The Fourth Sunday
after Epiphany Year A
Transcribed from a
sermon given
On January 30, 2011
At St. Barnabas
Episcopal Church
By Rev. Valerie Ann
Hart, Ph.D.
Micah 6:1-8
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12
I’d like you to imagine that you
are an alien from another planet and you have discovered that there is life on
this blue planet earth. You haven’t come to visit yet, but you have been able
to get our TV channels, so you have this whole array of TV shows over the past
60 years. You are working on your Ph.D. dissertation where you are attempting
to discern what it is that makes these earthlings happy. What is the source of
happiness based, of course, on the TV shows? Well the first thing you might
come up with is that the main source of happiness for human beings is money.
You look at the TV shows and see that they will do stupid and crazy things on
the game shows to make a little money. They hoard it, they steal it, they hurt
each other for it. It seems to be their primary motivation, and what brings
them joy.
You might also see that another
determinant of happiness is to not get too attached to other people, to play it
cool, because you see so much unhappiness because of deep relationships. And so
the source of happiness is to be detached, cool, calm.
The next thing is that it is very
clear that happiness comes from being assertive. You only need to watch a
couple of episodes of Oprah to get an idea that you need to be assertive. And
if you watch other shows you see you need to be strong, you need to take care
of yourself. Clearly that’s an important source of happiness.
For the next one you might want to
get a good overall view of human happiness, so you spend some time reviewing
the family sitcoms from the fifties. From this you conclude that happiness for
those people came from being satisfied with the way things are.
But then one of your advisors
says, “But you’ve left out this whole large body of literature called Survivor.
And clearly to be happy one has to be ruthless. One has to be treacherous. And
clearly the ultimate source of happiness is to be ‘the winner’. Look at how
people celebrate when their teams win. Look at the joy on the faces of the
winners of the game shows and how miserable the ones who come in second are.”
Then finally it seems to be
important to be famous, well liked, because that is how you get on the
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. That’s why so many of the shows, especially
on cable, are about these people who are famous. It is not always clear what
they are famous for, they are just famous.
So the conclusion of your
dissertation comes out and says “According to the TV culture of the United
States the source of happiness, the one who would be truly happy, is one who is
rich, cool, assertive, satisfied, ruthless, unforgiving, who wins and therefore
becomes famous.
Now secretly in your heart are any
of those things what you really want? Maybe when you were younger you really
wanted or thought were important? Do you want to be famous? Do you want to win?
Do you want to have that money?
But of course if you remember we
just read the beatitudes. And each one of those is the exact opposite of what
Jesus says is the source of happiness. The Greek word translated blessed can be
translated a number of different ways. In the New Jerusalem Bible it is
translated as happy. It also means that you are blessed by God, that you have a
special place in God’s heart, that you are joyous.
So in the beatitudes Jesus says
the one who is happy, the one who has the true deep joy, is the one who is poor
in spirit, meek (that’s the opposite of being assertive), those who morn, and
of course if we open our hearts to care about other people there will be times
when we will grieve at the loss of another. To hunger and thirst for
righteousness means you are not satisfied with the way things are. To be
merciful is the exact opposite of being ruthless. To be pure in heart is to be
honest, the exact opposite of the treacherous things you see on Survivor. To be
a peace maker means that there is something more important than winning and
losing. And of course if you are being persecuted you are not necessarily being
liked.
So these are what Jesus says are
our true sources of happiness. It is completely counter cultural. It goes against
everything we hear about in our culture. And of course it was completely
counter cultural in Jesus’ time too. The Beatitudes are radical. But there is
also so many of them that you can kind of put them aside. Oh aren’t they sweet,
I don’t really remember them and live them out but they are really nice.
One of the frustrations as a
preacher when the reading is the beatitudes is there is not enough time to do
all of them justice. In fact, I could easily preach for a long time on any one
of those beatitudes. So here’s what I am going to suggest. I put on pieces of
paper a beatitude and I am going to pass these around and let the Holy Spirit
have you pick one, and then pass it on to the next person. Pass these around as
I talk. Pick one and take it home with you and hang out with it. If you are a
scholar, you will go on your computer and you will look up the translations of
it. You might look up some people’s commentaries on it. You could study it that
way, even go back to the original Greek. If you are a contemplative type you
could sit and meditate on it. If you are a procrastinator you can go and put it
on your pile and you will get around to it sometime. If you are a little
obsessive compulsive you can decide how many minutes you are going to spend
each day looking at it and contemplating it. If you are an artist you could
draw it. If you are a dancer, you could see how you would dance this beatitude.
If you are a singer maybe you can come up with a song. But be with it. And of
course if you are one of those people who is a doer figure out how you can do
this in your life.
The beatitudes, each one of them
is so rich that you can spend months thinking about it, reflecting on it,
living with it and letting it change you from the inside out. You can’t do all
of them at once but spend some time with whichever one you pulled out.
The beatitudes are a little long,
in our limited attention span culture, to memorize. We like little pithy
statements. I was at the board of trustees and the standing committee for the
diocese retreat and we were talking about strategic planning. We were talking
about the importance of having a motto, a logo, something that is short and
clear and that can appear everywhere and sets up your mission statement in just
a few words that everyone can remember.
The beatitudes would be a great
mission statement but no one would remember them. But the first reading today
from Micah gives us from the prophet a sort of shorter version of the
beatitudes. Very simple. Very clear. “What does the Lord require. Three things,
do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.” You can remember that
one. Do justice, love kindness (and sometimes it is translated as love mercy)
and walk humbly with your God.
To do justice means that God wants
us to be active. Jesus put it in terms of bringing in the kingdom of God on
Earth. Thy kingdom come, here on earth. A just world. A carrying for those who
are weak, for the widows and orphan, for the poor and the sick, of seeing that
there is justice done on earth.
The second one is love kindness,
love mercy. Jesus put it, “Love one another as I have loved you.” To treat
every human being as a child of God. To be and live in kindness.
And to walk humbly with God.
Humility is one of those words that is often misunderstood. Humility is not a
bad self concept. In fact, a person with a bad self concept is often very
egotistical because “I’m no good,” “I’m overweight,” “I’m so uncoordinated,” “I’m
not smart,” “I just can’t do anything right.” I, I, I, every sentence starts
with I. It is all about what is wrong with them. That’s not humility. Humility
is being honest about who we are. Acknowledging the gifts we have from God and
giving glory to God. That it is not about us.
It is interesting that walk humbly
with God is translated by Peterson in the Message (he has some very interesting
translations sometimes) as, “Don’t take yourself too seriously, take God
seriously.” In other word, being humble is acknowledging the gifts you have and
using them to help other people but not taking it too serious. Not thinking too
much of yourself, or too little of yourself, and giving all the glory to God.
Or as Paul said in the reading today, “if you are to boast, boast in the Lord”
because that is where all our gifts come from. It keeps us in the right
perspective.
So remember and try to live out “to
do justice”. That a wonderful mission statement, vision for your own life, to
do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.
Today we are having our annual
meeting and we probably as a vestry will look at a vision statement. But what a
wonderful mission statement for a church. A church that does justice. And we do
a lot of caring about other people and outreach. That loves kindness, that
loves mercy. That knows how to forgive and that teaches people about
reconciliation and love. And that walks humbly with God. That acknowledges who
we are and what our gifts are. And always remembers that God is the source of
all that we have and all that we are. Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly
with God, that is the source of true happiness.
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