44 Sermon Illustrations on Vanity

I once heard of a sagacious man, who, being on his death-bed, was solicited to leave some memorial to his friends. Unable to articulate, he made signs to have pen and ink brought to him, and with these traced two great circles, or nothings, upon a sheet of paper. After his decease, there was much speculation what these could mean. The common conjecture was, that he intended to signify that the body and the soul have their appointed circuits, and that, when these are finished, they return severally to their origin,—the body to the earth, and the spirit unto God. In my opinion, however, the two ciphers must have been intended to show the nullity of all terrestrial things, just as the wisest of monarchs could find nothing but vanity and vexation in the learning, pleasures, joys, honor, wealth, and glory of the world. Gotthold.

There was one Michael Fenwick that travelled with Wesley as a sort of groom, nurse, and occasional exhorter. The good man was vain enough to complain, one day, that his name was never inserted in Wesley's published "Journals." In the next number of the "Journals" he found his name in a connection that probably did not serve to increase his vanity. "I left Epworth," wrote Wesley, "with great satisfaction, and about one preached at Clayworth. I think none were unmoved but Michael Fenwick, who fell fast asleep under an adjoining hayrick." Dr. H. Iven.

What are they when they stand upon the highest pinnacles of worldly dignities, but bladders swelled up with the breath of the popular rout?—nothings set astrut; chessmen, that on the board play the kings and nobles, but in the bag are of the same materials and rank with others.

— Hopkins

As well try to fill the yawning chasm with a few grains of sand as satisfy the gulf of the soul's desires with the pleasure of an empty world. Macduff.

They who speak well of themselves show their vanity; while those who keep silence, or speak ill of themselves, do so from the same motive.

Wherefore be-think thyself at length, O deluded world! and write over all thy school-doors, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom;" over all thy court-gates, "Let not the mighty man glory in his might;" over all thy exchanges and banks, "Let not the rich man glory in his riches." Write upon thy looking-glasses Bath-sheba's motto, "Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain;" upon thy mews and artillery-yards, that of the Psalmist, "God delighteth not in the strength of a horse; he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man;" upon thy taverns, inns, and ale-houses, that of Solomon, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise;" upon thy magazines and wardrobes, that of our Saviour, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal." Write upon thy counting-houses that of Habakkuk, "Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his, how long? and to him that loadeth himself with thick clay;" thy playhouses, that of Paul, "Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God;" thy banqueting-houses, that of the same holy apostle, "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both them and it;" yea, upon all thine accommodations, that of the Preacher, "Vanity of vanities: all is vanity and vexation of spirit." Dr. Arrowsmith.

On a court day in December, 1795, Sir John Sinclair happened to meet Mr. Secretary Dundas at St. James's, who pressed him to name a day for visiting him at Wimbledon. The day fixed upon chanced to be the last of the year. The party was numerous, and included Mr. Pitt. Sir John remained all night; and next morning, according to Scottish custom, resolved to pay his host an early visit in his own apartment. He found the secretary in the library, reading a long paper on the importance of conquering the Cape, as an additional security to our Indian possessions. His guest shook him by the hand, adding the usual congratulation, "I come, my friend, to wish you a good new year, and many happy returns of the season." The secretary, after a short pause, replied with some emotion, "I hope this year will be happier than the last, for I can scarcely recollect having spent one happy day in the whole of it." This confession, coming from an individual whose whole life hitherto had been a series of triumphs, and who appeared to stand secure upon the summit of political ambition, was often dwelt upon by Sir John as exemplifying the vanity of human wishes.

When William the Conqueror was born his first exploit was to grasp a handful of straw, and to hold it so tenaciously in his little fist that the nurse could scarcely take it away. This infantile prowess was considered an omen, and the nurse predicted that the babe would some day signalize himself by seizing and holding great possessions. And he did.

But what, after all, were many of the possessions seized by the Norman Conqueror but a handful of straw. And so are not a few of the conquests of earthly ambition, no matter how tenaciously held as well as ardently won. Over many a pile of wealth and massed achievement might be written: “A handful of straw in a baby fist!”

