Thankful 2003

R= 20;Reality Check”

P= salm 1

L= uke 6:17-26

<= o:p>

I= ntroduction. Lester B. Pearson was the prime mi= nister of Canada in 1965. He had rec= ently been elected, winning against former Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker. Pearson announced a war on poverty, similar to that of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. Diefenbaker, the former prime mini= ster, put in his two cents on Pearson’s work: “I was impressed. He appointed Tom Kent to run his w= ar on poverty….And (he) raised Kent’s salary from $12,000 a year to $25,000” Diefenbaker ad= ded slyly, “(Tom Kent) won his war on poverty.” (Gerald Tomlinson, Speaker̵= 7;s Treasury of Political Stories, Anecdotes & Humor, 1990, pp. 244-45)=

M= ove 1. What is a successful person? A person who is successful hasR= 30;what kind of qualities? Who is considered blessed in our society?

Cert= ainly, a person is considered blessed whose hard work results in having wealth. John D. Rockefeller gives three si= mple rules for anyone who wants to become rich: (1) go to work early, (2) stay at work late, (3) find oil. (fro= m www.bible.org) A person who follows the first two precepts, indeed, deserves to grow in wealth. Business consultant Maryse Nelson = says that “we should all desire to become financially secure and obtain from life all God intended for us to haveR= 30;.True success will result in material possessions but they do not define the term. Those possessions are wonderful by-products of well-executed plans and processes. They are not the driving forces behind the actions of a successf= ul individual. For this reason, a man with a hefty bank account will still wak= e up early in the morning to go to work; to stretch his mind beyond known territories; to continue on his successful path.” (Maryse A. Nelson, “The Defi= nition of Success,” www.uhhp.com) Such a person is considered blessed.

A pe= rson who likes to have fun is considered blessed, and happy, and that person often brings fun to others. Someone= with a good sense of humor is someone who, unless th= ey are just plain obnoxious, people like being around. Robert Louis Stevenson, in his “Thoughts on Happiness,” says that “everyone has somethin= g of sorrow intermingled with the gladness of life. The trick is to make the laughter outweigh the tears.” (R= obert Louis Stevenson)

Some= body is considered successful when they are popular, well-liked. A child or teenager can especially testify to that—being popular, fitting in, is at some point important in almost every adolescent’s life. But an adult is not much different, wanting to be liked too. www.justsell.com, “the web’s resource for sales and marketi= ng leaders,” has this to say in helping sellers think about marketing products: “If yo= u sell to consumers, include the potential emotional…benefits of being liked, respected, more attractive, etc. if these benefits exist.” Indeed, all a person has to do to = know how to be popular is watch television, the commercials and shows of which a= re designed to tell people what it takes to “fit in.” <= /span>

A person who is wealthy, who is or seems happy, who is well-liked, gets society’s blue ribbon award for being successful, for being blessed.<= o:p>

M= ove 2. How difficult, then, to hear what = Jesus had to say. What he spoke in = his sermon on the plain—similar to his sermon on the mount but with a few= er number of blessings, the added feature of woes, and, of course, not on top of a hill—what he spoke was hard to take.

What= Jesus said was this: “YouR= 17;re blessed when you’ve lost it all…. You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry….You’re blessed when the tears flow freely….Count yourself blessed every= time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears…yo= ur name to discredit me….But it’s trouble ahead if you think you h= ave made it. What you have is all you’ll ever get. And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy = you for long. And it’s trou= ble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games….There’s trou= ble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters t= hem, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests….Your task is to be true, not popular.” (Eu= gene Peterson, The Message, 2002, p. 1864)

What= Jesus said contradicted what people in his day believed. What he said flew in the face of t= he common notion that, as Psalm 1 described, the righteous prospered in all th= at they did, while the poor must have done something to deserve their poverty;= the common notion that the sad were paying for their sins; the notion that those who were persecuted had done something against God’s will and needed = to be punished. What he said—that the kingdom of God belonged to the poor, that the weepers a= nd those excluded were blessed, while the rich and satisfied and well-liked we= re in trouble—was unconventional and scandalous.

Was = the impact Jesus had with the things he said much different than it might be today? Listen to this contemp= orary version of blessings:<= /p>

“Blessed are those

who are behind in their studies,

who find no purpose in getting out of bed in the morning,

&= nbsp; who are unemployed,

&= nbsp; who are in marital turmoil,

&= nbsp; who live on the streets,

who are empty, unsteady, and unsure,

&= nbsp; who have a terminal illness,

who are overwhelmed by their own loneliness;

&= nbsp; theirs is the kingdom.” (Lorain Giles, Aha!, Feb. 15, 2004, p. 34)

&= nbsp;

What is said here, like what Jesus said, jars our sense of reality, that people = who are unemployed and terminally ill and lonely aren’t blessed, b= ut on the contrary are in trouble, not well, not whole.

What Jesus said was, and is, difficult to hear.=

Move 3. If the reality= that Jesus spoke about is different from our reality, what reality can we trust? Reality—what to believe and what not to believe—is a tricky thing.<= /p>

Reality for many, according to the great philosopher Plato in “The Allegory of the Cave,” is like being prisoners, chained to the floor, facing the stone wall of an “underground den.” The prisoners’ backs are to = the mouth of the cave, open towards the light, and they are unable even to turn their heads, unable to look toward the light. The prisoners are only able to loo= k at the wall in front of them, with the shadows produced by the people behind t= hem, and “here they have been from their childhood.” For them, Plato says, “the t= ruth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images,” and perhaps the echoes of their voices down into the cave. (Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave,” A World of Ideas, 1983, pp. 438-39)

Reality is difficult in our world today as well.&n= bsp; In a remarkable study conducted in October by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy, beliefs about the war in = Iraq are found to vary greatly.

