Audio version HERE.
Donna and I have always liked the song, “On the Sunny Side of the Street” … I’d like to share it with you this morning, but fear not, I’ll not sing it … our very own Kimberly Cronin will sing it for us this morning …
Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the doorstep
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street
Can’t you hear the pitter-pat
And that happy tune is your step
Life can be complete
On the sunny side of the street
I used to walk in the shade with my blues on parade
But I’m not afraid...this rover’s crossed over
If I never had a cent
I’d be rich as Rockefeller
Gold dust at my feet
On the sunny side of the street
Two sides to the street …
A shadowy side …
A sunny side …
A dark side … a bright side …
There is no street with only a sunny side … and no street with only a shadow … always both … a shadowy side, a sunny side …
Reality – two sided …
Coins -two-sided, so is the moon … ya’ can’t have one without the other …
The Bible … two sided …
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth – that’s the sunny side of the street …
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal the LORD God had made - that’s the shadowy side of the street …
Vanities of vanity, all is vanity – the shadowy side of things according to the writer of Ecclesiastes …
But the very next book, Song of Solomon – a celebration of young love, food and drink – that’s the sunny side …
The book of Leviticus … shadowy …
Deuteronomy … sunny …
Genesis 12 has both sides in the same chapter …
Abram and Sarai are called to the greatest adventure even known – Get up and go … to a new land, a new world, a new way thinking and living … I’ll get you there, says God … but you’ve got to leave a lot of things behind … and if you do that, I’ll bless you mightily, and through you, I’ll bless the whole world …
But in the next few verses, famine sends Sarai and Abram packing to Egypt, and they get into a peck of trouble … Abram tells a terrible lie, jeopardizes Sarai’s life and nearly loses everything …
1 Kings 18 – Elijah is victorious over the priests of Baal … it’s a great day; Elijah’s on top of the heap … he’s on the sunny side of the street …
1 Kings 19 – Jezebel has a different idea; she issues a death edict - Elijah runs for his life, scared out of his wits – in a heartbeat, from the sunny side of the street to the shadow side with the blues on parade …
Psalm 22 – my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Psalm 23 – the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Two sides to the street …
What side of the street are we walking on?
It’s a choice … a conscious choice we make every day of our life …
A choice even God has to make …
In Genesis 6, God is utterly depressed … angry and disappointed …
God regrets making us …
God decides to walk on the shadowy side of things …
Let it rain, let it rain, let it train …
I’m gonna wash these people right outta my hair …
With the exception of Noah and his family …
The floods subside … the sun comes out … there’s a rainbow in the sky …
God takes a look at what God did … and I’ll never do that again!
The shadow side never works …
God says, When I see that bow … hanging there, like a hunter’s bow on the wall … I’ll remember my promise … I’ll not destroy the earth again … I’ll not walk on the shadowy side of things … I’ll grab my coat and get my hat and walk on the sunny side of the street.
From that moment on, God never crosses over again to the shadowy side of things …
Tempted?
You bet, but God stays on the sunny side of the street.
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Jesus pays the price …
Because there is a price to be paid …
For all the wrong in our world … and there’s plenty of it …
But God pays the price …
All the way, to hell and back again … I will forgive and make all things new … carte blanc; the slate wiped clean …
Years ago, I heard a song at a retreat … I’ve never forgotten the words:
I owed a debt I couldn’t pay,
He paid a price he didn’t owe.
The sunny side of the street …
What side of the street do you walk on?
I love Winnie the Pooh stories … two characters …
Eeyore, a little donkey permanently gloomy …
Eeyore's favorite food is thistles. Eeyore's catchphrase is "Thanks for noticing me!"
And Tigger, perpetually happy …
He says of himself, Bouncing is what Tiggers do best.
In reality, Eeyore and Tigger live in each of us …
Some days, we’re Eeyore –
And some days, we’re Tigger –
Some of this is simple personality type … we’re all wonderfully different, but not that different … we all fall into basic patterns …
Sanguine …
Choleric …
Melancholic …
Phlegmatic …
All of these types have a shadow side and sunny side …
And Eeyore side … and a Tigger side …
I suppose the question is this … do we have any choices about this?
