I'm speaking about a word today that most people don't want to talk about, or even think about. And that word is death. In fact, in America, if you've noticed, we no longer say somebody died. We say they "passed." We even avoid the word in conversation, even at a funeral. James says in our scripture reading this morning that your life is a vapor that appears a little while and then vanishes. The Greek word that he uses is only here in the New Testament, atmis. And what this means, it has a sense of being transitory. It's here just for a few nanoseconds. It could be a puff of smoke. It could be a vapor. It could be your breath early in the morning. But the idea is, you see it, and then it's gone. How quickly our life passes, is the message. Job grieved, "My days pass as fast as a weaver's shuttle." We are like a flower that blooms and quickly withers and dies. Isn't that true? It was just yesterday you were in high school, remember? And it was just yesterday that your babies were born, and now they're grown and they have their own families. There is no one who knows how fast the years go by as much as a parent does. Think about it. Today is the oldest you have ever been, and also the youngest you will ever be again. I came across life expectancy rates in my research this last week. And it said that the average life expectancy in America today is 79.3 years. Which means, if you're 45, you only have 411 months left. And if you're 55, 291. And if you're 65, 171. If you're 75, you only have 21 months left, on average. And if you're 80 or more, congratulations. You're in the bonus time. [applause] One author I read said, "Old age is always 10 years older than I am." Is that true? I think so. Susie and I were invited to dinner at a friend's house a couple of years ago. And hanging on the dining room wall was really an excellent photograph of her when she was a young mother, 30 or 40 years ago. And I commented on the picture, and I said, "That's a wonderful picture of you." And she said, "Thank you. When my five-year-old granddaughter saw it, she said, 'Grandma, what happened to you?'" And it's true, isn't it? In old age, everything starts to move south and settles around the equator. And what used to be firm arms with biceps and triceps now develop what might be called the wigglies, or the jigglies. You know what I mean? Then wrinkles start to appear, and gray hair. But I'm glad to say, if you're getting older, you're not dead. Growing old is a privilege that is denied many. Don't be sad about growing old. You're not dead. When we are young, we feel invincible. Young people cannot imagine them dying. They have a sense they'll be here forever, and they can't imagine the world without them. But James teaches us, today is guaranteed to no one. To no one. Bruce Lee died when he was only 32. I guarantee you that was not his plan. I guarantee you he had things he wanted to do the next year, and the next year, and the next year. He had plans. Marilyn Monroe died at 36. Mozart died at 35. Death surprised them both. That's what death does. It usually surprises people. Elvis, Princess Diana, Belushi. The list is long of people who were surprised by their death. They had things they wanted to do, things they wanted to enjoy. They had plans. But tomorrow is guaranteed to no one. I buried a 9-year-old boy a few years ago. Tomorrow is guaranteed not even to the young. The fact of the matter is, we don't like to think about this. Death is a word we avoid, in conversation and in thinking. But the truth of the matter is, James says one day the door in your life is going to close. It'll probably be a surprise. But there comes a day when the door on your life on earth closes. And when it does, there are no rewinds in life. Tomorrow is not guaranteed for anyone. That's the big emphasis of James. He wants us to know that we're in control of a lot less than we think we are. In fact, the Greek word that he uses to describe this sense that tomorrow will certainly come for us, that it'll be a long time before the door closes on our life, the word that he uses in Greek is best translated "quack." Quack. That's a person who goes around selling things, making claims on something that the person cannot deliver on. Making promises, predictions, like a quack in medicine, that they cannot deliver on. And that describes a person who boasts that for sure tomorrow will come for them, and next year, and next year, they'll live to an old age. They are quacks, says the Bible, because death comes at surprising times. It could be a fast-moving cancer. It could be a person who runs a red light. You just never know. One of the top 10 books I've read in my life is by Mitch Albom. He's the one who famously wrote Tuesdays with Morrie, which was a tremendous book. But this book is far more important than that bestseller. He simply titles it For One More Day. It's a story of a mother and her grown son. And it explores this question: What