There is a suggestive and saddening passage in Miss Ellen Terry’s recent “Reminiscences.” The great actress was talking to Sir Henry Irving, her old comrade on the stage, as he lay ill. “Do you ever think, as I do sometimes, what have you got out of life?” asked Miss Terry. “What have I got out of it?” said Irving, stroking his chin and smiling slightly, “Let me see--well, a good cigar, a good glass of wine, good friends.”

And that summary satisfies many another. The pathetic futility of it all! Material things vanish, and then what remains? Life should be more rewarding than this. (Text.)

The fate of the soap-bubble is a lesson put into rime by Katherine Pyle:

“I am little,” the soap-bubble said, “just now; Oh, yes, I am small, I know”; (This is what it said to the penny pipe); “But watch and see me grow.

“Now, look! and reflected in me you’ll see The windows, the chairs and door. I’m a whole little world; did you ever know Such a wonderful thing before?

“And only look at my colors bright, Crimson and green and blue, You could hardly hope such a lovely thing Would ever stay here with you.

“And I feel so light!” the bubble cried; “I’m going now; good-by! I shall float and float away from here, Out under the shining sky.

“I shall float--” But puff! the bubble broke. The pipe near the nursery floor Never looked nor spoke, but went on with its work, And blew a great many more.

It was one of history’s most deadly cover-ups, responsible for countless deaths. Yet it had nothing to do with politics, crime or money.

The Greeks called it “kosmetikos”. The word means “skilled in decorating”, or “cosmetics” in English. Though face powder and eye paint go back to ancient Egypt, it was the Greeks of 700 B.C. who put a whole new face on makeup.

Although men of the time valued the natural look, they coloured their cheeks with rouge. But mistresses of the wealthy heightened the rouge’s redness by first applying white powder to their faces and necks. No one knew at the time, but the powder contained large amounts of lead which destroyed complexions and shortened lives. Though the rouge itself was made from harmless mulberries and seaweed, it was coloured with cinnabar, a poisonous, red derivative of mercury. Since the same cream was used to paint the lips, the toxin easily found its way into the body.

Just as dangerous was a popular Greek and Roman product called orpiment, used by both sexes to remove unwanted body hair. It’s active ingredient was arsenic. Even as late as the 18th century, European women were eating “Arsenic Complexion Wafers” which really did whiten the skin. The wafers worked by poisoning the blood so it carried fewer red cells and less oxygen.

Since arsenic, lead and mercury all affect the fetus, the chemicals resulted in countless miscarriages, stillbirths and deformities over the centuries. It wasn’t until the close of the 1800s that the French invented “safe” cosmetics.

“If looks could kill!”, we hear people say. Well they did, for hundreds of years. And they still do. In a society preoccupied with appearances, even our churches are filled with people who hide their true face behind deadly, disfiguring identities that are substantially made up.

That’s because we continue to put subtle conditions on love and acceptance. People are welcome, as long as they don’t have any “big” sins and grow as fast as we think they should. No wonder those who worry their struggles wouldn’t be understood hide their blemishes and cover up their fear, doubt and failure.

When we cake ourselves with the powder of pretence and the paint of emotional protection, we all but obliterate our natural beauty. Those toxins wrinkle the spirit. They eventually seep inside, poisoning lives, love and relationships. They can even cause rebirth defects as enforced conformity leads to deformity of the soul.

God won’t countenance a phony face. He calls us to wipe away every guise and disguise and recognize the true beauty that comes of seeing past imperfection to the grace of Jesus. He is patient and loving and able to help us overcome our struggles. Not even our sin can hide us from the love of God, and that perspective should give our faith a whole different complexion.

________

Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, Brantford, Ontario, Canada

A Chinese legend tells of a group of cultured elderly gentlemen who

met often to exchange wisdom and drink tea. Each host tried to find

the finest and most costly varieties of tea so as to creat exotic

blends that would arouse the admiration of his guests.

