Tag Archives: Beatitudes

To Occupy or Be Occupied? A Sermon for the Feast of All Saints, Matthew 5:1-12

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The collect and readings for The Feast of All Saints may be found here. The following sermon is based on the beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-12.

 

The Occupy Movement has gotten a lot of attention over the last couple of months. Occupy Wall Street. Occupy London. Occupy Sydney. Occupy Oakland, Portland, Dallas, San Antonio. The list goes on and on.

The movement points to economic inequality, corporate greed and wrongdoing, the need for jobs. The movement rightly identifies places of injustice, places where change is needed. I share their concerns. They are right to speak out. We need to hear and pay attention. I wonder, though, whether much will change or can change. The movement to occupy is not really new. It has been the way of humanity from the beginning. Adam and Eve wanted to occupy the garden. Egypt wanted to occupy Israel. Israel wanted to occupy the promised land. Rome wanted to occupy the Jews. The Pharisees and Herodians wanted to occupy Jesus.

The desire to occupy has never ended. It lay at the heart of the Arab Spring and the violence and abuse to which it was responding. It is often an unspoken reason for our wars. It is one thing that is held in common by the conservatives and liberals of the Episcopal Church. It is what keeps the two party system of Democrats and Republicans campaigning and debating. The struggle to occupy is not just limited to national or global issues. It is also personal and local. Each one of us could probably describe the ways in which we have tried to occupy situations, places, even people. It’s in our marriages, our business disputes, our local communities and organizations. We learn to occupy at a young age. Watch two kids arguing over a toy and you will see the struggle to occupy. Wherever you find conflict, violence, or brokenness you are also likely to find the struggle to occupy.

Everyone wants to occupy but not many want to be occupied. Before one can be trusted to occupy, however, one must first be occupied. That is, perhaps, what sets apart the saints; why their lives are worth studying, their words worth reading, their example worth emulating. Think of Mother Theresa in the streets of Calcutta. Remember the Episcopal seminarian, Jonathan Daniels, dying in the place of a young black girl during the civil rights movement. Recall the Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero assassinated for his work and words in El Salvador. Go read about Archbishop Desmond Tutu working for reconciliation in South Africa. Each one was willing to be occupied by a life other than their own and values greater than the ones of their own time and place. That’s the way of saints and the way of discipleship.

That’s why I am not convinced the Occupy Movement will be able to change much. Both sides are occupying from the same set of values: power, control, security, opportunity, wealth. They are trying to occupy the same space. The rich have taken from the poor so now the poor will take back from the rich. The score may change but the game goes on and on. We cannot overcome evil by fighting it head on, on it’s own terms, but by transcending it.

Until we move to a different place, a different perspective, a different way of being we will continue to do the same thing over and over. Despite our best intentions we’ll continue to get the same results we always have. This is true in our families, our schools, our churches, our county, our world. The only thing that will change is who occupies.

Reallocation is not enough. Christ did not come to simply redistribute resources but to demonstrate, teach, and call us to a new way of being. We do not need another new way of doing the same old thing. We need to learn how to be different. The new way does not begin in an economic or political system, but in the human heart. That is, I think, why St. Antony moved to the desert, St. Francis renounced his father’s wealth, and St. Julian of Norwich locked herself in a life of prayer. They wanted a new way. Throughout the ages the saints have echoed Christ’s call to a new level of being and living.

Einstein is attributed with saying, “No problem can solved by the same level of consciousness that created it.” Remember the kids and the toy? Until they can rise to a consciousness of sharing, the bickering back and forth will continue. Before Einstein ever said his words, however, Jesus understood, lived, and demonstrated them. That’s why he took the disciples “up the mountain,” the place that reaches toward heaven. It is the invitation to life in the kingdom.

Going up the mountain is more about an interior movement than a geographical one. Jesus was raising the disciples’ perspective, giving them a different view, offering a larger vision. He took them to a new level of being. There he taught them to be occupied by poverty in spirit, mourning, meekness, hunger and thirst for righteousness, mercy, purity in heart, peace making, and the willingness to be persecuted for the righteousness of Jesus himself. That’s a hard way of being. It is about surrender rather than control, vulnerability rather than risk, searching rather than satisfaction. It is the way of Christ. Jesus knows and has shown us that this new way of being heals the human heart, transforms lives, and reveals the blessing of God.

