oT APR OLN IMENT AUGUST 14, 1972
DeuterOony 3:23-29
34:1-8

Hebrews 11:1-3, 13

I recently read a book entitled Hearts, the account of the phenominal
breakthrough in cardiovascular surgery performed in Houston by Drs. Denton
Cooley and Michael DeBakey at their respectful - and competing ~ institutions,
it is a thrilling story of two very remarkable men. T+ is also the story of
intense and relentless disappointment. Several years ago, in the middle of
the transplant experinents, litterally hundreds and hundreds of people came
to Houston from all over the world, seeking a heart transplant and a new
chance at life. Their optimism was shared by the two great surgeons, expec-
lally Cooley - who did as many transplants as he could ~ and quickly became
the leader in the field. But today - not one of Cooley's patients is alive:
ali over the world their were 24 Surviving transplant patients out of a total
of 179 operations as of March 1, 1971. That's a lot of disappointment -— for
the families ~ for the surgeons and their teams - for the world. And beyond
that there were many people who never made it to the operating tables: peanle
for whom there were no available hearts: people who waited for weeks in Hous-~
ton motels, and either died Waiting, or went home, naving given up in disal-
lussioned disappointment.

While I was reading that book Senator Thomas fagleton was undergoing
his own reeent disappointment at being publically coerced into resigning
as the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate. And the combination of the
two - the book and Senator Fagleton's heartbreak ~ set me to thinking about
how life can almost be measured in terms of disappointment,

It set me to thinking about all the artists, muscians, designers, in-
ventors, writers, who had a Vision, an ideal; yet who were scorned while
they livéd and never saw &® dream come true, or a picture purchased, or a
Symphony applauded,

It set me to thinking about Benedict arnold, brilliant and courageous

patroit ~ at the battles of Champlaizn and Haratoga, whose bitter disappoints

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ment at public eriticism and his lack of advancement led him to commit treaso

It set me to thinking about Abraham Lincoln who never lived to see his
nation truly one again: about John F. Kennedy who,it was Said, wanted to
Serve his country as a Very young ex-president back in the senate: about
Martin Luther King who had a dream and never Saw it realized. And about
Moses who could see his dream actoss a river ~ but who died before he set
his feet on the promised land,

If you're golaug to think about disappointment, sooner or later you have
to deal with Moses. For forty long years Moses led his people through the
wilderness we now know as the Sinai penninsula. He propped up the courage
of a rag-tag band of seimitic Slaves, and convinced them that they ougnt te
defy the nilitary power of igypt and walk into the dessert, By sheer force
of will he persuaded them to keep going: to endure fear and Hunger and thirst.
By the force of his Own person he melded those slaves into @ nation with
enough military Savvy to defeat the armies of the Cannanites, Moses is
literally bigger than life - one of Gad's very Special men. And so there is
an extraordinary pathos ip his plea: "Let me go over, I pray, and see the
good land beyond the Jordan, that goodly hill country", And then is extra-
ordinary disappointment in the death of Moses in the land of Moab, close to -
but not in ~ that "soodiy hill country".

Yet there is something else going on in that account, Apparently Moses
lived sometime with the knowledze that he would not see the promise fulfilled:
that he would have to tern tae reigns of leadership over to Joshua at the
last and critical moment. Ligses know that, the writer would have us under~
Stand, and yet stayed with 1t. Without bitterness or Complaining or resent-
ment Moses fouzht the good fight, did what he knew needed to be dong in the
full awareness that he would be denied the final experience of victory = the
actual inhabiting of the lend, That's what else is soing on: Moses' courage,
his acceptance of this terrible disappointment: his grace to perserve to the

end,

~3m

The sequel is found in the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament.
There Moses! name appears with others out of Israel's History: Noah, Abraham,
issac, Jacob - mer who never saw the fulfillment of the ideals for which they
lived their lives,

"They died in faith", the writer puts it, "not having received what was
promised, but having seen and greeted it from afar.,.".

The Bible, contrary to what many people think, is not full of fairy
tales about men and women who obeyed God and Lived happily ever after. To
the contrary, it is full of people who were disappointed and who somehow
learned to live complete and faithful lives in snite of disappointment,
Consequently ~ and asain unlike what Many people expect - the Bible does not
solve the problem of disappointment in life. ft leaves the riddle of innocent
suffering quite unresolved, It is nota handy guide book on how to live
Without getting hurt: in fact ~ it offers finally a man who willingly accepted
disappointment ~ a man who, we believe, defines human life and how it is to be
lived = in the middle of all kinds of disappointment.

But first, let's look at some disappointments and how they effect us,

come disappointment is the product of imaturity, As a boy my parents
took me to New York City. They had told me that the Empire State Building
was the tallest building in the world. I knew how its top Was some days
sirouded in clouds and uow airplanes sometimes circled around it. I don't
know what I expected - but I was disappointed. The same thing happened at
Niagra Palls. I had seen pictures and again my expectations were out of pro-
portion. I thought the water would cascade over that edge into a bottomless
pit. and when I saw it first at the age of twelve, I was pretty unimpressed,
But later, having learned ard lived a little more ~ having gained some per-
spective I am impressed indeed. some disappointment is the result of imma-
turity. And some is the product of inflated expectations and some continues
right into adulthood,

