What does it mean to be blessed? Increasingly, I've seen a bumper sticker around that says,
"Blessed be." The sentiment of this sticker seems to imply that blessings are ours to grasp, and that
being blessed is a choice that each of us can make. Among at least some Christians, it is seen as inappropriate
to say "Good luck." "God bless" is preferred, turning God's blessings into some sort of magical
talisman; a rabbit's foot that can be rubbed for success. Religious hooligans have always claimed to be purveyors
of God's blessing, having a hundred miracles up their sleeves just waiting to be dispensed, most often for a price.
Our society, both religious and secular, suffers from confusion about just what it means to be blessed. We assume
that being blessed means good fortune, good health, and good feelings. We may not be entirely certain what it
means to be blessed by God, but what we do know is that whatever it means to be blessed, we want in.
For many of us, the most familiar text that has to do with being blessed is the Beatitudes taken from Matthew.
This text, which begins the sermon on the mount, begins with "Blessed are the poor in spirit" and goes
on to list many other people who are among the blessed. This morning's Gospel lesson is another version of the
Beatitudes. It is an earlier version, and it is markedly different from Matthew's version. Matthew proclaims,
"Blessed are the poor in spirit." Luke proclaims, "Blessed are the poor." Matthew proclaims,
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness." Luke proclaims, "Blessed are those
who are hungry." Luke adds that those who weep are blessed, as are those who are persecuted and hated. Luke
also adds some curses that are not present in Matthew's version-
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will
be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
It's no surprise, is it, that most of us know Matthew's version so much better than Luke's version. Our churches
really like Matthew's version, with its emphasis on spiritual piety. Blessings are doled out without regard to
socioeconomic status; the blessed are those who recognize their spiritual deprivation and mourn their poor relationship
with God. Luke is certainly more difficult for those of us who don't go to bed hungry to hear, because if we're
honest, each and every one of us is rich compared with sisters and brothers around the world who go to bed hungry
and who have no homes. Honesty requires that we acknowledge that we are among the wealthy, and honesty requires
that we take seriously the possibility that Jesus really meant it when he pronounced that the rich had already
gotten all the rewards that they would ever get.
For many of us, our tendency is to read Luke's Beatitudes through the lens of Matthew's Gospel, spiritualizing
the hunger and poverty and mourning to make it more comfortable but less demanding. Someone on the Desperate Preacher's
web page wrote the following contribution: "Perhaps this could be preached from the perspective of maintaining
our humility, seeking God with a holy hunger, mourning over sin and world situations." Another contributor
came closer to what I think this passage is about when he said, "It would be wrong to 'spiritualize' the beatitudes
for preaching Luke; to NOT hear this message is to distort the law so that people are unable to hear the gospel."
As much as we may wish he were, Luke is not making a point here about the depths of our spiritual emptiness.
That point is certainly in Scripture, and it certainly is one that we need to hear, but that is not what we've
been given to deal with today. Luke, more than any other Gospel writer, time and again says that God's blessings
are on the poor, that God's kingdom is for the poor, that God will redeem the poor. And, Luke often makes the
point that God will do all of these things at the expense of those who are rich.
There are some among us who are poor, who know hunger, whose entire life is mourning. For you, this passage is
good news, because God promises that a time is coming when your tears will be wiped away, when your bellies will
be filled. For most of us who cannot find ourselves among those Jesus calls blessed, good news is harder to come
by, because we look for blessings in all the wrong places. We think that being blessed is about having good health,
long life, happy relationships, and a good job, and we expect to get these blessings by being a decent person,
not cheating on taxes, coming to church, and giving a little to charity. But that doesn't seem to be the way it
works. Our lesson from Jeremiah would probably lump us among those who are cursed for trusting in ourselves and
other people for wisdom and strength, power and blessings. Jeremiah warns that only those who come to a point
of recognizing that we are wholly dependent on God for our life and all that is in it will truly understand what
it means to be blessed. Jeremiah and Luke both warn us that by trusting in ourselves and our stuff to get us in
good with God we are risking missing God and God's kingdom altogether, a frightening prospect.
Today's Gospel lesson occurs just after Jesus has called the apostles, those who will be his inner circle of devoted
followers. Following a spiritual retreat of sorts on a mountaintop, the group comes down the hill and there encounters
a throng of people desiring healing and exorcism. Jesus does not let them down. In the midst of all the healings,
Jesus begins to speak the words of blessing and curse to his disciples. It is almost as if, now that they've all
signed on, Jesus wants to let them in on what their work is all about. Surrounded by the sick, the mentally ill,
and the unclean, Jesus tells the disciples that God's blessings are for the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, and
the persecuted. Theirs will not be a job for the timid, nor for popularity-seekers or power mongers. These who
have committed to following him must be willing to do so among the poor, outcast, and abused.
Perhaps that is the message for those of us here this morning who seek to be blessed by God but know that we fit
more among those whom Jesus calls cursed. Just as the disciples were called to minister to society's untouchables,
perhaps we find blessings by being an instrument of God's blessing to our own untouchables. Homiletics Online
magazine offers a sermon for today entitled, "When a Church Should Go to Hell." I want to share with
you part of that sermon:
A blessed existence involves being sent to hell. . .Where does the Apostle's Creed tell us Christ went those three
days before the resurrection? To hell. As the continuing presence of Christ's body on earth, where should the
church go in order to find the neediest souls, those farthest from God and closest to despair? To hell. As the
hands and feet, eyes and mouth of the Christbody community, where should members of every congregation find themselves
instinctively being drawn? To hell.
The sermon goes on to suggest that it is the duty of the Church to enter into the hells of tortured people everywhere.
The material hells of the poor, hungry, and homeless. The physical hells of the sick and dying. The emotional
hells of the lonely, the outcast, the despised. The spiritual hells of those whose existence is shallow and hollow,
who may have gained the world but risk losing their souls. Jesus in this morning's Gospel lesson tells the disciples
that if they are to follow him, if they are to find blessings from God, they must travel into the private hells
of the lowest among them to share with them blessings from God. And, we must do the same. It's an irony of scripture
that in order to experience God's blessings we must be instruments of God's blessings among those we may suppose
to be least likely of God's blessings.
What does it mean for you and me to go to hell? How about our congregation? Where would we have to go to travel
into the depths of hell with another? My guess is that we wouldn't have to go that far. Some evening this spring
or summer, go down the street to Marine Park and spend some time with some of the homeless teens there. Some weekday
afternoon, take a couple of hours to venture to the other side of the tracks to Lunch Break to lend a hand. Some
Sunday afternoon, visit Avante or Meridian and see the lonely elderly who have been put in institutions and forgotten.
Visit one of our state psychiatric hospitals and realize that people with devastating mental illnesses not only
have to contend with a life-shattering disease, they also have to contend with a society that thinks it's okay
to marginalize and mock them. Take the train into Manhattan and spend an evening with one of the 25,000 mostly
women and children who live in New York's homeless shelters. But you have to know that I'm not speaking today from
the perspective of someone who has this all figured out and can tell you what to do. As I've worked on this sermon,
Lori and I have revisited a familiar conversation for us, recognizing how far short we fall when it comes to really
engaging in this type of ministry. And we've come to the conclusion that we have a long way to go, as I suspect
most of us here do.
But what about those who do fit the category of the blessed, those whose lives are lived in hell? Where, you
may want to ask, are your blessings? That's a tough question to answer. I for one am not comfortable reducing
the answer to a "wait til you get to heaven and things will be better" type of answer. Perhaps part
of being blessed for you comes with a willingness to accept help, a willingness to step beyond fear and into a
vulnerability that allows you to share your needs. Perhaps blessings for the poor and blessing for the rest of
us are tied up together. Those of us who have much enter the lives of those who have little, being for them God's
blessings while saving our own souls in the process.
So, do you want to be blessed? Really? Because being blessed isn't about our good health or our loving family
or our good job or our national stability. Scripture tells us that those who are seen as blessed in God's eyes
may seem to be among the least blessed in the world's eyes. It tells us that being blessed is about being welcomed
into God's kingdom, and it warns those of us who may want to rest on our laurels and count our own blessings that
we are in grave danger of missing the kingdom altogether. Christ calls us, as he called the disciples long ago,
to abandon our comfort zones and journey into the depths of hunger, heartache, despair, isolation, and loneliness
of the world's forgotten ones, being a blessing to them to inherit a blessing from God. If you want to be blessed,
you know what to do. Amen.
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