The beatitudes are not a to do list, eight helpful hints for happy living, or utopian ideals. They are Jesus’ core values. They define Jesus’ life and ministry. They are at the heart of his teaching, his healing, his life and death. Jesus is not telling us what to do but how to be.

The world does not need smarter, harder working, more beautiful, busier, or more successful people. The world needs “beatitudinal” people, occupied people, who speak, act, pray, and relate from the level of kingdom consciousness. That is who the saints of every age are. It is who we are to become. The saints are not God’s little overachievers. They are ordinary people who allowed themselves to be occupied by the life of Christ and his values.

If the Feast of All Saints is about remembering, honoring, and learning from the saints then it is also about examining our own lives. Where and how do the beatitudes shape our lives? How do our lives manifest the beatitudes? In every relationship, place, and circumstance we must answer this question: Do we occupy or do we allow ourselves to be occupied? Power and headlines may come by occupying but life and blessings come by being occupied.

Flavoring the World, Dispersing Darkness – A Sermon on Matthew 5:13-20, Epiphany 5A

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The collect and readings for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany may be found here. The appointed gospel is Matthew 5:13-20.

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Egyptian Christians protect Egyptian Muslims during their prayers. Photo source: Nevine Zaki, http://on.msnbc.com/greAeq

What are you doing with your life? It is a question I think we all ask ourselves at various points in our life. It is the question behind children’s dreams and stories about what they will do and be when they get big. Young people wrestle with this question as they plan their future, choose schools, pick careers, make a new home for themselves. Those of us who are older sometimes look back on the past and wonder what we have done with our life. The difficulties, challenges, and losses of life often bring us face to face with this question. It is really a question about meaning, significance, purpose. In that question God is drawing us to himself. It is a question with which we will always struggle until we begin to seek meaning, significance, and purpose on God’s terms and for the love of others.

It is the question behind today’s gospel. Jesus is continuing the Sermon on the Mount. He is speaking to those he has just declared to be blessed; the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. To live the beatitudes is our way forward in this life and it is also our blessing.

You blessed ones, Jesus says, are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Our blessedness, however, is not for ourselves alone. It is a gift given us to be held and used for the life of the world. The Christian life is not lived in isolation from or without regard to others. If we do not flavor this world with Christ we are like salt that has lost its saltiness. If we do not illuminate darkness with Christ’s presence we are like light hidden under a basket. We are useless. We are not living as the people Christ knows us to be and we have rejected our blessedness.

Some of us will hear Jesus’ words and think that we need to become something we are not or that we need to get something we do not yet have. That is not, however, what Jesus says. He does not say we should become salt. He says we already are salt. He does not say we are to become light. He says we already are light. We already are what we need to be. We already have all that we need. Now we must go live the life of ones who have been blessed, the life of salt and light.

This is really the call to make our inner life and our outer life congruent. Our actions and our beliefs must reflect and reveal each other. Our faith in Jesus, our life of prayer, our blessedness must be made visible by how we live, speak, and act. They must become the foundation for our relationships with all people; family, friends, strangers, and enemies. It is one thing to believe in Christ. It is another to live a public life that demonstrates that belief.

We can say our prayers and sing our praises to God but if they do not govern and guide our actions in this world they are only self serving words that fall deaf on God’s ears. Perhaps we should spend less time speaking the truth about God and more time doing the truth of God. What is that truth? How do we do that truth?

The prophet Isaiah is clear and concrete about how we do God’s truth. We loose the bonds of injustice, we undo the thongs of the yoke, we let the oppressed go free. It means we share our bread with the hungry, we bring the homeless poor into our house, and we do not hide ourselves from each other. It means we don’t point at another in condemnation and we don’t speak evil of another. We satisfy the needs of the afflicted. In short, doing God’s truth means doing what is right, what is Godly. We live with and care for each other in such a way that our blessedness makes a difference in the lives of others.

