“Wisdom is before the face of him that hath understanding, but the eyes of a fool are in the end of the earth.”

(Proverbs 17:24)

Do we take things or people for granted?  How much of the brute is there in us, like the old cow who is fed her hay every morning at a given hour, in a given rack, taking it for granted that the hay will be and should be always there?  Paul Barret reports that his peacocks and pea hens were greatly upset over the time change from day-light to standard time three weeks ago.  They keep gathering for feeding at the time they had grown accustomed to and are put out with him over the hour’s delay.  Do we fall into the habit of expecting that past benefactions will be repeated on schedule, ad infinitum, taking for granted that to which we have become accustomed?

There’s the husband who takes for granted the love, loyalty and faithfulness of his wife.  Has he lost that reverent awe which once swept his soul with tingling wonder at the miracle that one so dear could love him and give herself completely to him?

There are wives who take for granted the thoughtfulness and devotion of a good man, having no time for appreciation of what they have in the midst of their nagging to make him over to be like some one else’s husband.

Sometimes children take for granted the care, protection and sacrifice of parents, as though they were born with the divine right to be their parents’ lords and masters.

And what about the parents that take for granted their children’s loving thoughtfulness and supportive care?

Some of us “take for granted the place in which we live, and give very little time to discover its beauty or its historic interest.  We have half an eye on the streets and roads down which we move. . . but our chief thought is of some other scene.  When we leave the scene in which we have spent years we shall not have enjoyed it.  And so we go on, always as those who have had a place of abode or are about to enjoy one, but never wholeheartedly having one in the present, never ‘possessing our possessions’.”  (“Quintus Quizz” – Christian Century 2-5-46)

Some of us have the “old oaken bucket complex.” The place where we used to live is the truly grand one.  Others of us have “the greener pastures ahead complex,” never being able to enjoy our present situation for thinking of how much better things will be next week or next year when we are in a different situation.  The sage of Proverbs reminds us:  “Wisdom is before the face of him that hath understanding, but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.”  And the old Sanskrit poet bids us:

            Listen to the salutation of the dawn:

                        Look to this day:

            For it is life, the very life of life.

            In its brief course lie all the verities

            And realities of our existence:

                        The glory of action,

                        The bliss of growth,

                        The splendor of beauty.

            For yesterday is but a dream

            And tomorrow is only a vision,

            But today well lived makes

            Every yesterday a dream of happiness

            And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

            Look well therefore to this day.

            Such is the salutation of the dawn!

After all is said and done we must admit that the sages, poets and philosophers are right:  we have no time and no place and no people but what the present affords, and we are fools if we take these for granted.

Some of us take our job for granted, assuming that we have a right to our job no matter how sloppily and slip-shoddily we go about it.  We lose all sense of obligation to serve, to work with others, and mechanically go through the motions just to get the pay.

God pity us, but sometimes we take our health for granted and abuse and mistreat our bodies, till like a thief in the night illness comes and robs away the crown jewel of our lives, and too late we appreciate what we once had.

We even take the freedom, the peace, and the plenty of this blessed native land of ours for granted, in the midst of a starving, suffering, insecure world.

Sometimes, God forgive us, we take even God’s love and salvation and providence for granted, as though we deserve it and had every right to expect it.  A family group was discussing God and His loving care.  “Can God see me?” asked the three year old daughter.  “Why yes,” replied the parent, “He can always see you.” “Well, does He think I’m pretty?” A child’s naiveté, but many adults haven’t gone much beyond it, taking God’s bounteous goodness to them for granted, as though they deserve the divine favor for their cleverness, cuteness, or prettiness.  We are all the heirs of God’s grace, the unworthy and unwarranted heirs; yes, even the illegal and illegitimate heirs of His grace, but made the rightful heirs through the sacrifice of Christ.  A grateful spirit would become us better than our attitude of taking His providence for granted.

Now this business of taking things for granted, is it a sin?  The Greek word for sin used in the New Testament is άνχρτίχ.  It literally means “to miss the mark.”  Certainly the habit of taking things for granted is a state of mind which causes people to miss the mark of happy, abundant living.  It is a sinful state of mind, to say the least, which may lead the soul to destruction.

We read again this morning Jesus’ parable of the Rich Fool.  If we read that parable aright, this was at bottom the rich fool’s folly, the habit – the state of mind – of taking things for granted.  Listen to Jesus’ words again:

“The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, ‘what shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?’  And he said, ‘this will I do: I will pull down my barns and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’ But God said unto him, ‘Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?’

See what the rich fool took for granted: First, he took for granted God’s benefactions. “‘My fruits’, he called them; ‘my grain.’  But in what sense were they his?  Could he command the sap in the tree, the fertility in the soil?

