I remember talking to a professor in seminary about how the sermon-writing process had changed the way I thought about something. He said, wryly, in reply: "You have got to be careful...sometimes the sermon speaks to you, too."The lectionary for this week is Luke's "Sermon on the Plain" (I've also heard it called the "Downer Beatitudes") from 6:17-26. After reading it last Sunday, several things have come into line to create the prefect storm:
1) I am home alone with way to much time to think.
2) I am reading "The Overspent American: Why We Buy What We Don't Need" by Juliet Shor.
3) I helped provide and serve supper for people in a working-poor assistance program on Monday night.
I've been processing the sermon most of the week...mulling over in my head the ideas of want and plenty and our perceptions of them. I ran to Target and Lowe's yesterday on errands. I went up to one of the brand new shopping areas in Loveland...full of huge, brand-new buildings. Down the road were two of my personal favorites: Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. All of them have been build within the past five year...all of them massive and lovely. And I couldn't help but feel something like a pit in my stomach. I realized one again what I hate to admit...I am, at once, a pastor of a minority religion and a disciple of the majority. And I was walking on holy ground.
It makes me feel one of two things: anger or guilt. Monday night, sitting next to a family that was doing everything they could not to fall through the cracks, it was a combination of outrage and pity. What I am realizing is that these responses still dwell on how I feel...and none of them really produce anything outside of a continuing obsession with me feeling better.
We talked about this passage at Bible Study on Tuesday. And, as we went around the circle and talked about the guilt we sometimes feel, I found myself saying out loud: "Is the purpose of this sermon, this passage, really to make us feel terrible?" The reply came quickly from the other side of the table: "No...Christ wants us to change."
Christ wants us to change. To place aside the self-pity and speeches of outrage with no action...and to actually do something. To turn off my favorite false prophet more often. You know, the Sony-brand false prophet with 99 different messages thanks to Cablevision. To think less about what I "need" that I don't have. To put aside pity (for others and for self), guilt, and the "well that's the way it is" attitude, and do what I can to help.
In short...to spend more time trying to be a blessing and less time trying to be blessed.
2) I am reading "The Overspent American: Why We Buy What We Don't Need" by Juliet Shor.
3) I helped provide and serve supper for people in a working-poor assistance program on Monday night.
I've been processing the sermon most of the week...mulling over in my head the ideas of want and plenty and our perceptions of them. I ran to Target and Lowe's yesterday on errands. I went up to one of the brand new shopping areas in Loveland...full of huge, brand-new buildings. Down the road were two of my personal favorites: Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. All of them have been build within the past five year...all of them massive and lovely. And I couldn't help but feel something like a pit in my stomach. I realized one again what I hate to admit...I am, at once, a pastor of a minority religion and a disciple of the majority. And I was walking on holy ground.
It makes me feel one of two things: anger or guilt. Monday night, sitting next to a family that was doing everything they could not to fall through the cracks, it was a combination of outrage and pity. What I am realizing is that these responses still dwell on how I feel...and none of them really produce anything outside of a continuing obsession with me feeling better.
We talked about this passage at Bible Study on Tuesday. And, as we went around the circle and talked about the guilt we sometimes feel, I found myself saying out loud: "Is the purpose of this sermon, this passage, really to make us feel terrible?" The reply came quickly from the other side of the table: "No...Christ wants us to change."
Christ wants us to change. To place aside the self-pity and speeches of outrage with no action...and to actually do something. To turn off my favorite false prophet more often. You know, the Sony-brand false prophet with 99 different messages thanks to Cablevision. To think less about what I "need" that I don't have. To put aside pity (for others and for self), guilt, and the "well that's the way it is" attitude, and do what I can to help.
In short...to spend more time trying to be a blessing and less time trying to be blessed.
2 comments:
Sorry I've been so slow in commenting, Scott!
I'm preaching on the Jeremiah lectionary text, which was clearly chosen for its congruence with Luke 6. I began my sermon preparation at Latte Land in an upscale shopping development and suddenly felt surounded more by curse than blessing.
I am struck by a Wendell Berry quotation cited in the latest Christian Centrury. I think it describes well Jeremiah & Luke's take on blessedness: "What I wanted had become the same as what I had."
If we have anything, it is God.
I must be gettingm ore hip in my old age but perhaps the philosophy intoned by a Sheryl Crow song sheds some light!!
My friend the communist
Holds meetings in his RV
I can't afford his gas
So I'm stuck here watching TV
I don't have digital
I don't have diddly squat
It's not having what you want
It's wanting what you've got
or ... maybe not
Terry
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