Blessed Instructions

January 29, 2023
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Micah 6:3-4, 6-8; Matthew 5:1-12[1]

I’ve heard it said that the Bible is instructions for life. Now, I don’t believe that the Bible is as simple as a list of do this, don’t do that, eat this, don’t eat that. There is quite a lot more going on in there. But there are some simple instructions to be found in the Bible. Love God, love your neighbor. Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God. Maybe Jesus was, at least in part, trying to give us some guidance for life.

Jesus has been baptized, overcome temptation in the wilderness, and called his first disciples. He is already famous for teaching and healing. The crowds have gathered to hear what he has to say. And he begins with “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:3). What is he trying to tell us? That it is a good thing to be poor in spirit? What if I am rich in spirit? What if I’m doing just fine?

He goes on. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (5:4). Well, that’s nice. Widows and orphans deserve to be blessed, what with all they’ve been through. Then things get a little strange. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (5:5). Well that just doesn’t make any sense, now, does it? The bold and the strong, they’re the ones who will inherit the earth, obviously. You can’t get ahead in this world if you’re meek. You have to take what’s yours, and if you have to take it from someone weaker than you, too bad for them.

“Blessed are the peacemakers…” (5:9). There is a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) in which people at the back of the crowd are too busy talking to hear what Jesus is saying. “I think he said, ‘Blessed are the cheese-makers.’”

In our culture, if you’re peaceful, you’re likely to be seen as unpatriotic, or un-American. If you are merciful, you’re soft on crime. If you’re meek, you’re asking for someone to push you around. In our culture, competition, power, and fear are the driving forces. Even if you think the Beatitudes are a nice idea, it is all too easy to see them as sentiment and not a practical guide for living.

But Jesus wasn’t just saying how nice it would be if people were more kind. He wasn’t saying that we should just get used to how things are, put up with oppression and injustice, and wait for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus was giving instructions, saying that we should live this way. Jesus was saying that we should be meek, humble, merciful, peaceful, and that we should desire to live in right relationship with God. And Jesus wasn’t just talking to the disciples; he was taking to the crowd, and by extension, to us.

What if we looked at the Beatitudes as a whole, with one thing leading to the next? What if we took these blessings seriously, and not just metaphorically? Can we try to understand the Beatitudes as a guide for living, a set of principles which are an alternative to the way we usually view the world through the lens of our competitive consumer culture? A theology professor named Charles Cook[2] suggests that there are three principles for living that can be found in the Beatitudes: simplicity, hopefulness, and compassion.

If we read the words as they are, and not try to layer meaning on them, they point to a way of life in which simplicity is valued. Those who are meek are humble. If you are humble, you are open to the idea that you don’t know everything. You are open to the idea that God has not yet revealed everything, and there is yet more light and truth to be found. The humble ones know that they are only a part of the bigger picture. It takes humility to understand that we don’t own this world; it was given into our care by God. In caring for the earth, we care for that which belongs to God.

In a world filled with things that can cause us to fear, we need courage. If we hear what Jesus has to say, if we live our lives with humility, peacefulness, and mercy, we will be blessed with courage. In caring for others, we find that we have strength. If we live within our means, rather than grasping for more and more, we find that we have been blessed with abundance, with all that we need to live and more. The way of simplicity can free us from our culture of greed.

Do you have hope that things will get better? Many people no longer believe that. As the gap between rich and poor grows wider, as the divide between those on the left and right grows deeper, hope for the future seems to be getting lost, and is replaced by cynicism. The mantra of cynicism is “That’s just the way it is, get over it.” That way of thinking takes these words of Jesus, “For you always have the poor with you” (26:11), and turns them into a pronouncement rather than a call to always recognize and care for those among us who are poor.

Who are the poor in spirit? In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus phrases the line a little differently, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (6:20). When you have next to nothing, faith in God can be the most important thing in your life. But poor in spirit can also mean those whose spirits are broken. If you lived in Roman occupied Galilee in the first century, your spirit as a nation had been broken. You were, as a people, oppressed, downtrodden, and brokenhearted. Yet, you are still God’s chosen people. Remember that, and it can give you hope. Jesus echoed the promise of Isaiah: God sent him “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1).

Hopefulness is the second principle of living into the Beatitudes. Christ offers hope to the hopeless. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (5:6). The day will come when right will win out over wrong. When we live in hopefulness, we know that mercy, humility, peace, and love will one day be the norm rather than the exception. When we face the world with hope, we know that it is darkest just before the dawn, and that the dawn will come. Because we live in Christ, we know that even though the road ahead leads to the crucifixion, it will also lead to the resurrection.