When the most venerable and respected of the group entertained, he

served his tea with unprecedented ceremony, measuring the leaves from

a golden box. The assembled epicures praised this exquisite tea. The

host smiled and said, "The tea you have found so delightful is the

same teo our peasants drink. I hope that it will be a reminder to us

all that the good things in life are not necessarily the rarest or the

most costly."

Dodi Al Fayed was the son of one of Britain's most controversial men and his love affair with the country's most famous woman, Princess Diana, shocked and fascinated the world.

Al Fayed, 41, was definitely not part of the British "establishment" which Diana felt had so badly let her down during her 15 years of marriage to heir to the throne Prince Charles.

A Oscar-winning film producer of Egyptian descent with a string of beautiful girlfriends, some of them from the world of show business, Al Fayed seemed about as far away from the ascetic, serious Charles as it is possible to get. His friendship with Diana started to blossom only five weeks ago, and in that time Britain's papers were full of carefree photographs of the princess and her playboy kissing and cuddling on his yacht or in the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean.

But this summer romance, straight from the pages of romance fiction, became tragic in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Diana was due to fly home to Britain Sunday to her two beloved sons after her third trip this month on Al Fayed's luxury yacht in the Mediterranean.

Dodi and Diana left the Ritz Hotel, owned by his father, Mohamed Al Fayed, after dinner. They were killed when their car crashed at high speed in a traffic tunnel in central Paris. Their chauffeur was also killed.

A police spokesman said the car was being chased by paparazzi at the time of the accident.

Dodi's family life had been touched repeatedly by tragedy. Both his mother Samira, who separated from his father just months after Dodi's birth, and his grandmother died young. Samira's second husband died in a car crash, as did his stepfather and an aunt.

Since her long drawn-out, painful divorce from Charles, was finalized 12 months ago last week, Diana had been careful not to be caught with any male companions, apparently anxious to douse media interest in her every move.

But hardly a day went by in August without British newspapers publishing pictures of Dodi and Diana embracing.

Al Fayed, a rotund man with a ready smile, appeared to enjoy Diana's company as much as she enjoyed his.

"We relaxed .... We had a good time," Al Fayed said after one vacation. "We are very good friends."

Al Fayed, known in Egypt by the name Emad, was his father's eldest son. He was born in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in 1955 and received preparatory education there before leaving in 1970 to finish his schooling in Switzerland.

His father, Mohamed Al Fayed, repeatedly clashed with British authorities who refused his requests for a British passport and publicly attacked his business methods.

He contributed to the election defeat of the Conservative government in the May 1 election with allegations that he had paid senior Conservatives to ask questions for him in Parliament.

His mother was the sister of billionaire Adnan Khashoggi. After a short stint in a military college, Dodi became an attache in the United Arab Emirates Embassy in London.

But Al Fayed wanted a more creative atmosphere and a faster pace of life. He moved to Hollywood where he used the family's vast fortune to produce or co-produce films like "Hook" and the Oscar-winning "Chariots of Fire."

He had houses in London, Los Angeles and New York, loved fast cars and had the run of several yachts. His father's business empire included the Harrods luxury store in London.

A frequenter of nightclubs, Al Fayed was linked romantically with several Hollywood stars before starting a close relationship with Diana.

After his liaison with Diana became public knowledge, a model, Kelly Fisher, claimed he had said he wanted a baby with her and had promised to marry her. She claimed that Al Fayed had shuttled between her and Diana during one of their Mediterranean vacations.

In Cairo, Egyptian state television said Al Fayed's body would be flown to Alexandria for burial, but spokesmen for his father denied that and said he would be buried in Britain.

Al Fayed's chief spokesman, Michael Cole, said the Harrods owner was determined to bury his son in Britain despite his anger at the British government's long-standing refusal to grant him a British passport.

^REUTER@

National Post writer Allen Abel recently spoke to 12 unusual Canadians who have undergone extraordinary experiences. In the ninth part of our series, he speaks to Kent Bannatyne, 44, a photocopier service technician in Victoria, B.C. Last August, Mr. Bannatyne was infected with necrotizing fasciitis, also known as flesh-eating disease.