Belief that

(1) a link existed between Iraq and al Qaeda,

(2) weapons of mass destruction have already been discovered, and/or

(3) the world mostly supported this U.S. led war

tends to correlate with personal support for the war, and with getting most information from certain TV networks, in particular FOX news. Meanwhile, belief that none of tho= se items are true correlates to much less support for the war, and with attachments to other new outlets, in particular NPR and PBS. (from www.pipa.org)= What to= really believe is hard--but that there was a link between Iraq and al Qaeda, or th= at weapons of mass destruction have been found--is either true, or simply shadows on the wall. <= o:p>

Perspective, the vantage point from which we see things, is huge when talking about reality. The reality of a nur= se friend of preacher William

Willimon is described by him: “S= he assists in the surgery…of people who have seriously ill hearts. Many of her patients don’t m= ake it through the delicate, risky surgery….It can be depressing, difficult work. ‘How do you keep going?’ I asked her. ‘Walks in the park’ was her reply. She explained, <= /p>

R= 16;I take an hour off for lunch and go to walk in the park. I see people who are happy, healthy. I see children playi= ng and older people sitting on benches…talking with one another. I am thereby reminded this is how = things are meant to be….It helps me to keep going in very difficult situations.” Reality es= cape, asks Willimon? No, reality ch= eck, a “look at the way things really are and are meant to be,” differ= ent from that “shadowy world where it is easy for her to forget what̵= 7;s what.” (William Willimon, sermon, “Get Real,” Pulpit Resource, Jan.-Mar. 2004, p. 31)

Reality, and discussions about what is true and what is not, are difficult, given th= at we come from different walks of life and various perspectives. Indeed, reality is often defined by where we stand in life, and so one person’s truth can often be another person’s shadow, and vice versa.

Move 4. But just for a moment, I’m asking you to indulge me, let’s go with the Bible.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Let’s pretend that Jesus is right—that it is the poor who have the kingdom of God at their fingertips, that those who are hungry and hated, weeping and defamed, are blessed. Could we live these = hard sayings on the blessings and the woes?&nbs= p; Might we be able to live in God’s reality, the reality that Je= sus proclaims--and what would that look like?

First, we need to resist the temptation to be false in poverty, sadness, and martyrdom, to impress others, or even to impress God. As one person says of this passage= in Luke, “The blessing isn’t because of their poverty; the blessing is in their poverty.” (Aha!, Jan.-Mar. 2004, p. 32) In other words, we don’t earn God’s blessing by becoming poor.&nbs= p; Also, we know people who wear their heart on their sleeve, who mope around and whine, seemingly to get attention. And we certainly know martyrs, tho= se people who let everyone know how hated and excluded they are. We understandably are annoyed at s= uch people, though we should be careful in our judgments. Certainly, though, we don’t = need to manufacture poverty, or sorrow, or hatred—it’s prevalent eno= ugh in the world, and probably will be present in our own personal lives at some point, so we don’t have to achieve these miseries.<= /p>

<= /span>

Seco= nd, we need to take another look at what we might consider to be woes—poverty, sorrow, etc. In his book, The Jesus I Never = Knew, we read Philip Yancey putting it this way: "The poor, the hungry, the mourners, and the oppressed truly are blessed. Not because of their miserab= le states, of course-- Jesus spent much of his life trying to remedy those miseries. Rather, they are blessed because of an…advantage they hold = over those more comfortable and self-sufficient." Yancey suggests that "people who are rich, successful, and beautiful may well go through li= fe relying on their natural gifts. People who lack such…advantages, (and= who are thus) unqualified for success in the kingdom of this world, just might = turn to God in their time of need." When they do, if we do, the kingdom of heaven draws near. (Philip Ya= ncey, The Jesus I Never Knew, 1995, pp. 116-117, quoted by Dr. Eugene Bay, sermon, “Christ’s Unconventional Wisdom”, February 3, 2002, in www.bmpc.org) Maybe we can heed the words of Psa= lm 1 here—“their delight is in the law of the Lord….They are l= ike trees planted by streams of water…and their leaves do not wither.”

Finally, we really need to tune into God’s will for our lives. And for starters, that means we ne= ed to, in Plato’s words, be “released and disabused of…error.= 221; We need to look at the light, and = though it may at first be painful and will make us want to turn back to the shadow= s, we need to abide there rather than go back. We might, when we tune in, hear God’s call to be giving of our time, talent, and possessions; = we might be sorrowful when we consider the pain in the lives of our neighbors here and abroad; we might be excluded or even hated= for speaking about God’s love and concern for all people.

If you are anything like me, we do not easily give away wealth, especially if = we don’t consider ourselves wealthy; we want to avoid sorrow, and hunger; and we cringe at the thought that someone might not like us. Guilty as charged. But can we begin the journey, or continue it, of moving out of our success-oriented, popularity-based views = on the world, and into God’s reality?

<= /span>

Conclusion. You know= , in this sermon on the plain, Jesus doesn’t actually

recommend that we do anything, at least not directly. He is not telling anyone, as he of= ten does in other places, to drop everything and follow him. Jesus is merely presenting reality= , a reality that God’s kingdom belongs to the poor and excluded, that a heavenly banquet awaits the hungry, and that “joy comes in the morning.” (Peterson, The Message, p. 1864) M= ay his news,

which is our reality check, be good news for us all.

Febr= uary 15, 2004

Rev.= Dave Hedgepeth

First Presbyterian Church

Loga= n, Utah