Cheap Pleasure or Faithful Meaning
written by Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowski
“Whoever loves pleasure will suffer want. ”
I am reading Thomas Ward’s book After Stoicism, and he offers a way of looking at the world from a Stoic distance without denying the potential for God’s joy. Ward paraphrases Cicero when he states, “Life confronts us with many situations in which we have the option to pursue pleasure or to do something else that is not pleasant but that we judge to be the better thing to do.” Does life have meaning beyond our pursuit of pleasure?
While Cicero helped establish the Roman Empire a couple of generations before Jesus turned the empire on its ear, had he lived to hear Jesus’ proclamations, Cicero would have found much in common with the Jewish itinerant preacher. Food, drink, entertainment, and sex are all good things when valued ethically and morally, but pleasure is not the end-all. Cicero, like Jesus, shared meaning in something beyond pleasure.
Cicero and Jesus shared a “better,” more meaningful way than pleasure. I’ve met with several hundred families, and none of them celebrated how much their deceased loved one ate, drank, watched TV, or had sex. There was a time when a family allowed an idiot golf pro to speak in the sanctuary where I served. He stood up there, as icky as the day is long, talking about how many women the dead man bedded. It was a real hoot for those without faith. This idiot spewed his trash with the deceased man’s teenage son and daughter grieving in the front row. It was one of a handful of times I’ve wanted to commit violence in God’s house- the profane golf pro, with his cheap humor, valued pleasure above all else.
His stories were hollow, and you could feel the emptiness emanating from the golf pro’s soul. The horrible stories brought a more profound sense of clarity to my faith. You know there is something “better” in this world than pleasure when you witness it in its naked emptiness. Instead of following in the footsteps of the filthy golf pro, commit to faith in our Triune God and watch the Holy Spirit bring lasting meaning and wholeness beyond anything cheap pleasures can provide.
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