---

What basically happened is that I cut my finger in a copier. I was on a two-week training course over in Richmond when it happened. I was reaching in to try to feel exactly where a mirror was on the inside of the copier, so I could figure out the path of the laser. As I was pulling my hand out, I just nicked it on an edge -- the metal inside a copier is cut with a laser, so the edges are very, very sharp.

It took maybe a quarter-inch square of skin off my left index finger, near the knuckle. It bled for a couple of minutes and I wrapped it in a paper towel until it stopped. I used to work on cars and I cut myself all the time -- that's what hands do, they get cut and they get calloused. So I didn't think anything of it.

The next morning, I woke up with my finger swollen to twice its normal size. So I figured I had an infection and I popped the scab off and squeezed out the pus. I was staying in a hotel during the training course, so when I got in to work, I asked them for an antiseptic and cleaned it out.

I figured it's a done deal, right?

That night the course ended and I got on the ferry and came back over to the island -- I was living in Courtenay at the time -- and drove home. I was really beat; I turned on the TV, lay down on the couch and fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning really ill. I thought I had the flu and my left shoulder was killing me -- I thought I had slept wrong or something and dislocated my shoulder. I played football in high school, and I dislocated my elbows, and that's what it felt like. Like it had popped out of place.

This was a Saturday; I sat around all day and tried to get rid of the flu. I took vitamins and drank plenty of liquids and I figured maybe it'll be better tomorrow.

I woke up Sunday and the flu is worse and my shoulder is still killing me. I went to the walk-in clinic and the doctor said, "You need X-rays," and he sent me to the Courtenay hospital in a taxi because I was already feeling too sick to drive.

When I got to the hospital, the doctors were having one of their walkouts, so there was a very low level of staffing. But at some point, they recognized that they had something that they didn't know how to handle and within a few hours they were making arrangements to fly me to Victoria or Vancouver in a helicopter.

They wouldn't tell me what they were thinking. They just said, "You're very, very sick." They asked me the name and number of my closest relative and I gave them my father's number in Kimberley, B.C., but the next thing I know, I get a call from my sister in Nebraska and she's bawling her eyes out. Meanwhile, I'm still thinking, I'll be OK, it's just the flu.

They flew me to Victoria General. I woke up the next day and my mother and sister were there and they had tubes in me and I was on pretty heavy doses of medication. My face was just a mess of tubes coming out of me. It was so swollen up there were no recognizable features. My mother was sitting there next to me, but my sister was sort of hiding behind her, like she couldn't bear to look at me because she was so scared.

That's the last thing I remember for three weeks. Three weeks later, I woke up and my mother was there and she said, "You had flesh-eating disease and you almost died."

And I just said, "Where was I eaten?"

They said I lost 7% of my flesh on my left side and across my chest. It turns out it was a classic case: flu-like symptoms and then severe pain in close proximity to a cut or bruise.

It's the same bacteria as strep throat. They say that 1% of adults are carrying strep in them, but they don't know it. Some people get strep throat. Some people get necrotizing fasciitis. Nobody knows why.

After it infects the body, it's looking for nodes or organs. So it finds the node under my arm and swelled up so much that it moved my shoulder up and out of place. It takes over one part of the body and then it goes looking for more organs or muscles to eat.

It travels approximately three centimetres an hour, killing everything in its path.

It ate part of my left bicep, travelled across my chest and down my rib cage. We think that the ribs kept it from getting in to eat the internal organs. That's probably what saved my life.

It was pretty weird. I'd only heard of one case of flesh-eating disease before I got it and it wasn't Bouchard. When Bouchard happened, I didn't even acknowledge it. But I had seen a story on TV about a little girl that got it and the little girl died. That's the one I remembered.

When I woke up from the drug-induced coma, I was just thinking, "What's going to happen to me?" and nobody's really telling me anything. Finally, the plastic surgeon showed up to try to start weaning me off morphine, and he told me that the infection was gone and that it would probably take a number of months to get my body going again.

I had seven operations to put my chest back together. I had an implant, a "skin grower" -- it's like getting a boob, basically. They take all that skin and stretch it out so I don't have a hole across my chest any more. I looked like a skinned cow or a deer -- it looks like a raw steak is what it looks like.