When this is how we live our light breaks forth like the dawning of a new day and the darkness is dispersed. That light is the presence and love of Christ. As we live for others we discover that our soul is healed, our needs are satisfied, our life is rebuilt, and God is ever present saying, “Here I am.”

The meaning, significance, and purpose of our life are found in the life and well being of another. That is what both Christian and Muslim protesters in Egypt have discovered. This past Friday I saw a picture of young Egyptian Christian men standing side by side, holding hands, and forming a human chain. It was a chain of protection. Behind that chain were Egyptian Muslims prostrating themselves and saying their prayers. It is a picture of salt and light.

The meaning, significance, and purpose of our life are found in the life and well being of another. That is what the many volunteers at the Uvalde Food Pantry have experienced as they collect, pack, and give food to the hungry poor of this town. They are not, however, just distributing food. They are distributing salt and light.

The meaning, significance, and purpose of our life are found in the life and well being of another. Every time we offer forgiveness, seek reconciliation, or act with compassion we sprinkle salt. Every time we speak a word of hope, work for justice, or do for another what we would have them do of us our light pushes back the darkness.

Much of our world is dark and tasteless. Too many people live a bland existence amongst the shadows. The world and its people need flavor. They need light. They need you and me to make a difference. How are we being salt, flavoring the life of another? Where is our light dispersing darkness?

The Way Forward – A Sermon on the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-12

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The collect and readings for today, The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, maybe found here. The appointed gospel is Matthew 5:1-12.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.4“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. 8“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Throughout our world, the Church, and our homes a common question is being asked. People want to know if the waters of life are navigable and, if so, how. People are looking for a way to deal with the challenges, the uncertainties, and the difficulties of life. We want some assurance that the direction of our life will offer meaning and connect us to something larger than our individual stories. So how do we move forward? What are we to teach and tell our children and grandchildren? Those are the age old questions, asked in every generation.

Those questions are, I believe, what President Obama was speaking to in his state of the union address when we kept referring to “winning the future.” We must, he says, out innovate, out educate, and out build the rest of the world. The Republicans and the Tea Party Movement were answering the same questions when they offered their responses that we must repeal Obamacare, end spending, and balance the budget. You can watch those questions being answered on the news as Egyptian protesters and the government confront each other struggling with different ideas and directions of how life should move forward. I recently saw those questions in the tears of a man who, for the first time, accepted financial help as he tries to chart a way through unemployment.

More often than not our attempts to navigate life do not make the news. Regardless of whether they are personal struggles or family matters, however, they are just as real and of no less concern to God. Each of us could tell stories about the questions we face, the challenges we confront, and the difficulties we must overcome. Sometimes we seem to succeed and other times we don’t.

Most of us have been taught to navigate the waters of life through power, strength, accomplishment, and acquisition. We work to be rich so we can have what we want. We seek power so we can take what we want. We argue to be right so we can have our way. We compete to win so we’ll be respected and admired. We want to be beautiful so we’ll be liked and desired. Any of that sound familiar? Ever tried those ways of getting through life?

Those attitudes fill headline news, magazine articles, tabloid pictures, television, and our own lives. They find their origin in the idea that we are to be self-made men and women, that we are to build up ourselves and make a life. After all we must look out for number one because if we don’t no one will. At least that’s what many of us have been told. For too long that has been the myth with which we have lived. Jesus’ life and teaching fly in the face of that myth. Jesus offers a different way of navigating life.

The waters of life, he says, are navigable. But it’s not through power, strength, accomplishment, or acquisition. The way forward is not the way we’ve always done it. It is not enough for us, as believers and followers of Jesus, to simply make over a little piece of our world or life. It is not enough to just reform a political or economic system. Navigating life is not about overcoming circumstances or other people. It is about overcoming ourselves.

If you want to know what overcoming yourself looks like then look at the beatitudes.

  • Blessed are the poor in spirit.
  • Blessed are those who mourn.
  • Blessed are the meek.
  • Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
  • Blessed are the merciful.
  • Blessed are the pure in heart.
  • Blessed are the peacemakers.
  • Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.

