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Is it just me, or are there a lot of people out there who don't care how they drive? 

How to Be a Busy Christian: Addressing the PC - Matthew 25: 1-13 - September 20, 2009 - Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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Is it just me, or are there a lot of people out there who don't care how they drive? Here's a brief catalog of what happened just in one after noon of driving: a young man ran a STOP sign in a parking lot and forced me to slam on my brakes to avoid him, then shook his head at me, as if I should be ashamed for slowing him down. A young woman came down a lane the wrong way in the parking lot, forcing me to stop and wait for her to narrowly squeeze past me, our mirrors almost touching. A man drove under the canopy at the mall entrance and stopped there, in a wheelchair loading area. A van driver got out and said to the parked driver, "This spot is for people in wheelchairs." The driver in the car pretended he wasn't paying attention.

This kind of thing seemed to go on and on, and I thought, "Somebody's got to say something about this." So I did - at the gas station on the way home, when someone cut me off for a spot at the pumps. That didn't go so well, partly, I'm sure, because of the way I said it. Sharon didn't literally crawl under the seat, but I know it was on her mind.

What's happening to our driving? We are talking, of course, about operating potentially deadly machines - a lot of them. Over 26,000 vehicles average per day come through this 31-11 intersection alone. With that many tons of steel sharing so little real estate at such speed, we can't afford to be rude or careless. But we are. Why? Some experts say it's about ego - "My agenda is more important than yours, so get out of my way." Some say it's about misplaced aggression - "I can't express this rage at home or work, so I'll do it here in the anonymity of my car." Some say it's about examples set in front of children - "Dad speeds and brags about it; Mom texts while she drives, so it must be okay." Some say it's about the brush with danger - "Whoa! Look how fast I drive!"

But more and more say it's about hurry. It's about lifestyles that are so cramped full of activities and concerns, that getting from one place to another as quickly as possible is the only way we fit it all in. Our driving is a symptom of lives that are unbelievably busy. And busy-ness is what I want to preach about in the next few Sundays. There are some people here today that will really be able to take these sermons to heart - you are looking at the way your fall schedules are shaping up, and you just don't know how to fit everything in. There are others here who may not be presently so much in the middle of the rat race, but you have faced that issue, and have discovered some tricks of the trade that have helped you to manage through busy times - and I'd love to know what you have discovered, because there is great wisdom in this room, and we can help each other. So, there's a little tab in the bulletin for your ideas, and there is a basket in the narthex. Write a couple ideas down - drop them in, and I'll share them in the upcoming sermons.

I suspect that for many of us, busy-ness is inevitable. We have multiple responsibilities and we can't help it. So, a part of these sermons will be to share some ways that we can maintain faith in the midst of busy-ness - how to be a busy Christian. But I also suspect that most of us could alleviate some of that busy-ness with a few adjustments. And so another purpose of these sermons is to make the case for shifting our priorities so that we can nurture a spiritual perspective in the midst of busy-ness.

Here's the thing - busy-ness is a spiritual issue; it affects our relationship with God.

And it has the potential of depleting our lives. I want to talk about that today, and I want to use a model from the business world. This is from Steven Covey's book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And in that book, Covey talks about maintaining the PIPC ratio. In this formula, P stands for production. It stands for living a productive life - including our work, our relationships, our spiritual wellbeing, our responsibilities, and so on. The other side of the ratio, PC, stands for our production capacity - the resources at our disposal so that we can be productive.

The thing is, the two sides of the ratio will always balance out. The only question is, will they balance out at a low level, or at a high level. For example, let's say you focus totally on production. You're getting to all your appointments; you're making all your deadlines, reaching your targets; working your plan. Busy. Busy. Busy. But, you're neglecting your PC. You're letting your production capacity get low. You're not taking care of yourself. You're letting yourself get physically run down; you're not taking time to stay in touch with God; you're not keeping good relationships, and so on. Sooner or later, that's going to balance out. Your production will drop to the level of your capacity to produce. You won't be very productive at all, because your capacity is shot.

But let's say you take another approach - you focus on building up your production capacity - what would that be? In the business world it would be maintaining your skills and your knowledge. In a wider world, it might be investing in good relationships, deeper faith, physical and emotional and spiritual self-care. Serving others so you feel good about your life. So you build up the right side of the ratio. And, again, it's going to balance out. Production will rise to meet the capacity. Steven Covey maintains that ineffective companies and individuals focus almost exclusively on production, and fail to invest in the capacity for long-term effectiveness. Effective people do the opposite.

I think that Jesus taught that same principle -- in different ways; one of the ways was to tell a story about ten bridesmaids. You heard it a few moments ago. Ten bridesmaids were waiting with their lamps for the arrival of the bridegroom. Nobody knows specifically just what wedding custom is behind this story, but a good guess is that part of the wedding would be a beautiful procession after dark, where the way was lit to the wedding feast by lamps that were held by well-wishers. Jesus describes ten of them: The five foolish bridesmaids rushed off to the wedding, but forgot to take oil for their lamps. The five wise ones took their oil, and were ready when the bridegroom arrived.

Now, traditionally it is supposed that this story says something about the end of time, and how we should always be ready for it. But the beauty of stories is that they rarely just have one meaning or application. And this story, I believe, has a great deal to say about how we live our lives day-to-day, and our capacity to produce. Typically, when we look at those five foolish bridesmaids, we jump to a conclusion that they were lazy, or frivolous, or self-absorbed, and then careless when it came time to remember their oil.

But maybe they were none of those things. Maybe they were busy. Maybe they were over-extended. And busy doing good things -- producing. It never says that they weren't good people staying busy and responsible - but they didn't put oil in their lamps! And so, when the time came to shine the light, they couldn't produce it. They sacrificed the long-term capacity for the day to day busy-ness. I think that we busy people are always in danger of doing that. It is a pitfall we must be constantly aware of.

This principle of investing in the long-term is something we have experienced in the life of our church over the last few years. Seven or eight years ago, we as a church were experiencing a significant financial crunch. The result of it was that we were not paying in full our Shared Ministry payments to the United Methodist Conference. We spent hours talking and praying about what to do. And the solution we came up with was totally counter-intuitive: we decided to expand our staff. We expanded our Director of Christian Education position, and we added an assistant pastor position. On the sheer surface of things, that seemed insane. We were missing our budget by $15,000, so we added another $12,000 to the budget. It was insane. But what we were really doing was putting oil in our lamps. Or, to put it in Steven Covey's business terms, we were investing in our production capacity. And I fully believe that the result was that our production rose to meet our capacity, the church grew accordingly, and we are making our Shared Ministries payments now. We may face that kind of decision again someday, and hopefully we'll remember the lessons of the past.

The same thing applies to our individual lives. We have become obsessed with time.

We have surrounded ourselves with time-saving devices - fast cars, fast food, instant cash, ready information, microwaves. It's like if we can just win the race, inner peace and spiritual grace will be the prize. Meanwhile we know that we could meet every deadline, win the race, cross every T and dot every I - and still end up with an emptiness inside. That may be what we're afraid of the most. That may be what keeps us running. But the answer may be something totally counter-intuitive. The answer may be slow down. You don't need to win a race. You don't need to get to the intersection first.

I read recently that one of the early French priests in the New World wrote this about the Native Americans he met: "They are never in a hurry. Quite different from us, who can never do anything without hurry and worry; worry, I say because our desires tyrannize over us, and banish peace from our actions." I believe there was a lesson missed there, as so many lessons were missed in that encounter. And all you need to do is drive down Route 81 during what we appropriately call rush hour to know that we have not learned that lesson yet. We are still tyrannized by hurry and worry, and there is much action, but very little peace of any kind in our actions.

I want to talk together about how to keep oil in our lamps. I want to talk about building capacity for great spiritual lives in the middle of busy schedules. So write your thoughts down and leave them in the basket. And if you find yourself running from place to place this week, remember: God will be there - even in the busy-ness. But sooner or later, God needs for you to slow down for some God-time. And you need it more than God.