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“We
Are Not Just Sheep!” Sermon Delivered By
Rev. Dick Stetler – October 25, 2015 Centenary United
Psalm 34:1-8; Mark 10:46-52 Have you ever wondered why Jesus made a reference that divided
people into categories of the
sheep and the goats?
(Matthew 25:31f) Are
sheep the people who are
well-behaved and who possess balanced temperaments that respond with
compassionate, humorous and positive attitudes?
In contrast, are goats
the people that have highly-develop spirits of self-interest with goals
that are all about winning at any cost and values that shift according
to their circumstances. A number of us may think that it is easy to define others by what
our senses tell us.
The truth is that we never
know what is going on inside of people. We are equipped with
internal
filters that are filled with
our learned values, rules, sensibilities, and all sorts of
evaluation tools. We judge
others by how compatible they are to our likes, values and life-style.
What we notice almost immediately are their differences. Perhaps this reasoning went into Jesus' teaching, "Never judge
anyone. The same judgment
that you use to evaluate others is identical to what will be used to
evaluate you. Why do you
notice the speck in your brother's or sister's eye and never notice the
log that is lodged in your eye?"
(Matthew 7:1f) The
disciples were taught by Jesus that the spiritual growth of each of them
would result from their own individual effort.
(Luke 15:17) A few verses later in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus provided his
listeners with a formula that will enhance this process:
"Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock, and the
door will be opened to you."
(Matthew 7:7) Almost immediately we read verses that describe how challenging
our life journeys become once we make that decision.
"You must travel through a
narrow gate if you wish to uncover the
secrets of spiritual awareness.
The path of the physical world is highly visible and easy to
find. Most people choose to
follow it. However, for the few who have a passion to understand
the mysteries of their inner
world, the way is difficult to find."
(Matthew 7:13f) When we turn to our lesson this morning in Mark's Gospel, we get a glimpse of a human response that is seldom used by many people. Mark wrote that Bartimaeus was blind. When he learned that Jesus was passing by where he was seated, he grew so excited that he began screaming, "Jesus, Son of David! Have mercy on me!" He was so rude that people around him told him to "Shut up!" Their words did not matter. His passion to see again caused him to scream even louder.
Jesus said, "Tell that man who is yelling at me to come over
here." Some in the crowd
said, "Cheer up blind man, he is calling for you."
Others led him to meet the Master.
Jesus asked, "What would you like me to do for you?"
He answered, "I want to be able to see again."
Jesus said, "Your faith has restored your sight.
Go in peace." (Mark 10:52) The quality that separates
the sheep from the goats
is not whether people are good
and evil.
Jesus recognized all people as worthy of being loved,
even his enemies. Jesus
would never have taught his followers to respond this way if such a
depth of love was not also part of God's nature.
What separates people is that
some of us have a passion to see
while others among us remain contented with their
blindness.
There were times during my life when I believed that very few
people cared about the mystery surrounding their spiritual nature.
My experience was that people seldom think about it.
If someone began teaching that all of us are infinite
spirit-beings that have chosen to enter these bodies to test our
abilities at creating, many listeners would roll their eyes and wonder
what planet such a person came from.
I remember vividly one of Gary Larsen's
The Far Side cartoons.
There was a flock of sheep that was quietly grazing when one of
them stood up with his front legs raised above his head.
He began shouting, "Wait!
Wait! Listen to me! . . . We don't HAVE to be just sheep!"
People may look at that cartoon
and say, "Very cute."
However, to me that cartoon spoke volumes. That sheep was symbolic of
Jesus as he tried to teach his listeners that they were far more than
the biological creatures that each had assumed they were.
Jesus had a problem.
How could he give his listeners information that has little connection
to anything in their world?
We come from a place where we have always existed but we cannot remember
anything about that experience.
Our amnesia is why Jesus taught, "The Kingdom is God is like a
treasure buried in a field, it is like a pearl of great price, a tiny
mustard seed that grows to become a giant shrub, a farmer who sowed
seeds on various qualities of soil or like a woman who mixed yeast with
other ingredients and the entire batch of dough rises as a result." A friend of mine years ago remained completely mystified by my
relationship with God. He
could not fathom that I held such an orientation toward life.
He pointed to all the insanity in our world.
He said sarcastically, "It took quite
a genius to create a
hell-hole like the one we
live in. Just look around,
Stetler! Tell me, in all honesty, what do you see?"
One afternoon my cynical friend died in the hospital.
The medical staff worked on him and managed to restart his heart
within those four minutes that we have before our brain becomes
compromised from its lack of oxygen. He
died in the hospital that day; however, later that afternoon, he rose
from the dead a different man. What changed him? In
those four minutes, he learned about what Jesus could only point to with
his words. He experienced
the mystery that life does not end when our bodies become lifeless.
He was facing something that had no rational or logical
explanation. What was quite
profound to him was that he experienced being intensely loved by
something that surrounded
him. Overcome with emotion, this
is what he said: Dick, I have broken
so many of life's rules. I
have been with numerous women even though I am
happily married and have a
wonderful family.
Throughout my life, I have not cared about many people unless they
somehow benefited me. In the
hospital I became aware of a presence that penetrated me with love so
incredibly that I cannot describe it.
It was as though nothing that I have done in my life ultimately
mattered. The experience
completely overwhelmed me.
Words formed in my head that knew my name, 'David, see what you can do
with your life now that you know what only a few people have ever
experienced.' Years later I conducted David's funeral.
His wife told me that his experience in the hospital that
afternoon completely changed his life. His wife asked me: What happened to him, Dick? Was this new spirit inside of his body from the beginning of our marriage? If so, where was it hiding and why was it hiding? During these last five years, I felt like I was living with an angel of God. Why did this new spirit take so long to show itself? My response was,
"Jesus might have remained a carpenter for the duration of his life had
he not experienced an awareness
just after his baptism that was similar to David's." While David's understanding of his world and his life had
radically changed, he continued to struggle during his later years with
trying to define in rational terms what cannot be defined. The world he
came to know was inside of him since birth; however, the lure and
attractiveness of the physical world erased most of it until his
experience in the hospital. Jesus came into our world to help people to learn that there is
more to us than what our five senses have told us.
When we tap into our
spiritual nature, our imaginations will guide us toward our creativity
that will grow the more energy we invest in it.
Our spirits create in every
conceivable form. The
results from this creativity have benefited humanity in more ways than
we can count. We use these gifts
to humanity without ever thinking "Whose idea was this?"
People that express their creativity are the ones that develop
seeds that produce better crop yields in countries that have short
growing seasons. They find
better ways to create energy.
They create miraculous ways of extending the quality of our
lives. They work on developing technologies that make our cars safer.
There is no end to the
infinite horizons that beckon us to travel on the roads less traveled.
There is no end to the destinies we can reach that were never
dreamed of by those who lived before us. During our recent hurricane, our television and our favorite
radio station went dark.
The
Royal Gazette did not publish a newspaper that day.
We were shut off from what was happening in the world.
What Lois and I were experiencing was the way the world was for
most of human history. People grew their own food, knew their immediate neighbors and
learned all the town gossip at one of their favorite meeting places.
That was the way people lived in those days.
Our great-grand parents never heard of Look at us now! The
world's news makers and social commentators would have us focus on all
that is wrong, bleak and ugly, but look at all that we have experienced
just during our lifetime!
Boundaries are being shattered every month by creative visionaries.
More people are learning to
clear their minds of the clutter created by our physical world in order
to become the creators we were designed to be.
Our joy comes from
being a part of this gigantic explosion of information that we can use
to enhance our lives. We
are witnessing the results of what creative spirits are doing.
Clearly, we are more than just sheep.
Those of us that awaken to this understanding are being rewarded because of our passion to see. Bartimaeus was rewarded with vision because he was seeking it. What we create is our gift to those who surround us. Try allowing the angel within you to show up every day and make its presence known. When we do this, we will recognize that we are of vital importance to creation itself. Just by being where we are and doing what we are doing, God will take what we consider little and grow tomorrow in ways we will not live to see. |