Sermon for All Saints Sunday Year C 2013 Blessed Are You Well it s finally here... your Confirmation day. Two weeks ago your parents and I introduced you to the congregation, presented these candles to you and spoke these words from Jesus to you. Words that were first said to you when you were baptized: Let your light so shine before others, that they see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. The candles you were given are making a fairly good light, so you re off to a good start. If only it were that easy! If only today were just about a great Kodak moment looking great in new clothes and perhaps even new shoes, the party afterward... All really good stuff! But wouldn t you know it, along comes Jesus with his sermon about... the poor and suffering, and all this weird stuff about loving our enemies and turning the other cheek. I mean, really Blessed are you who are hated and reviled? Perhaps your first reaction to all of this is If these are blessings, I might have to pass, Jesus. Thank you anyway. Or maybe your reaction is If only I were a lot more hungry, then God would bless me. If only I wept more, that would really get the blessings flowing! The problem we have with the Beatitudes (which is what all these blessed are you -s are called) is that we always want to take things into our own hands. Because, in the end, it s easier and more flattering to us if we try to earn God s favor rather than to sit in the very disturbed reality of Jesus sermon. Did you know that the first Christians were accused of turning the world upside down? 1
The first Christians were greeted with puzzled grimaces and clenched fists in most of the places they traveled to. How odd all this seems to us, right? I mean, isn t Christianity something nice people do? Churches don t turn the world upside down! So how did the Jesus who got his followers into contact with trouble in the ancient world come to fit so comfortably and even successfully in our world today? Did Jesus adapt himself to the culture? Or have we missed something? How could it possibly matter today if we followed Jesus? What if we took Jesus half as seriously as his first disciples did? Would onlookers ever again say of us These people who have turned the world upside down have come here also? If we look into this sermon of Jesus, these Beatitudes, we might find a few things or even everything in answer to these questions because the Beatitudes themselves turn everything upside down. Why? Because, the Beatitudes turn upside down the values of the world. Maybe it would be easier to understand all this if we begin by asking What didn t Jesus say? We need to bracket out the noise of the sound bites and half-truths and slogans so we might truly hear the upside-down-ness of Jesus. So here goes, in order to hear how revolutionary Jesus was and how profoundly wise the Beatitudes are, here are a few things Jesus didn t say: Blessed are those who shop, for they will own neat things. Blessed are the cool and good-looking, for they will find plenty of friends. or Blessed are the envious, the angry or the prideful... Blessed are those who never show mercy Blessed are those who seek revenge... We might laugh to think of Jesus saying these things, 2
yet... stop and think about it. These are the messages we receive from the world 24/7 But hold on, does this mean that if we want to be really spiritual we have to wear buttons that say, I m meeker than your honor student or The weepy and the hated make good Christians. I don t think that is the message Jesus was going for. Jesus was not campaigning for us to be miserable, never enjoying life. Actually Jesus wants deeper pleasures for us, a higher enjoyment and delight in life. C. S. Lewis (the author of The Lion, the witch and the Wardrobe), observed in a sermon that people today tend to think of unselfishness as the highest virtue, but the Christians of old would have ranked love as the greatest of the virtues. He said we have substituted a negative unselfishness that assumes that all desires should be denied, smothered, or cooled. Then Lewis said something really surprising: He said that Jesus seems to find our desires are too weak. We are half-hearted creatures... who are far too easily pleased. Here s the thing, Jesus is not against our having aspirations. Jesus opens his teaching ministry with the Beatitudes not to douse cold water on our desires but to whet our appetites, to heighten our desire, to stir up our imagination and invite us into a better way of living in the world. Jesus sermon is a proclamation that God is there in the abandoned places of human despair even when we suspect or believe that God is only in glory and triumph. It makes me wonder if maybe blessed are the poor actually might means blessed are those who not very spiritual. Now that s good news for someone like myself who basically thinks being really spiritual means 3
that you are always walking around looking really peaceful and self-contained you know the cool unselfish people. I don t know about you, but I don t know too many really spiritual people who look like that! Actually, now that I think about it, the people who I know who I experience as really spiritual are people who are passionate. Passionate about caring for others, passionate about the world and caring for it, people who give everything they have and are and in their lives they reflect the goodness of God. And... they are not ashamed of their passion! Here s what we need to keep in mind The most important thing about the Beatitudes is not our analysis of the words, what they mean, or whether they make sense. All that matters, really, is who said these words. The fact that it was Jesus who spoke them, and not only spoke them but embodied them lived them compels us to rethink the way we usually hear and respond to thoughts, sayings, and quotations. It makes a difference who said things and to whom. For example, here are some free-floating sayings found on posters and bumper stickers Make love, not war. Not all who wander are lost. Love makes the world go round. If you can dream it, you can do it. Who said these things? And to whom? Does it matter? Just stop and think. Mother Teresa said, My secret is a very simple one: I pray. But the nuance is entirely different if say, Lady Gaga said the same thing after a record went platinum or a politician said this on an election night. There is a danger in separating words from who said them. If we fail to consider who is speaking the Beatitudes, 4
it would be easy to dismiss several of them without a moment s hesitation. But the beatitudes are not generalized, abstract sayings whose wisdom we debate. Jesus is the speaker: he has been healing the people, and he is headed to the cross. Jesus is the embodiment of all the Beatitudes so they become an invitation to follow, to become part of this new family of God. They stretch our imaginations and we get a glimpse of what life in proximity to Jesus is like. But what does it mean, then, to be blessed? Does blessed mean happy? You may have noticed a couple of problems as you ponder the Beatitudes because those who are poor, who mourn, who are meek, and who are persecuted and reviled don t sound very happy do they? We run into even more problems if we identify happy with fun as if we meant by asking is my marriage happy? we were asking are we having fun? The problem is the question Am I happy? turns me in on myself. And Jesus is interested in us opening ourselves outward to God and to others. Jesus Beatitudes are about what we cannot achieve, what we cannot make happen they are about what we can only receive as the most startling of gifts. Because when all is said and done, Jesus sermon, these Beatitudes point not to us, but to God. The Beatitudes tell us we are blessed because God is present in all these places where we think God doesn t hang out with the broken saints and forgiven sinners. So you are blessed! Here s the thing about blessings, they cannot be contained or hoarded up! Blessings need be shared and given away to bless others. That s what it means to be blessed 5
You become a blessing. The blessing of God is the light that shines through you when you do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God. No, these are not easy things to live out. but the reward is great It is the kingdom of God which is not a destination or place but a condition, a way of being. Rejoice and be glad, Jesus says. Joy is the fruit of the Spirit a gift Trust the Spirit. And, above all, trust the One who says: Blessed are you! I ll be with you to turn the values of the world upside down! 6