With flesh-eating disease, usually you either live or you die. But it's been eight months since they said the infection was gone, and I'm still not able to live my life.

I've lost all control of my bodily functions below the waist. I can walk, but I can't stand still in one place without leaning on something. I can't control my bladder. They don't know why it's happening -- it seems like it ate a nerve in my back or something.

I can't go back to work until I get training in another field. I guess I'll become a computer geek or something. I just feel cheated.

The way society looks at it, it's a gross disease. They say, "You're losing flesh, euw."

But I'm still alive. I beat this thing.

My badge of honour is going to come from helping other people. I went back to the clinic in Courtenay and I thanked the doctor for saving my life because he's the one who sent me to the hospital in the first place. I thanked him for saving my life from necrotizing fasciitis.

He said, "But I've never seen a case of necrotizing fasciitis."

And I said, "Yes, you have: me."

My local hardware store has a way of putting its customers in their place before they even enter. The sign posted on the door reads: "Shoes required, because you might hurt yourself. Shirts required, because you're not as good-looking as you think."

Would you be beautiful in the ancient world?

In ancient Greece the rules of beauty were all important. Things were good for men who were buff and glossy. And for women, fuller-figured redheads were in favour - but they had to contend with an ominous undercurrent.

A full-lipped, cheek-chiselled man in Ancient Greece knew two things - that his beauty was a blessing (a gift of the gods no less) and that his perfect exterior hid an inner perfection. For the Greeks a beautiful body was considered direct evidence of a beautiful mind. They even had a word for it - kaloskagathos - which meant being gorgeous to look at, and hence being a good person.

Not very politically correct, but the horrible truth is that pretty Greek boys would have swaggered around convinced they were triply blessed - beautiful, brainy and god-beloved. So what made them fit? For years, classical Greek sculpture was believed to be a perfectionist fantasy - an impossible ideal, but we now think a number of the exquisite statues from the 5th to the 3rd Centuries BC were in fact cast from life - a real person was covered with plaster, and the mould created was then used to make the sculpture.

Those with leisure time could spend up to eight hours a day in the gym. An average Athenian or Spartan citizen would have been seriously ripped. A rather different story though when it comes to the female of the species. Hesiod - an 8th/7th Century BC author whose works were as close as the Greeks got to a bible - described the first created woman simply as kalon kakon - “the beautiful-evil thing”. She was evil because she was beautiful, and beautiful because she was evil. Being a good-looking man was fundamentally good news. Being a handsome woman, by definition, spelt trouble.

Interestingly the femme-fatale-ness of one blonde-bombshell - Helen of Troy - was considered to stem not from the way she looked, but how she made men feel and what she made men do. When we first meet her in book three of Homer’s Iliad, the old men sing, their voices rising and falling, like cicadas: “Oh what beauty!” they say. “Terrible beauty - beauty like that of a goddess” - meaning the kind of presence that drives men to distraction.

The literary Helen drew men both to her bed and to their deaths. Her beauty was a weapon of mass destruction. In the Greek mind everything had an intrinsic meaning; nothing was pointless. Beauty had a purpose; it was an active, independent reality, not a nebulous quality that only came into being once it was discerned.

Beauty was a psycho-physical parcel that had as much to do with character and divine favour as chest size. The philosopher Socrates famously confounded all ideas of how a beautiful Greek should look, with his swaggering gait, swivelling eyes, bulbous nose, hairy back and pot belly. Passages in the Socratic dialogues are dedicated to a radical exploration of how this satyr-like shell might in fact contain a luminous character. But Socrates and his pupil Plato were fighting an uphill battle. The sheer number of mirrors found in Greek graves show that beauty really counted for something. Looks mattered.

________

Bettany Hughes is a classical historian, author of Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore

The tombs about Alexandria contain the remains of once proud princes as well as the dust of the poor. This has been taken out and sold as a fertilizer, and is known in the trade as “Egyptian guano.” Four thousand years ago no pains or cost was spared to honor this dust now so dishonored.

fixity of tenure in Ireland; can they find it in England, or for the matter of that, in all the world? No, we are all tenants, liable to be ejected without an hour's notice. How death must laugh at our leases and our bonds! Cobwebs are not more frail. A bubble has as sure a tenure as a man.

