“People Chase What They Want” Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – July 22,
2018 Centenary United Methodist Church
Ephesians 2:11-16; Mark 6:30-34
This morning we are going to discuss the consequences that come
as a result of the drive of
human beings to pursue what they want.
Many of our
creature-comforts as well as our
emotional-pitfalls come from
our thirst for pursuing what
we desire. Think of all the changes that have taken place during our
lifetime that resulted from our imaginations. Sometimes our chase can
become scary.
Numerous states in the United States have legalized the recreational use
of marijuana. State
governments have found a new source of revenue by taxing what was once
illegal. There is a mad rush toward this new freedom.
Think about this.
From January to June of this year, the gross revenues gained from the
sale of marijuana by the State of Colorado came to 131 million dollars.
With that kind of fresh money coming into the government's coffers, it
won't be long before all the states jump on
the legalization bandwagon.
Today nine states have followed
through in the process.
Thirty states have legalized marijuana for medical use. Who knows what
the long-term consequences will be from such widespread usage?
Years ago, Vincente Fox, the former President of Mexico, told President
George W. Bush of the United States:
I cannot stop the flow of drugs coming from Mexico into your country.
Dry up the market for these products and the flow of drugs will
stop. The solution to your drug problem is that simple, Mr. President.
Stop your people from buying them. Obviously, this approach has not worked.
No one can stop people from chasing what they want.
What we have in our Gospel lesson this morning is a near
stampede of people wanting to
hear what Jesus was teaching.
Why the rush? The
entire Hebrew culture had been in a state of arrest for over 400 years.
Their religion was one of obedience to a lot of rules and the annual
rehearsal of their past when God was remembered as being active in
protecting and guiding their ancestors. When Jesus began teaching people that it was okay to abandon their outer practices in order to pursue their inner journey, they came running to him to hear more of the details. Most of them had never heard such comments coming from any religious teacher. (Matthew 7:29)
Jesus was clearly rocking the
boat of orthodox Judaism.
The religious authorities did not like his message.
They were in charge of teaching people how they should
think, feel, and behave. Jesus
was teaching people that their choices determined the quality of
their attitudes not their obedience to
the Laws of Moses.
The world's people today are in the midst of a massive collective
rebellion against all the Thou
Shalts. They crave
freedom and are expressing it in ways that appear insane, lacking in
common sense, and their expression is completely outside the realm of
normalcy and decency.
By increasing numbers, people have lost contact with what once governed
their decision-making.
Somehow, they have misplaced or
never learned the lesson that
they must first find healing for
their inner world before they can change their attitudes toward events
happening in the world. The consequence of looking to the external
world for any clues for living
will continue until people either regain their emotional stability
or die trying to fix an environment that is impossible to fix.
Religious institutions were once the guardians of the spiritual lives of
people. Jesus took the lead
on giving people spiritual freedom.
He wanted people to
achieve understanding from a heart-felt desire to deepen what they know
and not because they need to conform their lives to a centuries old Law
Code.
What people call spirituality
today is often being defined by Yoga instructors, or by developing more
physically fit bodies, eating
organic foods, and keeping their bodies hydrated by drinking bottled
water.
Lois and I were in Lindo's last week and there was an entire shelf
dedicated to water in plastic bottles.
One-liter of a very exotically named bottle was over $6.
The bottles often create their mythology by making outlandish
claims, e.g., "Our water was
harvested from a secret, ancient source recently discovered called
the Fountain of Youth."
When analyzed, most bottled water is nothing more than H2O with
a mixture of mineral additives.
In my former church, I used to see people sipping from these bottles
during the service. I do
not remember and I doubt that any of you do that there was a time in our
lives when we came to church in a state of dehydration.
Jesus said, "Before you become concerned about anything else,
seek first the Kingdom of God
and everything else will be yours as well."
(Matthew 6:33) His words used
a metaphor that guided the
thinking of people thousands of years ago.
Today the priests and priestesses of
spiritual health are
everywhere. This new crop
of spiritual teachers is using the same understanding as Jesus, but they
are using modern language to describe how to get in touch with what lies
within each of us. We are likely
to read in the Health Section
of our newspapers: If you want a fulfilling lifestyle, be open and willing to change
your attitudes!
Don’t look to the world, your
government, or the leaders of your
tribe to do for you what
you must do for yourselves. This wisdom is not as self-serving
as it sounds. This lifestyle is about survival for those who are paying
attention to the truth that they
are the only captain of their
ship that they will ever have.
Nothing will change for anyone until their optics and judgements
change. As in Jesus' day, today there are billions of people that will
never encounter this teaching. They have never been trained to realize
that they, and they alone, are responsible for the quality of their
lives. As long as people
continue to scream at each
other, blame and clamor about what is happening in their environment,
they will remain frustrated and angry until they get the message that it
is their attitude and behavior that needs
fine tuning.
