Dear church,
Imagine Jesus, gave us an assignment to write blessings for a church service or just for ourselves - to stimulate our spiritual growth. Because, when we recognize the blessings in our lives, we tend to grow. When we acknowledge the little miracles that are often overlooked because they have been here since we were born, we tend to grow in our faith and frankly also in happiness. Imagine Jesus gives us this assignment. “Write me some Beatitudes!” Beatitudes, that’s the title of the passage we just heard in the gospel. It comes from the old Latin Bible translation. The word “beatus,” means happy or blessed.
Now imagine Andreas going to work to write a bunch of blessings… Knowing this guy a little bit, having lived with him for 59 years, I imagine he might come up with something like this:
“Blessed are those who are rich in spirit for they will reap the benefits of a life in faith.”
“Blessed are those who are spared from loss and hardship, for God is good to them.”
“Blessed are the strong who survive in a cutthroat world and remain faithful.”
“Blessed are the prophets among us who bring about justice and positive change in society.”
“Blessed are those who show mercy, for they take the high road.
“Blessed are the pure in heart for they show everybody else what it is like to be touched by God.”
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will change our world, one conflict at a time.”
“Blessed are you if you never have to endure hardship or persecution for your faith but can live in a free country.”
I would come up with something like that, I suppose. And now I imagine Jesus looking at me, looking me straight in the eyes, saying, “How long have you been a pastor preaching my gospel? Have you still not understood what this is all about? Have you never heard about the cross? Have you been so influenced by this affluent society that you can’t even imagine blessings taking place and taking root in places of hardship and poverty? Do you really still think that a homeless person is per se less fortunate than you are? What have I taught you all these years?” And with that, the great teacher gives me an “F” for my Beatitudes. F for “failed.” No, that’s not the gospel. That’s not the good news. It is merely American style good news, Western culture style good news, human nature style good news. But it is not the gospel.
For unless we begin to understand that we, rich and as we say ‘blessed’ that so many of us are in so many ways, are often the victims of material success and become blind for the hidden blessings of the world, we don’t “get” the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Unless we begin to understand that big numbers can easily fool us, success can easily corrupt us, advances in technology for gadgets supposed to make our lives easier tend to turn us into more efficient machines made of flesh and blood, we don’t “get” the gospel. There is no gospel unless we become more human and that means - more divine - with one another. There is no gospel unless we learn to step down from our pride and our accomplishments and meet the person who really has no chance ever getting there. There is a gospel hidden in this world, revealed in the Bible, free for the taking for those who don’t want to be fooled by the normal craziness that we so proudly call 24/7 life style. The Beatitudes spell out the gospel of Jesus Christ, in which the spiritually poor are blessed and those who are meek and those who are mourning and grieving and those who are persecuted, because in the midst of their life challenging situations, they are sustained by God.
To be clear, the Beatitudes are, always have been and always will be counter-cultural. They sound beautiful, yes. They make for good Christian bumper stickers, yes. They make us think and wonder, yes. But they are still counter to the culture in which we live, breathe and make our living, the culture of “more is better and never good enough.” Those of us who have been in the church for a long time may not even notice how counter-cultural the Beatitudes are. We’ve gotten used to them. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Only people with extraordinary spiritual vision and mystics tend to understand what Jesus is even saying here. The majority thinks, “Nice words! Let’s get on with life!” When we baptize children, when we confirm youth, when we offer First Holy Communion to young ones, when we bless people, we invite them to the Kingdom of God, we invite them to a different way of life and a different way of seeing. It is a form of living in which you don’t have to be rich or successful in order to be blessed. It is one in which the last will be first and the first will be last. Jesus said that. He also meant it. We are blessed in so many ways. Maybe sometimes we fail to see the more hidden and less obvious blessings that come during times of hardship. May God give us spiritual eyes to see – how blessed we are. Amen.
