Sermon Tone Analysis

“BA in English”

“BA in English”

Have you ever heard of a quarter life crisis?

It’s this period of life people go through where they become unsure of their purpose - they’ve spent all their life preparing for… something.

Some special purpose.

But now that they’re prepared, they’re not quite sure what that something is, or how to go about fulfilling that purpose.

According to people who study such things, this period of life can happen any time in one’s twenties or thirties.

Much more familiar is the quarter life crisis’s older sibling, the mid-life crisis.

It’s this period of life people go through where they become unsure of their purpose, and according to the people who study such things, it commonly occurs between the ages of 45 and 64, with some people going through it at younger or older ages.

Add to these the so-called tween years, teenage angst, second adolescence, the recently discovered three quarter life crisis, and the fears of old age, and one might be tempted to conclude that people spend a large portion of their lives wondering about their purpose.

What’s that?

You didn’t need a bunch of research studies to tell you that?

Yeah, me neither.

I think, though, that we might be giving purpose a little too much power.

We’ve built up this romantic ideal of individual purpose: that each of us has that one thing that, if we could just figure out what it is, would fill our lives with meaning.

We are preternaturally good at it, will be passionate about it forever, and doing anything else is a waste of time by comparison.

The way most people talk about a Purpose In Life, it’s almost like the vocational equivalent of a soul mate.

You know, that whole idea that there is exactly one person in the whole world who could possibly be a good fit for you.

If you marry them, everything will be romance and rainbows, and if you end up marrying anybody else (or not marrying at all) your life will be an endless parade of misery?

Whether we’re talking about vocation or marriage, the stakes seem so incredibly high when you put it that way.

At the first sign of unhappiness or dissatisfaction we’re left asking “did I pick wrong?”

Did I make a mistake?

Am I doomed to never find true happiness?

But the truth is, it’s not so much about what you do, or who you marry, as how you live into your reality.

Sure, some things will be awful fits.

Most of us are going to have that story.

The one about the worst job we ever had, or the most terrible date we ever went on - or, if we’re lucky, both at the same time!

But even the best fit will not be perfect.

Even if we are putting our talents to use and maximizing our own potential, there will be days, weeks, even months and years, where we are dissatisfied with our progress.

And that’s why there’s something more important than purpose: Outlook.

Paul, the writer of the two texts we read earlier, encourages his audience to change their outlook.

To have patience.

To practice self control.

To be forgiving.

And above all, no matter what they do, to do it with the kind of dedication and commitment they would Jesus himself had commanded them to do it.

By the middle of act 1 of Avenue Q, Princeton - the guy who sang that song a couple of minutes ago - has a similar realization.

He doesn’t know what his purpose in life is.

He doesn’t even know where to start looking.

But what he does know is that if he goes after everything he does in life as though it were his purpose, good things will come of it.

“Purpose” (Modified)