Hopefulness is what empowers us to believe that God’s kingdom is coming, and righteousness will claim the victory. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:10). These words inspire the kind of hope that moved the Pilgrims to set out for a new world, even though some would not live to see it. This hope caused the revolutionaries to set a course for independence, even though it would cost the colonies dearly in blood and treasure. This spirit of hopefulness allowed the abolitionists to keep fighting to end slavery against those who would use the same Bible to keep the Africans in bondage. Hopefulness and faith in the kingdom of heaven empowered women to demand the right to vote, the descendants of slaves to demand an end to discrimination, and gay and lesbian people to demand the right to marry the ones they love.

The most powerful principle found in the Beatitudes, the key to walking in the steps of Jesus, is compassion. Compassion is much more than pity. To pity another means that you feel sorry for them. Compassion is more than sympathy. To be sympathetic means that you share the feelings of another. To have compassion means more. It means that what hurts you hurts me. Compassion means that when you mourn, I mourn with you, and thus you may be comforted. We are in this together. You share my humanity. You are part of my family.

Compassion is the principle that led Jesus to break so many of the Laws of Moses. Compassion led Jesus to heal the man with the withered hand on the sabbath (12:10). Compassion led Jesus to touch the leper and heal him (8:2-3). Compassion led Jesus to perform miracles, such as feeding the five-thousand (14:14-21). Compassion gives us a hunger for justice and a thirst for righteousness. With compassion we can be merciful, we can seek peace, we can see the other as an extension of ourselves. With compassion we can love our neighbor as ourselves.

Compassion is the principle that is motivated by love. It was love that gave us Jesus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). It was love that carried Jesus to the cross. It is compassion and love that can give us the power to endure persecution for the sake of Christ. “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” (5:11-12).

When we follow these blessed instructions, when we allow simplicity, hopefulness, and compassion to guide our lives, we will be able to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). When we live in love, we know that the kingdom of heaven is near.  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Charles James Cook, "Pastoral Perspective on Matthew 5:1-12" in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, Volume 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 308-312. Cook is Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Theology, Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas.

The Hands of God

November 22, 2020

St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew25:31-46[1]

Many years ago, I led a work trip with the youth group of the First Congregational Church of Western Springs. This trip took us to Atlanta, Georgia. We did a lot of things in Atlanta. We served food in a soup kitchen and sorted food at the food bank. We re-surfaced trails in a forest preserve and worked in a community garden. We even spent a morning at a residence for senior citizens.

The reason we went was to make a difference. How much difference can a bunch of high school kids make in a big city? More than you might think. More, even, that the agencies we worked with expected, since they ran out of work for us to do! We went for other reasons of course. We went to build fellowship in our own group. We went because it’s fun. And we went because we were called by God.

Now, God doesn’t speak to us in thunder from the clouds and say, “Go to Atlanta with some teenagers and help out at the food bank.” Being called by God is never that straightforward. Discerning what God wants from us, what God wants us to do and be in the world, is the work of a lifetime. It may come in a flash of insight. It may come when you’re pondering what to do with a bunch of kids with too much energy and not enough to do. Often, it comes through listening to the needs of the world, knowing that God loves the world, and saying, “I’ll go. Send me.”

In this passage from Matthew, Jesus gives us some specific things we can do to meet the needs of the world. You, yes you, give food to the hungry, bring healing to the sick, give drink to the thirsty. The least of my people need your help. By helping them, you help me. And there’s more.

Jesus suggests that those who do all these things will be blessed, but as the list of tasks is recited there is something left out. A mission leader in the Reformed Church of America named Noel Becchetti wrote about what is missing from this passage:

Do you notice what he leaves out in his charge to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and minister to the sick? He says nothing about what results are supposed to be achieved through these actions. There's no talk about ending hunger, defeating poverty, or seeing the prisoner go straight. He says simply to Do It, because when we do, we're somehow ministering directly to Our Lord.[2]

He goes on to say:

Jesus gives us the freedom to go into our mission and service trips with the goal of just plain ministering. We don't have to achieve certain "results" to justify our investment. Frankly, we might not recognize some of God's divine results when we see them! But as we can remove our cultural blinders, discard the limitations we place on God's definition of ministry, and "leave the driving" to Him, we can begin to understand what it means to be Jesus' hands and feet to a hurting world.

