—we're praying for you. If you're in a position of being able to give, please know that that matters now more than ever. We wanted you to know we are with you, and I want to say thank you to all of you who so generously give and help us to move forward.
Now, we're looking today at these remarkable words: "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation." Well, we are in a situation. What in the world would it mean to be content in the middle of a global pandemic with illness, death, and uncertainty? Is it even right to think of contentment in this situation?
So I want to say, to be content in a situation does not mean to be content with a situation. It is not complacency or apathy. Actually, rightly understood, for you to be content right there where you are—sheltering at home with people who may be driving you crazy so that you're starting to feel like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining"—to be content in the biblical sense would enable you to give a great gift to others in this season.
I want to talk about three different ways of dealing with the problem of desire that's underneath discontentment. People have followed these three different ways to try to arrive at contentment. These three different ways will be represented by three different people who were all alive in the same city at the same time, about the year 60 AD, precisely when those words about learning the secret of being content were written.
The first person representing the first way was a man named Nero, and he knew the secret to contentment was to gratify desire. We all want stuff; we all feel better when we get stuff. So the pathway to contentment he decided was to make sure he got everything he wanted—gratify desire.
Nero wanted more power. When the emperor died—his uncle Claudius—his mom, Agrippina, was Claudius's fourth wife. Claudius is said to have died by eating a mushroom that Agrippina poisoned. Nero made a deal with some soldiers, the Praetorian Guard, who decided to back him in his quest for the throne. He became the emperor of Rome, the richest and most powerful man in all the known world. He ruled over one-fifth of the world's population. The army that dominated the earth was at his disposal.
He wanted more fame, so he declared himself an actor, a poet, a musician, and a charioteer. He went to Greece and bribed his way into the Olympics and won every single event that he entered. He competed in a chariot race and fell out of his chariot, had to quit, but was still declared the winner on the grounds that he would have won if he hadn't fallen. He enjoyed this so much that while he was in Greece, he kept entering contests and won 1,808 prizes, and they were all first prizes.
That was good, but he wanted more. He wanted more luxury. You may know in 64 AD there was a great fire that destroyed much of Rome. Ancient historians said Nero himself set the fire so that he could build what was called the Golden Palace. He erected a statue that was 90 feet high. Guess who it was a statue of? It's called the Colossus of Nero. He wanted more pleasure, and the tales of his sexual partners and experiences would make any 21st-century figure look tame by comparison.
Unfortunately for Nero, more was never enough. He was really good at getting more, but it was never enough. His relationships were a train wreck. He divorced his first wife, Octavia, and had her exiled, but when the people didn't like that, he accused her of infidelity and had her executed. In 58 AD, he felt like his mom was crowding him too much, so he arranged for her to take a little boat ride where the boat would sink and mom would drown. Unfortunately, she survived, so Nero had to send some other minions to stab her to death.
When Nero considered members of the nobility untrustworthy, he would send them a message: "Open your veins," which meant, "I want you to commit suicide before I have you executed." His desire for more, of course, cost more and more money, so he had to raise taxes and eventually devalue the currency. He was the first one to do that in Rome, and eventually, because of the financial problems, he became the most hated man in the empire. Until eventually, on June 8, 69 AD, the Senate had Nero named the enemy of the people, and the Praetorian Guard turned against him. In the end, friendless, hopeless, joyless, meaningless, on June 9, 69 AD, Nero opened his veins. That's the way of more.
Nero had a teacher, a tutor named Seneca, who followed a second path. Seneca was a Stoic. He taught that trying to gratify your desires all the time is a fool's game because it makes us depend on circumstances beyond our control. For the Stoic, the wise path was to eliminate desire or to repress desire. That's how you become content. For Stoics, what mattered was not the ability to conquer cities or armies or markets; what matters is the ability to conquer your inner spirit, your appetites, and desires and emotions.
