Leading From Your Blind Side"

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )
Sermon

“Leading From Your Blind Side”
23 January, 2011
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, A

Blind side is a football term meaning to tackle someone from an angle

they can’t see. The beatitudes are sorta like that....

Hebrew Text: Micah 6:1-8
        NRSV
1   Hear what the LORD says:
          Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
          and let the hills hear your voice.
2   Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD,
          and you enduring foundations of the earth;
     for the LORD has a controversy with his people,
          and he will contend with Israel.
3   “O my people, what have I done to you?
          In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
4   For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
          and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
     and I sent before you Moses,
          Aaron, and Miriam.
5   O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,
          what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
     and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
          that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.”
6  “With what shall I come before the LORD,
          and bow myself before God on high?
     Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
          with calves a year old?
7   Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
          with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
     Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
          the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8   He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
          and what does the LORD require of you
     but to do justice, and to love kindness,
          and to walk humbly with your God?

Gospel Text: Matthew 5:1-12
NRSV[23   Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.  24  So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them.  25  And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. ]

1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
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 receive 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 for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Maybe it’s because we’re getting ready for Souper bowl sunday next week, but both the psalm that we opened worship with and Jesus teaching the beatitudes got me thinking about the parallels with the only football movie I’ve ever liked.

The 2009 hit movie The Blind Side is based on the real-life story of pro-football player Michael Oher (pronounced ‘Oar’). For most of his high school career, for all that Michael was physically enormous, he was academically invisible, almost completely illiterate, seemingly retarded, thanks to a truly awful home life. To the world at large, he was just an abstract cypher passing through a series of schools  as he was shuffled through the foster care system; a abused, downtrodden black kid in Tennessee who on fluke got into an elite white private school that was looking to beef up it’s football team.
Michael is a picture portrait of the qualities Jesus talked about in the beatitudes: Poor in spirit, mourning the lack of a mother and father; meek, hungering and thirsting...all the things the jesus is drawing attention to in our gospel reading today.

 On his first day at this intimidating posh school, a precocious fifth grader from a well to do white family strikes up a friendship with this silent, hulking black 10th grader, and soon Michael Oher comes to the attention of the little boy’s Mom.

Now this particular mom, Leigh Ann Tuohy (‘Too-he’), is a force of nature to be reckoned with; a steel magnolia of the toughest and spring-iest kind. Whether it’s working on an interior design contract, handling business for her church or sorting out her children, what Leigh Ann wants, the world better deliver, or suffer the full blast of her not inconsiderable energy.

But this determined and resourceful woman is about to be blind sided, and so was Michael. Blind siding is a football term for when you tackle a guy from an angle he can't see or expect. Neither this woman nor this young boy could have imagined the changes that were in store for them.

When this pushy socialite saw her son’s new friend wandering down a dark November-cold street in shirt sleeves, with a direct practicality typical of her style she confronts him to find out where he left his coat, and within 5 minutes determines that not only does he not own a coat, he doesn’t even have anywhere to lay his head that night.

 Standing in the pouring rain, her mom-ness is completely blind sided by the needs of this oversized black teen in wet smelly clothes who is as meek as a contrite 10 year old. Now Leigh Ann Tuohy may be a barely contained focused force of nature, but that very focus makes her pay attention to what she hears in church and she doesn’t even hesitate. She takes him into her family. Soon Michael is the one who is blind sided by the the first person in his life to have goals and ambitions for him.

And you might call the things Jesus outlines for us today goals and ambitions as well. The crowds gathered to hear Jesus' first major teaching seminar probably expected the familiar, comforting guidelines of traditional Jewish wisdom . Jewish teachers taught that right behavior earned you right rewards, the virtues that you practiced will bear fruit of prosperity, plenty and honor. The book of  Proverbs is a long list of this kind of thinking and even many of the Psalms are written to assure us that courage and bravado, outward strength will win divine blessings.

While Jesus is not anything like the soldier David, or the rich King who teaches his son the prince how to be worldly wise. but yet, he too draws with deft strokes a portrait of who God’s Kingdom contains, and it doesn’t contain any of the usual suspects, not the men who have spend their whole lives studying scripture, nor the merchants who have contributed to the temple, not even the heroes who have lead the nation of Israel. To the people gathered on the side of a mountain he blindsides them with weakness. What’s so shocking about today’s passage from Matthew is that it sounds like it is full of misprints — yet it accurately reflects the same event in both the gospels of Matthew, and Luke. When you read these words with your ears open and listening, it is so counterintuitive that you figure that there must be typos here.

“Blessed are the poor in Spirit”? The spiritually poor ? How could that be a goal and ambition? When you study what Matthew reports about Jesus’s sermon on the mount and what Luke says, you realize that Matthew seems to be really uncomfortable with the sermon too, so much so that while Luke reports Jesus said “Blessed are the Poor” and, “blessed are the hungry and thirsty”, Matthew feels compelled to change it to “blessed are the poor IN SPIRIT”, and “blessed are those who hunger and thirst FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS SAKE”. Luke even reports that Jesus cursed the rich and the powerful, but Matthew just can’t even bring himself to report that part of the sermon because it’s so disturbing.

    When I think of all these strange attributes that Jesus is listing as our goals and ambitions, I  think  again of the blind sided kid Michael Oher. Here was someone who truly was all these things, he expected to live his life on the bottom of the heap and was contented to do so. So he was completely overwhelmed to be put in the prized position on a football team. Yet even though he had been brutalized and had so much to be angry and vengeful about,  he couldn’t even bring himself to tackle other boys on the football field. He was the high school equivalent of Fernando the Bull. He just didn’t have any of that killer instinct. But then his steel magnolia adopted mom provided him something that he could latch on to. Instead of saying that he had to completely change his personality and become a raging bull in order to be a success, she explained his goals in a way that harmonized with his life and with his skills. It wasn’t about being someone different; he had all the gifts he needed. Among his gifts was an almost superhumanly strong streak of protectiveness, loyalty and dedication. Out there on the field he was meant to protect his family, the family of boys on his team. He was to strive to do this with all his might. It was a revelation to him that his weaknesses could be what his team needed most.

    There are so many loud voices in our world that try to convince us of the power of aggression, the power of riches, the power of fullness, the power of evil and vice. But Jesus blind sided all that. In the sermon on the mount he taught us that mercy and purity were unassailable tools. That kind words were mightier than angry ones. That pursuing the cause of justice gave gifts to the pursuers over and above the goals of justice.

    We are called to lead from this blindside, and to allow these qualities to have the upper hand in all parts of our lives. I don’t mean that being beaten down is what we’re after or that abuse should be tolerated, but fruits of the lowest experiences in our lives are not to be despised, but relentlessly exploited to provide an alternative energy source for Christian life. Just like it took Leigh Ann Touhy to make a difference in the life of Michael Oher, so it takes a dynamo sometimes to turn that raw stuff into gold, but Jesus tells us in the sermon on the mount that it will happen and then shows us how through his own life how his wisdom is vindicated. 

The story of Michael Oher and his experience with the Touhy family is a real life example of how the beatitudes will win out in the end. Michael was not the only one who was blind sided, Leigh Ann and her whole family were too. These rich white people powerful in the things of the world learned the lesson of Christian vulnerability from this poor black teen who became a member of their tight family.
 Michael went on to become an All-American selection for Ole Miss and later a first-round draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens.

For the movie, Sandra Bullock was cast to play the role of mom, Leigh Anne Tuohy. Sandra Bullock is well known in Hollywood as a tough cookie who is wary of Christians.  Bullock had evidently met some people who gave Christianity a bad name,  but the impression she came away from the real Leigh Ann  taught her that when people live a holy life, it shows — and it blesses others.
When Bullock met with Leigh Anne to prepare to portray her, she was so impressed with Leigh Anne’s sincere practice of her faith that Bullock said she now has “faith in those who say they represent a faith.” Bullock says the Tuohys showed her that religious faith can be authentic. “I finally met people who walk the walk,” Bullock said.

Just like blocking, and tackling, and running a ball, Christianity has skills that we have to learn. Some things come more easily than others, but when we dare to lead with our blind sides, with the non-dominant skills and gifts of others, as well as the discovery of the fruits of our own weakness, we are beginning to understand and live the Sermon on the Mount.
  Amen.