Revelation 7.9-17; Matthew 5.1-12
Jesus today extends his blessing on a variety of people in a variety of life’s situations. We know this gospel passage as the Beatitudes. The title comes from the Latin word meaning ‘blessed.’ These are some of Jesus’ most memorable words. In times of sorrow and suffering, mourners find strength and hope in Jesus; for those who feel unseen or unheard, Jesus pledges that God has not forgotten them; for anyone trying to be a person of peace when retaliation in word and deed has the upper hand, Jesus promises that peacemakers are where God is found.
But because the Beatitudes are so familiar, we often miss their power, hear the words but not really listen. And now in the final stretch of the campaign season, where slogans and sound bites dominate, Jesus’ own short saying are at risk of being drowned out by the competition. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, better for North Dakota. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, right for Minnesota. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you, not bluer or redder but better and truer. With so many words around us, the still, small voice of the Beatitudes gets muted under endless slogans. Yet the Beatitudes remain the good news of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus’ beatitudes are blessings of grace, help, and hope. And as you start to explore them and consider the people that Jesus blesses, as you listen more deeply than you would a soundbite or slogan, questions start to emerge. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Do the meek really inherit the earth? That seems unlikely, given the evidence. But in the Beatitudes, Jesus is doing more than observing the world as it is or stating hard facts. He is telling us how God is transforming the world and our lives.
So when you hear Jesus say, “Blessed,” have the translator of your heart and mind expand that one word to more than a mere warm feeling. Today, Jesus, the Son of God, is delivering something to people, actively giving a share of his life to people who need it most. Not just ‘blessed,’ but ‘blessings on.’ To the poor in spirit, the merciful, the reviled Jesus is saying, ‘I’m on your side. The kingdom of heaven at hand in me is given especially for you.’
Among them are the poor in spirit. These are people who fail to measure up in the world’s eyes, are rarely admired, and often have the same low assessment of themselves. Yet to anyone who has hit bottom—spiritually, emotionally, or physically—Jesus says, ‘I am delivering the life of God to them.’
Others are poor in joy, broken-hearted. About them Jesus says, ‘I am on their side.’ This work of God for people who need comfort and strength begins in the Old Testament, including the prophet Isaiah. “God has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted…to comfort all who mourn.” Blessings on them. I am delivering the life of God to them.
In this crowd are the poor in power. ‘Blessings on the meek.’ Maybe one of the great needs in our fragile, threatened, and bullying time is to have our eyes opened to the meek, to people who don’t seek status or control to establish their worth but are willing to listen and yield, to show patience, and to trust that God is the source of their dignity and worth. Blessings on them. I am delivering my life through them. The Beatitudes open with Jesus on a mountain, but he is speaking to people in the valleys and shadows of life. His beatitudes are wide as the world’s need, and as deep as God’s love.
Today the church celebrates All Saints Day. The saints are the great company of God’s people in every age and generation, the gathering around God’s throne described in this morning’s reading from Revelation, “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.” All Saints Day celebrates our link with them and with the people of God in every time and place, followers of Jesus across all generations: “Knit together in one communion and fellowship” in Christ is how the opening collect puts it.
Among them are the people you get to look at every Sunday morning in the east window, this great gathering around God’s throne: Mary and Martha, Peter and Paul, the rest of the apostles and even more saints. And like stained-glass windows that come alive when light shines through them, our remembrance of the saints gives God thanks and praise for the light of Christ seen in and through them. The saints have shown extraordinary love for Christ, in various ways and often through great challenges. Among there are the poor in spirit, the meek, and the peacemakers. In and through their lives, they bear witness to the generous love of God that sustains us all.
Now it is true that when we read the stories of the saints, their holiness often feels impossibly out of reach. Their faith, their selflessness, and their courage seem extraordinary, beyond our ordinary lives. Yet Fr Joseph Krupp says that is because we are hearing about an entire lifetime summarized in a page or paragraph. But that summary obscures the fact that saints aren’t made in a day, much less a page or paragraph. Saints are made in the day to day, the daily grind over the course of a lifetime and in the little decisions to do what is right: to pray, to grow, to serve, to sacrifice. And more often than not, holiness in the daily grind doesn’t always feel glorious when it’s happening. Often, it’s simply deciding to do what is right no matter the cost, quiet little acts when you swallow your pride, sacrifice what you want, and do it both for the love of others and for the sake of Jesus. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the broken-hearted, the hungry for justice people.
In ordinary, below-the-radar people who may not attract the world’s attention, Jesus is at work with blessings on them. In ordinary, below-the-radar people such as us, Jesus is at work with blessings on us. The names we remember today in our prayers—family, friends, loved ones who have died and are in the nearer presence of God—bear witness to this. We may never see them in a stained-glass window, yet through them, the light of Christ has shone in various ways and often through great challenges. People we know have been hints and glimpses of the kingdom of heaven. The names are more than a line in a book but people through whom the light of Christ has shone.
Isn’t that what Jesus promises us all? “You are the light of the world…Let your light shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” The saints are witnesses to this. Some are known for extraordinary courage; others for ordinary faithfulness. Some changed the course of history; others quietly cared for families, served their neighbors, and prayed through difficult years. Sainthood is not made in a single day; it is made in the day-to-day. And as we give thanks to God for the life of Jesus seen in and through the saints, we pray that the same Spirit who filled them will work in us, holiness through our daily lives.
Jesus’ beatitudes are blessings of grace, help, and hope for us. These blessings are like the overture to the symphony of Jesus’ life, sounding themes that will be played out over and over throughout his ministry. And as we listen closely to them, more deeply than we would a soundbite or slogan, we hear how they turn our expectations upside down. Blessing is found in humility, mercy, peacemaking, and persistent faithfulness. Unexpected? You can answer that for yourself.
Yet when people wonder how anyone could possibly believe this, the answer is simply that we are followers of Jesus. And with him at the center of our lives, with us turned toward him like the saints in the stained-glass window before you, you will find you are being transformed by Jesus, by his grace and love, so that you can be world-transforming people—the light of Christ shining through you in your life. In other words, the saints you get to look at each Sunday are not just on the window before you, they are sitting beside you. “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.”
Today Jesus gives blessings on people who know their need for God, blessings on people who reach out in grateful thanksgiving for the one who has reached down to them, and blessing on people who need strength each day to continue in faith.
Write a comment: