Matthew 6:25-34
This passage from Matthew is from Jesus’ Sermon On The Mount. The Sermon is the longest uninterrupted speech of Jesus’ in this Gospel as it spans over three chapters. It touches on most of the major themes in his teachings, such as how to love, the “Golden Rule,” attitudes towards others, just to name a few. The passage I am about to read reflects Jesus’ teachings on how and where we should prioritize the living of our lives. This passage follows Jesus’ teaching that no one can serve two masters, no one can have two distinct loyalties in life, and truly honor either one. He concludes you cannot serve God and wealth. Yet, he also wants everyone to know, that because God loves you, you do not need to worry about life, for God will always provide what you need. Stop worrying, for God is with you, seek first that love in your life and everything else will fall into place.

Read Matthew 6:25-34

Luke 6:17-26
Probably the most well known part of Jesus’ Sermon On The Mount is the section of teachings called “The Beatitudes.” It is a collection of “Blessing statements.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted,” are a couple of these statements. The word blessed can be translated “happy.” In fact Robert Schuller wrote a book on the Beatitudes and entitled it, “The Be-Happy-Attitudes.” But it also means more literally, “Fortunate are.” And that is important as we read this passage from Luke entitled, “The Sermon On The Plain.” It may sound very similar at first to the Sermon On The Mount, but as you hear the statements of blessed are, you will see that Luke does not try to spiritualize these teachings. Instead of “Blessed are the poor in spirit” as it is written in Matthew, Luke simply states, “Blessed are the poor.” Luke addresses in his blessing statements the real life experiences and social status of people. One must wonder what Jesus means when he says, Fortunate are the poor, fortunate are those who mourn.

Read Luke 6:17-26

Sermon:
My youngest daughter Sarah asked me the other day, “Why do people keep asking the question, ‘What’s the meaning of life?’” Never ask a preacher/theologian a broad question like this, for you may get more than you were bargaining for. Actually I kept my response pretty simple. “I believe that in the deepest recesses of our spirit we all want to know that our lives have a purpose. That we all want to know that we count for something and that the world is a little better because we were a part of it.” As much as I believe this is a part of why we all ponder the meaning of life, I think a former parishioner probably asked the question from a more basic and honest perspective. She asked me one day, “How do you know what decisions to make about the living of your life? How do you determine goals and values and that which will guide the way you live?” And here is the crux of it all. She said, “This is the only life I get and I don’t want to blow it!” Probably, the reason most of us ponder the meaning of life is we don’t want to blow it. We want to get the most out of this precious gift we have received.

Nancy and I have organized music camps in churches we have formerly served. At a music camp, the children or youth take a Bible story and actually write their own opera or operetta. They take the first week and write the opera and then take the second week to make costumes and rehearse and then perform the opera the last day. It is always amazing to see what they can do. One operetta they wrote was on a story where some young men were asked to worship and idol, a false God, but hey refused. The line the kids wrote to express why they refused was this. “The gods we make can’t love us back. Only God can love.” False gods, idols, that which is not god but we give the authority to be god can never give you love back. I believe this is what Jesus is trying to show his followers in the Gospel teaching in Matthew. Things, stuff which you give the authority to dictate your choices are hollow gods, for they can never bring you love, only worry, and separation from the one God who loves you and who knows what you truly need for life. In fact, I was reading about stress and what a far reaching issue it is for our society today. The author says that stress most often not caused by being too busy but by living our lives contrary to our core values and beliefs. Trying to live our lives walking divergent paths. When what we do does not express who we are or who we are created to be, our lives experience the stress of this disconnect. Seek God, and everything else in life will take care of itself. Only God loves. All the rest, everything else are simply illusions about life.

In love God wants us to experience the happiness and joy surrounding us. I like Robert Schuller’s focus on the Be-Happy-Attitudes. Scripture, itself, tells us that God wants us to know the fullness of joy, and the abundance of life. But Jesus’ teachings in Luke seem to throw the proverbial curve in this line of thinking about my and our relationship to God. In Luke, we see that the author hasn’t spiritualized the teachings as Matthew did, but refers to stations in life and literal experiences in life. Blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry. How can the poor and hungry feel they are fortunate? I think we can assume that Jesus is not suggesting here that we all go out and sell everything we own and go on welfare. And then Jesus even goes further and adds woe statements to his teaching. “Woe to the rich, for they have received their reward. Woe to those who laugh, for they shall mourn.” If blessing means happy or good fortune, I guess we can assume that woe means unhappiness and ill fortune. What can Jesus possibly be trying to say in these blessings and woes statements? What can this mean when it comes to the living of our lives? How can this be an expression of understanding how God loves us?

