Abba Knows Best – sermon on October 18, 2015
Job 35: 1-7 Then God answered Job from the whirlwind: “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
Mark 10: 35-45 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came over and spoke to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do us a favor.” “What is your request?” he asked. They replied, “When you sit on your glorious throne, we want to sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.” But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism of suffering I must be baptized with?” “Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!” Then Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink from my bitter cup and be baptized with my baptism of suffering. But I have no right to say who will sit on my right or my left. God has prepared those places for the ones he has chosen.”
When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant. So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Sermon: Abba Knows Best (notes from dialogue sermon)
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Two scenarios – winning $300 million in the lottery versus becoming paraplegic – what would be the impact on your life of one or the other – for how long
Dan Gilbert, Harvard U. psychologist did research demonstrating that people in either circumstance were at an equal level of happiness one year after the event.
Our frontal lobes provide us with an experience simulator – we can experience something that hasn’t happened – every flavor jellybeans – liver ice cream – we can try things out in our head.
Unfortunately, the simulator works badly and misleads us when it comes to our happiness. We think that getting what we want is what will make us happy – whether it is the dream job, the big raise, a new house or car, a lover or a child or grandchild. Has anyone here ever gotten what they wanted? … How did it work out? Was the happiness over this lasting? Gilbert calls this “natural happiness.”
It’s what James and John are looking for, isn’t it? (talk about scripture)
Gilbert says there is another kind of happiness – the kind that accounts for the paraplegic who is as happy as the multimillionaire after just one year. This he calls synthesized happiness. What do you think of that? People tend to think this is a lesser form of happiness than natural happiness, and he gives some examples of people making some pretty startling claims about their happiness.
Take, for instance, Jim Wright. He served in the the House of Representatives for 34 years, was Speaker of the House from ’87-89 when he resigned in disgrace over a shady book deal he had done. He lost everything. The most powerful Democrat in the country lost everything. It was a seat of glory and power he’d had, and he lost it, along with lots of his money. But what he says about it years later is, “I am so much better off physically, financially, mentally and in almost every other way.”
Then there is Moreese Bickum. Moreese spent 37 years in a Lousiana state penitentiary for a crime he didn’t commit. He was ultimately released for good behavior halfway through his sentence. What did he say about his experience? “I don’t have one minute’s regret. It was a glorious experience.” Glorious!
Then there are the two who seemed to have lost out on tremendous opportunities. Back in 1949 Harry Langerman read an article about a hamburger stand owned by two brothers named McDonald. He thought it was a neat idea, and tracked them down. The brothers offered to sell him a franchise for $3000, and Harry went to his own brother, an investment banker,for the loan. His brother said idiot – no one eats hamburgers. Wouldn’t lend him the money, and the opportunity went instead to Ray Croc. Heard of him? But Harry says about the experience, “I believe it turned out for the best.” And finally, there is Pete Best, who was the original drummer for the Beatles, who ditched him and picked up Ringo instead. You might think he would be bitter, but he said in 1994, ‘I am happier than I would have been with the Beatles.”
Do you believe them? Are they kidding themselves? Is such “happiness” as good as natural happiness?
Gilbert says the belief that it is NOT just as good is driven by economic motives. People wouldn’t be so focused on buying what they wanted – what they thought would make them happy – if they knew they could be equally happy without these things. And Gilbert did some experiments to demonstrate that synthetic happiness is indeed just as satisfying as natural happiness.
Now some people are better at synthesizing happiness than others, but there are some situations allow anyone to do it better. Another scenario – give choice between 2 fine art prints that you have selected from a larger set. One can change mind up to 4 days, another makes the final choice the first pick. Which would you prefer? In which are you more likely to get the print you really want and be happy about? (similar predictions of satisfaction, but stark difference in satisfaction) The closed choice. Freedom tends to make us less satisfied, and we don’t believe that.
The message of Gilbert’s talk is not that our wants have no meaning, that freedom of choice is a bad thing, but it is about the extreme overestimation of their importance. He says, “We should have preferences that lead us into one future over another. But when those preferences drive us too hard and too fast because we have overrated the difference between these futures, we are at risk. When our ambition is bounded, it leads us to work joyfully. When our ambition is unbounded, it leads us to lie, to cheat, to steal, to hurt others, to sacrifice things of real value. When our fears are bounded, we’re prudent, we’re cautious, we’re thoughtful. When our fears are unbounded and overblown. we’re reckless, and we’re cowardly.”
These principles seem Divine. In the book of Job, it appears that Job has suffered a terrible blow, and the only think he thinks will bring a miniscule amount of satisfaction is to have God answer for Godself in harming him this way. But when God does respond, it is not an answer to Job’s question, but God asking Job to answer some questions himself. It is a complete redirect away from Job’s losses and suffering to God’s mighty deeds. How does it work? – Get on with the business of living.
Likewise Jesus redirects the two and the other 10 – Holy binding of ambition and desire, of worry and fear. Yoked to him, focus on others. Make that choice. May it be so.
