What's On Your Gravestone? -- FPC sermon excerpt
In New Haven, Connecticut, where I went to divinity school, there is a burial ground called the Grove Street Cemetery. It is completely surrounded by the campus of Yale University.
One day, the president of Yale was walking through New Haven, and he looked up at the inscription on the gate of the cemetery. It said, “The dead shall be raised.”
The president commented, “They certainly shall … if Yale ever needs the property.”
According to the Yale Alumni Magazine (May-June 2006), the Grove Street Cemetery was founded in 1796 as America’s first planned burial ground. It contains a number of notable Americans, including Noah Webster, of dictionary fame … Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin … and Walter Camp, pioneer of American football.
It also has some gravestones with fascinating inscriptions. John Boswell was a scholar whose research into same-sex unions in the medieval church caused a stir in the 1990s. His stone has a line from The Chronicles of Narnia: “He was not a tame lion.”
Yale president Kingman Brewster’s grave includes one of his own lines: “The presumption of innocence is not just a legal concept. In commonplace terms, it rests on that generosity of spirit which assumes the best, not the worst, in the stranger.”
That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? It is carved into a wall of stone that goes all around his grave.
My favorites are the headstones of John Kirkwood and Lars Onsager. They were chemists, and were both friends and rivals. Kirkwood’s stone is inscribed with a long list of academic positions and honors — it looks like a complete professional résumé.
Onsager’s stone, on the other hand, simply says, “Nobel Laureate … etc.”
You can guess who came out on top!
All of this talk of gravestone inscriptions makes me wonder how I will be remembered when my time on this earth is over. Pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church? Husband and father? Midlife Man on a Mission? Runner of marathons … with unimpressive times?
We need to realize that each of us is carving an inscription through the choices we make every day. So, how about you? What’s on your gravestone?
The apostle Paul puts some advice in his first letter to the Corinthians that we need to hear as we think about the legacies we are leaving behind. Paul is writing to a church full of very talented people, and he admires the spiritual gifts that are at work in the church in Corinth. Some can speak in tongues, others have prophetic powers, others have wonder-working faith, and still others have enormous generosity (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
These gifts are great, says Paul. Enormously impressive. But wait, he says … without love, they are nothing.
Speaking in the tongues of mortals and of angels. Nothing without love. Prophetic powers that enable a person to understand all mysteries and all knowledge. Nothing without love. Faith that is powerful enough to move mountains. Nothing without love.
Today, we might extend this list a bit to include President of Yale. Nothing without love. Nobel Laureate. Nothing without love. Speaker of the House. Nothing without love. President of the United States. Nothing without love.
So, what are you carving into your gravestone? An earthly achievement such as a prize or a presidency? Or are you making a commitment to love — a decision to show love to others?
Choose love. And live it. There is simply no better way to be remembered.
One day, the president of Yale was walking through New Haven, and he looked up at the inscription on the gate of the cemetery. It said, “The dead shall be raised.”
The president commented, “They certainly shall … if Yale ever needs the property.”
According to the Yale Alumni Magazine (May-June 2006), the Grove Street Cemetery was founded in 1796 as America’s first planned burial ground. It contains a number of notable Americans, including Noah Webster, of dictionary fame … Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin … and Walter Camp, pioneer of American football.
It also has some gravestones with fascinating inscriptions. John Boswell was a scholar whose research into same-sex unions in the medieval church caused a stir in the 1990s. His stone has a line from The Chronicles of Narnia: “He was not a tame lion.”
Yale president Kingman Brewster’s grave includes one of his own lines: “The presumption of innocence is not just a legal concept. In commonplace terms, it rests on that generosity of spirit which assumes the best, not the worst, in the stranger.”
That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? It is carved into a wall of stone that goes all around his grave.
My favorites are the headstones of John Kirkwood and Lars Onsager. They were chemists, and were both friends and rivals. Kirkwood’s stone is inscribed with a long list of academic positions and honors — it looks like a complete professional résumé.
Onsager’s stone, on the other hand, simply says, “Nobel Laureate … etc.”
You can guess who came out on top!
All of this talk of gravestone inscriptions makes me wonder how I will be remembered when my time on this earth is over. Pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church? Husband and father? Midlife Man on a Mission? Runner of marathons … with unimpressive times?
We need to realize that each of us is carving an inscription through the choices we make every day. So, how about you? What’s on your gravestone?
The apostle Paul puts some advice in his first letter to the Corinthians that we need to hear as we think about the legacies we are leaving behind. Paul is writing to a church full of very talented people, and he admires the spiritual gifts that are at work in the church in Corinth. Some can speak in tongues, others have prophetic powers, others have wonder-working faith, and still others have enormous generosity (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
These gifts are great, says Paul. Enormously impressive. But wait, he says … without love, they are nothing.
Speaking in the tongues of mortals and of angels. Nothing without love. Prophetic powers that enable a person to understand all mysteries and all knowledge. Nothing without love. Faith that is powerful enough to move mountains. Nothing without love.
Today, we might extend this list a bit to include President of Yale. Nothing without love. Nobel Laureate. Nothing without love. Speaker of the House. Nothing without love. President of the United States. Nothing without love.
So, what are you carving into your gravestone? An earthly achievement such as a prize or a presidency? Or are you making a commitment to love — a decision to show love to others?
Choose love. And live it. There is simply no better way to be remembered.
posted by Henry Brinton | 3:37 PM
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