Can we really cross over from the shadow to the sun …
From the blues on parade to gold dust at our feet?
The lovely little movie, “Happy Go Lucky” … a marvelous parable of sunlight and shadow …
Poppy is a grade school teacher … always happy, always a smile, always making the best of everything …
She has her bike stolen at the front of the movie, so … she decides it’s time for driving lessons … she’ll get her driver’s license.
She’s a sunny-side-of-the-street kind of person …
Her driving instructor is her polar opposite … no smiles within a hundred miles … dour and grim, he’s depressed, angry, paranoid, short-tempered, judgmental … he lives in the shadow …
Poppy and her driving instructor … sunshine and shadow … ya’ can’t have one without the other, but choices are important … Poppy’s good nature clearly has an effect on her instructor, but in the end, to no avail.
He chooses to stay on the shadowy side.
It hasn’t been easy for Poppy …
She has to choose, too.
But she chooses the sunny side of the street.
At the end of the movie, she says, “It’s my purpose in life to put a smile on everyone’s face.”
Grab your coat and get your hat …
Leave your worries on the doorstep …
Life can be so sweet …
On the sunny side of the street.
The story of Jesus …
The sunny side of the street …
God doesn’t give up …
God doesn’t walk away …
God doesn’t quit in a great big funk …
God doesn’t rummage around in the past …
For God, it’s all about tomorrow …
And that’s the Gospel truth …
God doesn’t give up …
There’s no looking back …
It’s the future that counts …
God doesn’t care one whit what you did yesterday, no matter how crummy it was … nobody can undo it … and there’s no need to undo it …
God is a god of miracles …
And the greatest miracle of all …
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead …
God brings good out of sorrow and heartache …
God givse life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist (Romans 4:17).
There’s always a way through, over, under or around … always a way of working things out, finding the best, making the best of it …
When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade with it …
Add the sugar of kindness and the sweetness of love …
Grab your coat and get your hat …
Is this easy for God?
No, it’s not easy for God to walk on the sunny side of the street …
The tears of Jesus …
His anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane …
His cry of despair on the cross …
It’s not easy to walk on the sunny side of the street …
But it gets easier with every step …
Every time we choose the sunlight, it gets brighter, it gets better …
Every time this rover crosses over, it’s a little easier to walk on the sunny side of the street.
God reinvents the strategy again and again …
Whatever it takes to “put a smile on someone’s face.”
Years ago, Robert Schuller offered this advice, When someone asks you how you’re doing, always say, Terrific! … that’s your gift to them, your gift for the day.
Schuller knows what we all know … words have transformative power …
We can pretty much convince ourselves of most anything by the power of the words we use …
A negative word, said often enough, creates a negative world for us … a little bit like Eeyore, or Scott the driving instructor …
Life is no good …
People are not dependable …
I’m a loser …
Folks are out to get me …
I’m scared …
I can’t handle this …
There’s something wrong with me …
The power of words to create the world in which we live …
But maybe we can more like Poppy … more like Tigger …
Life is always good, even when it’s hard …
God is good all the time, and all the time good is good …
My life is filled with gifts and grace …
I’m a servant of Jesus …
I’m not afraid, because whatever comes my way, I will handle it, I’ll make something of it …
There’s nothing wrong with me …
Every day, I grow a little bit taller, wiser and gracious …
I choose to walk on the sunny side of the street …
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me … thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me … thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies … thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over … surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever!
The Psalmist knows all about the shadow side of things …
Death …
Evil …
Enemies …
But the Psalmist chooses to live on the sunny side …
Goodness and mercy …
A rich table …
Kindness and love …
To walk on the sunny side of the street …
God has shown us, says Micah:
Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.
Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the doorstep
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the street
Amen and Amen!
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