would you say if you could spend one more day with a loved one who has died? What would you talk about? Think about that. Charlie, her son, is broken. He's lost his job and his family. He hits bottom when his only daughter forbids him to come to her wedding. He plans to commit suicide. But he decides one night, at midnight, to drive back to his hometown, where he grew up, and to the old house, with all of its memories of childhood. And when he gets there, to his surprise, his mother, who has been dead eight years, is living there. It's all about his imagination about what he might say if he got one more day with his dead mother. He'd always taken her for granted, never much listened to her. He always did most of the talking. He never asked her many questions about what her life was like, or took time to understand her challenges and sorrows. Before she died, he was always too busy with, and self-absorbed in, his life to listen. But he has one more day with her, in his imagination. And this time, he listens. And he even asks questions like, "What was it like to have an alcoholic husband who left you for another woman?" He didn't know. He had never asked. He realized that he did not say thank you very much. He really did not realize all the things that she had done for him. But this one more day that he has with her, he begins to realize all that she had done for him. He has one more day to say thank you for a lot that she did for him. And you know, that day... the reason I wish all of us would read this book is, you know, that day is going to come, for loved ones or friends of yours, when the door shuts and they're gone. And whatever you've not said, whatever you've not apologized for, whatever, it's too late, because they are dead. There are no reruns. There comes a time when there is not one more day. I wish I had one more day with my son John, who became mentally ill with paranoid schizophrenia and hung himself. If I had one more day with him, I would spend it listening and not talking, because as a parent, like most parents, I talk too much and listen too little. Most parents do. I would try to understand more about what it was like to be mentally ill. What it was like to sense the rejection, the avoidance of people around you. I would like to understand more about what the voices were like in his head, and what they yelled at him and accused him of, because that's what happens with this mental illness. I would want to know what it was like that last night, when he left his apartment in Missouri with a rope in his hand, and walked to a tree, and threw that rope over a limb, and hung himself. I'd really like to know what he was feeling, and what the voices were shouting at him at that moment. You know, listening is the deepest form of love. It's the hard work of love, to understand what it's like to be another person. Only by listening can you walk in their shoes and really understand what it's like to be them. I just wonder if there's someone who is dead that you wish you had one more day with. A day to ask forgiveness. Maybe to say thank you. A day to listen, to ask questions, to talk less. Better yet, are there people who are still alive now? Because you don't know, whoever you love, when there will not be another day. 'Cause tomorrow's guaranteed to no one. The fact is, no one gets one more day. The door closes. Tomorrow's not guaranteed. Life is so short. But we don't like to think about that. It's a mistake. This is something you can't afford to get wrong. Life is short. So then, how shall we live? Well, first, make memories. Deliberately make memories. You know, at the end of your life, it's not going to matter what kind of house you live in, what car you drive, how much money you have, what the awards are. What's going to matter is your memories. The only thing that matters is memories. Memories are actually a form of wealth. So I say, try to be rich. Intentionally make memories that will make you rich. Let me tell you about one of my memories, when John was in high school. I remember this as if it was yesterday. I was working in my rose garden, and I had roofers up on our flat roof that was above John's room and Jenny's room. They were repairing the flat roof. And one of them, two stories up, called down, "Sir, what do you want us to do with these plants in these cans?" I said, "What plants?" He said, "Well, sir, they look like marijuana plants, and there's about 15 or 20 of them up here. What would you want us to do with them?" "Destroy them. All except two. Bring two of them to me." So I took the two plants, and I put them in the room next to our kitchen, where we ate. And that night, as we were having dinner, I said to John, "How's your gardening coming?" He freaked out. He said, "What gardening?" So I went around the corner and picked up the two marijuana plants. I said, "This gardening." And John said, "Hide those plants. Somebody might see them." So John and I had