When we work in the service of others, we know that the work we will be doing is not likely to bring an end to poverty. The youth group from Western Springs didn’t end hunger and homelessness in Atlanta. Even with all of the energy, commitment, and love we shared, there are still hungry people.

Susan and I helped give out boxes of food to hungry families on Wednesday over at the Lutheran church. But those families will probably go hungry again in the future. We did our best, but we didn’t fix their problems.

But that is not really the point of us doing the work. For us, the point of going out to a work project is that we get to touch people’s lives. We get to serve, to minister to and with people who are similar to - or very different from - us. We get to touch with the hands of God. We get to be touched by the hands of God. We get to see how God is working in the world, everywhere we go, and we get to leave behind a little bit of God’s love when we return.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta once talked about our role, our task in the world, as if we were electronic instruments. There are all these parts inside: wires, plastic, resistors, transistors, diodes. But they don’t do anything until the current is connected. She said:

Each one of us is merely a small instrument… Until the current passes through them there will be no light. That wire is you and me. The current is God. We have the power to let the current pass through us, use us, produce the light of the world. Or we can refuse to be used and allow darkness to spread.[3]

There is a part of the scripture passage that I don’t like. The part about the ones who have not done anything for the least of these bothers me. I don’t think threats of punishment are the best way to motivate people. When I do a good deed, it’s because I genuinely care, not because I’m afraid that if I don’t God will be angry with me. As a leader, I want to inspire your empathy, not your desire to look good in front of others. Also, I don’t believe in eternal punishment, at least not as it is described here. The God of love, forgiveness, and grace just doesn’t mesh with the God of eternal fire.

So, I choose to focus on the blessing, the gift that we have been given to be the hands of God, the chance to go out there and make a difference because we really care. As Mother Teresa said: “May we never forget that in the service to the poor we are offered a magnificent opportunity to do something beautiful for God. In fact, when we give ourselves with all our hearts to the poor, it is Christ whom we are serving in their disfigured faces. For He Himself said, ‘You did it for me.’”[4]

We can make a difference. All of us can. You don’t have to be in a youth group, or go to Atlanta. The youngest of us and the oldest of us can make a difference, right here and wherever we go.

Finally, I turn once more to the words of Mother Teresa: “Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.”[5]  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Noel Becchetti, Former President, Center for Student Missions, article online: http://inspirationsmv.com/why-short-term-fixes-are-a-waste-of-time/ retrieved 11/18/2020.

[3] Mother Teresa, No Greater Love, Becky Benenate and Joseph Durepos editors (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1997), 67-68.

[4] Teresa, 73.

[5] Saint Therese of Lisieux, in Teresa, 75.

Living Into the Beatitudes

February 2, 2020

St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Micah 6:1-8; Matthew 5:1-12

This is the beginning, according to Matthew. Jesus has been baptized, overcome temptation in the wilderness, and called his first disciples. He is already famous for teaching and healing. The crowds have gathered to hear what he has to say. And he begins with “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:3). What is he trying to tell us? That it is a good thing to be poor in spirit? What if I am rich in spirit? What if I’m doing just fine?

He goes on. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (5:4). Well, that’s nice. Widows and orphans deserve to be blessed, what with all they’ve been through. Then things get a little more strange. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (5:5). Well that just doesn’t make any sense, now, does it? The bold and the strong, they’re the ones who will inherit the earth, obviously. You can’t get ahead in this world if you’re meek. You have to take what’s yours, and if you have to take it from someone weaker than you, too bad for them.

“Blessed are the peacemakers…” (5:9). There is a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) in which people at the back of the crowd are too busy talking to hear what Jesus is saying. “I think he said, ‘Blessed are the cheese-makers.’”

In our culture, if you’re peaceful, you’re likely to be seen as unpatriotic, or un-American. If you are merciful, you’re soft on crime. If you’re meek, you’re asking for someone to push you around. In our culture, competition, power, and fear are the driving forces. Even if you think the Beatitudes are a nice idea, it is all too easy to see them as sentiment and not a practical guide for living.

But Jesus wasn’t just saying how nice it would be if people were more kind. He wasn’t saying that we should just get used to how things are, put up with oppression and injustice, and wait for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus was saying that we should live this way. Jesus was saying that we should be meek, or humble, merciful, peaceful, and that we should desire to live in right relationship with God. And Jesus wasn’t just talking to the disciples; he was taking to the crowd, and by extension, to us.

