A little boy in West Virginia wrote this response to an essay question, “What Is a Person?”
When you are a person…
Your head is kind of round, and your brains are in it
and your hair is on it.
Your face is the front of your head where you eat
and make faces.
Your neck is what keeps your head out of your collar,
and it’s hard to keep clean.
Your shoulders are sort of shelves hold up your shirt
and hook your suspenders.
Your stummick is something that if you don’t eat often
enough it hurts, and spinach won’t help none.
Your spine is a bony bone in your back that is alway
behind you no matter how quickly
you turn around.
Your arms you’ve got to pitch with
and so, you can reach the butter.
Your fingers stick out of your hands so you can
throw a curve ball and add up arithmetic.
Your legs are what you run on and your toes
are what always get stubbed.
And that’s all there is of you except what’s
on the inside, and I ain’t never seen that yet!
“...except what’s on the inside.” Something we have never seen before and yet, something very personal, very real. Something that is not visible but imaginable.
A person is best defined by that which is within. There is more to each one of us than the trappings of our lives. Is this what the Bible refers to as our soul? Most of the questions Jesus asked were about this part of us. Although, we are inclined to pretend it is not as important as the part we can see, touch, and feel. Jesus calls us to give proper attention to that which is within. “How is it with your soul?”
In this sermon from the plain, Jesus came down to the ground where we live. It is like a love letter telling us to be glad when our heart is tender and sore because we then know of our need for God’s love to fill our deepest need. Jesus tells us how to read the barometer of our being. He said we are blessed when we feel hunger within. When you are so content with yourself, consider your deepest longings. He said, “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied... woe to you who are full, for you shall be hungry” Read Luke 6:21-25 like the most wonderful Valentine you could ever receive. “Your soul is blessed and happy when you are poor. It is then that the kingdom is yours. Your soul is blessed when you are nagging with hunger, because then you can be filled. Your soul is blessed when you weep because then you can laugh. If you are hated, rejected, insulted by others saying you are evil, be glad for great is your reward. Dance for joy!”
Here is a stabilizing message for those ravishingly hungry, those looking for a satisfying down-to-earth word. If tears are flowing, there is a word of comfort from the One who came down where we live, the one who became like us. Rachel Held Evans is not wrong, “Most of the people I’ve encountered are looking not for a religion to answer all their questions but for a community of faith in which they can feel safe asking them.”
There are more than the external trappings of our lives. That which is within has a far greater opportunity to bless us than anything on the outside. Luke always has a good word for the poor, an encouraging word to the deprived. Jesus is not saying that poverty is blessed. Jesus makes it clear that the work of God is to overturn poverty, hunger, sorrow, and oppression. These are contrary to God’s purposes. Jesus promises that these condemnable realities will not prevail. He spoke of their plight. Thomas Merton, the Trappist Monk, writer, peace, and civil rights activist said “If you love peace then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed, but hate these things in yourself not in another.”
Stand in the hunger line with those who are poor because you, too, are poor. Jesus stands at the head of the line to serve you and them. He said, “Blessed are you who have barely enough to survive, who are at the bottom run of the social ladder, who are victimized and are powerless, voiceless and unable to alter your situation. Blessed are you because you have found a unique place in the heart of God and in the heart of God’s people.” He came to preach good news to the poor.
“How terrible,” Jesus said, “if you are rich now. You have had an easy life. If you are full, you will go hungry. If you are laughing, you will mourn and weep. Woe to you, watch out if you think you’ve got it made, if you’re satisfied with yourself, if you think life is all fun and games.” You may be wondering, “Why is he saying this?” The preacher is saying this because Jesus said it, and Jesus said this because he believed what is within you has far more to do with your well-being than everything on the outside all added up together. said this so we would consider how things are with our soul.
Howard Rutledge, a pilot in the United States Air Force, was shot down and captured on a mission over North Vietnam. As a prisoner of war, he was held in solitary confinement for several years. Upon his release, he shared that during those prolonged periods of enforced reflection it became so much easier to distinguish between the important and the trivial, the worthwhile and the wasteful. He remembered that before he had no for these unseen matters, though his wife never gave up hope for him. As Rutledge lay confined in prison with the sights and sounds and smells of death all around him, his hunger for spiritual things soon outweighed his hunger for those things that had consumed him. He became curious about that part of him that would never die. With no Bible or teacher or pastor, or community of faith upon which to rely, helonged for a community of trust and love. He was impoverished and ready to be filled.
Jeremiah reminds us that the heart of things is not always discernable. When we are full, we put our trust in ourselves. We are like a shrub in the desert that withers because it cannot see the good when it comes. (17:5-6). When we are hungry and put our trust in God, we are like the tree growing near a stream. When the heat comes it has nothing to fear. In the middle of the drought, it flourishes (7-8). How can we understand the human heart (9)? It tells us to run from our hunger and ignore our deepest yearnings.
When we come to the Lord’s table, we stand in the hunger line where God satisfies our deepest hunger. Just a small piece of bread dipped into the cup fills us like nothing else can. Blessed are you who are hungry. You will be satisfied. That is our promise. As Jesus came down to those on the plain, he comes now to us to level our expectations, to meet us at our point of need.
Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu said,
How incredibly wonderful it is that God says to you and to me:
"There is nothing you can do to make me love you less. I take you,
I take you very seriously, I take you body and soul, the visible
and the invisible. I love you; I love you; I love you."
And that should level things out.