Sermon for
February 15, 2004
6th Sunday after the Epiphany
God Makes It So
Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1; Luke 6:17-26
Have you
ever felt blessed? You know how that feels in our day and in our
culture. What does it mean to be blessed in our day? To be blessed is to
be fortunate, to have everything going your way, to avoid hardship and
difficulty, to get through unscathed. That’s what we mean today by being
blessed, isn’t it?
Now there
are places in your life, I am sure, where you feel blessed just like
this--your family, your life circumstances, your good health, or your
peace of mind. And you are thankful for that because, for whatever
reason, you just feel blessed.
That’s how
we think of blessing in our day, isn’t it?
If a person is well-off financially, she is blessed;
If a student never has to study and still gets wonderful grades,
he is blessed;
If a person lives to be 100 years old and is in good health
still, she is blessed;
If someone can go through his whole life shielded from personal human tragedy, he is blessed.
That is how we and our culture understand blessing in our day. The
well-off, the financially secure, perhaps the lucky are considered the
blessed of the culture. And if we are so unfortunate at to be struggling
in life or suffering from illness or grieving over the loss of a loved one
or just worried sick over our children or deeply pained by the injustice
in the world we don’t feel blessed. That’s not even a word that comes to
our mind in the midst of our very real and difficult lives because our
culture defines blessedness for us—it means success, wealth,
health, and good fortune.
I have
good news for you today, brothers and sisters, and it is spoken by Jesus
Himself today in the 6th chapter of the Gospel of Luke. This
is Luke’s version of what we have come to know as the “Beatitudes.” Hear
now the Word of God:
Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are
you who
are poor, for yours is the
kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are
hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep
now, for
you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when
they
exclude you, revile you, and defame you on the account of the
Son of
Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your
reward is
great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the
prophets.
Jesus turns the values of the
culture upside down. The culture in his day stood for the some things as
the culture in our day. To be blessed meant to be insulated from the
harsh realities of life. Gathered in that crown on the hillside that day
were people who were poor, and in mourning, and who longed for God’s reign
to transform the earth. They discovered in Jesus one who knew them,
who heard their cries, and who told them that God hears
them, too.
Jesus says a very radical
thing:
It is not the financially well-off who are blessed, or those who
have
some security in life based on their financial standing
but the poor, those who struggle to make ends meet,
those who
worry where the next meal will come from or perhaps how
in the
world they’ll ever afford a college education for their
children.
Those who yearn for the reality of the provision of God
for all people
when everyone has enough. They are blessed—theirs is
the kingdom
of God.
It is not those who have never had death to visit their family
but those who mourn—
those who are struck deeply by the loss of loved ones
and who long
with the people of God for a time when death shall be no
more and
tears and sorrow are banished forever. They are
blessed.
It is not the smart or the wise or the clever who, for whatever
reason, have
an easier time than most with school or job or life. No,
these are not
the blessed ones
But those who have to struggle and work hard for every
grade and
every position and every opportunity—
those who know that they ultimately depend upon God for
every
single thing in life. They are blessed.
Do you believe that? I do, sometimes. Let me tell you
about one of those times I believed it.
Almost exactly 8 years ago my mother, Lucy, passed away,
finally succumbing to the breast cancer which had been held a bay for
awhile by two rounds of chemotherapy that left her awfully weak. The last
four months of her life she resided in a nursing home being fed through a
tube and unable to communicate due to a massive stroke that came upon her
as she underwent hip replacement surgery following a fall. Now my mother
never really asked for anything for herself—she was always thinking of
another first or making sure your needs were met before her own. Mothers
are usually like that, aren’t they? She would always be thinking of the
next birthday or Christmas for all of us, buying gifts and stocking for
each of us well in advance. A clear example of all of this is the
treasure hunt my Dad went on following her stroke. You see, my mother had
already purchased all the Christmas presents well before Christmas that
year as usual and had hid them here and there and everywhere. But after
her stroke she just could not communicate. She knew who we were but her
ability to speak had been taken from her. So Dad found himself from time
to time finding presents here, there, and everywhere in their Florida home
right up until Christmas. And he did the best he could figuring our whose
gifts they were. We opened those Christmas presents at the nursing home
lounge on Christmas Day 1995—and by my mother’s gestures and warm
acceptance of our thanks, we think Dad got it right. Salina was just
saying the other day how she always looked forward to that special dress
the Gramma always had picked out for her long before the day it was to be
open.