In my vocatiou there is no disappointment quite like going to seminary

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for four years, learning how to quote Paul Tillich asd Reinhold Niebuhr,
emerzing into ordination commited to turming the institutional church into a
Vibrant center of tneolosical excellence, warm Christian Charity, and passion-
ate concern for the huoary and oppressed ~ and ther discovering that the first

item on the agenda in that first little church is nowy to pay the fuel bill,

and that the only momentous decision the session made during that whole

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first year was to paint the downspouts. That's isappointment as a product

of inflated expectatious,. Yet tragically a lot of men throw in the towel

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at precisely that poi

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Our culture, Generally, seems to insist on an GxS,,gerated and inflated

expectation level in all things. People become disappointed with politicians,

frankly, because 9o0liticians promise too much. Inetead of saying "we're

going to try to make things a little better next year than they are this year"

candidates for hi: office would 2ave us believe that their election will

result in miraculous and immediate improvement, And it jut doesn't happen,
Televisiou advertisins promises so much that it farly boggles the mind,

Tooth paste never jade anybody sexier: after shave lotion never really made

anyone irresistapnle: diet vepsi won't produce the results that make their

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commercials so interesting. furniture polisa, floor cleaners, detergents,
deoderants, gasoline, tires,clothes - are all marketed on the basis of expec~
tations that everyone kuaws are Pidiculous. And I long for someone to have
the candor to say simply: "We think our product is gocd.'" But the dream is
there: the dream that just maybe I won't be disappointed this tiie.

And the dreaw is part of wnat has come to be knovn as the sensate culture,
j@ Want instant eratification, Someone is even marketing an electronic organ
that promises to make you 80 instant muscian by maninulating a series of
buttons and then pushin; color coded keys: ar ultinate insult to anyone who
has spent countless ours of nard work refining musical ability.

The trouble is, that kind of culture inevitably breads a kind of perna-

nent disappointment in important things like marriage. And there ~ in that

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context it becomes brutal and demeaning and destructive. "Is That All There
Is?" Someone ean, it a couple of years aga. And it is an inevitable ques~
Sion in a culture tat promises instead gratification of inflated ex rpecta-
tions,

Some disappeiitasnt is the result of caring: of Loving: of having an
ideal - a dream + und working for it. It is a diffievlt task to commit one-
self to an ideal wreat ox small, aud work for tustideal sometimes alone, and
always Miles avay fron its accomplishment. The complex array of Social
prooiems confrontins cur society drives the timid for cover. To care enough
about our community, tor instanee, to be iavolved personally in the hard
work of helping: to improve it is to sosyud hour aftexy ‘iour in meetings, to
Sacrifice time ard esercy, snd mary times to be dizappoluted - to see one's
efforts rejected, ar misuoderstood, or seorred, et to care deeply is to
plunge in again .- sever to give up regardless of the umber of times we have
been disappoited.

Rudyard Kiplin., vrote a poem - "If" part of which goes this way:

"If you can farce your ueart and nerve and siner

To serve your turo long after they are sore y
and so wold o4 when tuere is sothing in you

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except the “ill which says ta them ‘Sold Cr
Yours is the Barth and everything that's an it

and + which is usre - you'll be a Mac, my Sop-

Of courne, it's possible to avoid tue pain of tsis kind of disappointment

by not carla.

The Greek Susics taught that a mar should sot lave his wife or child
too much and ther te woul uot be devastated by t.¢ir death. One way to
avoid being disapoointed oolitically is never to rup for an office, or never
commit oneself to the Fortunes of a particular party or candidate. One way

to avoid the hurt of havius one's dearest dream rejected is never to dream

the dream: never to exnerd acy of oneself in its prosecution. Yet what the

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country needs‘irhas our community needs: and what Christian Taith demands is
a deptn and strength of caring that can old on through all kinds of disa-
ppolntment, and stand tc fight another day.

just happens as a result af the freedom God has

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nome disappointment

Siven us, Tnere if oo ane here wua has not been disanpointed in this way.

An illness, a puvsically disability, the loss of a voestional possibility;
Fy beg :

aud most polerantly tho nremature death of someote very dear to us, Teo
BP : 3

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attribute it to tie sill of God is tot the answer, Tue Sible does not teach
that God visits tracedy on his children. Rather tracedy, sickness, death,

are the results oi freedom: they happen because God srants us to live in the

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kind of free universe in ihicn accidents can happen,

That the Tible offex

wa

15 nov a simple answer tul a presence, a power to
Stand with us la disazpoiviment, a love that enable us to try again, to live
anotuer day,

Ime Sinple poiuts to a moses, «eiving nis life for the liberation of his
people, and then dvins on the banks of the Jordan, The Bible offers the Son
of a Carpenter, lioldia: wa a vision before his peovle, living for it, and ther
finally, in the Garden of Sethsemane, experienciug ucute disappointment as
& couspiracy to be vid of Nim was about te succecd, ‘that the Bible offers
1S one who wanted to oe & savior, Nansing from a cross - and yet even there,
trusting in the goodness and mercy and love of God.

fae Bible offers a man by the name of Paul who was disappointed time
and time again: @ an whe had been beaten, jailed, exiled and shipwrecked
in the vrecess of living his dream: Paul wno could revertheless write to
the Curistian Crure: ibn Rome: "Tao shall separate us from the love of God?
shall tribulation, or cistress, or nersecutior, or famir,or nakedness, or
peril, o¢ sword? to, ic all these things we are moxe than conquerers through
him who loved us.” (om 6:35, 37)

That, I think, is woat the writer of Hebrews meant when he said," They

died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen and

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greeted it from afar," and that, I think, is tue very best news in the face
of the kinds of disappointment you and I experience. le have seen the
promised land. We know that we are safe iu Gad's leve,. We knew that one
day all things will eenform to his will, Me know what kind of lives ie

expects us te live. And in that knowledse there is no disappointment that

caunot pe berre: no disappointment that cannot be transcended and overcome.
AMBIT

Fatuer, keen us cariaqs enough te risk disappointment. ard when it comes

aelp us to stand fiva ta fight another day. Throusi Jesus Christ our Lord.

AMEN