Last One Picked, First One Picked On
Matthew 5: 1-16
The draft always went the same. First the superstars were picked, followed by the agile girls, and then the brute boys down the line until there were two left…a thin, uncoordinated boy and a scrawny girl leaning into the fence hoping that today her name would be called. The boy was always picked. “You guys can have her too. We don’t need her.” “No man…that’s your pick. We don’t want her.” “Come on, she can’t kick or run.” “We’ll play with eight,” as if she wasn’t there. It was like that every day. Last one picked, first one picked on.
Rejection is a bitter pill to swallow. To know that no matter how hard you try, you just don’t measure up. She said later in life, “I was everyone’s last choice. In high school basketball, I was last on the bench. In Little League softball, I was exiled to right field, where I’d have the fewest opportunities to mess up the game.” She said, “My dresser drawer in my childhood home is still filled with the colors of Not-Good-Enough: yellow, pink, green, and purple ribbons for crossing the finish line last.” And with each failure came the inevitable pain of others making fun of my poor athletic skills. It started off directed at her, but in time it was as if she was invisible.
What in the world would make her go back out and try again? Why would she go and hang onto that chain link fence with all the hope that today was going to be the day? Her well-meaning father would tell her, “Don’t worry about who’s beating you, just work on improving your personal best.” But the reality was to those to whom she wanted to belong; they could care less about her personal best.
She was just a normal, average young girl, who grew to be a normal, average woman. There was always a better athlete, a better student, a better writer, a better wife.
As an adult she would find herself going to sleep with the realization of fallen short of her good intentions to take care of her family. “If only I were a better mother.” And just like when she was a kid, she somehow knew others were snickering about her inabilities to be the best.
She said, “Thirty years ago, I was the last kid picked for recess kickball. Twenty years ago, I was a high school track failure. Ten years ago, I stopped trying.”
Last one picked. First one picked on.
This morning we are beginning a new sermon series entitled, “New Age Living.” In just a few short weeks, we will begin the season of Lent.
Lent is a time of intentionally reminding Christians that we are a moment, a vapor, a fleeting midst in this world. That dust we came from and to dust we shall return. It is a time to prepare for the celebration of the resurrection of Christ by remembering how we need God in our lives, by confessing our sins, by seeking his forgiveness, and to make right those wrongs we have intentionally and unintentionally done to others.
It is a time to remember that in the “New Age” of Christ, we are dependent on Him. But it is helpful to remember what this new age really is. So for the next few weeks, we are going to spend time exploring Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. This is where after coming out of the temptations of the desert, Christ begins teaching what “New Age Living” is all about.
Everything in me, wanted desperately to do that, to take each verse as a stand-alone text. But something just would not let me do it. I kept thinking, “There is something about this passage as a whole that is vitally important, and it can get lost if it is broken up…much like a jigsaw puzzle, we may understand that one piece by itself, but without the entire picture that one piece is really useless.”
By breaking this passage down, it often leads to an approach where the beatitudes are taken as moral exhortations. One’s actions and attitudes are to be oriented, controlled by the actions and attitudes stated in the text. When we break them down, we often read them as if when this ideal living Jesus is talking is achieved, we receive a reward. God’s people are supposed to be meek, and if they are meek, then they will be blessed by receiving mercy from God. This ethical stance from reading each one individually says that each Beatitude carries the force of a command, an ideal way of living to be pursued in the life of a believer, a moral maxim. So this approach of breaking the text apart can often lead us to understand that this text is really about you and me, and our behavior.
And this kind of moralistic approach and preaching pitches high standards for each of us to achieve in order to fulfill the requirements of living in Christ’s Kingdom. I have heard many sermons that have done just that. In fact, I have given sermons that have done just that. But this week I struggled with that approach, to frame each Beatitude as a personal ethical decree. I think it often leaves us feeling not the freedom of the Spirit, but rather a sense of failure because, let’s face it, as listeners we realize that we can’t achieve what the text apparently demands. The blessing of God from such an approach becomes totally elusive. But the truth is that is how most people approach it.
But what if that approach were wrong? What if that approach to understanding the Beatitudes was exactly what Jesus was trying to condemn when he gave this sermon on a hillside over 2,000 years ago? What if this passage is really Jesus addressing the reality of being last one picked, first one picked on, from God’s perspective?
There was precedence for this moralistic approach to Scripture in Jesus’ day. And to begin to understand the context in which Jesus is speaking, we must look back to an Old Testament passage, Psalm 15. There we read, “Who may worship in your sanctuary, LORD? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts. Those who refuse to slander others or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends. Those who despise persistent sinners, and honor the faithful followers of the LORD and keep their promises even when it hurts. Those who do not charge interest on the money they lend, and who refuse to accept bribes to testify against the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever.”