a serious talk that night. And it was about how to make money and not go to jail. Because John, when we got in the other room, said, "Dad, I'm not smoking the weed. I'm selling it and making a lot of money at school." And I knew he was telling me the truth, because John was an athlete, and he was into weightlifting and health food. He wouldn't even take an aspirin. I knew he wasn't smoking this. And John, all of his life, had come up with moneymaking schemes. He was really imaginative. I said to myself, "This kid's going to be rich someday. [laughter] He comes up with these creative schemes, if I can just keep him out of jail." And I really was laughing inside, but I didn't show it. I grounded him until Jesus comes again. But you see, that's a favored memory of mine. Not for Susie, but for me, it's a favorite memory. Another one was taking Tegan, when she was only about 18 months old, to IHOP to have breakfast. And you know, IHOP's a child's dream. And we ordered pancakes, and some vanilla ice cream on top of it, and blueberries. And she loved it. I went home, and I told Susie she really loved the vanilla ice cream and blueberries. Susie got really upset with me: "You're not supposed to give her that. That's sugar." And in her family, she's not supposed to get sugar. Well, I didn't know the food laws. Every family has food laws. I didn't know that one. The only saving grace is, at her age, Tegan couldn't say "vanilla ice cream." So I got away with it, until now. But those are favorite memories, aren't they? I love this poster you see on the screen: "Please excuse the mess. The children are making memories." That's a good thing to remember. My grandkids are visiting for a week, as you know, and Susie and I are focused on deliberate making of memories. And they bake together. We're going to have tea parties. They dress up. We will deliberately make memories that will last longer than us. That's what memories do. They last longer than you do. I built a dollhouse for them, just like I built for Jenny years ago, when she was a little girl. You see a picture of it on the screen there. I built that from scratch. It's a work of love. And then this is the back of it. That's all the rooms. And I kind of went overboard on the furniture. I guess Susie said I did. Do you think I did? No, I don't think I... I can't go overboard. It has electric lights, an outdoor garden, everything. Life is short. Collect memories, not things. A couple of summers ago, when I was at Oxford University studying on my sabbatical, I came across a terrific book. It's about Horace, the Roman poet. When I told Susie about how excited I was about his biography, she said, "Nobody cares. Nobody even knows the name of Horace." And I said, "But they know what he coined. They know carpe diem." He's the one who coined that Latin phrase. Most people think carpe diem means "seize the day." Type A, aggressive behavior. Seize the day, because it never comes again. But I found out that Latin scholars, and Horace himself, say the real meaning is "taste the day." There's a big difference. Taste the day. Well, it turns out that Horace was one of the ancient world's most famous wine connoisseurs. He wrote about wine a lot. In fact, a lot of his poems were about wine and how much he appreciated it. And he used to talk about, and write about, how you sip wine. You do not gulp it. You sip it, in order to really fully savor the different aspects of the taste. Taste the wine; don't gulp it. Taste the day; don't seize it. Problem is, most of us have the hurry-up sickness. And you know you have the hurry-up sickness when you come up to a stoplight and you assess how many cars are in each lane. And not only that, which cars are in each lane. You see a VW Bug from the '70s, and a Volvo. You don't get in that lane. Never get behind a Volvo. And in the other lane, you see a Porsche, and you see a black car with your pastor in it. That's the lane you pick. It'll be the fastest one. Most of us have the hurry-up sickness. The problem with the hurry-up sickness is, contrary to popular opinion, hurrying up doesn't make more room for memories. It makes less room for memories to happen. Savor the day. Taste the day. Don't gulp it. Secondly, words are powerful, and memory makers. Remember, only God gives credit for words not said. Only God. Proverbs 18, verse 21 says, "The tongue has the power of life and death." It's so true. We can encourage people, or criticize people and discourage them. We can heal people with our words, or we can wound them deeply. A lot of us don't realize that words are deeds. They do things to people. Dr. John Gottman is, without any doubt, the most highly regarded marriage counselor in the world today. And the reason is that he has interviewed thousands of young couples right after their wedding and then followed their marriage for 20 years or more. After interviewing a couple for only 15 minutes, he can predict with 95% accuracy