The Good Life

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

 Welcome to September. I know that for many of you, you're starting back into fall rhythms and routines. You know, as we live our life, we all are seeking after the Good Life. That's the title of this new series, and the Good Life is something that we're drawn to. We want to have a life that is meaningful and full and rich and wonderful and beautiful and good, but sometimes we're not really sure how to get it.

You know, we enter into our lives and the rhythm and habits and structure of the world around us just sort of make habits and routines, and so that'll lead us to a place. Maybe every once in a while we step back and we begin to ask a question. We go down to the next level where we say, well, is this working?

Is this chase of wealth and success and keeping my kids ultra busy is it, is it really working for my life? Is it producing the life that I want? Then after is it working? We might go down another level and ask ourselves the question, well, what do I really want? I think I want all these things. And I maybe now you've figured out you can be wealthy.

You've figured out how to do that. So you, you have actions that align to the goals and you're able to accomplish that. But then you find yourself still sort of wanting, you are like, this doesn't feel like the good life. I thought it might be. And then another level down is this question of like, what is even worth wanting?

What is the good life? And that's what we're gonna tackle in this next series. And today I wanna just introduce the topic and talk about this. The good life requires us to know what good is. It is necessary for us if we want to pursue it, to acknowledge that our assumptions and intuitions aren't always right.

And then thirdly, that our good is tied to the good of others. So a rich young ruler approaches Jesus and says, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? It's a different way of asking a question, what is the good life? Jesus says, why do you call me good for God alone is good. And he says, you know what to do? Obey the commandments. Essentially, love your neighbor. And the rich young ruler says, well, I've done that. And he says, okay, well then you know, you lack one thing. Go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor. And the rich young ruler leaves and sad because he has so much. In the midst of this, what answers does it give us about the good life?

Well, this passage does three things for us. It tells us what good is. And it also shows us and reminds us that our assumptions of what the good life would be are not always right. Just like the rich young ruler. And then finally it says, Hey, you know, your good is tied to the good of others.

So let's dig in a little bit. You know, for something to be good, there has to be a standard. And some things that we talk about as good can be objective. So for example, I'm a golfer and there's objective information, so I can measure whether that was a good hole or a bad hole that I just played. You know, there's a par set, and so let's say par is four strokes and I was able to get the ball in the cup in the four strokes, then that was a good hole.

If it took more, then it wasn't as great. If it took less, it was even better. I can also say, Hey, that was a good shot or a bad shot. And a good shot will have a certain trajectory based on the club that I choose, and it should go a certain number of yards and it should land where I want it to land. That would be a good shot.

But other things are subjective, like coffee. A good cup of coffee means a lot of different things to different people. You know, we're entering into the fall, so for some people a good cup of coffee involves some sort of pumpkin spice, something or other. For me, I'm out pumpkin spice it's not good. I want dark French roast Starbucks. Some people are like, well that's not good. It tastes like dirt. Other people are real fancy coffee people and so they want something very high end, single origin. They want it, a city roast so that it brings out all the right flavors and they're gonna sip it real slowly and tell you about all the different tasting notes.

And others are like, Hey, America runs on Dunkin, and I love a good Dunkin Donuts cup of coffee. And that's what's good to me. And really none of us are right, because what we're talking about is subjective. So when we begin to enter into this other topic of what is the good life, how can it be subjective or not?

Well, here's the beautiful thing, is that in Christ, God has revealed what good looks like in the life, death and resurrection of Christ good has been revealed in an objective way. So when we think about the good life, we can say, Hey, the good life as revealed by Christ is about hope and faith and forgiveness and resurrection and restoration. That's the good life. So I, now I know what the good life is and I can begin to chase after it.

You know, for all of us to. Have a good life. I think we have to be connected to the one who is good. St. Ignatius gave us the examine prayer, and I would encourage you throughout this series to begin doing this examine prayer each day, it begins with gratitude. Take a moment and you talk about the things in prayer from your day that you're grateful for. Then you review your day. Checking in on when were the moments that you were in God's presence, when were the moments where you turned away from transcendence and beauty and wonder and relationship.

You sort of keep track of places of sorrow. Then from there, what you want to do is you want to have a sense of apology, and then you go and you offer forgiveness, and then finally grace. And I would encourage you to follow along. And do the examine prayer that St. Ignatius wrote and created as we go through this series because it'll help you stay connected to the one who is good so that you can accomplish that good life.

The other two parts of the good life are one, knowing that our assumptions aren't always great, and I think this is obvious. So the rich young ruler believes that wealth is tied to the good life, and all of us maybe wrestle with that as well.

We also have a tendency to think more, better, faster is the good life. We have a tendency to think that safety and comfort is the good life. We might have a tendency to think that having a thousand friends digitally is the good life. Having influence and fame is the good life. And yet when we look at that and we ask the question, well, is it working? We see lots of examples in our own lives, in the lives of others where it's like, ah, that's not really working. And so one of the things I think is just a helpful practice is to remind ourselves that we don't always know what the good life is or how to get there, that our intuition and our assumptions will sometimes lead us astray.

I think a good way to illustrate that is for you to even think in your own life, when did you want something and you thought that thing was gonna transform your life? And then you got it and you're like, oh, it's just the same life. I can remember when I was younger, always wanting new leather couches. So got my real job, went out and got those leather couches, and a few weeks later I thought to myself, well, this couch is just like the other couch.

In fact, the other couch that I threw out that was 20 years old, that was more comfortable. So we wanna wrestle with that assumption and we wanna go through these layers and ask ourselves questions like, well, is it working? What do I really want? Why do I want that? And then getting to the even deeper question of what is worth wanting?

Final thing we see Jesus lay out is that our good is tied to the good of others. When the rich young ruler asks the question, what must I do to inherit eternal life? He essentially lays out honoring your father and mother and taking care of others. He's saying your good is tied to the good of others.

But now I want you, if you've done all of that, because you've controlled your circle in such a way where you can say you've done that and you haven't murdered anybody, you haven't divorced anybody. You're just sort of like living in this thing. Then take your possession, sell them, and give the money to the poor, and then come follow me. That's how you'll get the good life and the rich young ruler walks away sad.

I think it's important for all of us to wrestle with wealth as Americans. We have a lot of it. It, and I think there's plenty of evidence that it is not always serving us well. It's not always connecting us to the good life. But I think the more important wrestle for this question is this wrestle of, do I really believe that my good is tied to the good of others?

And what God reveals to us in the person of Christ is that it is because God in his demonstration of what goodness is, comes and lives and dies for the whole world. And so you and I, our goodness, is gonna be tied to the goodness of others. And so what does that look like for you? How might you orient your life in such a way in which you are good is tied to the good of others, that their flourishing is tied to your flourishing, and you figure out how to do that.

Hey, I'm excited about this series. We're gonna cover a lot of great stuff. It's gonna be a good series to participate in as we wrestle with these questions of what is the good life? How do we get it? How do we pursue it? What does it feel like? How do I deal with pain and suffering in the midst of it? But I'm excited about it and I hope you are too. Have a great week. We'll see you soon.