Trying to be Good
A sermon by Ted Virts
February 2, 2014
Sonoma Ca
Theme:
Boy at the Windowby Richard Wilbur
Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.
His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes
Returns him such a god-forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to Paradise.
The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,
Having no wish to go inside and die.
Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.
Though frozen water is his element,
He melts enough to drop from one soft eye
A trickle of the purest rain, a tear
For the child at the bright pane surrounded by
Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.
Scripture:
Matthew 5:1-12; Psalm 15
“Blessed are you…” Matthew 5
I’ve just returned from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City Utah. Charlie and I have been attending for the last few years. It was the usual event. Some brilliant films, some films that almost held together, a couple where I didn’t know what they were trying to do, and a couple that I really didn’t need to see.
The sub-drama of the festival is that most of the film makers were looking for funding to distribute their work. Listening to the director’s talk there is always a tension between their art and the story the want to tell, and the drive to be successful – to be respected and to be funded.
It is the same story for us.
If you were raised as I was, then a few slogans filled your childhood, and probably your adulthood:
If you want to succeed, work hard.
What are you going to make of your life?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
You can be anything that you want to be if only you put your mind to it.
We were raised in the era of the self made “man” and the rugged individualist.
Our heroes had worked their way to the top.
They deserved their acclaim because they earned it.
In other words, it is up to you. Your status, your success, your place in society is based on what you can accomplish, what you can earn, what you learn, and what you do.
And sometimes that works. We pull ourselves up by our own boot-straps (an impossible image, by the way) we keep on trucking, we dust ourselves off and start again, we keep on keeping on.
But beneath that self made success, fear is always behind the scenes. Whatever has been attained, can also be lost. As the worship theme says, “such warmth, such light, such love and so much fear.
I believe that Jesus tries to show us another way.
The world’s view is this: measure up. you have to do the right thing or punishment will come. You have to try to be good (with the implication that if you don’t try to be “good” you will instinctively be “bad.”)
Jesus view is different. You are cherished by God. God’s love, affection and grace are guaranteed. So now what? How will you live then?
This is a tough lesson.
Here’s what I mean:
Psalm 15 asks a question – Who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Then there are a list of actions, resolved by “Those who do these things shall never be moved.”
Is the list of those things you have to do to earn your way into God’s tent? Or is the list a result? Or is it a description of those who are not “moved.”
The Beatitudes (“the Blessed ares”) Is that a list of things to do to make God love you? Let’s see, I have be poor in spirit, I have to mourn, I have to be meek…
Or are they a description of Jesus’ assurance that you and I are blessed – that God looks upon us?
Or are the beatitudes this a statement of human reality and, that when these things come to us, that we are still held in the care of God?
We too easily turn these statements into another to do list that misses the point. Love and being loved is more than a compilation of good behaviors. Is taking our the garbage, emptying the dishwasher, and bringing home a paycheck what constitutes a good marriage?
We try to be good, when maybe our task is to love more, and be assured that we are loved.
Our real life experience is much more along the lines of New Soul, our anthem:
“finding myself making every possible mistake. Why is everything so wrong?”
There may be a worrier or two in our congregation this morning. And what do most people worry about? Usually things they can’t control. Am I good enough? Will I lose my status? Will things be OK for me, my family, my loved ones? Should I be doing more? Do I belong? Will I still belong? Am I doing it right? What if I do it wrong?
I think that Jesus is trying to tell us that we are looking in the wrong place. Trying to be good is different from wanting to help.
How would your life be different if your core belief was that you are held by God, regardless of what you do, say, or think as opposed to worrying if you are wrong, lost or a sinner?
We have deep in Christian tradition a conflict between earning and grace.
Is the life of faith really about either being good enough that we won’t get punished, or claiming that Jesus will look out for us and make sure that we don’t get in trouble?
Or is it about believing that God knows and loves us just as we are? How would we live if we don’t have to sell God on how good we are, or at least how we have some great excuses ?
Do we live in fear or do we live in grace?
Maybe the issue is about letting God be God, and letting us be us. Perhaps in trying to be good, we are really trying to be God.
You know the phrase, well she’s only human. It usually means that there is a mistake being made. Is that what humanity is? to make mistakes?
Maybe what Jesus is trying to get through to us is that “she’s only human” means she is capable of great beauty, great compassion, great love – and that the path to get there is through life which is often hard and unpredictable, and through actions that don’t always come out the way we had hoped.
This is the season of Epiphany – the word means “showing” and it asks the question “Who is this Jesus, and what is he up to?”
The scriptures in their ancient language keep talking about the forgiveness of sin – no punishment for missing the mark.
But to know who Jesus is, we start with who we are, and what it is that Jesus offers.
We will spend this season – this month looking at the God Jesus knew, the Way Jesus modeled, the practices of Jesus’ followers, and the church that Jesus began.
And our scriptures all point toward the long standing nature of humanity – Psalm 15 – who lives in God’s realm – was written around 3,000 years ago. Who is close to God remains an issue today. The beatitudes were written down around 2000 years ago – and the question of who is blessed is still in our vocabulary.
Who is this Jesus and what is he up to? It starts with us, and what we are up to.
We feel incomplete and want to take on a task to make ourselves complete.
When I was around 9, I ordered a kind of hand held microscope from Edmund Scientific Company(they still exist by the way – Edmund Scientifics). It would magnify 10x 50x and 100x. After it came, and the next catalog arrived, I ordered another of the same kind of magnifier, but this one did 25x 75x and 125 x. My parents got angry – Why did you order another one? My answer was that it had powers I didn’t have. The second one got returned (and the details on this story have been changed to fit this illustration). I had missed the point, of course. I felt incomplete and overlooked that I already had all I needed.
We look in the wrong place. We miss Jesus’ point when we try harder to get what we want, when it is is already there. And we miss Jesus’ point when we say ‘God loves me’ and forget to live in that love.
There is fable by the Arab mystic Sa’di that Anthony de Mello tells:
A man walking through the forest saw a fox that had lost its legs and wondered how it survived. Then he saw a tiger come in with game in its mouth. the tiger had his fill and left the rest of the meat for the fox.
The next day God fed the fox by the means of the same tiger. The man began to wonder at God’s great goodness and said to himself, “I too shall just rest in a corner with full trust in the Lord and he will provide me with all I need.”
He did this for many days, but noting happened and the poor fellow was almost at death’s door when he heard a Voice say, “O you who are in the path of error, open your eyes to the Truth! Follow the example of the tiger and stop imitating the disabled fox.”
What is Jesus up to? He wants us to live in the truth that we are cherished by God – and he asks the question, “Now how will you live?”
The definition of Grace is that you can’t do anything to make God love you more, and you can’t do anything to make God love you less. The question of faith is how will you choose to live.
The Christian truth is in New Soul - This is the happy end. Come and give me your hand. Or as Jesus says, “blessed are you”
to communion
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