6th Sunday of Easter, May 17, 2009
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn
Readings:
Acts 10: 44-48
1 John 5: 1-6
John 15: 9-17
Audio sermon file:
http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/B360F0E2-1D02-B2DA-323C-441252BCF9A8.mp3
There was a WAY COOL moment that came at the start of today’s service, when the Sunday school kids came out and sang:
David Brooks in an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times described the Grant Study http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/opinion/12brooks.html) in which a cadre of young men from Harvard are followed and studied for the better part of their adult lives. The researchers were looking for, in part, indicators of happiness in the subjects’ lives. When did they attain it? Why and under what circumstances. What were the major factors that played into obtaining it and maintaining it. And these clues to what proffers happiness?
There was barely a correlation with any of the indicators we have most bought into believing are the main determinants. These were people who were given nearly every opportunity, had doors opened for them and full access to factors deemed necessary for success in life. And the most interesting conclusion was that there seems no way to indicate what will make one person happy and another falter at the brink: not your emotional state in your thirties, not money, not good relationships, not plenty of supportive family and friends, not a faith community.
People who have every reason to be happy are not.
People who have no reason to be … are content.
Interestingly, in the Bible, Jesus NEVER talks about being happy!!!!!
If we lead a Jesus-life, we lead a life abiding in God and God’s love, serving one’s neighbor. In love and service, there is joy. If, in the end, you end up happy about it, well that’s a by-product of a well-lived life, not an end to seek in itself.
The advice Jesus gives is to love. Even in the Grant Study as described by David Brooks, one subject finally says …
“Happiness is love. Full Stop.”
Jesus invites us to look at life differently … to view it as service to others. A month or so back, I blogged about an interesting half-fact/half-fiction book and movie entitled the Peaceful Warrior. It’s still worth a look-see if for no other reason than one interplay of dialogue between a young athlete and his mindful mentor:
“Hey, Socrates, if you know so much, why are you working at a gas station?”
“It’s a service station. We offer service. There is no higher purpose.”
“ …Than pumping gas?”
“Service to others.”
There's even a poignant scene at the very end of the movie about what it is we think will "make us happy", but never will. And, if you want a harkening back to last week's sermon ... a great scene where Dan tries to visit his mentor one last time .... only to find the gas station "manned" by someone new, Socrates nowhere to be found. Like Philip in today's scripture reading, like Jesus on the Road to Emmaus, now-you-see-Him - now-you-don't .... off with the wind.
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn
Readings:
Acts 10: 44-48
1 John 5: 1-6
John 15: 9-17
Audio sermon file:
http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/B360F0E2-1D02-B2DA-323C-441252BCF9A8.mp3
There was a WAY COOL moment that came at the start of today’s service, when the Sunday school kids came out and sang:
David Brooks in an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times described the Grant Study http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/opinion/12brooks.html) in which a cadre of young men from Harvard are followed and studied for the better part of their adult lives. The researchers were looking for, in part, indicators of happiness in the subjects’ lives. When did they attain it? Why and under what circumstances. What were the major factors that played into obtaining it and maintaining it. And these clues to what proffers happiness?
There was barely a correlation with any of the indicators we have most bought into believing are the main determinants. These were people who were given nearly every opportunity, had doors opened for them and full access to factors deemed necessary for success in life. And the most interesting conclusion was that there seems no way to indicate what will make one person happy and another falter at the brink: not your emotional state in your thirties, not money, not good relationships, not plenty of supportive family and friends, not a faith community.
People who have every reason to be happy are not.
People who have no reason to be … are content.
Interestingly, in the Bible, Jesus NEVER talks about being happy!!!!!
If we lead a Jesus-life, we lead a life abiding in God and God’s love, serving one’s neighbor. In love and service, there is joy. If, in the end, you end up happy about it, well that’s a by-product of a well-lived life, not an end to seek in itself.
The advice Jesus gives is to love. Even in the Grant Study as described by David Brooks, one subject finally says …
“Happiness is love. Full Stop.”
Jesus invites us to look at life differently … to view it as service to others. A month or so back, I blogged about an interesting half-fact/half-fiction book and movie entitled the Peaceful Warrior. It’s still worth a look-see if for no other reason than one interplay of dialogue between a young athlete and his mindful mentor:
“Hey, Socrates, if you know so much, why are you working at a gas station?”
“It’s a service station. We offer service. There is no higher purpose.”
“ …Than pumping gas?”
“Service to others.”