What if we looked at the Beatitudes as a whole, with one thing leading to the next? What if we took these blessings seriously, and not just metaphorically? Can we try to understand the Beatitudes as a guide for living, a set of principles which are an alternative to the way we usually view the world through the lens of our competitive consumer culture? There are three principles for living that can be found in the Beatitudes, according to Charles Cook, Professor Emeritus of the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas.[1] The principles are simplicity, hopefulness, and compassion.

If we read the words as they are, and not try to layer meaning on them, they point to a way of life in which simplicity is valued. Those who are meek are humble. If you are humble, you are open to the idea that you don’t know everything. You are open to the idea that God has not yet revealed everything, and there is yet more light and truth to be found. The humble ones know that they are only a part of the bigger picture. It takes humility to understand that we don’t own this world; it was given into our care by God. In caring for the earth, we care for that which belongs to God.

In a world filled with things that can cause us to fear, we need courage. If we hear what Jesus has to say, if we live our lives with humility, peacefulness, and mercy, we will be blessed with courage. In caring for others, we find that we have strength. If we live within our means, rather than grasping for more and more, we find that we have been blessed with abundance, with all that we need to live and more. The way of simplicity can free us from our culture of greed.

Do you have hope that things will get better? Many people no longer believe that. As the gap between rich and poor grows wider, as the divide between those on the left and right grows deeper, hope for the future seems to be getting lost, and is replaced by cynicism. The mantra of cynicism is “That’s just the way it is, get over it.” That way of thinking takes these words of Jesus, “For you always have the poor with you” (26:11), and turns them into a pronouncement rather than a call to always recognize and care for those among us who are poor.

Who are the poor in spirit? In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (6:20). When you have next to nothing, faith in God can be the most important thing in your life. But poor in spirit can also mean those whose spirits are broken. If you lived in Roman occupied Galilee in the first century, your spirit as a nation had been broken. You were, as a people, oppressed, downtrodden, and brokenhearted. Yet, you are still God’s chosen people. Remember that, and it can give you hope. Jesus echoed the promise of Isaiah 61: God sent him “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted (61:1).

Hopefulness is the second principle of living into the Beatitudes. Christ offers hope to the hopeless. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (5:6). The day will come when right will win out over wrong. When we live in hopefulness, we know that mercy, humility, peace, and love will one day be the norm rather than the exception. When we face the world with hope, we know that it is darkest just before the dawn, and that the dawn will come. Because we live in Christ, we know that even though the road ahead leads to the crucifixion, it will also lead to the resurrection.

Hopefulness is what empowers us to believe that God’s kingdom is coming, and righteousness will claim the victory. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:10). These words inspire the kind of hope that moved the Pilgrims to set out for a new world, even though some would not live to see it. This hope caused the revolutionaries to set a course for independence, even though it would cost the colonies dearly in blood and treasure. This spirit of hopefulness allowed the abolitionists to keep fighting to end slavery against those who would use the same bible to keep the Africans in bondage. Hopefulness and faith in the kingdom of heaven empowered women to demand the right to vote, the descendants of slaves to demand an end to discrimination, and gay and lesbian people to demand the right to marry the ones they love.

The most powerful principle of living into the Beatitudes, the key to walking in the steps of Jesus, is compassion. Compassion is much more than pity. To pity another means that you feel sorry for them. Compassion is more than sympathy. To be sympathetic means that you share the feelings of another. To have compassion means more. It means that what hurts you hurts me. Compassion means that when you mourn, I mourn with you, and thus you may be comforted. We are in this together. You share my humanity. You are part of my family.

Compassion is the principle that led Jesus to break so many of the Laws of Moses. Compassion led Jesus to heal the man with the withered hand on the sabbath (12:10). Compassion led Jesus to touch the leper and heal him (8:2-3). Compassion led Jesus to perform miracles, such as feeding the five-thousand (14:14-21). Compassion gives us a hunger for justice and a thirst for righteousness. With compassion we can be merciful, we can seek peace, we can see the other as an extension of ourselves. With compassion we can love our neighbor as ourselves.

Compassion is the principle that is motivated by love. It was love that gave us Jesus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). It was love that carried Jesus to the cross. It is compassion and love that can give us the power to endure persecution for the sake of Christ. “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” (5:11-12).

When we live into the Beatitudes, when we allow simplicity, hopefulness, and compassion to guide our lives, we will be able to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). When we live in love, we know that the kingdom of heaven is near.  Amen.

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[1] Charles James Cook, "Pastoral Perspective on Matthew 5:1-12" in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, Volume 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 308-312. Cook is Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Theology, Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas.