Rev. Edmund A. Steimle Sermon, 1964-04-15, The Final Horizon

race beyond to you in fees from god our father and from our lord jesus christ all men no doubt when you've been driving along in a car especially in growing country you've played the same sort of little game with yourself that i have as you come up over a rise we're around abandoned the road you've made a brief mental note of the next arrives and another hill or bend in the road and then gone back to enjoying the more immediate sites along the way and then when the horizon has been reached the process is repeated the trick becomes in a very quiet and almost subconscious way the conquest of one where rising after another we do the same sort of playing far more consciously and

definitely as we move along the road of life of course for life is a succession of horizons samir and some full and the conscious recognition of them helps make the intervening times more meaningful and significant the immediate horizon maybe simply dinnertime tonight with certain specific tasks to be done in law or for those raising a family there's a more distant horizon day when the youngsters will have on the crew and established homes for themselves meanwhile we tangle with the problems of education and preparing them for that day knowing that there will be an end to it now all this of course is little more than common sense it's the country's recognition of horror ry it's in life which helps make

meaningful and significant the immediate what about life's final it's rare these days that a person takes the same commonsense conscious recognition of the final rites the fact that one day he will die sometime ago an intriguing little story appeared in the new yorker it was a story of a man on his way home from the office on a rainy friday evening to face a cluster of minor problems involving the various members of his family and among a teenage son who'd taken the car without permission and then give up a wife suddenly prodding by imaginary symptoms occasion by an article and pernicious anemia and she had picked up and read at her hair dressers and they're so

before and a father who was getting too old to live as he wanted to live alone in his own large house the problems were minor unfamiliar and he had handled them all before in the same familiar way from the expected lectured to his son jocular reassurance to his wife to the customary talk with his father about the advantages of a small right apart on that rainy friday evening as he made his way home he happened to see a man who had just been run down by a car lying dead in the middle of the street and for only the second or third time in his life the final rise of which of course had always lurking about

long shadowy an almost unreal game sharply into focus he suddenly realized that he too along with those you love will also died one day and it made a difference when i got home at night a lecture to his son came out as expected but it seemed unreal and inconsequential as if he were not really talking with his son nor could he summon up the expected bantering tone with his wife to reassure her that she was played with imaginary demons he tried but it didn't come off when he got to his father he simply gave up and simply told him that if he wanted to live in his own big house there was no good reason why you should the star then goes on to indicate these subtle changes that went on in the

lives of the members of the family as a sudden as a result of the sudden recognition in this landslide of the final whereas but the point of the story it's not simply the fact that changes occurred in these lives as a result of this sudden open recognition of that the point is that the author had to use the rather drastic device of dramatic coincidence a fatal street accident at the precise moment when he was leaving the office to bring that point home and also but the new york they thought nothing unusual enough to warrant publication the new yorker was right of course one of the

striking characteristics of our time is the absurd lengths to which we go to keep that out of sight and out of mark there was a healthier and a brighter day when that along with all the other basic essentials of life like for the married and the bearing of children and the raising of the family was openly accept as an integral part of life's experience the burial ground for example surrounding the church stored in the center of the community it was there and there was no sense of trying to avoid it you know moreover a man was buried from the church each the same place where he was that clause and marion and sat with his children and wife of a sunday morning

today as you well know we kind of burial grounds on the outskirts of the town where we really have to look at them and if we can actually hire them we tried to hide them behind euphemisms like memorial park slope a name at least will not tolerate too strong and odor of that moreover today a man is usually buried from a funeral hall and this is curious you know it's a place which is used for no other purpose and where you and i never entered except at the time of that precisely as if we wanted to put that into parentheses it is reported that william randolph hearst you accumulated vast power and

wealth in his lifetime would never allow anyone to use the word that in his throat and much in our life today exposes the same boat frankly and openly taking into account every other horizon and my fixer and as a result there is an underlying anxiety which infects our lives and nameless dread which often enough never even rises to the surface to be recognized for what it is until perhaps you happen to run across a man lying dead on the street on a rainy friday evening please do not misunderstand the intention here is not to be morbid it is quite the opposite if there is anything more

about that it arises out of a refusal to face it and take it into account we stand this morning in the afterglow of east with all the joy and triumph which that they bring us as a matter of fact as you will know for the christian every day in the year is baby in the victorious glow of the resurrection that every sunday the first day of the week is a celebration of that picture but the victory is not a hollow what jesus did not just go on living after he was crucified he died but he stole all of it and was very

