Satisfied To Be Mediocre

John 10:10

Shakespeare has Macbeth utter these words of frustration:
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

Like Macbeth, too many Christians can see nothing but monotony for tomorrow
because they have sold out to mediocrity today.
Wollowing in the stagnation invokes the degradation of today and the hopeless depression of tomorrow.
The dictionary tells us that mediocrity is neither good nor bad.
It is just average, and just ordinary.
It is only halfway up the mountain.

The anticipation of mediocrity

Nothing sounds quite so good as the life that mediocrity offers us.
We can be mediocre and still be acceptable and accepted and perhaps even more than if we excelled.
We can be content and comfortable, satisfying only the expectations of the norm.
Security is not only available, but probably more certain to the one who will settle for mediocrity.

And the strongest appeal of all to the religious person is that he can be good – thoroughly good
– morally and legally, and relaxed in the self-righteousness of his mediocrity.

The antipathy of mediocrity

The very opposite of mediocre thought contends that acceptance, contentment, comfort, security,
and even goodness are not enough to the man who would be truly like Christ.
The man who rises above mediocrity finds himself deeply involved
in the three dynamics of Christian excellence.

First is the courage to care.

A great compassion and a miserable dissatisfaction must come from the heart.
John Bunyan said, "Better that your heart has no words than your words have no heart."

Does your heart really care what is said and done in this world?
One writer reminds us that, "God hides some ideal in every human soul.
At some time in our life we feel a trembling, a fearful longing to do some good things.
Life finds its noblest spring of excellence in this hidden impulse to do our best.
There is a time when we are not content to be such businessman or doctors or teachers
as we see just on dead level or below it.
The woman longs to glorify her womanhood as sister, daughter wife, or mother.
Here is God – with us all day long…"

Second is the dare to dream.

The hurting heart must be accomplished with visionary eyes.
Lowell said, "Not failure, but low aim is crime."

Are we afraid of dreaming, when we know that dreams are essential for greatness?
Phillips Brooks challenges us with these words:
"The ideal life is still in our blood and never will be still.
Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contended with the thoughts he is thinking
and the deeds he is doing, and where there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul
some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do."

Third is the willingness to work.

Concern and visions are worthless if they do not culminate in action.
Lord Baden-Powell once said, "Don't be afraid to act for fear of making a mistake.
A man who never made a mistake never did anything."

A. T. Stewart observed that "No abilities, however splendid, can command success
without intense labor, and persevering application."

The antidote for mediocrity

In our text, Jesus offers the only solution for the poison of our contemporary mediocrity.
In John 10:10 Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life and may have it more abundantly."

No one on earth as ever possessed more courage to care, dared to dream more,
or more willing to work as was Jesus of Nazareth.
Even as "the love of Christ constraineth us," the life of Christ calls us and leads us onto greatness,
to excellence, and to the abundant life.
Three things are essential for life at its best.
Those three things are life, light, and love.
In Jesus Christ these three things are supremely expressed and abundantly offered.

Individuals can succumb to the menace of mediocrity as Samson did. (Judges 16:20-21)
Churches yield to the temptation just to be "average," and end up carrying shields of brass instead of gold.
(1 Kings 14:26, 27)
Revivals can be hindered and defeated by the inflammation of well-executed programs
and promotions without divine power.

Let us, as individual Christians and as a church, dedicate ourselves here today to the abundant life in Christ,
and bring about a genuine renewal in our lives and in our church.

From the play "The Man From LaMach," Don Quixote asked why he was always caring
when no one else cared.
Always going when it seem right to take and being involved when it wasn't his fight.
Quixote answers those questions by singing:


"To dream the impossible dream,
To find the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go,
To right the unrightable wrong,
To love pure and chaste from afar,
To try when your arms are so weary,
To reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
Without question or pause
To be willing to march
Into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know
If I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my head will be peaceful and calm
When I am laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this –

That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach that unreachable star."


Now I would ask that we stand and sing together the hymn, "Higher Ground."

I’m pressing on the upward way,
New heights I’m gaining every day;
Still praying as I’m onward bound,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

Refrain:
Lord, lift me up and let me stand,
By faith, on Heaven’s tableland,
A higher plane than I have found;
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

My heart has no desire to stay
Where doubts arise and fears dismay;
Though some may dwell where those abound,
My prayer, my aim, is higher ground.

I want to live above the world,
Though Satan’s darts at me are hurled;
For faith has caught the joyful sound,
The song of saints on higher ground.

I want to scale the utmost height
And catch a gleam of glory bright;
But still I’ll pray till heav’n I’ve found,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”


Sermon adapted from several sources by Dr. Harold L. White