I like the thought of Rabbi David Aaron expressed in his book, Inviting God In. He says, “The secret to life is not to be happy but to be whole.” He continues, “To be fully alive means to open ourselves up to the spectrum of life’s experiences and to embrace the dance of pain and pleasure, joy and sadness, laughter and tears.” I believe this is what Jesus is trying to teach us in this “Sermon On The Plain.” Again Aaron reminds us that “it is when you are fully whole you are happy.” You are a person of good fortune when you celebrate the totality of your humanity.”

In these teachings of Jesus we see him referring to the reality that life is full of ebbs and flows, ups and downs. That when you are in the valley of life, then you are ready to walk a path that leads you out. You may be mourning today, but as Nancy shared last week, as we seek to make sense out of the theology of resurrection in our daily living, we know that there will be a time that you will again laugh. In fact, in most funeral sermons I remind people that there will come a day that the memories of happiness and joy that may now be leading to your grief, will again bring a smile to your face and a chuckle to your heart. Those who mourn will laugh. And those who laugh will more than likely face those valleys of sadness and grief.

Barbara Brown Taylor, one of the leading preachers in America today, likens Jesus’ teaching here to a ferris wheel understanding of life. As soon as you hit the top of the ride, you begin to go down. And conversely, when you hit the bottom, you start back up. It is the way life often is. When you are experiencing the peak of life, sadly you will not always remain there, but what a view and what a ride while you are. When you experience the valley, you will not stay there either. So once you accept this then you need not worry about whether you will have your ups and downs, for we accept that it is part of living.

Recognizing this as the flow of living Jesus is saying don’t try and protect yourself from the pain of life, for then you won’t fully experience the joys of life. Instead of the ferris wheel, you may ride the kiddie train of life. No ups and downs, no big changes, but nice and safe and flat. How many of us put up walls protecting ourselves from being hurt in a relationship, because we have been hurt before? You may not be hurt again, but will you ever feel deep and passionate love again? You may not mourn again, but will you laugh again with a deep sense of abandon? To be alive, fully alive is not to let your fears and worries dictate the living of your life as Jesus says in the reading from Matthew. To protect yourself from the downs of life, can keep you from experiencing the joys of life as well.

I also believe Jesus is trying to show us that maybe we have a wrong understanding about the down times in our lives. Spiritual directors are constantly trying to remind us that feelings are not to be judged as good or bad, but to be simply accepted as they are. To be fully embraced and understood. We don’t like pain, those times that we may feel empty, hurt, alone, or misunderstood. Yet, these feelings may be some of the most important we experience as we seek to be whole, as I referred to earlier. How do we learn to be compassionate and caring unless we have experienced the deep hurts of life? How do we lose attitudes of judgmental ness and condemnation unless we, too, have not always experienced ourselves and our lives as perfect? I will use myself as an example. Most of you know I have been divorced. I can honestly say it was the most painful time in my life, even more painful than the death of my mother. I remember just wanting to hide and could not even imagine ever being in another relationship. I promised myself I would never go through that kind of pain again. But slowly, as I began to heal, the idea of being alone seemed even worse than taking the chance of being in relationship. Today, I find myself truly being one of the most blessed, one of the most fortunate people I know. I have an incredible wife, a fantastic relationship, and two daughters that are usually the joy of my life. None of which would have happened if I tried to protect myself from life’s pain and valleys. Certainly, I now have no room to judge another, nor would I want to. I truly want others to know that you will love again.

But it is even more than this. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will laugh. That is important, for I realize that when people see this resurrection in my life, they know there is always hope in life that they, too, will laugh again. I may feel grief today, I may not see the blessings and joy of life at this moment, but I can know that like the ferris wheel, my life rise up and I will know laughter and joy once more.

There is so much more that can be said here, but maybe it is enough simply to say, may we embrace life to the fullest in all its ups and downs, ebbs and flows. Each and every part of life has something to teach us, and even more is able to shape our attitudes and characters into becoming more loving, caring and compassionate people. As scripture says, “All things can work for good for those who trust in God.” What is the meaning of life? I am not sure I can answer that, but I believe Jesus is telling us, that the goal of life is to walk fully with God through all life brings, and when we do, we will experience the wholeness of who we were created to be, and we will have the deepest and most caring relationships possible with God and each other. Come to think of it, that’s the definition of salvation, isn’t it? No wonder Jesus tells us we are blessed and fortunate when we open ourselves to life itself.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on February 11, 2007.