Victorious Living through Christ pt3 "A Greater GPS in Life", First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY

Victorious Living through Christ:
“A Greater GPS in Life” part 3
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/30/2011


This last week I was in New York City attending a workshop on “Finding the Preachers Inner Voice”. For those of you who are not familiar with NYC, the city in general is very easy to navigate around. Once you understand how the city is laid out, you can pretty much get around and not use a lot of brain power trying to figure out directions. Needless to say, there is a world of difference between NYC and Rock Springs; especially when it comes to navigating around town.
The majority of NYC is platted in a grid, running North to South and East to West, with most of the streets being named in numbers. For instance, my hotel address was 59 W. 35th St. It was between 5th and 6th Avenue. Have I already confused you? Once you learn that 5th Avenue is the dividing line between East and West, you are on your way to easily getting around town. You also have to know that Avenues run north to south and Streets run east to west. With this amount of information, you will be able to navigate.
Growing up in Kansas, where almost all the cities were laid out in a grid, it is pretty easy for me to understand the system that NYC has. Growing up in Kansas, I was also privileged to have full view of the sun, so I could always look up to the sky, knowing what time of day it was and know which direction was east, west, north, and south. I also grew up learning that each block has its own “100” series of numbers; meaning the dividing line would start out with 0-99, the next block would then be 100-199, and so on.
In NYC there are very, very tall buildings, which block out the direct view of the sun, so understanding the numbering system is very important, since you can’t just look up and use the sun to figure out if you need to go to the left or right, or up the street or down the street. Another thing I learned as a child in Kansas, is that blocks are generally even in length. In NYC, they have long blocks and short blocks! When walking north and south on the Avenues, you are walking the short blocks. When walking the streets, which are east to west, you are walking the long blocks. This being another thing different than what I grew up learning. Finally, the other interesting thing in NYC is that each block doesn’t necessarily hold to the numbering system that I understood. I discovered that both on the Avenues as well as on the Streets that you might have two or three blocks with the same “100s”.
For example, using the corner of 5th Avenue and W. 35th Street and I want to walk south on 5th Ave to an address of in the 1300 block, and I was in the 1500 block, you would assume that I would be walking only two blocks south. Not true, I actually would have walked 6 blocks south, for the “100” block ran for three of their blocks before changing. Now luckily these were the short blocks. But if I were needing to get to an address that was on an Avenue, I could not use my understanding of distance based on the length of a Street, because Streets are longer in distance.
Okay, once I have all this new information stored in my and I have tested it by walking a number of miles on the sidewalks, able to judge my estimated time of arrival, not only by foot, but had gain sufficient knowledge to be able to judge timing by using taxis as well, I then decide to rely on my newly adjusted internal GPS and get onto the subway system. From my hotel, I decided I wanted to go to the north end of the theater district, and walk back to the center of the Times Square area. I get off at 53rd Street, walk in the correct direction to Broadway (an exception to the numbering system of Avenue/Street) and then on Broadway down toward 42nd Street, allowing me to view many of the theaters that not only lined Broadway but also those off Broadway. After lunch I took the subway back to the 34th Street station, which was just three building from my hotel.
Well, when I got up to the street level, I discovered that I wasn’t on 6th Avenue but rather on 7th Avenue. I walked to the opposite end of the block realizing that I was now at 8th Avenue. Not sure by this point which way was east so I could get to 35th Street, I did the cardinal seen for men, I asked a woman for directions. I followed her direction for one block and realized she sent me in the wrong direction. But, I had gained enough wrong information to correct my internal GPS and headed back to my hotel without incident or needless walking.
This morning’s Gospel on the Beatitudes is a bit like my experience in New York City. I was raised with a set of foundations designed to help me navigate in my environment, and based on those foundations, should I find myself lost in a wilderness area, I could use to help me become un-lost. We call those foundations, “Conventional Wisdom”. Be when I found myself in New York City, I easily became confused and going in the wrong direction because my conventional wisdom wasn’t large enough to help me find my way. I was needing a greater GPS than what I was operating with.
So, what does conventional wisdom give us to help deal with life experiences? Conventional wisdom tells us that the wise person, will be happiest when they have amassed great wealth, for you can buy anything with want with enough money. A wise person should possess power, for then they will be in control of their environment and they will not get pushed around. A wise person will have independence and should be clever enough to get what they want out of life, even at the cost of others.
This is the conventional wisdom we are being bombarded with on every level, every day of our life. T.V. ads tell us, that we will be happier if only we own this type of cell phone, to be able to receive information at 4 g. We will be more comfortable if we only live in a Mac Mansion, where we have more bathrooms than we do bedrooms. Reality shows like Donald Trump, tell us that stepping on people to climb the corporate latter is not only acceptable but desirable.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul states, “For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise… For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.’” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught this same lesson. The word “blessed” translate into “bringing happiness”. Hear how Eugene Peterson helps in translating this challenge to conventional wisdom. Matthew 5:
 3"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
 4"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
 5"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
 6"You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.
 7"You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.
 8"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
 9"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.
The next step toward a Victorious Life in Christ, is to turn our will and our lives over to the Care and understanding of God! When we turn our lives over to God, we are allowing for a greater GPS to become internalized. With the wisdom found in turning over our will to God, even though it goes against the conventional wisdom of the world, we will become blessed, we will be “happy”. For we only find closeness to God when we are in need, we only recognize that we are in need, when we have become empty; empty of what the world teaches will make us happy. The truth is, we are always looking for something, to fill the void in our internal life. We can either continue the chase by listening to the GPS that is standardized by the foolishness of the world, or we can look to a greater being, to the one who has greater wisdom than ourselves, the one who can provide a greater happiness if we chose, but it means giving up what we’ve been taught and listening to God’s teachings and letting go of the old and letting God become our guide, our map quest, our ultimate GPS. Amen.