There's even a poignant scene at the very end of the movie about what it is we think will "make us happy", but never will. And, if you want a harkening back to last week's sermon ... a great scene where Dan tries to visit his mentor one last time .... only to find the gas station "manned" by someone new, Socrates nowhere to be found. Like Philip in today's scripture reading, like Jesus on the Road to Emmaus, now-you-see-Him - now-you-don't .... off with the wind.
In today’s scripture reading is Jesus’ Farewell Discourse … (John 13:31 – 17:26). It says a lot. It’s meat on the bones, but it’s so counter-intuitive. Jesus’ topsy-turvy world. And precisely because it’s so counter-intuitive, it bears a lot of repeating.
Abide in God’s love for you.
Love your neighbor.
Abide in God’s love for you.
Love your neighbor.
It’s a new model, a new system, and we’re not always trusting of it. We like for life to be transactual. We like to know for what goes into the box, what comes out. We like to know the price and value of things in which we invest our money and time and effort. We like to know the rules of engagement up front and we like to understand them. In another NY Times O-Ed piece entitled "What You Don't Know Makes You Nervous" (http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/what-you-dont-know-makes-you-nervous/), Dan Gilbert points out that "money doesn't makes us happy - certainty does". There's beaucoup research to indicate that uncertainty raises hormine levels indicative of stroke and heart attack; rats that were always shocked or never shocked exhibited lower stress levels than rats who "never knew" when they woukd be shocked. Those who were uncertain when they would be shocked sweated more profusely, their heart beat faster.
We are frustrated when we either don’t understand the rules or when we’re not allowed to play into them as we think we should, i.e. when they don’t seem transactual. Point in case, asking to bring something when we’re going to someone’s house for dinner. God and others tell us, no, we can’t. But we buck it. We don’t get not putting in for what we know we’ll get out.
And if the system breaks, we don’t understand. We like a very predictable world where everything makes sense. And the transactual model works well for driving and banking and maybe even dating. But there are at least two entities where it breaks down miserably: evil and God.
If you’ve ever lost your job, suffered a loss of a loved one, been hurt terribly by someone, had your trust betrayed, then you know the rules don’t apply. The good news is it’s the same way with God. You can’t earn your way into dinner or offer anything He can’t already, hasn’t already provided.
You can not pay God back. He asks you to Pay it Forward (another good movie, by the way …
Pastor Mohn shared a great story that Dan Magnuson shared with her. In Leonard Cohen’s poem The Anthem (http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Leonard_Cohen/215 ):
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
There is the notion that it is in life’s imperfections that God shines through. In the cracks, in the places we lose, where we struggle, that where God shines through. That’s where flowers grow in the sidewalk … in the cracks. In the cracks God sees opportunities to shine His grace through for those open enough to look for it.
The world sees unrequited love as foolish. Jesus sees it as a calling. Jesus takes the crack called servanthood and sees it as a privilege, much like Socrates, the service station attendant in A Peaceful Warrior. Jesus sees death as a means to salvation.
The command today to love one another affords us the opportunity to get close enough to things the world calls folly. And if we get close enough, we will see the light of God’s grace shining through.
As the fledgling professor in Good Will Hunting, the one deemed less successful for his having loved his wife through years of cancer instead of seeking out the awards of academia, tells his lost patient …
Oh, Will, those little things they call the imperfections. They’re the best part. They’re the part you’ll laugh about. They’re the part you most love about one another.
There is the notion that it is in life’s imperfections that God shines through. In the cracks, in the places we lose, where we struggle, that where God shines through. That’s where flowers grow in the sidewalk … in the cracks. In the cracks God sees opportunities to shine His grace through for those open enough to look for it.
The world sees unrequited love as foolish. Jesus sees it as a calling. Jesus takes the crack called servanthood and sees it as a privilege, much like Socrates, the service station attendant in A Peaceful Warrior. Jesus sees death as a means to salvation.
The command today to love one another affords us the opportunity to get close enough to things the world calls folly. And if we get close enough, we will see the light of God’s grace shining through.
As the fledgling professor in Good Will Hunting, the one deemed less successful for his having loved his wife through years of cancer instead of seeking out the awards of academia, tells his lost patient …
Oh, Will, those little things they call the imperfections. They’re the best part. They’re the part you’ll laugh about. They’re the part you most love about one another.
And, as The Anthem says, … forget your PERFECT offering …
You can add up the parts but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march, there is no drum
Every heart, every heart to love will come but like a refugee.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
