Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
The Sixth Sunday of Epiphany
February 11, 2007
W. Gregory Pope
Who Is Writing the Story of Your Life?
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Harold Crick is an auditor for the Internal Revenue Service in the recent movie Stranger than Fiction. Crick, played by Will Ferrell, is a lonely, anally retentive man who does the same thing every day. Throughout the film there is a narrator narrating his entire life as it is happening. At the beginning of the film, he cannot hear the voice.
The movie opens with the narrator (voiced by Emma Thompson) describing his daily activity:
Every weekday, for nine years, Harold would brush each of his 32 teeth 76 times. 38 times back and forth. 38 times up and down.
Every weekday, for nine years, Harold would tie his tie in a single Windsor knot instead of the double, thereby saving up to 43 seconds every morning.
And every weekday, for nine years, Harold would complete 7.134 tax files as a senior auditor for the Internal Revenue Service.
. . . only taking a 45.7 minute lunch break and 4.3 minute coffee break. Timed precisely by his wristwatch.
Beyond that, Harold lived a life of solitude. Harold would walk home alone . . .
He would eat alone . . .
And at precisely 11:13 every night, Harold would go to bed alone, placing his wristwatch to rest on the nightstand beside him.
One day Harold begins to hear the narrator’s voice, and he thinks he’s losing his mind. And when he hears the narrator say something about his impending death, it almost sends him over the edge. He goes to a therapist and tries to explain what is happening. He says:
I am somehow inextricably involved in some type of story. I’m like a character in my own life. But . . . see the problem is that the voice comes and goes, like there are other parts of the story not being told to me and I need to know what those other parts are before it’s too late.
Harold discovers that he is the subject of a novel-in-progress, and he is listening to the author as she writes. This particular author, however, always kills off her characters. So Harold begins a search to find the author to persuade her not to write his death. And in the process of believing his death to be imminent, he tries to live differently.
In the words of the narrator:
It was remarkable how the simple, modest elements of Harold’s life, so often taken for granted, would become the catalyst for an entirely new life.
This narrator-author is writing the story of Harold’s life.
Who is writing the story of your life?
The answer is not a simple one.
If we look at our scripture lesson for this morning, we discover that a man named Jeremiah believes that God is writing the story of his life. He has heard God say to him that before Jeremiah was even formed in the womb God called him to be prophet.
There are several ways to read a text like this. There are those who would say that God writes every line in the story of our lives, that we are not free to make choices but that our lives are already written. I do not read this text in that way. I do not believe that our lives are preordained, that our stories were written before our birth and we are simply fulfilling the script like an actor in a play. God has desires for our lives, some specific, some general. But we are free to choose.
I believe God had a prophetic calling for Jeremiah. But Jeremiah, in his God-given freedom, could have chosen not to be a prophet, even though that is what God wanted.
I believe that there are many authors writing the story of our lives, and that we are the primary author. Much of our story is being written day by day as live it. Parts of our future story are being written due to the choices we make today or have made in the past.
And others contribute to the writing of our stories in ways that are sometimes beyond our control. There are those who control our employment and our grades. Spouses who can leave us and we are powerless to stop them. Parents and children free to make choices that affect us. There are many people whose handwriting is found in the story of our lives.
There are events beyond our control - accidents, acts of nature, sickness and disease, the death of someone we love, the unexpected birth of someone into our family - all of these play a part in writing the story of our lives.
I have never been one to keep a journal. But this year as I’ve been reading excerpts from Thomas Merton’s journal I am discovering the wisdom of such a spiritual practice. It can be a helpful way of listening to the story of our lives - the plot, the irony, the tragedy, the comedy, the sacred moments and the learning moments. When writing about our lives we cannot help but consider how we are living our lives.
And while I do not believe God is the only author of our lives, I do believe God is our counselor. God is present, sometimes in hidden ways, to guide us along the way. We may choose to listen to God or choose to go our own way.
There is a vitality, I think, to the freedom God has granted each of us. I believe Thoreau was correct when he said of our life in the universe: “The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.” The pen is in our hand.
But one day the pen will run out of ink. Harold Crick was forced to face his own mortality. It is something we all must do. It is one of the primary lessons of Ash Wednesday. To hear “You are dust and to dust you shall return” is a difficult but necessary word for our ears. Our life on this earth will not last forever. We are all going to die.
In listening to the narration of his life, and reflecting upon the possibility of his impending death, Harold realizes how mundane and unsatisfying his life has been so far.
So much can be gained in listening to our lives. Frederick Buechner writes:
I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, [our] limited and limiting life . . . [can open up into extraordinary avenues of sight]. Taking your children to school and kissing your spouse goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day’s work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize [God] or not recognize [God], but all the more fascinating because of that, all the more compelling and haunting . . . Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness . . . because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
Listen to your life. To live without listening is to live deaf to the fullness of life and the grace of God. As you listen to the story of your life as it unfolds, it is God’s grace that sees us through the failures and the tragedies and makes possible a new page. We cannot start over. What’s done is done and there may be consequences to live with. But we can start fresh from where we are right now this very day.
Grammy-nominated recording artist Natasha Bedingfield sings a song entitled "Unwritten" (2005). The lyrics I find thought-provoking and inspiring.
She begins with personal testimony:
I am unwritten, can’t read my mind, I’m undefined.
I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned
I break tradition, sometimes my tries are outside the lines
We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can’t live that way
Then she moves to a hopeful and daring challenge to us all:
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Life your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten
Every day can be a new beginning for us. The story of our lives does not begin every day. The book has already begun. But there are chapters still to be written. There are new pages to write from this day forward.
For a Christian, the story of our life does not stand in isolation. We have entered a story that began thousands of years ago. The biblical story is our story.
We are Adam and Eve, created in God’s image, crowned with glory and honor, experienced in joy and sorrow, failure and triumph, given the task to care for creation and all of its creatures.
We are Abraham and Sarah, called into an unknown future to walk by faith, to enter into covenant with God and God’s people.
We live in the wilderness and the Promised Land. We spend time in exile and we catch glimpses of home.
We are a part of the community around Jesus, walking in his way, the way of the cross, the way of self-giving love and servanthood, proclaiming the good news of peace and justice, freedom and love to the poor and the prisoner, the oppressed and the oppressor.
We live as the forgiven children of God, free to be who God created us to be, participating in God’s dream of a new creation until that day when God makes all things new and all is redeemed.
Our stories are not completely unwritten, but formed by this biblical story. How we live within this larger story is unwritten. We are invited by God’s story to an abundant life, open to wonder and mystery, love and grace, to live within tradition and to write outside its lines, to feel the rain on our skin, to live our lives with arms wide open, and to write our lives into the story of the world.
The choice is yours: You can live life like Harold Crick, lost in the mundane, calculating every step. Like Jeremiah, you can offer excuses as to why you cannot be who you were created to be. Or you can listen to your life in all of its wild and passionate mystery. You can embrace life. You can choose to love deeply. And risk something big for something good.
What will you do with your life that is yet unwritten?
Are you scared? God’s word to Jeremiah is God’s word to us: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you to deliver you and to empower you.”
What will you do with your life that is yet unwritten? The pen is in your hand.
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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425
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