THE STRAIGHTFORWARD PULPIT

Text:  Matthew 5:1-12

Theme:  "A Dale Carnegie Course?"

4th Sunday after the Epiphany

February 2, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ² and he began to teach them.

He said:

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
⁵ Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Would you like to get out of a mental rut, think new thoughts, acquire new visions, discover new ambitions?  Does making friends quickly and easily sound good to you?  Wouldn't it be nice to win people to your way of thinking?  How about increasing your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done?  It would be wonderful, would it not, to handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant?  How about becoming a better speaker or a more entertaining conversationalist?  Does the ability to arouse enthusiasm among your associates sound like a good thing to learn? 

Countless human beings, the world over, have answered yes to all these questions.  This is why Dale Carnegie's famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, has been a bestseller since it was first published in 1936.  The ideas in this volume were developed into a series of seminars called "Dale Carnegie Courses" that emphasized self-improvement, salesmanship, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. 

Carnegie was a wellspring of quotable quotes, and here are just two:  Carnegie exclaims, "The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?"  And then there's this fascinating little tidbit:  "I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish."

Carnegie mentioned that he "stole" some of his teachings from Jesus. Now, I've never read How to Win Friends and Influence People (maybe I should!), so I'm not sure if Carnegie stole things from the Beatitudes which we just heard in today's Gospel reading.  The Beatitudes, as they traditionally have been called, are a series of short statements Jesus made, each one starting with the word "blessed", at the beginning of what is called "The Sermon on the Mount."  Our text reports:  "Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down."  Just as an aside, when a rabbi or teacher sat down back in those days, it meant he was about to begin to teach, to start the lesson. He had no chalkboard, no slides for a PowerPoint presentation.  He didn't have a wired microphone wrapped around his ear and sliding down to his mouth.  Neither did He have a stage or a podium.  There was no Brooks Brothers suit tailored to perfection.  Tickets were not sold.  All He had was His words.  And my question is this:  did Jesus win friends and influence people with what He had to say?

"Well, of course he did," comes a voice from the choir loft.  "His teachings have impacted people for two thousand years."  Yes, they have!  But how do you explain this?  At the end of John chapter six, we read: "From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him."  Holy moly! They were just like people today.  As long as Jesus gives people what THEY want, they take the bait.  But the minute He gives them what He wants -- what Carnegie would call "strawberries and cream", they no longer follow Him. 

Maybe Jesus needs a Dale Carnegie course.  Based on the growth statistics of Protestant mainline congregations, maybe His church needs a Dale Carnegie course.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit," He says.  Poor in spirit?  Aren't you supposed to be rich in spirit?  Aren't you supposed to be driven, energetic, animated, a "type A" personality, a real go-getter?  "Poor in spirit" doesn't fit very well with that.  How can you accomplish anything worthwhile if you're poor in spirit?

"Blessed are those who mourn," He says.  Yes, grief comes and mourning is a part of life, but wouldn't we feel better if we avoided them like the plague?  How can you influence people and win them over to grief?

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."  While the word "meek" is, for all intents and purposes, out of circulation, it basically means "humble", or "compliant", or "docile", "patient", "calm", etc.  They will inherit the earth?  One comedian remarked that it's not the "meek" who inherit the earth, it's those who stay up late and change the will! 

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness."  That's not the message the culture puts out there.  You hunger and thirst for what makes you feel good.  You hunger and thirst for influence, for celebrity, for your own entourage, for trends, for what's fashionable, for chemicals and substances that strip away any last inhibition and make you feel free!  Righteousness?  What's that?  So far, Jesus is  flunking the Dale Carnegie course.

"Blessed are the merciful," says Jesus.  Wait a minute.  One of Rush Limbaugh's "Indisputable Rules of Life" is that the world is "ruled by the aggressive use of force."  Somebody tell me:  where does mercy fit into all of that?

"Blessed are the pure in heart," Jesus goes on.  If a pure heart is the criterion, then nobody gets blessed.  I mean, really:  who has a pure heart?  Whose motives are without a tinge of selfishness?

"Blessed are the peacemakers," our Lord exclaims.  That's nice -- as long as our point of view carries the day and our side wins.  Then we'll have peace -- on our terms. 

"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness."  How can you win friends and influence people if persecution is part of the mix?  Nobody will want to sign up for that.  Don't we all yearn for some sort of utopia where persecution of any kind is verboten?

"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." Jesus, please explain to me how -- just how in the world -- can I be blessed if I'm insulted, persecuted, and lied about.  Jesus, if you want to know how I'm feeling, I want to cancel this course and have my tuition refunded.  There's no way that I can win friends and influence people if I sign up for this.

As a minister of the Word, I've studied these Beatitudes and labored in them for years.  Sometimes they confuse me; at other times, they bless me.  This time I came away with a couple of insights.  First, Jesus isn't telling His followers -- both then and now -- how He wants the world to be or how He'll make it to be. Instead, He's telling it like it is.  One thing that continues to draw me to Jesus is that He never saw the world in rose-colored glasses.  He saw the world with 20/20 vision.  To carry the Carnegie analogy through, He sticks to his strawberries and cream and not putting worms or grasshoppers on the hook.  He tells people, in no uncertain terms, what they're signing up for when they follow Him.   Secondly, He's not trying to prescribe our behavior -- as in "be poor in spirit", be more "meek", be more "merciful", get yourself persecuted, etc.  He's not trying to prescribe; he's endeavoring to describe how it is. 

The kind of people Jesus describes in the Beatitudes are the kind of people that the world just passes right on by. They are the overlooked, the rejected.  They are the folks that no one wants to bother with.  Jesus knew that -- because He was one of them. 

He told it like it is -- and it got Him killed.  The truth shall set you free, but it may kill you first.

Christ has died! Christ has risen! Christ shall come again! And then, the people that the world passed right on by will be in the kingdom of heaven; they will be comforted; they will inherit the earth; they will be filled; they will be shown mercy; they will see God; they will be God's children; they will rejoice and be glad. 

The world can have its Dale Carnegie courses.  I'm sticking with Jesus.  How about you?

Amen.