February 2, 2020 Love Makes Us Happy

February 2 2020 *Matthew 5.1-12, Psalm 15 “Love Makes You Happy” Pastor Jacqueline Hines

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The average person does not often have a crowd following them. Perhaps you have been asked to speak to a crowd, 30 people, 50, 100 at work or a rally of some sort. Matthew tells us that Jesus saw a crowd. It seems like the crowd was following Jesus. It also seems like Jesus may have gone up to a mountain to get a rest from the crowd.

After Ed’s sermon on the Ten Commandments last week, I found an opportunity to reflect on Commandment # 4 - Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. Jesus going up to a mountain was a way to rest because addressing crowds had to be exhausting for Jesus as it would be for any of us.

My reflection on the Sabbath brought me to a message by Pastor Robert Morris who reminded us listeners that God demands a Sabbath so that we won’t work ourselves to death. The word Sabbath means to cease and desist from working. Our mind and body needs rest. God can do a whole lot more in 6 days than we can do in 7 days. Pastor Morris told the story of a friend who, at the age of 50, was lying in a hospital bed. His body was shutting down and doctors in all their searching and testing could not find a reason why he was at death’s door. He was hooked up to tubes everywhere. So he prayed. He asked God, “Why are you doing this to me?” God answered, “I did not do this to you. You did this to you. You have worked yourself to death.” Morris’s friend then said he asked God, “If I repent, will you be gracious enough to heal me?” God said, “Of course.” The man then unplugged himself from his tubes and walked out of the hospital, was healed and lived a full, long life.

Jesus surrounded himself with relaxation, in a boat on the Sea of Galilee,  praying in a garden,  and in the mountains.  While Jesus was there he shared a message with his disciples, beginning with “blessed are the poor in spirit…blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek…” From there he went to say blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness…the pure in heart…peacemakers and persecuted.

It is puzzling that Jesus can declare happiness for anyone, much less the persecuted or those who mourn. Researchers say that in order to be happy in this world you need a certain amount of money.  Once we go over that amount, however, we may become unhappy, perhaps because it is stressful trying to keep money rather than focusing on the things that money can buy.

Of course Jesus would agree with the 10 scientifically proven ways to be happy. 1. Exercise – at least 7 minutes, 2. Get enough sleep 3. Spend time with family and friends 4. Spend 20 minutes outside on a nice day 5. Volunteer 100 hours per year 6. Practice Smiling in order to reduce pain, improve mood, and think better 7.  Plan a trip – even if you don’t actually take one 8. Move closer to work and decrease the stress of a long commute. 9. Meditate 10. Practice gratitude – share with someone three good things that happened each day.

I do not think that Jesus would disagree with any of those 10 things. I do think that Jesus thinks beyond our ideas of the perfect life, because we live in a fallen world and our life is not always perfect.

As much as we all enjoy our lives and as much as we want every day to be pleasant and ideal, we live with the consequences of our sinful nature and the sinful nature of our family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors.

This week marked the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest of Hitler’s death camps.  Jesus certainly was not deaf and blind to the extermination of 6 million Jewish human beings, 40 death camps where neighbors, family and friends were forced against their will to leave home, starving, sick and dying in the streets of the camp, entering single file into a gas chamber at gunpoint, where men and women, boys and girls in less than two hours, 1000 at a time, would die and be pulled out the other end of the death factory, thrown in a pit and cremated.

Jesus was never deaf and blind to unspeakable suffering. He was there at the first moment when the tiny seed of a lie that any human being inferior were told. He was there when the first thought of an act of violence was done – by choice, free-will. He was there to speak peace to the victims and those willing to sacrifice their lives doing justice and showing mercy against the tide of fear and hatred. He was there. He is always there.

During my time at Yale Divinity School, I remember the phrase from a study of the works of H. Richard Niebuhr and his brother, Reinhold. The oft used phrase was man’s inhumanity to man, a spinoff of Robert Burn’s poem - Many and sharp the numerous ills Inwoven with our frame; More pointed still, we make ourselves

Regret, remorse and shame;  And man, whose heaven-erected face The smiles of love adorn, Man's inhumanity to man, Makes countless thousands mourn.

A book on the list by H. Richard Niebuhr was Christ and Culture which challenges Christians to pay, pray and pray to let the Holy Spirit work within them to transform the culture, not just accept our culture and go with whatever way it flows because culture does not always flow with the Holy Spirit.

Our culture, when driven by sin, kills. We kill babies in the abortion clinic, teenaged boys and girls on a road filled with humans being trafficked, boats filled with slaves whipped into submission, lynched in line, and drug pushing. Evil is woven so intricately into the fabric of our lives that it is hard to do anything without cooperating in some way with. One example is that those who want to give up using plastic because it is detrimental to the environment, quickly find that plastic is everywhere. You can’t live without plastic unless you want to live like they did in the Little House on the Prairie… Choosing to be on God’s side perfectly is not always possible. So we have to pick and choose a few things we can do to use less plastic, like use more glass.

Joshua asked an angel a question before God sent him to march around the walls of Jericho in order to expose the barbaric ways women and children were being mistreated. It is a question we all ask from time to time. “Are you on our side or are you on the enemy’s side.” The angel answered, “I am on the Lord’s side.

We ask ourselves on super bowl Sunday, “What side is God on?” We ask ourselves as we prepare for elections, “Is God a republican or a democrat? An independent or a non-participant?”

I was amazed to hear that it was the Russians who helped the Jews escape Treblinka’s death camp in Poland, so I immediately thought, “They are on the Lord’s side!” But, yesterday, when I spoke to one of our United Methodist ministers who spent a year as a missionary in Russia, she shocked me by saying that some Russians had death camps just like some Germans did. Man’s inhumanity to man is why we need Jesus. We live our life in two worlds – one utterly divine and the other full of suffering. At times they overlap.

Jesus has overcome the world. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all. Jesus has come that we might have life and have it abundantly. As we keep that conversation going with God, we see most clearly that God’s grace is sufficient, that God never leaves us emptyhanded, God is bigger than our biggest problem.

Jesus promises comfort if we are those humans in the firing line of cruelty.  He promises, for those in poverty, the heavenly riches of righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.  Those human beings who are among the humble, meek and mild – moving at the impulse of God’s love rather than trying to be God or control God…they are given the earth,  all the physical and spiritual space they need to plant and prosper. For those Christians who have an appetite – who are actually hungering and thirsting for what’s right- they will be completely filled.  If we can find it in our hearts to be merciful, God’s mercy will chase us down and bless us.  The pure people – that is the sincere and blameless- have nothing blocking their view of God. They will see God for who God is.   Peacemakers will be called children of God, a people after God’s own heart. Again, Jesus promises the kingdom of God. This time to those who are persecuted for doing the right thing. 

God’s blessings are greater than human curses. In the best of times and in the worst of times we can be happy because we are so incredibly blessed. Something to remember in this month of February when we celebrate love: The love of Jesus makes us happy. Amen.