"Make Truth Your Cutting Edge”

Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – July 19, 2015

Centenary United Methodist Church

Proverbs 8:1-11; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

 

    Last week, we discussed why truth is something that never needs defending.  What we discussed is that when we defend and protect what we know, we can easily close our minds to new levels of understanding that continue to show up in our lives.  In other words, truth is both what we currently understand and also what continues expanding what we know.  This morning we are going consider what it means to live on the cutting edge of truth.  Consider this message as part two of last week's sermon.

    Mark's theme in today's lesson discusses Jesus' passion for teaching people how to re-order their lives.  Jesus went from village to village doing this.  The lessons he taught were very basic and simple to understand.  He taught his listeners how critical it was for each of them to forgive, to take the path less traveled, to let go of hurts as soon as they happen, to build and maintain wholesome attitudes and to remain compassionate toward all people.

    These qualities were very clear to his listeners.  Very few of Jesus' teachings were new.  Most likely his listeners had heard these lessons before from other rabbis.  The new dimension that Jesus added was that these responses must come from a spirit that desires to do so and not because his teachings were laws or disciplines designed to please God or anyone else.

    Jesus knew that the attitudes of people reflected the spirit by which they lived.  By adding branches to the tree provided by the Old Testament teaching of The Golden Rule, Jesus gave the world a foundation upon which to build its future.  (Matthew 7:12) 

    Jesus' major handicap was that he did not have the science and industry of today's world to support his claims.  He used images that were already available to his listeners, namely that life in the Kingdom of God is the only path that will work to insure a life anchored in love and peace.         

      In our generation, we are seeing a shift in people's lives from holding on to what they have, to letting go so they can add more value and skills to their lives.  Men and women in the work force are being motivated to produce whether they want to or not. People are being replaced by machines that do not need a smorgasbord of job benefits i.e., pension, medical, sick leave and vacations.  Machines can operate during Cup Match and never miss a client that needs advice or immediate help.

    Industry is into problem solving, streamlining, improving product lines, going after a greater market share, re-establishing confidence in their brands and merging with or acquiring other companies.  Industry has entered a climate where it has no time or money for unproductive people.    

    People are finding it extremely difficult to cope with the increasing demands on their lives.  A number of them are realizing that what they have inside of them has not developed enough to carry them into the future without worry, frustration and fear.   In many cases, the religious heritage of their parents is gone.  This heritage that once automatically nourished the people of a society in their past has been replaced with football, cricket and going to work.  The Sabbath has become an ordinary day and people have little to fill the unrecognized vacuum that has occurred.

    The people that have remained hungry for what will add value and meaning to their lives are flocking to teachers like Joel Osteen, Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra.  They are reading books on their Kindles and iPads about self-help techniques that actually substantiate the values that Jesus was teaching thousands of years ago. 

    Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist, wrote a book entitled, How God Changes Your Brain. He writes that the development of skills of spirit has the ability to literally rewire a person's brain that will change its chemistry.  Eckart Tolle, an author that commentators claim is "one of the greatest spiritual teachers of our time," wrote a book entitled, A New Earth, Awakening To Your Life's Purpose. 

    One of these present-day teachers charges $650 for a three-day seminar.  He calls it, "Making an investment in yourself."  Basically, the seminar elaborates on all the major themes in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount without ever mentioning Jesus or anything to do with a religious belief system.  People are devouring this material.  They are starving for these insights.  Truth is truth in spite of who is packaging it.  The message from most of these presenters features the same theme: It is time for each person in their audiences to take charge of their lives.

    People are being taught how to let go of life-issues that have the potential to create hostile responses. When they read or hear that they can either develop skills of spirit or choose instead to remain victims, they are ready to take charge.  It makes perfect sense.  The skill is to deny such things from taking up residence in their minds. 

    The people who are attending these seminars do not realize that Jesus used another term for the same response.  He called it forgiveness -- more specifically, Jesus taught people "to forgive seventy times seven."  (Matthew 18:22)  In other words, let go of personal hurts immediately without given them a second thought!  People change when they realize that they are the problem.  If the truth were known, many of these people heard this lesson in Sunday school when they were children. 

    When we look at other areas of health among Bermudians, increasing numbers of people find their lives out of control.  Last week the results of a survey were released indicating that seventy-five percent of our population is overweight or obese.  Only twenty-five percent of us understand the impact that eating properly and exercising have on our longevity.

      Jesus' new disciples may not always be found in the church.  Today's pastors are preaching to the choir.  The cutting edge truth is now the message of mental health professionals, nutritionists, physicians and teachers of various modalities from Yoga to Acupuncture.

    If people are filling their spiritual vacuum with comfort foods, they will not be interested in David Gillespie's book, Sweet Poison.  He writes that the average person living in the United Kingdom consumes 238 teaspoons of sugar each week and has no idea he is doing so.  Dr. Robert Lustig claims that sugar is as addictive as cocaine or tobacco.  The food industry loads us up with sugar because they know what it does to the human body.  Try to find cereal today without sugar.  Think about the path that parents are offering their children.    

      In the area of physical exercise, science has proven over and over again that the moment we begin to exercise, we reverse the aging process of our internal organs.  Today, the evidence is overwhelming that we can become younger through rigorous exercise every day.  This has captured people's attention when they realize that poor habits lead to an early death.  But like all truth, being on the cutting edge to benefit from it, means people have to take charge of their lives.

    The problem that Jesus' message has in today's world is, that for centuries, the institutional church has surrounded his teachings with its sacred theology.  Jesus never intended his message for any particular religious group.  The villages he visited were filled with numerous non-Jewish populations.  His lessons were universal and applicable to everyone in the world.  Reaching our human potential by taking charge of our attitudes and life-styles is a truth that has no boundaries.   

    Modern authors have disentangled Jesus' teaching from the pious language used by the institutional church.  A number of people today believe that what they are reading and hearing is totally new.  It is not. Jesus even predicated that this would happen when he told the story of how leaven becomes invisible while it causes the entire batch of dough to rise. (Matthew 13:33) 

    This is why pursuing the cutting edge truth rather than holding on to what we know inspires growth.  Some people are waiting for their ship to come in to their personal harbor while ignoring the fact that the truth from new information is coming at them from every level of society.   Each one of us is the ship, and we are the only ship we will ever have.

    God did not create people so they would remain dependent on God or anyone else. What would be the purpose of that?  In Genesis we read, "So God created people and made them male and female, blessed them and said, 'Disburse yourselves over the earth and bring it under your control."  (Genesis 1:27f) 

    There was a time when people did not have God like the one whose nature Jesus' disclosed to his listeners.  These ancient peoples, however, created highly evolved civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India and China, Central and South America.  They did it by constantly building and expanding on what worked for them and discarding what did not. Nothing would have worked for any of these people had they not cooperated with each other. Again, this is what it looks like to pursue ever-expanding truth by making it the cutting edge of human growth.

    In every generation some people readily absorb truth and want more. Their ships are sailing into deeper waters in order to participate in the greatest adventure that life can be.  Yet, there are countless others that continue to cling to what they have and assume that what they are experiencing in life is God's will for them.  No one can convince them otherwise and they will accept whatever fate appears to be given them.  Others will stretch and realize that our enormous potential is up to us to develop. 

    When we add value to our lives, we inspire and influence other people.  We cannot go into the world and make disciples if we have sacrificed our enthusiasm and risk taking abilities on the altars of complacency.  It is a new day and we need to be alert and creatively interpret the rapid changes taking place in our world.  Not everyone understands that God is still creating.  Those of us who sense God's creativity, even in the midst of chaos, see a much different world.