How Typical!

The scriptures referred to are Micah 6:1-8, Psalm 15, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, and Matthew 5:1-12.

According to an article in New Scientist, the average person in the world is a 40 year old Chinese man, who has 2 children and makes $30,000. A National Geographic study in 2011 would add that he is right-handed, Christian and lives in a big city. Of course averages flatten out the differences between the two extremes, so let's look at the median, the number that divides the world's population exactly in half. The median age is 30. Half of the people in the world are younger than 30 and half are older. The median income is $850. Meanwhile, the median number of children a woman has is 2.39.

I couldn't find a median life expectancy but the average life expectancy in the world is 72.9 years. The country with the highest life expectancy is the world's richest country by GDP per capita, Monaco, where the average for men is 85 years and the average for women is 88. On the other end of the scale, Lesotho has the lowest life expectancy for men at just 50.3 years and Nigeria has the lowest life expectancy for women at just 53.9 years. The difference between the countries with the highest and lowest life expectancies is 35 years.

How does the United States stack up? The median age is 38.1 years old. The median income is $31,133. The median number of births per woman is 1.64. As of 2022, the average life expectancy in the US is 76.4 years, a decline of 1.8 years since 2020. The average life expectancy for men in the US is 73.2 years and for women 79.1. And it is even lower for various ethnic and racial groups. Overall, life expectancy in the US ranks at 45^th in the world. Which is weird since we spend more money on healthcare than any other country in the world.

You're probably thinking about how you compare to these numbers. Some of them may make you feel better about yourself and some may make you feel worse. I hope some of them make you think about how bad off a lot of other people in the world, or even in this country, are. Half of the world makes less than $850 a year, or about $2.30 a day, while raising more than 2 children. Some people die more than 3 decades earlier than others.

Why did I look up all these numbers? Because all of today's readings from the Bible are about what God values and it contrasts rather starkly with the priorities of the world.

In Micah God reminds his people of what he has done for them and what he expects in return. It is not more sacrifices. Instead we read, “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?” Contrast that with the injustice, cruelty and arrogance we see in how the worldly act.

In our Psalm we are told that those who can dwell in the temple with God “lead a blameless life and do what is right” and “speak truth from their heart.” “They do not slander with the tongue, they do no evil to their friends; they do not cast discredit upon their neighbor.” “They do not give their money in hope of gain, nor do they take bribes against the innocent.” Contrast that with the lies and slanders we hear every day. People are not only to willing to insult their neighbor but to say anything against others, even if they're innocent, to get money or attention or a book deal or something else for it. And a large sector of our economy is based on lending at interest.

Paul speaks of how things that are considered foolish and weak and lowly and despised are what God chooses to work through. This is exemplified in Jesus, whose death on the cross is a problem for a lot of people. Contrast that with the way the world glorifies what is worldly wise and strong and highly prized. If people were honest, more would admit that by the world's values, Jesus was a loser. They like people who aren't arrested and executed. They like people who clearly win out over their enemies by crushing them.

In the Beatitudes Jesus is turning many of the things the world thinks are blessings on their heads. He says those who are spiritually destitute are blessed. As are those who mourn and are meek and are merciful and are pure in heart. He blesses those to whom righteousness, being right with God, is as important as food and drink. He blesses those who make peace with others. He blesses those who are persecuted for doing the right thing. Contrast that with a world which promotes a spirituality that is more concerned with making you feel good, that tells everyone to just get over it and cheer up, that thinks the meek are weak, the merciful are soft, the pure in heart are hopelessly naive; a world that denigrates those committed to justice and being a straight arrow, that only wants peace on its own terms, ie, the total defeat of the other side, and that prefers popularity to persecution, even if it's for a good cause.

It is interesting that the world's fictional heroes are largely committed, not to improving the world, but to restoring the status quo. Almost all are warriors who are more interested in fighting bad guys than in changing everyday injustices that make the lives of average people worse. Wouldn't Bruce Wayne do more good if he used his billions to fund mental health clinics and hospitals rather than equipping himself as a one man army to personally beat up psychopaths? Couldn't Superman personally guarantee to maintain world peace so the military budgets of the world could be spent on fighting poverty and starvation and sickness rather than each other? But who would pay to see that? We want to see a fight. 8 of the top 10 grossing films in 2022 confirm that.

