Galatians 3: 23-29 (NRSV)
How
much money must a person have to consider themselves truly free? 1 million; 5
million; 100 million; or 1 billion dollars? Is being free the same thing as
being happy? Can you have commitments and obligations to something and still be
happy and free?
We
know that some of the unhappiest people on earth are wealthy and spend a lot of
that money trying to convince others that they know what’s best. Think of
the rich people like Bloomburg or Soros who are constantly trying to take over our
lives.
The
answer of course lies in your perspective.
The
word “perspective” is defined as “the
state of one's ideas, the facts known to you, and the integration of the facts
organized into a meaningful interrelationship.” Simply, it means being honestly
and truly attuned to who you are and what you need to do.
It means “having your stuff together,” or “being
in whack.”
A lot of people never get a grasp on this
kind of identity for/to their lives. Anais Nin said, “We don’t see things as
they are, we see them as we are.”
Many people have made lots of money on trying
to influence people to develop perspectives that work in business, sports,
entertainment, and social pursuits. We think of Dale Carnegie and Norman
Vincent Peale as examples.
But no one asks about the great motivator,
Jesus Christ.
You need to realize that perspective is not just
attitude. Attitude is how you feel about what you know and what you do. And if
you’re not satisfied with the assessment of your perspective then you’ll be in
trouble.
God knows about human perspective. Listen to
the Apostle Paul’s take on it:
But before faith
came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should
afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we
might be justified by faith.
But after that
faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the
children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
There is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor
female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to
the promise.
This
passage has been analyzed many times and is among the murkiest of New Testament
literature. It seems as if Paul is engaging in double speak here. Why would
faith remove us from the laws of God? Why does faith make a difference?
The
answer of course, and if you think about it, applies to most of Paul’s
writings, and Jesus’ teachings, it is the concept of perspective.
Paul,
when he was Saul, was the Jews’ Jew, a perfect upholder and believer in the
law. He would act under the law as he had been taught to understand it, no more
and no less.
Paul
was intolerant of those who could not and believed in direct and deadly force
in upholding even the tiniest part of the law of God as specified in the Hebrew
Scriptures and as interpreted by the Rabbis.
Paul
was a slave to the law. He could do nothing that was not approved by the law
and thus could not adjust to Jesus’ coming as Messiah and rendering the law
obsolete. He needed permission from God to do so.
When
Paul was confronted by Jesus’ teachings as the new standard he realized that
the Holy Spirit was the new guiding principles to learn and live the life God
now required. Saul’s perspective changed. Saul became Paul.
William James once said, “The greatest discovery of my generation is
that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”
Think of
it this way: Your total environment is a reflection of you as a person. The
house and neighborhood in which you live, the car you drive, the clothes you
wear, the job you do, the people with whom you regularly associate. Your
environment is an exact and merciless mirror of you as a human being.
Now if
you feel your environment can stand some improvement, you have only to improve
your attitude. And your world will gradually change to reflect the changing
person. Your perspective will change with your attitude.
Jesus and
all of the New Testament writers are all talking about a change in perspective
– a change in attitude.
Here’s
how to change your attitude: Beginning now, begin to act like the person you
most want to become. (HINT: Christians generally want to be like Christ!)
• If you keep on saying things are going to be
bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.—Isaac Singer
• Everything can be taken away from a man but
one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given
set of circumstances.—Viktor E. Frankl, Nazi Death Camp survivor
Sadie Smithson grew up in Johnson
Falls, West Virginia. Her father kept a livery stable, Sadie herself
contributed to the family income by sewing, and the family floated just above
the poverty level. But Sadie craved respect.
She wanted to mingle with the upper
crust of Johnson Falls, and she had a plan for doing it. Her secret ambition
was to join the Laurel Literary Society, a group that represented all that was
socially prestigious in her town.
After high school graduation, she
applied for admission into the Laurel Literary Society. She was rejected.
Well, she thought, perhaps they’ll
think better of me if I tour Europe. Few in Johnson Falls had ever been abroad.
So she saved her money, daydreaming of the soft-gloved hands clapping after she
had read her paper on “My Trip to Europe.”
After many years she saved her
money. Finally, she took her long-planned trip abroad, traveling with a
professor and his wife, only to be caught in the opening shots of World War I.
Sadie, in Belgium at the time, managed to get a ride to Paris; but the driver
lost his way, and suddenly they found themselves crossing a battlefield.
Right beside the car lay one young
soldier, badly wounded. He looked into Sadie’s eyes and moaned, “Water, for
God’s sake!” Sadie jumped out of the car with her drinking cup and made her way
to a near-by spring. Then another dying soldier wanted a drink. Sadie refused
to leave those boys, and finally the car drove off without her.
All night long, she ran back and
forth to the spring with her little cup, carrying water to injured men. She
tore her skirt into bandages. She scribbled notes and messages for loved ones
at home. And as she worked with each wounded man, she offered a prayer: “The
Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you.”
It was a night of horror, of
darkness, and of moaning, dying men. Finally, the darkness gave way to the dawn
and with it an ambulance and young doctor.
He was astonished to find a poor
girl from West Virginia amid all the blood and carnage of war. “Who are you?”
he asked, “and what in thunder are you doing here?” “I’m Sadie Smithson,” she
said, “and I’ve been holding hell back all night.”
“Well!” said the young doctor
quietly, “Miss Sadie Smithson, I’m glad you held some of it back, for everybody
else in the world was letting it loose last night.”
As she was returning to America, she
told her story to a fellow passenger on the ship. “I’ve never been
married—never known what it was to have children—but that night all those men
were my children, even the biggest and roughest of them, and I believe I could
have died for any one of them.”
“Well,” said the friend, “the Laurel
Literary Society will be glad enough to have you belong to it now.” “No,” Sadie
Smithson replied, “I’ve been face to face with war and death and hell and God.
Now little things like the Laurel Literary Society don’t matter to me anymore.”
“What does matter?” asked the
friend. “Nothing on earth,” Sadie said. “Only God and love—and doing what I can
do for those he sends me to.”
Jesus Christ came in the darkness of
night to a dying race of humanity. He loved us and gave himself for us.
The whole of Christian life is a
training course in perspective.
When we receive him, our perspective
changes, and with it our attitude. The trivial and the important change places.
Amen.
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