It is believed that this text was used every week during worship at the Temple. The priest would open the gates and speak verse one, and those who would approach the sanctuary would respond with verses 2-5. And that does not sound at all bad. Psalm 15 is the word of God, why not use it in worship? It declares that people may not truly worship God unless their lives mirror the moral values that God’s own life embraces, and that God holds up as a pattern for human lives. David, who wrote the Psalm, understood that what God longs for on the part of those who come to worship is not outward show, but changed and redirected lives in relationships with each other and with God.
We see that attitude most clearly in Luke 18. “The proud Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: 'I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax collector over there! For I never cheat, I don't sin, I don't commit adultery, I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed.”
Here says the tax collector stood at a distance. He could not measure up to the call of Psalm 15, the way that the religious leaders were interpreting it. The tax collector harmed his neighbor by collecting taxes for the Roman government. The tax collector was seen as one who had betrayed his people and sinned against God by teaming up with the enemy. That is why the Pharisee would pray, thank you God that I am not like that man. Here we see vividly what Jesus saw when he entered the Temple…worship that excluded because of ability. He was very aware of the reality of the last one picked, first one picked on.
The tax collector in many ways is just like that little girl, leaning into the fence, longing to be picked, but always on the outside. She wanted to get into a kickball game. The tax collector wanted to get in to worship God. The religious leaders missed it, because they had turned the text in a test of morality. They never saw that in the midst of their of behavior check, is really the affirmation that to worship God in an authentic manner, one must first be compassionate and just! And the world knows morality police are never compassionate or just!
This was the context that Jesus was teaching in. And notice where he is teaching. Not in the Temple. Not in the Synagogue. He is out on a hillside. He is where all those who failed the religious ethic test were…on the outside. He was with those the religious leaders and religious superstars would never have picked. He is found teaching those the religious leaders would have never taught. He was showing compassion, solidarity, and love to those who the winners never picked because they were losers.
"God blesses those who realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them. God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. God blesses those who are gentle and lowly, for the whole earth will belong to them. God blesses those who are hungry and thirsty for justice, for they will receive it in full. 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 because they live for God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. God blesses you when you are mocked and persecuted and lied about because you are my followers.”
To this group gathered at Jesus’ feet, these words would have made no sense if they were just a new list of approved moral behaviors that they must master in order to be picked. When we take them as a whole, we begin to see that first and foremost, each Beatitude is a blessing promised by God to those people who already are what the Beatitudes describe. These people did not need to act meek, they already were. When the religious leaders told, “No, you don’t measure up,” they stood by silently, ridiculed, and rejected. These people did not need to become mourners, they were already living with loss. They knew what it meant to lose. To those who were picked last, picked on first, these words had nothing to do with their behavior, but with God meeting them right where they were at. The meek, the mourning, the merciful hear the text as a word of encouragement. The world picks you last because of what you can and cannot do. God says, “I just pick you.”
In their predicament they are singled out by the blessing of God and are renewed in their hope of the future. The Beatitudes are good news not because of how well we live them out or not, but because they are not about us. They are about God, and His great love. When the world says you don’t measure up, God says I still pick you. When the world says, “Not on my team,” God’s promise is that your worth to Him is greater than you’re performance. And each one of these groups of people that Jesus mentions is significant. Those who are meek, those who mourning, those give mercy, those who pursue justice, those who work for peace, those who pursue God with a pure heart, those who are persecuted, they are all viewed as weak, undesirable in the systems of this world. They are always those who the last one picked, first on picked on!
If Jesus was giving this group huddled around him an ethical code to which they must measure themselves and others, how many would have stayed? They already knew they didn’t measure up, that’s why they were there. But if Jesus’ words are not primarily ethical, then people sitting around him on that hill would know that for the first time they had been picked! And that is indeed Good News! New Age Living that Christ ushers in with the first words of His Sermon on the Mount restores what it means to worship God by stripping down litmus tests that we have a habit of making for each other. The key to New Age Living is not how you measure up to a code. It is the reality that God is a God who cares about the poor in spirit, the humble, those who yearn for right to be done, the merciful, the single-minded, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for righteousness sake, he cares about those who the last one picked, first one picked on.
Unlike the world, the Good News of Christ and new age living is God will not abandon such people or leave them hopeless, when everyone else picks them last. If there is an ethical concern in the Beatitudes, then it stems from God’s concern. Because of God’s promise, we no longer have to fight to get picked by the world. Realizing your need for God may never get you picked for that next job promotion, but what’s more important, a bigger pay check, a title, an office with a view, or knowing that because you realize your need for him, the Kingdom of Heaven is God’s promise to you. We are freed from the game that says, I need to be stronger in order to get ahead in this life, because God’s promise is that the gentle and lowly will inherit the earth. When others say, it’s what needs to be done to be the winner, the Good News is winning by all costs doesn’t matter, it’s a pure heart that sees God.
