Don't Worry Be Happy

November 2, 2014 All Saints Day Matthew 5:1-12 Don’t Worry Be Happy There seems to be a lot of talk this morning on the news about the spaceship crash on Friday. For $250,000 you can take a personal flight to the moon. And people are signing up, in spite of the accident that happened. I wish them well, me I prefer to keep my feet grounded here on earth. But as I was thinking about the meaning of All Saints Day - the founder of the Virgin company – Richard Branson said something that made me think. He said that we stand on the shoulders of giants, and yet we have failed. I think that we all stand on the shoulders of giants – that is why we are here. There is someone in our life who believed in us, someone who always gave us words of encouragement. Some of the very people that we honor today – made a difference in who we are. There was a rabbi who also said words of wisdom to me this morning and made me think – He said the only direction that God gives us to go is forward. The only thing we can do in life is to go on. There are times when we would like to be able to go back, and yet God does not give us that choice. No matter what we may be dealing with in life – we have to move on, we have to go forward. I think that is why the words of Matthew 5 – stood out to me this All Saints Day. Blessed are those who…. Says the King James version of the bible, and the New revised standard version says happy are those who….. This is the sermon on the mount. Where Jesus goes up to the mountain, the disciples follow him. And he gives them this special message. Be happy when you are hopeless, when your mourn, when you are humble, when you are hungry, when you are harassed for righteous sake. For your reward is in heaven. But how can you be happy, when you are hopeless, or hungry, or grieving, or treated unfairly? That is the question that plagues us all throughout this life. No matter who we are, no matter how long we go to church, no matter how much family we have, no matter how much money we have – there are going to be times when life causes us despair. This is one time when I feel that the later translations of the bible, don’t do justice to the meaning of the text. The first blessing in the NSRV says – Happy are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Yet the King James says blessed are the poor in spirit, for your shall inherit the kingdom of God. The difference. The original greek word for poor – tochos – means a person who is dirt poor and has nothing but God to depend on. Who has ever been in a situation in life when you felt that you didn’t have nothing. You could not depend on anything or anyone. And yet it was at that moment that you realized that in the midst of your nothingness – you still had God. And God was all that you needed to get through. Into every life sadness will fall. And Jesus says that it is okay to mourn, to mourn the loss of our people, to mourn the loss of situations in life. But when you believe in God, it is in those times of sadness, when you invite a special kind of joy to come beside you and give you comfort. It is not the joy of getting a something new, or winning the lottery. It is a joy of knowing that in times of sadness that you are not alone. And that the holy spirit will come to you in ways that you did not expect, and give you the strength to move forward. To help us understand that the only direction that we can go is forward. I like this verse for All Saints Day – because as I look at the blessings, the blessings are not just for those who have passed on – they are for all of us. Those in our lives who have gone on before us have had their hard times, but so have we. Those that we honor today have sacrificed so that we can have, but so have we. They are children of God, but so are we. And Jesus says that the now have their reward in heaven. And yet the struggle continues. Life is still hard for us. Jesus says that there will be times when you will be harassed, just because you are a Christian. And yet you are guaranteed comfort in the midst of the struggle. The only way that we can go is forward. Dr. Earl Palmer is a biblical scholar. And he says that Jesus got his inspiration for the sermon on the mount from psalm 1. Psalm 1 starts out by saying blessed are those who do not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers. But who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate in his law day and night, they are like a tree planted by streams of water. Like sermon on the mount, Jesus takes a blessing and turns it into a story. He says that the word that Jesus uses for the word blessing is Ashur. Ashur means headed in the right direction, or on the right journey. Remember, the only way for us to go in this life is forward. When we know that we have God in our lives, we are headed in the right direction. The key is – just that – we have to believe that God is with us in the midst of our struggles. Only then can we truly be happy, - when others are stuck in sorrow. Dr. Carlyle Marney once remarked that a person can be understood as being similar to a house. We have our living rooms, where we entertain, and our basements, where we hide the trash. The way to observe All Saints’ Day, he suggested, is to walk out into your front yard and salute the people on your balcony. The balcony people in our lives are those who have gone before us, who have been our encouragers, who have left a legacy. (1) That’s what we do on this Saints’ Day. We salute all the saints who have gone before us, whose faithfulness provided us with the faith we have today. Amen