“Were sunrise and sunset under his control? Was the faithfulness of the returning seasons his merit?  If the rain had been withheld, where then would have been his wealth?  The ground brought forth plentifully; all the man could do was to take nature’s tides at the flood.  He was carried to fortune on fecundity, a light, a heat, constancy in nature’s cycles, which are boundless mysteries of blessing – and he called them ‘mine.’ His title was earned ‘Thou fool!’ (George Buttrick – The Parables) He took God’s benefactions for granted.

He took also for granted his fellowmen – both the labors of his co-workers and his inheritance from his forebears.  “Other men had enriched this fool; for he did not plough, reap, and build barns single-handed.  Always wealth is more an achievement of society than of the individual.  Society maintains and enforces laws without which separate industry would be impossible.  Society provides the bulwark of common honesty which, in the last resort, is the only guarantee of investments.  The sources of income are land, labor, and ideas.  However resourceful and industrious the individual may be, his contribution is slight compared with the vast fund of labor and ideas which the living and the dead pour out for him without money and without price.” (G. Buttrick – The Parables) The rich man took the contributions of his fellowmen and of society all for granted.

But the fool’s taking for granted did not stop here.  He also took for granted the gift of life.  “Soul,” he says in pride, “thou hast much goods, laid up for many years, take thine ease.” He acted as though he were a sort of perpetual motion machine – a self-made man created in his own image, who himself manufactured the span of his own life.  ‘Tis strange how most people act as though they would never face death.  Other people may die, but not me.  He took it for granted that he would always live and always have his possessions.  And God said to the rich man, as He one day says to every living soul, “This night, this night, thy soul shall be required of thee.”

This much is surely plain – the rich fool’s habit of thinking – his philosophy of life – might be well summed up in the phrase, “Taken for granted.” What a suitable epitaph it would make for him – these letters cut in the marble slab: “Life, Labor, Love, Taken for Granted.” And it was this habit of taking things for granted that made him miss the mark, that brought his life to a tragic, truncated end.

But whether or not you agree that taking things for granted is a sin, I think you will agree that the fellow who has the opposite slant on life, who sees and feels the sacramental nature of all things and all persons and all experiences, he’s the one who lives the more abundantly.

We all remember that dramatic moment in the life of David, Israel’s shepherd king, when he and his warriors were encamped one night on a hill-top overlooking the little town of Bethlehem.  Their Philistine enemies had marched in, taken Bethlehem, and were encamped there.  In a homesick mood David reminisced of his happy boyhood down there in Bethlehem.  He remembered how good to a boy’s taste was the sweet water from the well by Bethlehem’s gate.  And half unto himself and half out loud in his reverie David murmured: “Oh, that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate.”

And three of David’s mighty men, three of his loyal comrades, heard their chief, and left their place of safe hiding in the hills, descended into the enemy filled plain, slipped through the guard, and drawing water from the well inside Bethlehem’s gate, fought their way back through the enemy lines and came and laid with bleeding hands at David’s feet a vessel of water from Bethlehem’s well.

But David would not drink it.  He said, “Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is it not the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives?”  Therefore, he would not drink it, but poured it out unto the Lord.

David did not take for granted this love, loyalty and chivalry of his men.  He had a sense of the sacramental nature of all life, and that which was put into his hands by the love and labors of others was sacred in his sight.  Therefore he poured it out as an offering unto God.

Everyone of us is the daily recipient of the good water of life; health and freedom and security and wealth and friendship and life itself – all brought to us and laid at our feet through the courage and sacrifice of noble people, as the celebration of the Veteran’s Day last Sunday and Monday reminded us.  Do we heedlessly, selfishly, take it for granted, or do we like David, pour it, and all that we have and are as an offering unto God?

The Psalmist in the 103^rd Psalm sings with joy because he has achieved a true slant on life.  He sees God as the author and giver of all benefactions.  He does not take anything for granted.  He is alive to reality – to the sacramental nature of all life.  Here him:

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within

            me bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all

            His benefits:

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;

Who healeth all thy diseases;

Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;

Who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and

            Tender mercies;

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so

            That thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s

And blind George Matheson, the Scottish poet and preacher of the last century, had this same slant on life – a discernment of the sacramental nature of all life.  He didn’t take things for granted, and blind though he was, out of the deep joy and thundering thankfulness of his grateful heart he sang:

            O love that wilt not let me go,

            I rest my weary soul in Thee.

            I give Thee back the life I owe,

            That in Thine ocean depth its flow,

            May richer, fuller be.