And because God does pick those who are the last one picked, first one picked on, because God’s promises are for those whom everyone else assumes are not deserving of the blessings of God, because God does not play favorites about who is on his team, we are free to live our lives for God, and that is the key for New Age Living. The fact that we believe in a God who believes in us will make more of an impact on how we live out our lives than any list of rules. But the Beatitudes offer not strategies, no plans, no blueprints. If they did, we would just abuse them like the religious leaders did Psalm 15. Instead, when we take the Beatitudes as a whole and see that they really say more about God than about us, then our imaginations are enlivened and sensitivities are reformed. When we take the entire passage seriously, each Beatitude is the promise of a future blessing, and it provides the vision of grace needed for genuine faith and moral direction.
This passage is more than wise advice about how to live. It is more than an impossible ideal intended to remind us of how far short of God’s standards we so often are. The Beatitudes are the description the God who cares for those who do not measure up, and a depiction of how life will be lived in the coming eternal kingdom. What can be more good news than knowing that God cares and you have a future, especially when you know the reality of being the last one picked, first one picked on.
The final thought’s Jesus gives to the group that did follow Him up the hillside is this. In verses 13-16, we read, “"You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it useful again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world-- like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. Don't hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”
Salt does not exist for itself, but for the enhancement of soil and food. Light does not exist for itself, but for illumination of human activity. Even so, the blessedness of those whom God has picked is not self-contained. The followers of Jesus are in the world to serve the world, even though the world will cause them to suffer. Salt can only enhance food if it is poured out and then totally devoured. The light of a candle is only seen as it consumes itself. Jesus says, you are already blessed so don’t spend you life trying to win the blessing. I picked you, now you are free to live totally for God. This life we have been given that is empowered by the promises of God for our future, calls us to serve in the same costly and sacrificial manner that the candle burns itself to produce the benefit of light.
Why are we afraid of being picked last and picked on first? Because we are afraid of being consumed by the world. Jesus says I have freed you from that fear, now you are free to be consumed for me because I promise your ultimate future.
We sit here on Sunday mornings and we say, “Life is not to be valued according to appearances.” But the truth of the matter is that those words are easier to speak than to follow. In our society, it is always a temptation to look on the outward expression and take it as a sign of what’s really there. Success comes to those who work hard for it and deserve it the most. The best thing is to invest in the heavy hitters and not pick those who add very little value to accomplish our goals. We see prosperity as the token of blessing. Though we know better, we find it hard to resist such conclusions…at least in a practical sense.
It is easy to take this morning’s text and turn it into a test to see who is the best. But that would twist the Scriptures to be about us. Instead, the Beatitudes describe the direction of God’s promise and blessing in our lives and world. Many of us know the pain of being the last one picked, first one picked on, and we come to Christ with the desire to be exalted over those who have caused us pain. We take the text and wear it as a medal. See I have more meekness than so and so. Oh, you’re not going to the protest…hmmm. My heart is so pure before God that I just need to tell you about what is happening in so and so’s life…so we can pray about it. And we miss the point. Placing our faith in Christ doesn’t re-level the playing field so we can turn the tables on others who have caused us pain.
The reality is that being the last one picked, first one picked on doesn’t change in this world when we place our faith in Christ. The world will still pick you last, and it will still pick on you first. Often times you will be clinching the chain link fence, saying it sure looks like fun to be in their game. The only difference is that while placing our faith in Christ doesn’t change world, it changes how live in it. It doesn’t matter if you were picked last and the first to be picked on, as long as you accept that God picked you in Christ. And that is the beginning of “New Age Living.”
She said, “Eighteen months ago, I was hobbling on crutches. Six months ago, I could not run to the end of the street. Four weeks ago, I was nursing a muscle injury. But Saturday? I ran 10 miles.” And in two weeks, I am running a half-marathon with no hope of coming in first or finishing pretty, but finishing all the same – right in the middle of my mediocrity. I am daily finding an extraordinary God at work in ordinary me. Being not-good-enough can shackle. It can keep you on the sideline with finger-locked to a chain link fence. Being the last one picked, first one picked on can destroy you. It will eventually beat you down to the point of saying if I can’t do it the best, then I won’t try at all. What’s the point? In the midst of your own “I-can’t,” we can learn the art of “Oh, yes He can.” Jennifer will never be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. If you saw her run, you would probably say, “Maybe bike riding would be better.” She did not finish first, top ten, or even in the middle. But she did it, not because she wanted to be picked by others. She embraced the promises of God to her as a last picked, first to be picked on person. What about you…are you wanting to be picked or are you wanting the promises?
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