I
think Jesus was an introvert. Yes, he
was always followed by crowds who wanted him to teach them, heal them, take
care of them. But he was also always
sneaking away from the crowds and going off by himself to recharge. One of the funniest scriptures about Jesus is
Matthew 6:1-2[iii]:
“One day as he saw the crowds gathering,
Jesus went up on the mountainside and sat down. His disciples gathered around him, and he began to teach them [emphasis mine].” In other words, what we often call the Sermon
on the Mount wasn’t Jesus preaching to the crowds at all—but a little bit of
private teaching time that Jesus had with the disciples, when the crowds got
too big to handle. When you think of it,
the Beatitudes are far too deep a subject for the general populace to get
anyway—it was meant for the insiders, those who were disciples already. Jesus knew that the crowds often didn’t
listen, but he wanted to give his disciples a clue as to how to change their
world.
So we
have this little gem that we call the Beatitudes. You may have heard some clever preacher call
them the “Be-Attitudes,” because these attitudes help us to be all that God
made us to be. (That’s brilliant—I wish
I’d come up with it.) If Christians
would just live by the Beatitudes, we’d all do an amazing job at becoming like
Jesus—which is the point of Jesus’ message to his disciples. This is the beginning of a series on the eight
key attitudes of a Christian—but today, I simply want to get a bird’s eye
view. Matthew 5:3-10 says:
God
blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of
Heaven is theirs.
God
blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
God
blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth.
God
blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
God
blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
God
blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.
God
blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.
God
blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is
theirs.
Here’s
what Jesus is saying—in life, you get what you focus on. When you realize your need for God, you get
God. When you’re honest about your need
for comfort, you get comfort. When
you’re down-to-earth, you inherit the earth.
When you focus on justice, you can accomplish your goals of equity for
all. When you’re merciful, you get mercy
back. When you work for peace, you’ll be
honored by the people who will later benefit from that peace. When you lose everything for Jesus’ sake, you
gain everything in return. Jesus is
saying that you tend to get what you give the most attention to. If you focus on pain, you experience more
pain. If you focus on how bad the world
is, the world just seems worse. But if
you focus on blessing, you get more blessing.
In the words of the great philosopher Qui Gon Jinn, “Your focus
determines your reality.”
When
the crowds pressed in, Jesus knew that this truth was too much for most of
them, but he told this secret to his followers.
If you change your attitude, you can change the world. First, you can change the world by shifting your
focus off the problem and onto the solution. Change the way it looks to you,
and you change your response.
There
was a very wealthy man who was bothered by severe eye pain. He consulted many
physicians and was being treated by several. He did not stop consulting a
galaxy of medical experts; he consumed heavy loads of drugs and underwent
hundreds of injections. But the ache persisted with more vigour than before.
At
last, a monk who was supposed to be an expert in treating such patients was
called for by the suffering man. The monk understood his problem and said that
for some time he should concentrate only on green colours and not to let his
eyes fall on any other colours. It was a strange prescription, but he was
desperate and decided to try it.
The
millionaire got together a group of painters and purchased barrels of green
paint and directed that every object his eye was likely to fall to be painted
green just as the monk had directed. When the monk came to visit him after few
days, the millionaire's servants ran with buckets of green paint and poured it
on him since he was in red dress, lest their master see any other colour and
his eye ache would come back.
Hearing
this, the monk laughed and said "If only you had purchased a pair of green
spectacles, worth just a few dollars, you could have saved these walls and
trees and pots and all other articles and also could have saved a large share
of his fortune. You cannot paint the world green."
Let
us change our vision and the world will appear accordingly.[iv]
So,
we change our world in two ways. First,
we shift our attitude and change the way we see the world. This in turn changes our response to the
world. Like the person who annoys you—you
can’t control him, but you can control the way you see him, and your response
to him. Second, we change the world, not
by trying to paint the world and make it the way we want it. But by treating it with compassion, justice,
mercy, and peace—by adopting the attitudes of Jesus, the world begins to change
itself in response to this love. It
happens little by little, and not all at once.
But eventually you will see light dawn, when you “think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth (Colossians
3:2).”
[iii]
Scripture quotations taken from the NLT.
[iv]
Reynolds, Randy. “The Other Side of the
Wall.” http://www.rogerdarlington.me.uk/stories.html#Story60. March 13, 2018.
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