Sunday, July 1, 2007
“The Right Attitude”
Text: Matthew 5: 1 - 11
The events of life move rather quickly. And it is said that your attitude determines your aptitude. In fact your attitude towards life drives your philosophical construct of life.
If you have a fatalistic attitude, then ca sera sera, what will be will be. Let’s eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.
If you believe that your life is in the hands of fate, then you are prone to be passive in life with the feeling that you have no control.
If you believe that your life is predestinated, then you will believe that your final destiny has been settled in advance by the absolute will of God.
Finally, one may believe that they have a moral freedom or free will, they if one acts in conformity with that moral belief then they will receive that reward of a moral conclusion.
One’s attitude in life influences the types of relationships one develops in life. The question then is how attitudes are developed. They are developed by one’s social and culture context.
Last week we discussed the factors that come to play in the resiliency of youth to overcome their cultural and social conditions. We suggested that family networks, community based schools, and faith based institutions are the supports that assists in the development of attitudes that aids youth in the ability to overcome life’s circumstances and situations.
Likewise, these same factors are necessary for us as individuals to have positive or negative attitudes reinforced or supported.
A story is told of a man who just moved to a city and was looking for a church to attend. He walked up to a person on the street and stated I’m new in town how the people in that church are. The person responded by asking him how where the people in the church he was from. The man stated they were mean spirited, cold, and deceitful. The persons said you will find the same kind of people in that church. The man walked away.
Later, another person walked up to the same person and asked him a similar question, he also being new to town and was looking for a church to attend. The person asked how where the people in the church you were from. The man responded that they where kind, inviting, and helpful. In the very same church that he had described to the other man he stated that you will find that same people there in that church: kind, inviting and helpful.
How is it that the people in the same church were described so differently? It was because people react to the attitudes one has. If you are cold, then people will respond with a chill in their air. If you are mean spirited, then people will react in a mean spirited way.
What you give is what you get.
Jesus understood these dynamics and after receiving and proclaiming his mission in ministry was to preach the gospel to the poor; to heal the brokenhearted; recovery of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised; and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
From that premise he went out to call disciples to come and follow me. With a mandate so clear and a philosophy of life that had a profound moral ethic so precise; can you imagine the state or attitude his disciples brought to the table?
No different than what we would bring. Let’s look at two disciples.
Simon Peter was a bundle of confused emotions: he was brave and cowardly, wise and foolish, accepting and rejecting, a man of doubt and a man of faith. He was paradoxical. He was just like us.
On the other hand you have Andrew the first disciple called by Jesus. He was an evangelist always out spreading the good news and bringing people to Jesus. Yet on many important occasions, Andrew is left out: healing of Jairus’ daughter, the Transfiguration, and the Garden of Gethsemane.
For one to be first and faithful, he do you think he felt to be left out of these important events. His brother was there, Simon Peter, but no Andrew.
What is one’s attitude when they feel they have been left out? I believe one would feel just like we do – a sense of rejection or disappointment.
Each disciple brought there own set of attitudes, philosophies, and emotions to the feet of Jesus. All different and they all missed the point of his mission and mandate.
Therefore, after preaching his first sermon, calling the first disciples, affirming his power by healing and teaching; he takes his disciples to their first workshop and retreat.
The purpose of this first workshop and retreat was to expose to them the right attitude a follower of Jesus Christ should have.
He didn’t take the crowd; he took his disciples those who had decided to follow Jesus.
1. Blessed are those with the attitude of being poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. If one is willing to follow Jesus along the path of humility to suffering in order to serve the despised; then those persons would receive the promised exaltation at the resurrection. One of the great sins is a sense of false pride – hubris. Where one thinks that they are greater than other people, even to the point that they think they are greater than God. The attitude Jesus sought was those who would be abased such that God would cause them to abound.
2. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Mourning in this sense is righteous indignation – angst. It is the discomfort one feels when you see situations of injustice and your spirit becomes so drawn into the matter because it causes you to mourn. As a result you will find comfort not by withdrawing, but by getting involved in the life of people. You find comfort in sharing others burdens. You are compelled to by compassion to become a wounded healer.
3. The central attitude, the right attitude that one should have is to hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is one of the main attitudes missing from the life of the religious today: A hunger and thirst for righteousness. One cannot function when they are hungry and thirsty. One needs to be sustained to live. Without bread and water one surely dies.
Also if you really want to be Christ-like, you must seek the bread of heaven so that it may feed you until you want no more.
I see people snacking; but I don’t see hunger and thirsting. When the events of the religious are timed to the tee, programmed to the moment, controlled to a fault; I often wonder where is the hunger, where is the thirst.
When will we become righteous in God’s sight versus self-righteous in our own sight?
This is the central attitude: are you willing to hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Are you willing to spend the time studying God’s word such that it becomes a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your pathway?
Are you willing to spend time in the tabernacle such that people will wonder where you are only to find you teaching and preaching to the elders of the church?
Are you willing to spend time ministering to the needs of others such that they become empowered by the witness you bring and yield their spirit to God with the finality that says what must I do to be saved?
Are you willing to hunger and thirst for righteousness?
This attitude, the right attitude is a prerequisite for preserving our sacred space.
Because Jesus says if you are willing to hunger and thirst for righteousness, you will be filled.
If you find yourself with emptiness, you will be filled.
If you find yourself with bereft of resources for the journey of life, you will be filled.
If you find yourself, lonely and without wholeness, you will be filled!
The filling comes from the seeking the deep spaces of your soul and spirit. It is causing yourself to be wrung dry, emptied out and to allowing the kenosis of God – the pouring in of his spirit to fill you up until your cup runs over.
Have you ever experienced a filled up spirit?
Have you ever felt the shekinah Glory of God?
Have you ever heard the cherubims and seraphims sing holy, holy holy?
Have you ever witness angels hovering over you, watching and keeping you?
Have you ever felt like shouting in your spirit, if it had not been for the Lord on my side?
If you have felt any of that you have know what it means to be filled!
We learn three things about a right attitude.
1. It is providential – it comes from God
2. It is essential – it explains the essence of God
3. It is consequential - it comes from following God
But let me close by saying that Holy Communion is for those of us whose attitudes sometimes needs adjusting.
We lose our way. We get caught up in the issues of life.
We forget that he was wounded for our transgressions and he was bruised for our iniquities.
And he told us that if you remember my nails scared hands,
if you remember my pierced side,
if you remember they hung me on the cross,
if you remember that I didn’t say a word,
if you remember that I die for you,
if you remember that I cried out father forgive them for they know not what they do,
if you remember that I am your advocate and I’m sitting at the right hand of the father for you.
If you remember when you eat the bread, drink the wine.
That I did it just for you.
All I ask is that you straighten out your attitude.
Develop a right attitude.
Remember that you should love your brother that your do see.
Remember that you should forgive seven times seventy.
Remember that you should feed those who are hunger,
clothe those who are naked,
visits those who are in prison.
Comfort those who are sick.
If you remember me and my love for you,
then you should adjust your attitude by hunger and thirsting after righteousness.
Always remember that a right attitude
is providential,
its essential,
and its consequential.
And those who have a right attitude!
Those who have a pure heart!
They shall see God.
