Blessings - A Life Worth Living, part 3

Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. Matthew 5:1-2

Before we get started with my analysis of The Sermon on the Mount, I need to make a few things clear.

#1 – I’m not a theologian. I have had no formal training in Bible study or religious doctrine. I won’t be writing line by line exegesis here, I’ll leave that to the professionals.

#2 – I’m really only writing this for me, as a way to work out my purpose in life. The fact that it is going out worldwide on the internet is secondary. I invite your feedback and would be honoured if God spoke to you through my work but that’s not the primary goal.

#3 - Jesus spoke this sermon to his disciples. It says so right in the text. To be sure many people were there listening in but most of this teaching is directed at his closest followers. This is a manual for life as a Christ Follower. If you’re “listening in” welcome but this really is Jesus Following 101.

Here we go!

The first thing that jumps out at me is the word blessed. It’s not a word we use a lot in our daily life so I looked up the definition.

Blessed; adjective; divinely or supremely favoured – Dictionary.com

Jesus begins his hillside chat was a list of 8 blessings, commonly referred to as the Beatitudes. (Matthew 5:3-12) Right from the start it is clear that he is advocating a counter cultural movement. Those that are to be “supremely favoured” are not what anyone would expect. Poor in spirit, mourners, gentle, seekers of righteousness, merciful, pure hearted, peacemakers, and persecuted. When you contrast this list with the things that our society gives favour to there are stark differences.

- Blessed are the Poor in spirit? Society says; blessed are the rich in self importance. We live in a narcissistic society that values confidence and self promotion. Get with the program. Jesus says; by recognizing your inadequacies you can enter life on a whole new level.

- Blessed are those who mourn? Society says; Get over it! Dust yourself off and get on with life, quit being such a downer. Jesus says; you will be comforted.

- Gentle? Society says; nobody ever got ahead by being gentle. Lead, follow or get out of the way! Jesus says; you will gain the whole world!

- Hunger and thirst for righteousness? Society says; what is righteous in our world of hyper choice and information overload? Who are you to claim that you are right about anything? Live and let live. Jesus says; you will learn the answers.

- Merciful? Society says; you deserve what you get, you should have known better. Every man for himself! Jesus says; you will be treated in kind.

- Pure in heart? Society says; see righteousness, you pansy! Don’t waste your time making decisions with your heart you’ll only end up with heartburn. Jesus says; God will reveal himself to you.

- Peacemakers? Society says; that’s military slang for a cruise missile. You want to make peace the fastest way is to wipe out your enemies. Jesus says; you are doing God’s work and will be recognized as part of his family.

- Those who are persecuted? Society says; there is no blessing in persecution. Don’t rock the boat. See Merciful. Jesus says; you will be rewarded for your commitment.

Living this list is not easy. I fail daily. Aligning my life with these blessings is a first step in defining and living out my purpose.

A Life Worth Living, part 2

Though simple sounding and easy to read, each beatitude offers a radical rearrangement of our ordinary value system, daring us to be different. What we find here, in short, are guidelines for true Christian character. Charles R. Swindoll, Simple Faith

The year was 1992. I had just left home for the first time. After 19 years of living in my parent’s house with their values I found myself on my own trying to find my way in the world.

I was still surrounded by other Christians. I had found work as a technician on tour with a Christian motivational speaker but much of what I experienced in that first year on the road was nothing like what I thought it meant to be a Christian. The rules of evangelical engagement; do this; don’t do that, turning a blind eye to obvious need while preaching a brand of “health and wealth” was like a foreign language. I’m a Mennonite boy from Southern Ontario, taught to live simply and trust God. All this “name it and claim it” you’ve already won, born again mumbo jumbo didn’t make any sense to me.

By Christmas, just 4 months into a 10 month contract I was burnt out. That’s when I saw an ad in a Christian magazine with the following headline;

In the Hurried Lives of too many Christians There’s a Peace Missing.

The advertisement was for a book by evangelical theologian Charles Swindoll called Simple Faith. This was exactly what I needed. The more I listened to the motivational message I was paid to help deliver the more I felt that they were muddling it up and leave a lot of pieces out. K.I.S.S. was my personal mantra – Keep Is Simple Stupid!

I had heard of Swindoll a few years earlier. He had gained some notoriety in Christian circles with his other book, The Grace Awakening and so without knowing very much about the premise of his follow up work, other than the title and the headline in that magazine, I went out and bought it.

As it turned out, it was a detailed analysis and commentary on what is commonly referred to as The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6 and 7, Jesus longest single speech in any of the Gospels. Practically all of Jesus teaching either further explains or expands on ideas first put forth in this speech. It is possible to build your entire relationship with Jesus solely on what is said in these 3 chapters of the first Gospel without missing a single major tenant of Christianity.

I recently returned to the Sermon on the Mount in my search for meaning and purpose and it was like sitting down in front of a warm fire with a nice cup of coffee and an old friend. No flashing lights or loud music and no wild claims of utopian bliss, just simple straight forward life coaching from the heart of God.

My purpose begins with putting Jesus’ teaching in the centre of it all and Jesus teaching boils down to the Sermon on the Mount.

For the next little while I’m going to dedicate this blog to my own analysis of this speech. Hopefully it will help me to refocus my purpose.

Lucky you - You’re invited along for the ride!

MCC AIDs Care Kits

This is something my Church is doing to help people in Southern Africa that are infected with AIDs

The Meeting House, AIDS Care Kit Video, Nov 8th 2009

More on Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) another time.

A Life Worth Living

Why are we here? What’s life all about? Monty Python

One of the reasons for this blog is to help me to continually work out my place in the world. My wife brought home a book from the library last week called “It’s Not what you Sell, It’s what you Stand For” by Roy M. Spence Jr.

Mr. Spence is a partner at a marketing and advertising firm in Austin TX and has worked with some of the best known brands in the world from Wal-Mart to former president Bill Clinton’s, Clinton Global Initiative. The primary thesis of the book is that you must figure out what you stand for, and align it with your work first and foremost. If you don’t you just bounce from one thing to another without ever making a lasting impact, individuals who don’t understand their purpose float from job to job or relationship to relationship. Purpose is True North on your compass. If you understand your purpose decision making comes down to one question, will this get me closer or further away from True North?

So I’m working on a statement of purpose.

So far I come to the realization that I view human life as absolutely sacred. Whether or not you define life with some divine meaning as I do most of you can agree that all human life is equally valuable. Let me be clear, I am not interested in a debate over the origins of life. Don’t try to draw me into some endless, pointless circle of creationism versus evolution or a pro-life argument over when human life actually begins. I don’t care! Whatever marker you use to define it; Life is Sacred.

With that as my starting point things like war, political oppression, murder, capital punishment, environmental degradation (wilful or inadvertent) the spread of poverty through preventable disease and just plain selfish ignorance are all evil! I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t also acknowledge that as a Christ Follower I stand convicted of every one of these things.

My heart breaks daily;

- When I learn that the average age of girls trapped in prostitution all over the world is 12.
- When thousands die as a Tsunami takes out coastal settlements in Indonesia.
- When children can’t walk safely to school for fear of harassment in Palestine.
- When millions continue to die of AIDS in Southern Africa because they can’t get access to life saving drugs.

But simply stating that Life is Sacred is not a purpose. My purpose in life is not to say that life is sacred and move on. My purpose is to live daily with that realization first and foremost on my heart and react to the world around me in kind.

- Help the prostitute get off the street and find a better life.
- Help clean up and rebuild after the Tsunami.
- Protect children from wars and civil unrest.
- Provide drugs and other life giving services to the sick and dying.

"The true joy of life is being used by a purpose recognized by yourself to be a mighty one." George Bernard Shaw.

Now that is a life worth living.

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Not sure if it's going to add anything to this blog but it could be fun...

Lauren

Universal Healthcare

I just spent that last 24 hours with my wife at Credit Valley Hospital in our home town of Mississauga Ontario. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography, we are a city of just under 1 million on the western edge of Toronto. You might say that we are to Toronto what Burbank is to Los Angeles.

There has been much talk in the media lately about universal healthcare. Republicans in the US have used the Canadian system is a kind of boogie man in there debate with President Obama’s plan to over hall the system there. Our system is far from perfect, believe me. However; when you are in pain and need help the last thing you should be thinking about is how much this is going to cost.

As a resident (you don’t even have to be a citizen) of the province of Ontario I receive access to one of the best run emergency health care systems in the world. We do pay for it but the premiums deducted from our pay cheques through income assessments are based on our ability to pay, not our need or how much we use it. A healthy person who is rich pays more than a sick person who is poor on the assumption that the system is there for everyone when they need it. I pay roughly $100 per month for this access, others pay less and use it more but that’s okay.

In the last 24 hours my wife has undergone an x-ray, ultrasound and eventually had to have her gallbladder removed. She stayed overnight in a private room, had access to a private telephone line, received a meal and was given a prescription for pain medication. My total bill at the end of the day was $57.77. Half of that was for parking the other half for the prescribed drugs not covered by the government insurance plan. In two weeks she will return to the hospital for a follow up assessment by the surgeon, FREE. We visit our family doctor for routine ailments and check-ups on average 3-4 times per year, also FREE.

I don`t pretend to understand all the complexities of a government verses private health care system but when you need surgery to continue to live nothing else matters. Worrying about how you`re going to pay for it, whether or not your insurance company will cover it or if you will one day lose your coverage should never enter the debate. I know that if I lose my job tomorrow the Ontario government will no longer be getting their $100 per month from me but I will still have access to the same health care my wife needed today and that`s all the matters in the end.

Believer's Trust

Okay, so I had this idea...

Micro-Finance organizations all over the world are dominated by non-profit, religious based NGOs. They are there to help people by giving them a low interest, sometimes even zero interest loans to start a business and feed their families. In theory the recipients pay back the loans into the pool and the money is then re-loaned to others or they take out new loans to expand their businesses take on new employees etc and thereby benefit the whole community.

But there are some who say that Micro-Finance doesn’t work. My guess is that the religious connections of the organizations alienate some ethnic communities, the loan amounts are too small to really make a difference, the communities are too focused on subsistence to truly run effective businesses or that it creates a culture of dependence on easy credit (sound familiar?). There is also some merit to the argument that the recipients have almost no concept of how a free market economy actually works.

The fact that the seed capital came as a donation from an individual that does not expect a return on investment also creates a culture whereby the parent organization does not have a long term investment in the recipient, without an expectation of a return there is no mechanism that allows the Micro Loan to grow beyond a very small amount, enough to effectively support a growing economy.

What if Micro-Finance were managed like a bank or bond market, complete with shareholders who expected a return on their investment?

Simply put – a Bond is a created when a debt is portioned out to a number of different individuals. If I buy $1000 bond in a mortgage company that doles out mortgages to individuals in the amount of $100.000, I in essence own 1% of someone’s house. As the mortgage is repaid I receive a dividend equal to value of my ownership plus interest and I can sell my entire bond at market value at any time. So if the house increases in value, so does the value of my bond.

As always these brain storms bring up more questions than they answer.

Questions – What are the reasons most often cited that Micro-Finance doesn’t work?
- Who can I partner with on the ground to manage these loans?
- What is a realistic rate of return?
- What kind of regulatory hurdles are there to making this work?

If anyone out there can help me answer these questions I would appreciate it....