"Blessed are..." (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Annual Flower Service - July 14 and 21, 2019

Scripture:  Matthew 5:1-12

Blessed are the rich, for they will become richer.

Blessed are the emotionally numb, for nothing will disturb them.

Blessed are those with bombs and nuclear codes, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those with enough food, for they can afford to give away the crumbs from their tables.

Blessed are those with privilege, for they will decide what is right and what is wrong.

Blessed are those in the comfortable pews, for they can feel smug about their virtue.

Blessed are the bullies, for they can control the actions of others.

(pause)

OK – so maybe Jesus didn’t say it quite like this.  But if you look at the way that our world works, what Jesus is saying in today’s reading from Matthew doesn’t make any sense.  If you look at the way that our world works, it usually isn’t the meek person who is given power, who inherits the earth.  If you look at the way that our world works, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness usually don’t get to see the fulfillment of their hunger.  If you look at the way that our world works, the poor in spirit, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers aren’t usually the people who are exalted, the people who are respected, the people who are celebrated.  In fact it’s often the opposite.  Usually it is the people who hold the power, the people who are rich, the people who are beautiful, the people who come from the “right family” – these are the people that our world celebrates.

So what does Jesus mean when he calls the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers – what does Jesus mean when he calls them blessed?

I think, at least for me, that the challenge comes in the word “blessed”; because how do we use that word in day-to-day conversation.  If you go on Instagram and search for #blessed, you will end up looking at pictures of babies and new cars and beaches; pictures of birthday parties and weddings and glamour shots.  Our world sees blessings in the material things in life.  I have all of these good things, therefore God must be blessing me; God must love me very much.

But this sort of understanding of God eventually runs into problems when things go wrong.  Because if we see good things in life as a sign or God’s favour, what does it mean when the bad stuff happens.  I don’t think that it is possible to fall out of favour with a God who is, by definition, love; but if we see material things as blessings from God, the flip side of that would be a withdrawal or loss of God’s blessing.

So these beatitudes, these blessings that Jesus offers to us, they obviously don’t mean blessing in the way that we often used the word blessing.  The poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers – these aren’t the people who are normally showered with praise and admiration in our world – these things that are normally reserved for the wealthy and famous.

The New Testament was originally written in Greek, and the Greek word that is used here for “blessed” is “makarioi” and if you were to look up that word, makarioi, in a dictionary, you will get a variety of definitions.  The first definition given is, and I quote, “the transcendent happiness of a life beyond care, labour and death.”  But it goes on from there.  To be blessed, in this sense, is to see the present in light of the future.  To see the present in light of the future.  It implies a tension between the state of the present and the state of the future.  The dictionary called it a “sacred paradox.”

And I think that this understanding of the word “blessed” is the key to understanding these words of Jesus.  Even though the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake – even though they don’t appear to be very blessed in Jesus’ time – or in our time – they are blessed.  They are blessed because they are living the present through the lens of what is to come.

Jesus is proclaiming a vision for a world that is radically different than the world that we see around us.  Jesus is proclaiming the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God where the power structures aren’t just re-arranged but are completely turned upside down.  Jesus is proclaiming a world where the poor in spirit are blessed; a world where those who mourn are blessed; a world where the meek are blessed; a world where the pure in heart are blessed; a world where the peacemakers are blessed.

So where does that leave us?  After all, we are living in a world that blesses the rich, the powerful, the privileged.  (quiet voice)  But the thing is, we are an Easter people.  We know that the world doesn’t get the final word.  We know that even when God dies on a cross and it seems as though the world has won, we know that the story doesn’t end on Friday.  We know that two days later, we will be celebrating the empty tomb, and God’s final word of joy and hope.  And because we know this, we can trust in the beatitudes.  We can trust that God’s kingdom will have the final word over the powers and principalities of this world.

Today we are gathered for our annual Flower Service – a day when we remember the people in our community who have died in the past year, and a day when memories of everyone who has come before us bubble up to the surface of our mind.

The writer of the book of Hebrews in the bible tells us that we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses” – all of the thousands and millions and billions of people of faith who have gone before us.  All of the people we have known, and all of the people we haven’t known, who have struggled to travel their journey of faith, and who have been blessed because they have lived in the light of what is to come.  We are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, and so we are never alone on our journey of faith.

Today is a day when we can give thanks for the lives lived and love shared.  It is a day when we might shed a tear or two, because after all, grief is only love that has nowhere left to go.  But it is a day when we can celebrate too.  We can celebrate this God who turns the world upside down and who blesses the poor and the meek and the peacemakers.  We can celebrate this God with whom the last shall be first and the first shall be last, and who turns every end into a new beginning.

We are not alone.  God is with us, and we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

 

Our "Bouquet of Memories"

at Long Reach United Church