Matthew 5: 1-12
Blessings
Everywhere
It seems like lately I’ve been inundated with blessings,
or at least the word blessing! I
have found myself ending my hospital visits with most folks with, “Blessings to
you for healing”, and I’ve even bid adieu by replacing ‘Good bye’, with ‘God
bless’.
More often than not lately it seems, us clergy folk seem
to sign most emails with, ‘Blessings’ sort of like ‘Warmest Regards’ or
‘Cordially Yours’.
Now that probably doesn’t sound bad, and it’s not. Who doesn’t want to be blessed? I’m not a curmudgeon, I don’t think, it
just beginning to seem too casual to me.
It’s sort of like when someone you don’t know gets on the elevator with
you and asks, ‘How ya doing?’
Inquiring about my welfare?
A stranger? I’m torn
between telling that person how I really am, not that they want to hear how I’m
doing, or just saying, ‘Good, and you?’, not really caring if I get an
answer.
With the frequency that I hear the word blessing or
blessings it makes me wonder the efficacy of it and just what it is that we are
saying. That’s the cynical voice
screaming inside my head.
Then there is the hopeful and trustful voice inside of my head that
knows and believes in the power of God’s amazing grace and how God has the
ability to bless us beyond any of our juiciest imaginations and that is a
promise. You see a blessing is a
gift that we can’t manufacture. It happens and we recognize it.
Today’s
Context for Blessing
Today we are talking about blessing within the context of
the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. The Sermon on the Mount is at the
beginning of Jesus’ teaching ministry in the Galilee region after he left
Nazareth.
Let’s hear now this account from the Gospel of Matthew:
When Jesus saw the crowds, he
went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he
began to speak, and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they
will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for
they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are
persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is
the kingdom of
heaven.
“Blessed are you when people
revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on
my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the
same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Jesus makes his home now in Capernaum. It’s here he calls his first disciples
and he begins to gather followers, lots of them.
He does this by teaching in the local synagogues
throughout the region. He cures
diseases and heals people with every sickness making concrete the advent of the
kingdom. His proclamation is
effective and his fame spreads throughout Syria to the North, from the
Decapolis, which is a collection of ten cities east of Jerusalem, Judea in the
south and from way beyond the Jordan.
By now it was a rather large crowd of people who was following him.
When Jesus saw the crowds following him he high-tails it
up the mountain! His disciples
follow and that is where he begins the first of five great discourses recorded
in Matthew where Jesus reinterprets the law and offers a new way of
thinking. It was one ‘knock your
socks off’ sermons because it contains the Beatitudes which are beloved to most
Christians, some great stories about salt and light and this is also when he
teaches the disciples how to pray saying, ‘Our Father who are in heaven,
hallowed be they name.’
Two poignant points in one sermon, the Beatitudes and the
Lord’s Prayer. Both have been
crocheted on canvas, carved into wooden platters, hung upon people’s walls and
have been put to tune. And
why? Because both address our
deepest concerns about the life that we live in the here and now, and the life
that we will have in the kingdom of God.
The Beatitudes are not rules for a good life, and they are
not ethical demands put upon us, they are promises of God’s purpose in the
world. They are challenges for a
life worth living. Beatitude means
blessed, or happy, or fortunate, and so they are not calls to action, but
promises given in a specific context from a first century perspective.
It was a world of conflict and oppression and Jesus turns
things upside down from the prevailing culture; he’s got an opposing point of
view on how things should be.
People who normally would not have seen themselves as blessed are
promised a place in God’s realm because in fact from God’s perspective, they
are blessed. The fishermen. The farmers. The marginalized people of the Roman Empire. The ‘little’ people. All blessed! And so are we.
The Beatitudes are challenges to worthy living because in
today’s world the poor, peaceful, merciful and meek get nowhere in a culture
that is so firmly grounded in competition and self-indulgence. The Beatitudes are a vision for us of
faithful living today towards God’s realm.
What would it mean for you to engage in more faithful
living in this crazy world? How can you stay God-focused throughout your week?
Our answers are in the Beatitudes:
Possess
a humbleness of spirit – God’s in charge, not us!
Desire
for right living – God’s path is the path that will get you there!
Thirst
for justice – Where there is justice there is peace!
Recognize
a need for forgiveness – God forgives us and then we can forgive others!
These are blessings that I want and indeed have, as you do
too. They are blessings from a God
who loves us dearly. They are gifts and all we need to do is recognize them,
open our hearts to them, live into them each day and then you’ll be able to
really ‘count your blessings.’
Peace
Pilgrim's Beatitudes
A woman named Mildred Norman, calling herself Peace
Pilgrim, set out from 1953-1981 on a personal pilgrimage for peace. She walked over 25, 000 miles. She vowed to ‘remain a walker until
humanity has learned the way of peace.’
She walked until her death in fact. She penned a set of beatitudes in
her effort for peace, I want to read some of them to you, she expanded ‘blessed
are the peacemakers for us to contemplate today:
Blessed are they who give
without expecting even thanks in return, for they shall be
abundantly
rewarded.
Blessed are they who translate
every good thing they know into action, for ever
higher
truths shall be revealed unto them.
Blessed are they who do God's
will without asking to see results, for great shall be
their
recompense.
Blessed are they who love and
trust their fellow beings, for they shall reach the good
in people
and receive a loving response.
Blessed are they who see the
change we call death as a liberation from the
limitations
of this earth-life, for they shall rejoice with their loved ones who
make the
glorious transition.
Blessed are they, who after
dedicating their lives and thereby receiving a blessing,
have
the courage and faith to surmount the difficulties of the path ahead, for
they
shall receive a second blessing.
These beatitudes are thoughtful and loving blessings. These
are Peace Pilgrim’s Beatitudes, what would yours be? All good things come from
God. The challenge for us is to
see theses gifts and name them as a blessing. In doing so your life will be blessed.
Amen.
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