whether that marriage will be happy, or it would end in divorce, or be unhappy. How does he do it? Well, he says the single most important predictor of any relationship is how they talk to each other. You see, he agrees: words are deeds. They do things. He says being judgmental or critical is no one's love language. But people defend being judgmental, saying that they're just being honest and telling the truth. But Gottman's response to that is, that's deceitful. They're just covering up. He says it's actually worse, being hypocritical, because critics have their own issues and problems, and yet they feel so good about criticizing somebody else's faults. It's hypocritical. And that's why James, in our passage today, says the tongue is full of deadly poison. "Be quick to listen, slow to anger, slow to speak." Most people are just the opposite: quick to speak, quick to be angry, and slow to listen. The opposite of James. But would you agree that physical wounds heal a lot faster than word wounds? Heart wounds, verbal wounds? Do you know what I mean by verbal wounds that bruise your heart? Have you ever been bruised by somebody else's words? Fact of the matter is, those are the hardest words to forget, aren't they? The hardest words to forget. Harsh words are so hard. And that's why I say great relationships leave unsaid three things every day. Unsaid three things. Because once said, words are so very hard to forget. Let me tell you a true story, as told by Sue Kidd, that I read about in my research this last week. She's a nurse in a city hospital. One night at work, she stepped into Mr. Williams's room, one of her patients. And she said, as she stepped into the room, he looked up eagerly, but when he saw it was her, his eyes dropped, and you could tell that he was disappointed that it wasn't someone else. You see, that day he had had a very serious heart attack, and he was not in good condition. He looked up from his bed, and he said, "Nurse, would you..." And she said he hesitated. Tears filled his eyes, but he brushed away the tears, and he said, "Would you call my daughter? Would you tell her that I've had a heart attack?" And his breathing, she said, suddenly sped up, so she turned up his oxygen to 8 liters a minute and said, "Of course I'll call her." And then he said, "Will you call her right away?" She said, "Yes." "And nurse, would you bring me some paper and a pen?" "Yes, of course." And she walked out of his room, got the paper and pen, brought it back to him, and went right to the phone to call his daughter. She said, "I'm Sue Kidd, a nurse at the hospital, and I'm calling for your father. He's had a serious heart attack today, and he asked me to let you know that..." The woman on the other end of the line broke into tears, crying. She said, "He's not dying, is he? Don't let him die. My dad and I haven't spoken in a couple of years. We had a terrible argument on my 21st birthday, over my boyfriend. I haven't talked to him since. The last thing I said to him was, 'I never want to see you again.'" Her voice cracked. "I heard her sob. Here, I thought, were a father and daughter who deeply loved each other, but said hurtful words that are hard to forget." You know, this plays out in so many ways, doesn't it? Father, son. Mother, son. Mother, daughter. "Then I heard his daughter say, 'I'm coming right now. I'll be there in 30 minutes.' So I tried to busy myself with charts at my desk. And then, over the sound system, came, 'Code 99, room 712. Code 99.' And bursting through the doors were doctors and nurses pushing emergency equipment. A tube was inserted through his mouth as an airway. Nurses plunged syringes of medicine into his vein. We tried electrical shock to restart his heart, but it would not start. He was dead. "And slowly we all filed out of his room, grim and silent. And I saw his daughter leaning against the wall. And I could tell by the look on her face and the tears in her eyes that she was his daughter, and a doctor had already told her what had happened. "She said, 'I loved him. I want to see him.' "So I put my arm around her, and slowly we walked into the room. And she bent over his bed and wrapped her arms around him, choking out regrets as she sobbed. "But it was too late. He was dead. He could not hear what she was saying. "I noticed beside the bed, on a table, a note written on the paper I had given him. The note read, 'My dearest Mary, I forgive you. I pray you will also forgive me. I love you. Daddy.'" We cannot afford to get this wrong. You have no guarantee of tomorrow. Apologize. Say you're sorry. Encourage and love today. Listen today. Leave three words unsaid today. You have no guarantee of tomorrow. Let me pray for us. Lord, help us to be people who make wonderful memories that outlast us. And help us to take the wisdom of the scripture this morning and really live it, to actually live it. Lord, help us to do that. I pray this in Your name, Jesus. Amen.