Buck: A Cautionary Tale

I want to begin this morning by telling you about a man I met a couple of weeks ago in Eastern North Carolina. I had a strange encounter with a man during a business lunch. It’s the business lunch part that makes this conversation a bit weird. I was meeting with a couple of older gentlemen who wanted to talk about a potential business opportunity with my company. Toward the end of lunch one of them was called away for a few minutes. During that time, the other man, for reasons beyond my understanding, decided to tell me some things about his life story. I’ve been pondering what he said in light of today’s Lectionary ever since then. It’s been instructive for me, and maybe it will be for you too.

This man (we’ll call him Buck) is truly a scoundrel. He made that fact clear to me by many of the things he said throughout the lunch about his current business life. His business partner is the good guy, and he’s, well…. The scoundrel. But it’s what he told me about his personal life that touched me particularly, and it’s that part that I want to share with you.
Before he retired the first time, Buck sold tobacco farming equipment throughout the South and portions of the Mid Atlantic states for thirty years. He told me that he was the thirteenth of fourteen children – ten of them boys. Buck said that during growing up years that he had no idea that his family was poor. But that once he reached manhood, he could see that his father and his brothers were working themselves to death and just barely getting by. He couldn’t see himself doing that, so he went into sales.

Buck was highly motivated, and enjoyed great success. He married and had two children – a girl and a boy. Buck was on the road a lot. He looked across the table at me and said, “You know what that means.” I did. It means that he met a lot of ladies. Buck says that he fancied himself a ladies man. His wife knew about his philandering and tried everything she could think of to get him to stop – to be faithful to her. But Buck was having too much fun. Besides, he wasn’t really sure he had ever loved his wife.

After 25 years of marriage, Buck left home and never went back. He told me that he represented himself in the divorce, and that even without an attorney was able to stay a step ahead of his wife and her attorney. He left the marriage with his finances in tact. Buck says that to retaliate his wife turned their children against him. At least, that’s his interpretation. You’d have to figure that after 25 years of marriage that their kids would be grown or almost grown, right? I found it sad that Buck didn’t see that it was his own behavior that changed his relationship with his children.

Ironically, once he was divorced, Buck didn’t run around with the ladies nearly as much. He said that it wasn’t as much fun once it was okay to do it. See what I mean?… a scoundrel…. Buck said that, though his wife has remarried and is happy, he’s still estranged from his children. In fact, he hasn’t seen his daughter in 10 years (ever since his son got married) and didn’t talk to her then. I asked him if he attended his daughter’s wedding. He said that though he was invited, he didn’t go. He said, “I don’t know what she (meaning his daughter) wants. I told him what I thought she wanted, and suggested that if he didn’t feel comfortable calling her, that maybe he could drop her a note.

Buck shook his head sadly and said, “I’m a very independent person.” By that he meant, I think, that he’s a very proud person. Too proud to reach out to his daughter. Too proud to admit his errors – his guilt. He’d rather be estranged. I told Buck that no one was going to stand over his casket and praise his independence, but that they might still be possible for them to praise his love of his kids…

Earlier in the conversation Buck told me that he’d tried to retire, but retirement wasn’t for him. Now I understood why. He had no meaningful and fulfilling relationships. He’d had plenty of “fun” earlier in life, but none of it set him up for long term happiness.

When I met Buck, I’d already been reading the Lectionary for today, because I knew that I was preaching this Sunday and I like to ponder the Scriptures over time. Well, Buck brought the passages Romans and Matthew to the forefront of my mind. Both of them give advice on human relationships. In fact, the Bible is full of advice on relationships isn’t it? We’re told in many and various ways how to relate to God and how to relate to one another.

Our relational nature is one of the ways we bear the image of God. God is in perpetual, loving and harmonious relationship in the persons of the Trinity. Ideally our relationships would look something like His – mutuality and perfect love – the joy of knowing and being known. You may remember a couple of weeks ago Chuck mentioning a book entitled The Shack. That book is a great read – even if all you get from it is a picture of the relationship that exists between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In the passage read to us from Romans, we hear Paul remind us of something that Jesus said in the Gospels – that love fulfills the law. “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

It’s pretty simple advice isn’t it? Simple, yes - but not easy. In the drudgery of day to day living pettiness and selfishness creep in and make it hard to love. Someone leaves the lid off the toothpaste or doesn’t replace the empty roll of toilet paper. We’re annoyed. How inconsiderate! Or maybe we feel that our needs aren’t being met in some way. We’re not loved or appreciated the way we feel we deserve to be. It’s interesting to me that with all the relationship advice we’re given in the Bible, the focus isn’t how others should be treating us, but on how we should be treating others.

In fact, even when a serious wrong has been done, the focus is on what we should do. We’re not told that we should wrap our injury around us like a cloak or use it like a weapon – demanding that the person who wronged us come crawling back in humiliation.

Instead, Jesus tells us in Matthew that if someone sins against you, you should attempt to reconcile. He says to go to the person, and if that doesn’t work go again with a friend or two, and if that doesn’t work, try with a group. His point is that we should do everything we possibly can to remain in relationship. To mend what’s broken, to heal what’s hurt. If all of our efforts fail, it’s okay to let the person go, but first we need to try.

And that’s exactly what God does for us. He loves and pursues us with mercy and grace and forgiveness. We’ve wronged God, but He pursues us desiring relationship and reconciliation. All of us who have experienced salvation know exactly what it means to be loved and loved well. As undeserving recipients of love and grace and forgiveness we should be generous dispensers of it. God’s desire is for the church to be chalked full of great lovers and strong relationships.

My thoughts go back to Buck. I pray that he’ll find his way. Buck’s life is instructive to me and I hope to you too. Let’s choose to love family and friends well. Let’s choose love and relationship over everything. Let’s keep faith with everyone God has placed in our lives. Let’s reach out in reconciliation to those who have wronged us. At the end of our lives, what’s left is our relationships: our relationship to God and our relationships with others. I told Buck that no one would stand over his casket and praise his independence. They won’t do that for me or you either. In the end, may it be said of us all that we were great lovers and generous dispensers of grace – just like our heavenly Father.