It’s not so hard to fool your sense of touch.
Most of us are pretty confident in our body ownership. We see appendages emerging from our shoulders and think: These are my arms. That multiple-digit tool at the end of my arm is my hand. And so on.
The awareness we have of our body position in space is called proprioception.
**But science is good at probing the fragile superstructure of things we take for granted.
It turns out that proprioceptive cues can be fooled easily.
Recently an experiment was performed in which a subject was positioned in an MRI machine with his right hand resting on his leg beneath a solid surface; a realistic rubber right hand rested atop the surface.
A researcher used a small brush to stroke the finger of the real hand, which the subject could not see, while simultaneously stroking the corresponding finger on the rubber hand that the subject could see.
Within 15 seconds, the test subjects typically developed a profound sense that the rubber hand was the real hand.
The test subjects would flinch when those conducting the experiment threatened to smash his fist on the rubber hand.
They were surprised when they realized they were unable to lift a rubber finger.
They knew what was going on, but no amount of rational thought could dispel the sensory illusion.
One concluding point was given as to the reason why, in this case the feelings were so strong, and that being that… those in the experiment don’t just think it, but "They felt it”.
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Very few of us live in a world of simple reality, so that we could say that everything around us is just as is seems.
Things are not often as they seem.
For commonly there is more at work than just a simple assessment of things, there is often the heavy weighing in of our emotions, our feelings.
Life is lived through a system of rational thought patterns, littered with a sense of strong sentiments.
And it is that sense of emotion, that ability to “feel it”, that causes us to hate, to love and brings to us every realm of emotion in-between.
If we could remove the feelings, so that we would be left with a pure rational thought pattern, if the “feelings” were removed, so that we would live a passionless life, where would that leave us?
We would still be cased amongst the same facts, but without the ability to feel the weight of our problems….
…some here today might find that appealing.
…If I did not have to feel the pressure anymore…if I did not have to feel the anger anymore…this would be for some, a sense of relief.
As a matter of fact, that would give many here today a new lease on life…the absents of guilt…just like that it is gone, cast away…
My, would not your feet quicken their pace if they were not cast upon by the heavy weight of “thoughts’.
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For you see there are some here today; whose life has become the mangled field of a few realities cast upon by a personal perception that is haunting…
…so strong is the perception, so overwhelming are the emotions…that it is true, the “feelings” have become your reality.
It is like the rubber hand; even though many things are not as they seem, and you know that they are not what they seem, you are still overwhelmed, caught up and overturned by the “feelings”… you are living in a world of a synthetic nature.
The real you is caged in a realm of superficial truths, which is bedded deep in a sea of strong emotions.
And for you a great answer to your problems would be the removal of such that has brought you to believe that the rubber, the plastic, the fake is the real.
But it is more than just a few…life has taken on an “artificial” reality.
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Let me pause right here and ask a question. What has brought us to this surreal reality?
Who moved the real, replaced it with the fake…when did “the feelings” become main stream.
We live in a world that values convenience over permanence.
Societal attitudes are vastly different today than in the days of the 1950s.
We have temporary licenses, temporary visas, and temporary addresses.
We expect instant cash, fast food, and quick fixes.
We purchase disposable goods and refundable merchandise.
We walk up, drive though, and exit through the door on the left.
We abhor suffering, not only for the pain it brings, but for the inconvenience.
We live in a world that devalues promise.
“No new taxes,” politicians pledge.
“Satisfaction Guaranteed!” advertisements announce.
Marketing promises products will be “long-lasting and durable.”
We’ve been disappointed so many times in so many ways by broken promises that we no longer expect promises to be honored.
As a result, we are skeptical and distrustful of promises made to us and disloyal to the promises we make to others.
The realities have changed…yesterday it was either plastic or paper…today it is either plastic or plastic.
We live in a world that views happiness as a “right.”
People emerged from the Great Depression with an attitude of long-suffering and forbearance.
They’d experienced the worst of times, and while the yearned for happiness, they did not see happiness as something owed to them.
Today the fast-track, upwardly mobile culture in which we live has produced a breed of impatient people demanding immediate gratification.
We’ve somehow translated our constitutional right to purse happiness as the right to possess happiness.
Advertising slogans daily reinforce this notion;
“You deserve a break today.”…
…“If feels good, do it.” …
…“Pamper yourself…you are worth it.”…
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In a society that devalues durability, distrust promise, and demands happiness, the prevailing mind-set of those that are marketing there product to you is; that a sale matters, and after that…nothing matters.
So you have learned to distrust the promises, values, and happiness…it is all fake.
* But it is continued to be manufactured, the surreal…and even though we expect the product not to be what it is stated to be; we still… buy into it… the fake, the surreal…has become popular: so now it is massed produced.
This massed produced, posed dogma, only adds to the countless lives that are slipping into the illusory within themselves.
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Jesus Christ was talking to a woman one day her about her spiritual experience; and He made a statement that has been recorded in the pages of the Bible in:
John 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
This verse sets up a great point:
You have to have an understanding of the entire text of scripture here to determine the story…so, let me paraphrase.
There was a woman that came to a well one afternoon, as she had probably done all her life, but today was different.
For on this day a man was resting at the well, a man named Jesus.
This woman was of a mixed lineage so she knows of such things as the Law of Moses…and the works, and words of the prophets and so on.
But being of mixed linage she is considered not to be a true Jew,
And if you know anything about Biblical history you will note of what a mortal feud there was between the Jews and the Samaritans:
The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. The Samaritans were the adversaries of Judah (Ezra 4:1), and the Jews, were upon all occasions mischievous to them.
The Jews were extremely malicious against the Samaritans, "looked upon them as having no part in the resurrection…as a matter of fact by many true Jews, this Samaritan woman would be considered less than a dog.
