August 29, 2004; St. Andrew’s, Pictou NS

 

The Pursuit of Trivia

Jeremiah 2:4-13

Psalm 81:1, 10-16

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Luke 14:1, 7-14

 

About fifteen years ago, a friend of mine was to be honoured at work and they asked him what special gift he would like. He told them that he would like a copy of a new board game. Nobody had ever even heard of it much less knew where to get it. Being that he was a stock broker, they talked it over with colleagues in New York and they knew about the game and where to get it.

 

This new, exciting, hard to reach, board game was called: “Trivial Pursuit.” They gave him a copy of the game and the rest is history. The game soon became very popular and now we don’t even talk about it any more; the game is passé and all kinds of more board games have been invented to the point where young people even are often heard to say, that they are “bored.”

 

But an amazing change in society has developed since the invention of the game. That game was so powerful, that the pursuit of trivia has now become a North American pre-occupation; the pursuit of trivia has become a cultural value.

 

Initially, where the game, “Trivia Pursuit” came into a society and you played with friends to see who had picked up the most information as your life went along, “the pursuit of trivia” has become a life quest, an obsession, and a constant presence.

 

Our society has now become obsessed with the pursuit of trivia:

-if you go to a movie in a theatre, before it begins, all kinds of questions are flashed across the screen, “What is the name of the 1957 movie staring so and so?” and so on,

-huge amounts of TV time for sports events are spent going over and over all of the player’s statistics and the teams statistics, ad nausea,

-every sports figure is always described along with all of their statistics, even when it is totally inappropriate: The discussion of whether one of our NHL hockey players should be charged with murder or not, (There were three murders discussed in one newspaper recently on one day) always includes which team they played with, and all of their scoring averages, etc. Good or bad, those numbers have become “credentials.”

-“Jeopardy” and other TV shows illustrate the finesse of individuals, who have been better able to more totally obsess the pursuit of trivia than the rest of us.

 

Folks, there is no way that we could ever remember all of the trivia that is flung in our face, day after day. Each and every day, we will get more and more trivia thrown in our face.

 

The sad part is that our brains used to be developed with the kind of memory work that we then able to use for our lives. Where we used to memorize the books of the Bible so that we could better read it, how to spell various words to better communicate, learn our catechism, Bible quotes and multiplication tables. We are now extending massive effort in memorizing thousands of things that have absolutely no value or impact on our lives whatsoever. It’s not even fun anymore.

 

We all know that national newspaper coverage and prime time TV are expensive. Last year I happened to turn on a show that said that Farrah Fawcett was having a tough time getting back into the single life after a recent relationship break-up. The Globe and Mail recently had an obituary of a man dying who was had been a former scout of the Pittsburg Steelers. I challenge any of you to tell me how these pieces of information affect the life of any man, woman or child in Canada! This information only serves to feed the obsession.

 

Almost 2600 years ago, Jeremiah was saying similar things to his congregation about where society was way back then. Even “in the good old days,” people were still drawn to trivia (worthless goals) in much the same way that we are today.

 

Through the prophet, God says:

“What wrong did you ancestors find in me

that they went far from me,

and went after worthless things

and become worthless themselves?”

 

Jeremiah went after everyone in society in this passage,

“First he challenges the priesthood:

The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’

He then goes for the lawyers:

‘Those who handle the law did not know me’ [God]

Next he takes on the politicians:

The rulers transgressed against me.

And then finally the prophets:

The prophets prophesied by Baal.

 

In one verbal lashing, Jeremiah has made enemies in every sector of the establishment of his country!” O’Driscoll p. 89

 

Jeremiah spells it out very simply: you have exchanged something good and of great value for something that is worthless… “…my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit… for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

 

Many years ago, I was transfixed with a sentence from today’s reading from the Hebrews. It filled my mind but I didn’t know where it was in the Bible. The Voice said, “Go to church!” one Sunday morning, so I jumped out of bed and went to St. Andrew’s Church in downtown Toronto. I was sitting and thinking about this scripture and where to find it when all of a sudden, I heard Rev. Dr. Jim Evans saying the words, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

 

There was the scripture! It was in Hebrews 13. I looked at the sermon title and it was “Angels Unaware.”

 

This entire passage gives us a beautiful list of Christian attributes:

-“Let mutual love continue, show hospitality,

-Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them,

-remember those who are being tortured,”

-honour marriage,

-keep free from the love of money,

-remember Jesus,

-remember your leaders,

-do good and share what you have.

 

Notice how many on the list have to do with how we act; not just about how we think.

 

As we live in our self-absorbed society, Jesus in the Gospel asks us to be humble. Don’t rush for the seats of honour, wait for the host or hostess to designate where you will sit.

 

We have a lot of jostling in our society and our proverbial “pecking order.” Jesus is simply asking for humility. He is not suggesting that we have low self-esteem, he is trying to instill his notion of his kingdom of love where contrasting our worldly view, “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.”

 

All of today’s scriptures call us to higher values when we live in an age that values the endless pursuit of trivia.

 

The prophet Jeremiah, the psalmist, the Apostle Paul and our friend Jesus talk about “a new world order” where love and service to others are the goals of merit and they out distance all of the trivia that seeks to fill our lives.

 

The words “payback time” are almost a proverb in our modern culture. You hear people say those words about marriages gone array. You hear them on revenge driven TV shows.

 

You have also heard about “unconditional love,” and I close with the words of Jesus as he gives us a definition of what kind of love he means. It all has to do with the difference between being “repaid” and being “blessed.”

 

“(Jesus) said… to the one who had invited him (to dinner that night,)

“When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return,

and you would be repaid.

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.

And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”    

 

AMEN             Rev. Alan Stewart