calm for him and it's only as we face that fact you say that that's the last enemy had come and that it's a it's full say that the eastern joint can mean anything but the last enemy had been conquered by god had raised him up from death to life again but the final horizon had been over there the whole fleet real isn't about the bible it doesn't shout its us to any of the facts of life it looks every single one of them squarely in the eye takes them all into account stand even so unbelievable so and then announces triumphantly in the face

of all of this the lord god omnipotent rain which is why contrary to what a lot of people today seem to believe the earliest christians did not go around talking about what a wonderful an unselfish life is jesus of nazareth lived before he died and how we ought to follow his example the earliest sermons did not content themselves with excerpt haitians to live the sermon on the mount and the practice the golden rule this is somewhat early christians talked about at all know the record is perfectly clear on this the earliest christian preaching amount of that three of the resurrection over debt they were religious it's there's no sense telling people to live good lives and love their

neighbors until the lurking anxiety in every man's life that has been brought out into the open taken into account and convert now does this clear eyed realism make any practical bent let's suppose instead of constantly pushing the thought of the final horizon into the background and attempting to avoid it as much as possible it's brought frankly into the picture taken into account what difference does it make it will make at least one big difference for our inner serenity of mine what paul calls the peace of god which passes

all understand this is not a superficial piece of my god we get on a satisfying vacation for example when we get away from the tensions in service anxieties of life and enjoy the peace and quiet of sunshine in florida in the weather or in the mountains in vermont or the lake in minnesota alone in the summer there's a great deal to be said of course for this kind of refreshment this kind of peace of mind but it's temporary and song you know it only serves to underline the deeper tensions and anxieties of the rest of the year until we wish we could get away from it a wall all the time instead of for just a few weeks there is a deeper some of which comes from a man who takes that

into account for one of the big causes of our anxiety which leads to all kinds of results is the constant fear of being found out every day of our laws records the little deceptions in which we tried to hire what we really all over the world from our friends from our family it's even from ourselves sometimes of course these little deceptions a perfectly innocent like a woman using lipstick because everybody recognizes the deception for what it is more frequently however they may be dangerous even poisonous it's amazing for example how much of our time week after week is spent simply just

define ourselves and our actions and even our motives for other and to ourselves or of justifying herself were little shopping extravagance is particularly think about mark swed is you have to justify it you know the husband constantly justify himself because he doesn't spend more time with the children or crack open a discussion which is directed into an argument and from argument into an ugly better moral and almost invariably you'll find the cause for the bitterness as ben this consuming urge to justify ourselves and the urge to justify ourselves arises out of the fear of being found out we are consumed

by the desire to appear to be right where as you and i know that deep down we are not right that no judgment no motive of cars is pure mix and so we go on day after day hiding behind our deceptions just define ourselves fearful that someone gave on those we love wife husband children will find out what were really lie down and say no if at the end of the road when we reached the final rites there is nothing but the very fact that we will be found out but wiesel stand in the face of him from

who knows secrets or it isn't surprising that we tried a bannister fought hard our cemeteries yet funerals out of a church and a funeral home someplace at the blue underwear death or as the christian knows an inner serenity he takes debt and this business of being blown out which is what the judgment really me into account brings it out into the open and into the present tense or the god or face him then at the end of the row when he will be seen without any pretense or defense cesium not for what he really is and offers to accept as he actually it is which is what

forgiveness of course me and what a relief you know here and now i don't know but there is one who sees us just as we are in a way we are on winning for anyone else to see us in a way we are unwilling even to see ourselves and i sat then you see these silly pretensions is futile business of constantly trying to justify or so or seen for a while and we can accept ourselves big cause god sees us and accepts as precise as we are certainly in a serenity the varied piece of thought this is what makes it possible to handle the

surface tensions and anxieties of life because the deeper anxiety has been resolved by our willingness to accept god's love and forgiveness for us just as we are so the christian life might well be described as the art of living with debt and there is no current weekly satisfying part of living or style of life apart from that so pollack i'm writing something about life here and now that we are more than conquerors org because he has been persuaded that that law last annan has been taken into

account and a straw and the results in your lives in miami is an increasingly violent mess such as edna st vincent millay has described when she wrote all up from the ground sprang up high and hailed the earth with such a cry as is not heard saved from a man who has been de loops whose son went out to join but first he suffered pain and entered into glory

before he was crucified mercifully grant that we are walking in the way of the crops may find it none other than the way of life and peace through the saint jesus christ or the peace be

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