One day I was visiting my mother in the hospital as she was
recovering from a low blood count caused by the chemotherapy. As I sat
there she asked something of me. Now Ma never asked for anything for
herself and I was desperate to do anything I could for her in that moment
so I sat up to listen and respond. She asked, “Would you hold my hand?”
Friends, as I held her hand that day in response to her need, would you
understand me if I told you today that we both, in that moment,
experienced the blessing of God. No one can ever convince me even given
her circumstances that she was not blessed. She was blessed because she
needed the presence and comfort of God and God did not deny that to either
of us that day. That’s one of those times I believed it.
So it is with you, your loved ones, and all who suffer. So
it is with the poor, those who mourn, and those who are deeply hurt by the
very real and ever-present struggles of life. You see, if we really
accept the culture’s definition of blessedness then we must believe that
God has nothing whatsoever to do with those who suffer or, worse, we must
assume that their hardship is a result of some sin that they have
committed and they are simply receiving exactly what they deserve—a
natural consequence of their wrongdoing. That kind of thinking was
clearly prevalent among those in the crowd that day—that is what they had
learned from their own religious traditions of the time. And it is not
that far from us either. How often have we felt deep down that if we had
just lived a little better, life would not be treating us so badly? With
every loss we experience there is that reaction of guilt in us, a natural
reaction to the shock of loss, to be sure, but usually one with little
basis in fact. God just does not treat us that way.
Jesus tells those gathered on the hillside that day and
says to you clearly and lovingly, “You are blessed in the midst of your
loss, pain, suffering, and injustice for indeed these realities shall
never have the last word in your life.”
For you see, Jesus not only heard the cries of the poor,
the mourning, and the suffering, he took it on himself.
He not only lived to the fullest our very human struggle of day-to-day
living, he blessed it.
He took upon himself all our pain and our grief and all
injustice and it all died with him, right there, on the cross. Its power
is no more. It is in the power of the resurrection that we can
boldly proclaim the blessing of God upon the poor, the mourning, and the
suffering because God makes it so through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Any of you who know me at all know that I am a long-time
Star Trek fan. If you are familiar at all with the television and motion
picture series you will remember Captain John Luke Picard, commander of
the Starship Enterprise in the Next Generation tv series. When he makes
up his mind and declares, “Make it so” it happens almost before his order
is carried out.
Some of you may remember the late Bishop Kenneth Goodson,
Bishop of Virginia 1972-1980. He ordained Cheryl and me as we knelt
together before the annual conference in 1979. He preached a series of
Lenten Services for my second congregation and he and Martha were guests
in our home those four nights. Our son Chris was 2 years old then. Each
evening before we would retire for the night we would gather in the living
room for prayer. And I tell you this—the blessing of God remains with us
still as it was invoked by the prayer of Bishop Goodson those long years
ago—a prayer for us, for Chris, for our home, for the church, and for our
ministry. When he said “Amen” you really felt the meaning of the
word: “So be it.”
I have a similar experience here in this sanctuary.
Something of the blessing of God comes upon me as I gaze out over the
congregation before the beginning of the service and sense you in prayer
for me. Something of the blessing of God comes over me as my clergy
colleagues assist in the leadership of the service as I prepare to preach.
God says you are blessed right where you are right now.
And people who are blessed can participate in the great enterprise of the
fulfillment of the reign of God in all creation. These beatitudes are not
a list of behaviors we should emulate nor are they a list of attitudes we
should adopt. They are the pronouncement of the blessing of God upon
those who suffer in the midst of the difficulties of everyday life. They
are the pronouncement of the blessing of God upon you right where you are,
right in the midst of the harshness and struggle of your life—right where
you are most vulnerable just now.
Because we are blessed right in the muck and the mire of
our lives, we are empowered to join together in the vast community of
those blessed ones who work for life, health, peace, and justice, reaching
out in the name of Christ. That’s the mission of the church. God makes
it so. So be it.