The great virtue of the Stoics was the Greek word "autarky." "Auto" was the word for self, like "autobiography." So they taught the road to contentment lies not in acquiring more but in training yourself to want less. "Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power," Seneca said. In Stoicism, the great goal is peace of mind, and suffering was a disturbance of mind. So the primary task was to distinguish by reason what is in my control and what's not in my control and focus only on what I can control.
Seneca said, "It is not the man who has too little but the man who craves more that is poor." So Seneca says, for instance, the wise man might want friends, but he doesn't need friends because he is self-sufficient. Fascinatingly, the writings of Seneca have been enjoying a burst of popularity right here in Silicon Valley. There have been articles recently in the New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes, and many other publications about how the Stoic emphasis on self-denial, personal austerity, and self-mastery are more popular than ever.
The CEO of Twitter is regularly taking cold baths. Elizabeth Holmes wrote of reading Marcus Aurelius while her blood testing company was going under. But numerous writers note the irony of tech leaders reading the Stoics while being obsessed with making more money, living in bigger mansions, flying faster private jets, and becoming more and more famous—all quite un-Stoic.
It turns out that Stoicism is difficult to live out consistently. Trying to hold down your desires is kind of like trying to hold a beach ball down underwater; it just keeps wanting to pop up again. This was true for Seneca. His writings are remarkable and often admirable, but he had a hard time living them out. After his pupil Nero became emperor, Seneca became his advisor. He became the first professional political speechwriter in history. When Nero killed his own mother, it was Seneca, the virtuous Stoic, who wrote the speech Nero gave, claiming that his mom actually committed suicide after failing to seize power from her son. And it worked; the Senate believed that. The Senate loved it. Nero was grateful, and Seneca the Stoic became fabulously wealthy. He had property in Egypt, he had property in Spain, he had property in southern Italy. He once bought, no kidding, 500 matching citrus wood tables with ivory legs. You don't get those at IKEA.
The ancient writer Cassius says Seneca was so wealthy that he loaned the Britons the equivalent of two billion dollars and then insisted they pay it back when he knew that they could not. That triggered a war with them trying to get out of the Roman Empire. Brexit goes way, way, way back. Eventually, Nero and Seneca did not get along so well anymore, and Seneca knew what happens to Nero's ex-friends. For Seneca, this was perhaps not such bad news. Part of what he taught is that human life is not particularly sacred, has no particular transcendent meaning; it's really just about avoiding suffering. So self-destruction was not that big a deal. To take your life was not thought of as a result of depression or what we would call a mental health issue; it was an act of self-autonomy. Life was not a gift from God to be stewarded; it was about avoiding suffering.
Seneca wrote, "You asked what is the path to freedom? Any vein in your body." So one day in 65 AD, Nero said to his old teacher, "Open your veins." In one of the most famous deaths of the ancient world, Seneca slit his wrists, and then when that was taking a little too long, he took some poison and then got into a suffocating warm bath just to make sure the deed was done. Seneca had written, "Freedom from care costs only a scalpel prick," and now he was free from care.
Unless, of course, the Stoics are wrong and life is not without meaning, and the avoidance of suffering is not its highest purpose, and self-sufficiency is not our highest calling, and death is not the end. There was precisely in those same years another man in Rome. It's possible Nero never met or even heard of him, although Nero very probably ordered his death. It's very likely Seneca never heard of him, although he had surely heard of Seneca.
This man did not live in a palace; he did not win the Olympics; he did not own ivory-legged coffee tables; he did not tutor kings or make loans to nations. He didn't write speeches for Caesar. But a strange thing happened. One of the reasons people are pretty sure he wrote his letter to the Philippians while he was in Rome is that at the end of the letter he writes, "All God's people here send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar's household."
The Roman historian Tacitus says that when the great fire got set, Nero blamed it on an obscure little sect called Christians. He had them burned alive to light his feasts. And yet there they are, those dear little Christians right there in Caesar's household. Paul was not propped up by soldiers in the Praetorian Guard; he was imprisoned by them. And yet, and yet, the strangest thing happened. One of the reasons people are pretty sure that Paul wrote Philippians from Rome is that at the beginning of the letter he writes, "Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear to the whole Praetorian Guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ."
The guard served Nero, but Nero drove him crazy. The guard imprisoned Paul, but Paul captured their hearts. Now, at the end of Paul's letter to the Philippians, he gets around to the main reason, humanly speaking, for writing, and that is to thank them for a gift that they sent him. He makes this remarkable statement: "I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or living in want."
Now, Paul here is agreeing with the great Seneca and other Stoics. In fact, he deliberately borrows their word "autarky" to describe his situation. It's the only time Paul uses this word in all of the New Testament. He says, "I have learned to be content." In other words, it is an acquired skill; it requires practice and cultivation.
Now, this flies in the face of conventional wisdom in our day, which constantly teaches that you are not or should not be content and that contentment could be just one purchase away. "Use me, drive me, wear me, eat me, only flaunt me, put me in your hair, and you will be content. If you just get more, one day it will be enough." But the fact is, nobody has ever moored their way to enough. In fact, Paul says he has learned to be content not just when he's poor but when he has too much and lives in abundance, which sometimes misshapes us even more than having too little.
There was an article in USA Today a couple of weeks ago that said a sense of superiority may be why drivers of pricey cars have a problem with pedestrians. Now, you would think if more leads to contentment, that people who have the nicest, newest, most expensive cars would be the nicest, politest, most grateful, and gracious drivers. But they are not. Oddly enough, a study found that the more expensive the car was, the less likely the driver was to stop for a pedestrian and the more likely the driver was to actually be a jerk. The worst people were people that drove—you will not want to hear this, I know—were C-Class drivers. The second worst people who drove Mercedes. The third worst, oddly enough, were Prius drivers. Somebody says it's because it's hard to drive and pat yourself on the back at the same time.
Sometimes people ask the question, "What would Jesus drive?" Well, Jesus would drive a Honda, which is what I drive. We know this from the Bible, where it says the disciples were all together in one Accord.
Anyway, Paul proudly stands here with the great Stoics, with their heroes Socrates and the slave Epictetus and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the wise Seneca, who lived maybe only a few blocks away from Paul. Paul says, "I too have acquired over time that independent spirit which is able to withstand the ups and downs of life, free from anxious striving. I too stand among the wise and have no longer dependent on my circumstances or other people for my inner well-being. I have learned the secret."
And now, of course, here we all want to know: What is this secret? How has Paul gained this power? And here's where he parts company not just with Nero, not just with the obviously foolish people who spend their little lives craving for more money and more power and more fame. Interestingly, there was a book written a few years ago called "The Secret" that says the secret in life is you can get more by thinking positively about getting more. No, Paul not only parts company with him; he also parts company with Seneca and Socrates, with the wise who have become self-sufficient and self-directed and self-protected.
"I have learned the secret of being content. I have the power to face all situations through union with the one Christ who continuously gives me strength." His secret is the grand paradox of life. His unconquerable independence is, in fact, complete dependence on another. His apparent self-sufficiency comes from his union with the one who alone is also sufficient—Jesus.
Paul's life is not about the mastery of suffering or the escaping from inner pain—not at all. His life is about being part of the triumph of love. Paul, a tricky little man, has not renounced desire at all; he's redirected it, he's refocused it, he's transformed it. In fact, his desire is larger, deeper, hungrier, and vaster than ever.
People sometimes confuse Christianity with Stoicism. They think Christianity teaches self-denial for its own sake, that the virtuous person, the mature Christian, is someone who has no desires, just kind of a weak appetite and little person. But with Jesus, every call for death to self comes only so that another self can be born that is more noble, that is glorious beyond your wildest imaginings—to be part of a redeemed world and a flourishing life so wonderful that it can only be hinted at in pictures and images and poetry: streets of gold and robes of white linen that stand for the character of the saints, and feasts that will never end, and mountain streams that course with Chardonnay for crying out loud, and trees that clap their hands, and swords beaten into plowshares, and God, the tear-wiper, in Jesus, the death-slayer.
I love these words from C.S. Lewis: "Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy has offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because they cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
So, gang, the word that comes to us today about contentment is not a Stoic word. It's not, "Don't expect too much; master your emotions; ramp down your desires; lower your expectations." It is, in fact, the opposite: Do not be too easily pleased. Understand it's not a bad thing you have desires; it's real good. The reason you have an infinite capacity for desire is because God has an infinite capacity to love and to give. So don't you settle for anything less than God. Do not be too easily pleased.
This is why Christian contentment is not the same thing as complacency. That's so important in our situation today. We are not content with the world like this—not today. We are not content with ourselves as we are—not today. We get to partner with God in His project to bring His love into a sick, suffering, broken, fearful, uncertain world. And as a church, that's what we're all about.
I'll give you one little example. That's a story that I love. Our San Jose campus—some of you watching this regularly attend there—hosted a safe parking program in March. Due to COVID-19, lots more people lost income, and more people needed this space. So a couple part of our campus there decided to pay for a family of five to stay in a hotel instead of having to sleep in their car in our parking lot so that the case manager could have time to find a motel voucher. This family of five consisted of a single mom with four children, ages 1, 9, 13, and 17.
We just got word—I just found out about this before letting you know about this message—from the case manager that the family has been housed. The case manager said, "I'm truly thankful for you and the Menlo team. I definitely could not have done it without all of you at Menlo. I am lost for words and cannot say thank you enough."
Now that's contentment! Way to go, San Jose! Get your hopes up! Get your hopes up that God will use you to help change the world. Get your hopes up not that you will get enough, but that God will give you enough power to love and to give and to bless and to serve and to even suffer with joy.
Get your hopes up that faithfulness to God, obedience to God, generosity in the name of God is worth it, even if it's hard, even in the middle of sheltering at home, even with contagion and fear all around. Find the sufficiency of Jesus in the midst of it. Find His strength. Find meaning in your suffering. Find joy in the generosity of people who care about you. Find hope in the promise of life beyond the grave.
Be deeply, fiercely, resolutely, achingly, vulnerably content right where you are in this situation, this day. Be deeply content with the people in your life, not because it's okay that they are the mediocre, slavish versions of themselves—that they are, after all, you are too; I am too—but be content because God made them and God loves them. God is at work in them, every one of them, and there is a glory in every human being that would make you drop in awe and wonder if you could see it the way God does.
Be content with your clothes because what matters is you can clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and love, and they never wear out and they never go out of style. Be content in your work because if you give someone a cup of cold water in Jesus' name, or write an email, or make a sale, or teach a child, or fix a car, or lead a meeting, or volunteer online—if you have no other work to do in Jesus' name, then great is your reward in heaven.
Be content in this moment—not regretful over a yesterday that you can never have back, not anxious over a tomorrow, no matter what it holds in terms of health or finance that you can never control—in this moment. Because if you're going to find strength from the Jesus who will give you the power to face any situation, it will have to be in this moment because this is the only moment you've got.
Don't seek to be invulnerable; be vulnerable—achingly vulnerable. Vulnerable as the tentmaker in chains, vulnerable as a defenseless Messiah riding into town on a donkey, vulnerable as a rabbi on a cross. And you will, you will, you will—I promise—discover the power of God in the midst of your vulnerability in a way that the proud, self-sufficient Stoics around you will never know.
Don't waste this season. Don't waste your little life begging for more. Don't waste it on money and climbing. Don't be too easily pleased. Find not more, but the God of more than enough. Our team wrote a song about that that I love, and I want to invite you to listen to that song and then get ready to walk through this week—Holy Week—with the God of the moment.
Then log back on next week and join us for a glorious Easter. I'll see you then!
on Nov 05, 2023
