TURNING TEARS TO LAUGHTER AND VICE VERSA
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
Bristol, Connecticut
March 7, 2010
Isaiah 55: 6-11
Luke 6: 17-26
There’s one thing I’m always sure of when I stand before you on a Sunday morning: that you don’t feel nearly as good as you look! Another thing I know is that some have come this morning – as every other Sunday morning that I’ve stood before people in places like this – in the hope that some voice might cut through the hymns, the anthem, the words of the sermon and prayers and name your particular, unique pain and offer a cure. And I know too that others have come hoping that the hymns, the prayers, the words will only help you to forget things, for an hour or so. I know all this not because I’m clairvoyant, but because I know myself.
To tell the truth, most Sundays I’m glad I’m not a popular TV preacher standing in front of folks who all look so good, so happy, so successful. I really wouldn’t want to preach before a congregation who measured the success of a Sunday by how much everyone was grinning at the end. Because, I’ll tell you all it takes is one cancer diagnosis, or a marriage break up, or a pink slip from your boss, or a failed course at school for that Gospel of Grinning jig to be up. I wouldn’t want to be in a congregation where I had to pretend I was happy when I wasn’t.
Which is why it means a lot to me that Jesus never said, “Blessed are you who are happy.” Because then I’d be trying like the dickens to always show that I’m happy. Instead, Jesus said, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” “Fortunate are those of you who are enough in touch with reality to weep. Fortunate if you’ve still got enough of your wits about you to be able to cry.”
And he also said, “Blessed, lucky, fortunate are you who are poor, who’re hungry, who’re hated, excluded, reviled, defamed because of your professed and lived out faith in God.”
For me, the poet W.H. Auden offered one of the most memorable lines of all time when he wrote, “Seeing the joy of a bubble-brained world, I was glad I could be unhappy.” This expresses well how I feel sometimes when I get depressed by the so-called values of life in America and the world in 2010. I’m glad that I haven’t been so completely co-opted by our culture that I can still be unhappy with what passes for the good life in 2010 and see through it – at least most of the time. So, I like how Jesus put it: “Blessed are those who weep.” Cause that’s what I want to do sometimes.
I don’t like tears. I don’t like to cry. But Jesus said there was something much more dangerous than tears. It was believing the dangerous deception that our world, our way of life is the best of all possible worlds. I’m sure he would’ve choked at the thought of the modern mantra, “Don’t worry, be happy.”
So he said, “Woe to you that laugh now – be careful, be careful, be careful if you feel too good, too comfortable with the way things are. You’re on real thin ice. Be careful. You could be on the verge of losing your soul.”
Jesus knew that to be all about laughter and what such a care-free kind of life is all about too easily can be self-deceptive. Jesus knew it was far better to stay in the pain of the moment rather than immediately try to drown it by one means or another; better to let the pain fully inform you as to what’s wrong with you or your situation and then make your best decision.
To be very sure, short cuts to joy always end up dead ends down the road. Self-medicating into a state of denial whether through drugs of choice or overwork or pleasure-seeking are, in the end, bubble-brained activities. Better to weep now, to face reality now so that you may genuinely laugh later. Says Jesus.
Since I know at least some of you are here looking better than you feel, and since I know some are here hoping nothing Jesus says or I say will penetrate your veneer of “all’s okay” let me offer a word to each.
First, to those who are weeping now, so to speak, or who are poor now, or who are hungry for something more than what life is bringing now, or to those who know the pain of rejection right now, hear this: Jesus knows your state. He’s been there. He loves you. If you read the New Testament you will find he’s always been on your side and in fact always hung out with the likes of you. You can trust him.
So, if you can’t muster a smile today, it’s okay, don’t be ashamed. If you’re not happy, don’t be ashamed. If you don’t fit in to the lifestyles of others around you, don’t be ashamed. If life’s circumstances have left you different, don’t be ashamed. You are blessed. Blessed because you are learning life lessons that will serve you well if you’re paying attention to life. Will put you on the right track. Will keep you on the right track.
Jesus says you are blessed, fortunate, because in your honest emptiness you’re in the best place to be ready to fully embrace the Kingdom of God and its bet-your-life values. You are blessed, fortunate.
Now, a word for those of us who are among the rich or the full or the happy ones or the socially accepted. I say “us” because this is me most of the time. I’m rich, full, more happy than not usually, socially accepted. I really don’t need anything – food or shelter or friends or a job that brings me immense fulfillment. I have all I need. I’m “rich.”
Though you might not typically think of yourself in this category, chances are, like me, you are among the rich and the full. And to us Jesus says “Woe to you.”
Let me read these verses again from John Peterson’s version: “It’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you’ll ever get. And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy you for long. And it’s trouble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games. There’s suffering to be met, and you’re going to meet it. There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests.”
Trouble ahead for the likes of me and maybe you. If you are rich, be careful. If you’re quite satisfied with life and its pleasures now, be careful.
Not that being happy is bad, but because such contentment with yourself brings its own special kind of temptation to fall off the wagon of being a Jesus person.
So, be careful because you may end up settling for a shadow of the kingdom; end up settling for being nice rather than being brave; end up with teeny tiny joys thinking that’s the best and miss the joys of the Kingdom which your Father in heaven wants to give to you.
But, now, hear this: Jesus’ warning is not a finger-shaking kind of warning. It’s a pastoral, loving word which is why I read it as I did. It’s not an angry woe. It’s a compassionate woe.
It’s the woe of a frustrated God who wants to be in synch with us not for his good only but for our good. It’s the woe, say, of a parent to a 17 year old who is choosing the wrong kinds of friends. “Be careful. Be careful.” “There’s trouble ahead.”
You can tell that we’re in Lent, can’t you? We’re in full-fledged “examine your life” time. Spring cleaning time for the soul. Some things stay; some things must go. Some of us will be able to make mid-course corrections and some won’t.
Regrettably, probably the majority of us will be satisfied enough with what we have and the ways we’re living our life that we won’t take Jesus seriously. For us, things aren’t bad now; perhaps another day when we’re sad we might consider what Jesus is talking about. Don’t worry. Be happy.
Careful, Jesus says. Be careful.
So, where are you today, this 3rd Sunday in Lent?
Are you poor, hungry, weeping, maybe rejected by certain people for your beliefs, your Christian lifestyle? Well, personally, I’m very sorry, but actually you’re blessed – probably more than you know.
Or, are you rich, full, in a good place, not really concerned with others’ problems? Not feeling the world’s sadness?
Careful. Trouble’s coming. Be careful. Be very careful.