The entire population of the world had to die over and over again before Jesus' message spread from its birthplace in the Middle East. Jesus' message of mastering our inner world would take thousands of years before the people of the world gave his words any serious consideration.
Today new innovations and ideas spread like a wild fire.
Nothing that consistently works for people is off limits. We are
living in the age that humanity hoped would one day come.
That glorious day has arrived and all of our
creature-comforts will
continue to be enhanced beyond our wildest imaginations.
Technology will lead the way into tomorrow in almost every field.
What people need is to learn are
the skills of spirit to live successfully in the world that they
have created. It may be that the greatest
guardian of
truth
will come in the form of consequences that will happen to people as each
continues to choose from
the gigantic
menu
of available choices.
However, the signs are everywhere that people need to proceed with
extreme caution. The rapid
means of spreading information has helped people to witness that
the
runways of life are filled with
the wreckage of lives who had everything that life offers.
How does one deal with life being lived in the most fabulous environment
ever created by humankind when the results are feelings of emptiness,
isolation, loneliness, and a loss of one's identity? What is missing in the lives of many people is the rudder that helps them to navigate their individual ships around the hidden rocky-shallows that have destroyed other vessels . Jesus taught, "What good is it to have mastered the entire world if in the process, people have ignored the development of their inner world?" (Matthew 16:26) We are seeing the results of this lack of development everywhere. How are we to understand what is happening? Is there an answer?
Jesus discovered that his teaching could not prevent Peter from bringing
a sword to the prayer meeting and using it while in the Garden of
Gethsemane. Jesus could not
give to Peter the confidence for the moments when, on three occasions,
he could not recall having ever met Jesus.
The Master could not change the mind of Judas whom he had
personally selected to be one of his disciples.
All that Jesus could do was to point with his teaching to the inward
journey that would enable people to live more fulfilled lives in their
countless professions. He
could not give them anything but his verbal guidance. What may come as a total surprise is that it is perfectly
acceptable to God for people to continue having their lives controlled
by what is happening in their external world.
How can this be?
Why would God not bring swift judgment toward people who have
wasted their lives?
This is where many people are on their
personal spiritual learning curve.
God is in no rush waiting for people to grow up.
This was
true in Jesus' day and it is
true in our day.
As was mentioned earlier, consequences can be a great teacher.
Our experience of living in these temporary physical bodies is not God's
adventure. Living in our
physical forms is our adventure.
The magic of being a human
being is that if we do not like what we have made of ourselves, we can
change how we think and feel.
We can put on a different mask.
We can experiment with different attitudes.
We can replace our anger with
love and forgiveness. We can create with increasing the activity of our
imaginations. We can change where we are looking to meet our needs for
responding to life with more creativity. All that our responses to our experiences are doing is publicly
announcing where we are on our journey and nothing
more.
Sometimes we need to chase something like justice and fairness in life,
until our failure teaches us that such a universal state-of-mind
is impossible to achieve. We must remember
Father forgive them.
They have no idea what they are
doing. Jesus was not trying
to fix the world. He was
teaching people the best way to live in it.
We have to trust God with the positive outcome of everyone's life.
Why should we have such trust?
The answer is that there is nothing powerful enough that can
prevent God's love of all of us from being expressed.
Our failure to understand
how God works does not translate into anyone being denied to return to
the world of their origin.
THIS is the good news
and a thought that we can take home with us today. CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER Loving God, we are so grateful that Jesus came into our world to provide
a clearer window through which we can understand your nature.
We search for the riches that can be found in his lessons
on life.
We frequently find
our own thoughts and attitudes in the stories he told.
Are we as generous as the widow that gave away her copper coins?
Can we forgive 70 times 7?
Can we pray for those who hurt us?
Are we able to maintain our peace while being among those whose
values are different from ours? Help us to mature in spirit so that we
might become the people you have created us to be.
Amen. PASTORAL PRAYER With humble and grateful hearts, O God, we have come into our sanctuary
this morning to celebrate life’s countless adventures and for the
remarkable role that you play in each of our lives. From you, we have
learned that we can extend our love through a number of ways – our
choice of words, our smiles, our healing touch, and our ability to be
creative and thoughtful in countless invisible ways. Thank you for teaching us how to
release to you our feelings of inadequacy when representing your spirit
in our world.
Thank you for
the confidence to show up and be ourselves even during moments when life
appears to be an endless chain of uncertainties.
When we are no longer afraid, what
a great ride the experience
of living can be!
We take
courage from people of faith that have inspired us to give without
counting the cost.
Help us
to move beyond the thoughts of what life should be so that we can
think of how best to serve through what life is.
Inspire us to realize how best to redefine our discipleship so
that your will, and not ours, unfolds around us. May our developed inner world lead us to
wear more smiles, experience more laughter, and spread more joy, as we
breathe fresh enthusiasm into all our relationships. We pray these
thoughts through the loving spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught his
disciples to say when they prayed . . .
|