I don’t know what gave Christ away, His dialect or his nature, but she sees Him as being a Jew… and you can see (in verse 9) that she is just a little amused, that this Jew (Jesus) would even talk to her.
Of course we know that Christ did not care who she was…he saw a person.
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Christ is coming for a totally different perspective:
Jesus in talking to her is going to relay some things to her in a spiritual tone, as they are sitting at this well.
The Master is going to use water as the subject and there He is going to speak to her of thirst…
….He is talking of the spirit; but she, not understanding His point, in talking of water, is speaking of the natural.
**To help change the tone so that she will understand where He is coming from, Christ is going to tell her a little of her past…
(Something that nobody would know, but a prophet)
He tells here that she has had five husbands, and that the one that she is with now is not one of the five.
Instantly, she recognizes that the one she is talking to is different:
Her new response is found in verse… 19 The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
But notice what she does not do,
1. She does not deny the truth of what He had charged her with, but by her silence owns the justice of the reproof… not only does she not deny,
Nor is she put into a passion by it, as many are when they are touched in a sore place.
Who here today would have not denied such charges even if they were true?
Notice something else she does not do: She does not attribute his criticism to the general disgust the Jews had to the Samaritans, but (and this is a rare thing) she can bear to be told of a fault.
But this is not all; she goes further: and in turn when she opens her mouth again to speak to Him, she speaks respectfully to him, calling him Sir.
19 The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Here is a woman whose life had been cased upon by so many tough realities;
You can only imagine the stories that she can relate to you regarding these five husbands…and why none of them have stayed with her…
I can imagine, having worked with people…that in her own mind there is a justification that can be related to each of the five…
Each of the five drawing in her life a since of reality, cast about by strong emotions…her life is a fabricated lie, strung together by one dysfunctional relationship after another.
*One more point regarding this: she is going to run back to the city and tell all of this man, Jesus.
And many are going to believe on Christ because of her (39)
…how can she do that if there is not some credibility there of some kind…my point is, that even though here life was dysfunctional and in turmoil, she had a closed past to many that saw her on the street, but a past that Jesus knows.
So, parts of her life are fake, surreal…but it is more than just that…look at how she got there…
One devastating blow after another…one heartache after another…a string of new beginnings chattered by a host of fresh failures…each one demanding that she go out and start again…
But each time she starts again…there is less of the Real Her, in it…and more of the identity that she is trying to portray to her world.
There is a confusing of the real and the surreal.
Who she is, and who she wants everyone to think she is, are two different people. Blurred and mixed in one messed up life.
Five men married this one woman...what in turn would cause five men to walk out of her life?
They did not marry who they thought they married!
But her mind set was this…it is O.K., they can walk out…I have started over before…I will find somebody to take this journey again…
So Jesus tells her, the one you have now, (Number six) who are you to him.
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* In life you don’t stay the same, you change…with every change there is more emotional debt to pay, more feelings to arrange…and more importantly more of the real you socked away behind a glass frame.
Five tiresome, weary, and damaging loses, her she stand, a plastic cup talking to the master of clay.
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For many here today, it is not this bad…but still yet there are the two you…
The real you is underneath the table resting…flesh and blood…the kind that really bleeds…
…the other you; is made of rubber …it is the one you that you have learned to put out in the open.
It looks better and besides if it’s talked about, belittled, hurt, cut…its rubber.
But let me tell you, that does not mean that it will not hurt…because you “feel it” just the same.
And just like this woman of the well…and just like the subject of the experiment; there is in a way of combining the fake and the real, by way of desires and thoughts…you subscribe to a pattern that is not you.
The science of proprioception proves that once you have established a mental connection between the real and the fake…that you just don’t think it away. You have to take a physical approach to change.
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When it comes to your family and your spouse…you would be better off to be real, to be yourself…
…even if it meant that you would have to change who you really are, that if in your revealing there was a part of you that needed “fixing” you are better off to be yourself.
But, even thought you would be better off to be real to those that you are with, those around you, those you love…when it comes to Jesus Christ…if you are going to have anything to do with Him,
Than you have no choice. He insists upon your truth…
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Notice what He speaks into this woman’s life: the verse I read to you before I told you her story:
After he has revealed His knowledge…and after she knows who He is:
The real her stands before him now… the plastic is cracked, broken…but she is not running, she is not fighting…she is standing.
Is it not amazing what can happen in the presents of the Master?
Five husbands…you don’t think this women could put up a fight?
But Jesus has pulled it out of her!
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Notice what Jesus speaks to her. In John 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
The True Worshipper…
Stripped of images, and props of “outlooks” of false justification…
True worshippers…people having torn away from the collections of foiled illusions.
• Worship me with all of you!
• With two words framing the position of this worshiper:
Spirit….truth
for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
In my opening remarks I stated that many of you, if you could remove your connections with those things that cause you to hate, love, lust, and fear, what a grand thing that would be…..
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As I quickly tugged the plastic wrapper off of the plastic, ten cent toy that the lady had handed me through the drive through window at McDonalds…and tossed it back to the small tornado that was developing in the back seat of my truck, I considered the emotional reality that this 10 cent toy was going to bring me, by satisfying that tornado called Abigail.
A ten cent plastic toy was going to give me peace of mind for at least ten minutes. If I was luck, it would last till I could cross the bridge, on the way home.
That plastic toy was one of a thousand that was sitting in a plastic bag…and as I passed the cars on the way home I wandered how many drivers out there were feeling no pain thanks a similar plastic experience.
Plastic God, plastic experience, plastic satisfaction.…
References: National Geographic January 2005. Article entitled, Who Knew?