Changing the world for the better would not only turn the way we do things upside down but require us to change ourselves. That's what we really hate. Those who had wealth would use it to help others rather than buy multiple mansions or bigger yachts or spaceships. Those who were elected to government positions would actually work to solve our nation's problems rather than concentrate on paying back big contributors with lower taxes and looser regulations or scoring political points over the other party. Pharmaceutical companies would stop paying millions to advertise directly to consumers in an effort to make them to harass their doctor into giving them the latest repackaged pill and instead funnel that money into research on creating antibiotics that germs haven't built up a resistance to and keeping down the prices of drugs that people already rely on for their health and lives. Health insurance companies would evaluate paying for medical treatments based on whether the patient needed them rather than whether it would cost them higher profits. CEOs would be content with making 10 times what their average worker makes, like they used to, and not insist on making 350 times as much. They would then use that money to pay their workers enough to live on, as they used to before the 1970s.

But that's not going to happen. Because we don't want to change. Not even if it makes the world better and more stable. Not if it means benefiting people other than ourselves.

Remember when I said that the typical person in the world is Christian? That's because 2.2 billion people on earth claim to be Christians. That's 31% of the world's population, a larger proportion than any other religion. So why aren't things more just?

Because for a lot of people Jesus is their mascot, not their Lord. They put pictures of him in their bedrooms and fish decals on their vehicles. They hang crosses around their necks. But they would never deny themselves, take up their cross and follow in his footsteps. That could get you in trouble with a world that doesn't operate on Jesus' values. It got Jesus killed. That seems foolish to some so-called Christians.

Some other people think that their cross to bear is simply their own problems. But Jesus didn't take up his cross because it was his problem to deal with. He took up his cross in order to deal with our problem: sin and stupidity, or as the Bible calls it, foolishness.

In a sense, you could even say that sin is foolish. Because our sin, our selfishness and short-sightedness, our destructive habits, don't just harm others. They harm us too. The God who is love made us in his image. We are meant to act in love. When we don't, we are neglecting what we need to function. We are misusing and abusing the gifts God gave us. And when you use something in way it was not designed to be used, eventually you break it. We have ruined a world designed to run on love. And while the initial effects are mostly seen in the disadvantaged, inevitably the whole system will start to fail and we will all feel it.

It's like climate change. Yes, its impacts will first been seen in poor countries when crops fail and fires increase and water becomes more scarce and islands in Micronesia are swallowed up by rising oceans. But so will those expensive condos in Miami and in Key West. And our cities and towns will see their aquifers and rivers and lakes dry up. Farms will not have adequate irrigation. The fires of California will spread. This was foreseen long ago by the industries responsible. But they didn't tell us. And when the information did come out, they used bogus science to distract us. And we let them. We don't want to deny ourselves our luxuries. Our greed and stupidity are our worst enemies.

Jesus didn't come to bless the status quo, the average or typical way we live and do things. He didn't come to tell us we were just fine the way we are. He came to tell us we are spiritually sick. And it will kill us. The good news is he can heal us. But we have to trust him, the great physician, and follow the doctor's orders. It won't be easy.

My recovery from my accident was not easy. It took a long time and it hurt. I had to do what the doctors and the therapists said. I had to do things I'd rather not and refrain from things I wanted to do. I had to push myself when they told me to and rest when they told me to. But after breaking both legs and both arms, collapsing a lung, and bruising my heart, I can once again walk and breathe and I've been told by a cardiologist that I have a “beautiful heart,” whatever that means. I was able to see my grandchildren grow. I was able to return to serving the churches I love for 7 more years.

We were designed to run on love. And if you love people, you treat them fairly. Doing justice is simply treating people fairly. And if you love people you show them kindness. And if you love the God who made them and you and this marvelous world and vast universe, you walk humbly with him. And, what's more, you are willing to make any change necessary to see that all the people in the world are receiving and running on love.