When Charlemagne died, he was buried at Aix la Chapelle, “keeping royal state and semblance still.” The purple robe was around him, the crown glittered on his pallid brow. The sword of state lay near him, and the scepter rested in his hand. Seated on a chair of state, with all these insignia of royalty upon him and around him, he was left in the chamber of death. A century afterward, that silent chamber was opened by the barbarian Otho. And now the purple robe was dust and ashes. The crown was a faded spangle, the sword of state corroded metal, and all that remained of Charles the Great, a ghastly skeleton.

It was one of history’s most deadly cover-ups, responsible for countless deaths. Yet it had nothing to do with politics, crime or money.

The Greeks called it “kosmetikos”. The word means “skilled in decorating”, or “cosmetics” in English. Though face powder and eye paint go back to ancient Egypt, it was the Greeks of 700 B.C. who put a whole new face on makeup.

Although men of the time valued the natural look, they coloured their cheeks with rouge. But mistresses of the wealthy heightened the rouge’s redness by first applying white powder to their faces and necks. No one knew at the time, but the powder contained large amounts of lead which destroyed complexions and shortened lives. Though the rouge itself was made from harmless mulberries and seaweed, it was coloured with cinnabar, a poisonous, red derivative of mercury. Since the same cream was used to paint the lips, the toxin easily found its way into the body.

Just as dangerous was a popular Greek and Roman product called orpiment, used by both sexes to remove unwanted body hair. It’s active ingredient was arsenic. Even as late as the 18th century, European women were eating “Arsenic Complexion Wafers” which really did whiten the skin. The wafers worked by poisoning the blood so it carried fewer red cells and less oxygen.

Since arsenic, lead and mercury all affect the fetus, the chemicals resulted in countless miscarriages, stillbirths and deformities over the centuries. It wasn’t until the close of the 1800s that the French invented “safe” cosmetics.

“If looks could kill!”, we hear people say. Well they did, for hundreds of years. And they still do. In a society preoccupied with appearances, even our churches are filled with people who hide their true face behind deadly, disfiguring identities that are substantially made up.

That’s because we continue to put subtle conditions on love and acceptance. People are welcome, as long as they don’t have any “big” sins and grow as fast as we think they should. No wonder those who worry their struggles wouldn’t be understood hide their blemishes and cover up their fear, doubt and failure.

When we cake ourselves with the powder of pretence and the paint of emotional protection, we all but obliterate our natural beauty. Those toxins wrinkle the spirit. They eventually seep inside, poisoning lives, love and relationships. They can even cause rebirth defects as enforced conformity leads to deformity of the soul.

God won’t countenance a phony face. He calls us to wipe away every guise and disguise and recognize the true beauty that comes of seeing past imperfection to the grace of Jesus. He is patient and loving and able to help us overcome our struggles. Not even our sin can hide us from the love of God, and that perspective should give our faith a whole different complexion.

________

Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, Brantford, Ontario, Canada

Mr. Locke, before his death, declared: “This life is a scene of vanity that soon passes away, and affords no solid satisfaction but in the consciousness of doing well and in the hopes of another life.”

A FARMER’S daughter was carrying her Pail of milk from the field to the farmhouse, when she fell a-musing. “The money for which this milk will be sold, will buy at least three hundred eggs. The eggs, allowing for all mishaps, will produce two hundred and fifty chickens. The chickens will become ready for the market when poultry will fetch the highest price, so that by the end of the year I shall have money enough from my share to buy a new gown. In this dress I will go to the Christmas parties, where all the young fellows will propose to me, but I will toss my head and refuse them every one.” At this moment she tossed her head in unison with her thoughts, when down fell the milk pail to the ground, and all her imaginary schemes perished in a moment.

Vanity and worldliness will never get you anywhere. Indeed, it is better to be content with what you have than to aspire to have more than you need.