September 28, 2014JESUS & MORRIE 2. To Be Really Blessed
Matthew 5:1-12
Stage Set:
Front and center on the stage are two chairs. The one on the left is an easy chair, with an afghan draped over its back. On the audience side of the chair is a small table with magazines, newspapers and books stacked messily on it.
Placed opposite the big chair is a simple folding chair.
The Chancel Choir is lined up on the front steps of the chancel. They are there to sing the scripture lesson from Matthew 5, “The Beatitudes.”
Pastor:Before reading today’s scripture lesson, I want to ask the question: “Where do we find happiness?” Don’t tell me what you think you ought to say, tell me what you have really found to be true. “Where have you found genuine happiness?” If you haven’t found true happiness in life, tell me where you think you might find it?
(Receive answers).
But what about suffering? Grief? Persecution? Haven’t you been blessed by your trials, challenges, sacrifices?
Listen to what Jesus has to tell us....
Choir:Anthem on Matthew 5:1-12
Pastor: This isn’t where we usually look for happiness. Why would Jesus say that there is blessing in…
•being poor in spirit
•mourning
•meekness
•hungering and thirsting for righteousness
•being merciful
•having a pure heart
•being persecuted and suffering on his behalf?
This isn’t what the T.V. says. This isn’t what we learn in school. This isn’t included in our job training. How can there be happiness or blessing in these kinds of things?
I’ve been rather amazed at what Morrie Schwartz discovered during his dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease and what he shared with his former student, Mitch Albom who visited him every Tuesday for the last few months of his life. Can you imagine what Morrie learned about happiness and blessing as he grew increasingly weaker and more dependent on others for his basic needs? How could this undignified, frustrating, life-robbing journey towards death have any blessing or happiness? It goes so against what we are told about happiness and joy.
Listen to what Mitch learns from Morrie on the thirteenth Tuesday, when they talk about “The Perfect Day”....
The cast makes their entrance. Morrie is an older man dressed in pajamas covered with a bathrobe and slippers. He shuffles in assisted by a younger woman, Connie, his caretaker. He is holding onto an IV pole with a drip on it, rolling it alongside him. He comes in and sits in the big chair. Connie takes the afghan off the back of the chair and places in over his lap and legs once Morrie is seated. Connie exits the stage.
Coming behind is Mitch, dressed in casual clothes, and carrying a yellow legal pad of paper. He brings in with him a tape recorder and sets it between them. He does not immediately sit down, but comes front stage center to address the audience.
Mitch:There had been a development in the treatment of ALS: an experimental drug that was just gaining passage. It was not a cure, but a delay, a slowing of the decay for perhaps a few months. Morrie had heard about it, but he was too far gone. Besides, the medicine wouldn’t be available for several months.
Morrie interjects a comment…
Morrie: He waves his arm as if he is dismissing the idea.
Not for me.
Mitch:Looking back or over at Morrie, then at the audience…
In all the time he was sick, Morrie never held out hope he would be cured. He was realistic to a fault.
Continuing tospeak as he moves to sit in his chair and sets the tape recorder to record…
One time, I asked Morrieif someone were to wave a magic wand and make him better, would he become, in time, the man he had been before?
Morrie:Shaking his head no….
No way I could go back. I am a different self now. I’m different in my attitudes. I’m different appreciating my body, which I didn’t do fully before. I’m different in terms of trying to grapple with the big questions, the ultimate questions, the ones that won’t go away.
That’s the thing, you see. Once you get your fingers on the important questions, you can’t turn away from them.
Mitch:And which are the important questions?
Morrie:As I see it,they have to do with love, responsibility, spirituality, and awareness.
Pastor:Stepping forward to speak to the audience
What are the important questions? What really matters in life? Where do we find fulfillment? Where is blessing?
Take it from a man who is about to die:
Love..... Responsibility.... Spirituality.... Awareness
Or take it from the One who came to give us abundant life. Listen again to Jesus teaching about being blessed, this time from the Common English Version....
1Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up a mountain. He sat down and his disciples came to him. 2He taught them, saying:
3“Happy are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
4“Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad.
5“Happy are people who are humble, because they will inherit the earth.
6“Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they will be fed until they are full.
7“Happy are people who show mercy, because they will receive mercy.
8“Happy are people who have pure hearts, because they will see God.
9“Happy are people who make peace, because they will be called God’s children.
10“Happy are people whose lives are harassed because they are righteous, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
11“Happy are you when people insult you and harass you and speak all kinds of bad and false things about you, all because of me. 12Be full of joy and be glad, because you have a great reward in heaven. In the same way, people harassed the prophets who came before you…
Focus returns to Morrie and Mitch…
Morrie: ...if I were healthy today, those would still be my issues – love, responsibility, spirituality, and awareness…. They should have been all along.
Pastor:It took a debilitating disease for Morrie Schwartz to be able to dig deep into the essence of real life. Unfortunately, that’s the way it happens with most of us. We get so caught up pursuing the idols the world throws at us. We want to be in control, we want to distance ourselves from pain, we want to win, we want to be happy... and we want to do it our way.
Perhaps this is why Jesus said that blessing is most powerful when it is found through grief, and humility, and mercy, and purity, and sacrifice. God’s happiness is given to those who recognize their dependency on God and are willing to sacrifice even their well being in their choices to honor God rather than the gods of our society.
To walk with Jesus, to really listen to his wisdom about life, to place faith in his living Spirit and Gospel, well… this is going to take us into unfamiliar territory and it will change us. Like Morrie, we will become a “different self.” And once we get our fingers on the important questions… not the important “answers” but the important “questions”… we won’t be able to turn away from them.
Mitch:Pointing to the stack of newspapers on the table and floor…
You bother keeping up with the news?
Morrie:Yes. Do you think that’s strange? Do you think because I’m dying, I shouldn’t care what happens in this world?
Mitch:Maybe.
Morrie:Sighs a sigh of resignation…
Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t care. After all, I won’t be around to see how it all turns out.
But it’s hard to explain, Mitch. Now that I’m suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer than I ever did before. The other night on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed – innocent victims... and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don’t know any of these people. But – how can I put this? – I’m almost... drawn to them.
Morrie’s eyes begin to tear up…
Mitch:Sorry, Morrie. Maybe we should talk about something else.
Morrie dabs his face with a tissue in one handand wavesMitch off with the other.
Morrie:I cry all the time now. Never mind.
Mitch:Addressing the audience…
Amazing. I’ve worked in the news business. I’ve covered stories where people died. I’ve interviewed grieving family members. I’ve even attended funerals. I never cry.
Glancing at Morrie, then at the audience…
Morrie, for the suffering of people half a world away, is weeping. Is this what comes at the end? Maybe death is the great equalizer; the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.
Morrie honks loudly into his tissue.
Morrie:This is okay with you, isn’t it? Men crying?
Mitch:Responding a bit too quickly…
Sure.
Morrie:Grinning a broad grin…
Ah, Mitch, I’m gonna loosen you up. One day, I’m gonna show you it’s okay to cry.
Mitch:Yeah, Yeah.
Morrie:Yeah, Yeah.
Mitch, you asked about caring for people I don’t even know. But I can tell you the thing I am learning the most with this disease.
Mitch:What’s that?
Morrie:The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.
His voice drops to a whisper.
Let it come in.
A little louder…
We think we don’t deserve love. We think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, “Love is the only rational act.”
Repeats it carefully, pausing for effect.
Love… is the only rational act.
Pause
Pastor:Listen one more time to what Jesus is trying to tell us. This time it will be read from a paraphrase of the scripture called The Message…
Read from The Message.
1-2When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:
3“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
4“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
5“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
6“You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.
7“You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.
8“You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
9“You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.
10“You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
11-12“Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble…
How can there be happiness wrapped up with such things? This is where our faith in the Lord comes in, for Jesus is telling us that here are the real issues and questions of life and this is where deep, lasting, life-changing happiness is found. Morrie said it well: “Love, Responsibility, Spirituality, Awareness.” These are the paths down which Christ would lead us.
Yes. I know. You look off into the distance and there’s a Cross. Our culture tells us that crosses are to be avoided at all costs. But the story we know convinces us that Resurrection is found just on the other side of the Cross. And the way to new life, my friends, is traveled through the pain of dying to the old life.