That is how we navigate life. That is how meet the challenges, the uncertainties, and the difficulties of life. That is what we are to teach our children and grandchildren. A lifetime of living the beatitudes day after day, year after year, is how we overcome ourselves.

The beatitudes are not simply Jesus’ helpful hints for happy living. They are not the church’s version of “Hints from Heloise.” They are descriptive of God’s mind and Jesus’ heart. They are kingdom values and reveal what kingdom life is like. They shape and form our lives and longings to be like God’s life and longings. That’s a pretty different approach. Most of the time we twist and distort God’s life and longings to fit ours. That’s why the beatitudes are so radical and often seem so out of reach.

As we hear Jesus’ words and consider the beatitudes it’s easy to look at ourselves and say, “That is not me, that is not the world, that is not even the church.” You are right, it’s not. We tend to look at what we are not. God, however, focuses on what we can become, who we are called to be.

The temptation is to think that the beatitudes are rules or conditions for being blessed or receiving our heavenly reward. They are not that at all. They are not about building up, accomplishing, or acquiring. They are about letting go, surrendering, living with a vulnerable and  open heart. That does not mean we run away, back down, or isolate ourselves from the realities of our life and world. It means we engage them in a different way, Jesus’ way. The beatitudes teach us to trust God more than the external circumstances of our lives. They invite dependence on God rather than self-reliance.

In today’s world that sounds a lot like weakness and foolishness. That’s what it sounds like in every age. But to those who are being saved it is the power of God. God chose what is foolish to shame the wise and what is weak to shame the strong. The beatitudes are nothing less than the way of the cross. The fullest expression of a “beatitudinal life” is seen in Jesus’ crucifixion. If we live the beatitudes they will take us to the cross.

In the trauma and setbacks of life we discover that we cannot do life by ourselves. As we admit our need of God we find purity of heart. The arrogance of self-sufficiency gives way to meekness. We realize that all that we are and have is from God and we begin to know ourselves as poor in spirit. Our own misfortunes awaken and connect us to the pain of the world for which we cannot help but mourn. We think less about ourselves and become merciful to others. We have no where else to go and so we turn our gaze back to God. The longer we gaze at God the more we hunger and thirst for righteousness, for God’s life, and we become peacemakers reconciling ourselves to God and our neighbor. This is the life for which Christ’s disciples are willing to be persecuted, a life of righteousness, the life for which Christ died and rose again.

The beatitudes are not so much about what we do, our actions, but how we do, our being. They are less about actions and more about relationships. To live the beatitudes is to live a life of reckless, exuberant, self-abandonment to God and our neighbor. That’s called love. The only reason we can do that is because we know and trust ourselves to have already been blessed by God. We live the beatitudes as a response to God blessing us. That is the way of Christ. That is not only the way forward through this life, it is the way to life. If we are to follow Christ it must become our way.

Choosing Our Blessings And Our Woes: An All Saints’ Day Sermon on Luke 6:20-31

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The Feast of All Saints is on November 1. The Book of Common Prayer, however, permits it to be celebrated on the Sunday following November 1. The collect and readings for the day may be found here. The appointed gospel is Luke 6:20-31.

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 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. “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.

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

 

 

If you are poor, hungry now, or weeping now; if you are hated, excluded, and slandered things are going to get better. You will be blessed. But if you are rich, full, and laughing; if you are respected and others speak well of you then look out. Woe to you. You are going to lose it all and get the opposite of what you have.

It sounds as if it is either one or the other, blessings or woes. So what is it for you? Which list better describes your life. Is it blessings or woes? That seems like the obvious question. We want to know our fate so pretty soon we begin counting how many times we wept this week and how many times we laughed. We wonder what income level divides the rich from the poor and how many meals and calories separate those who are hungry from those who are full. Where and what is the line between blessings and woes? On which side do we fall?

Tears, laughter, income, and calories do not draw the line between blessings and woes. You and I draw that line. We draw that line every day of our lives. The difference between those who receive blessings and those who receive woes is not about what or how much you have. The difference is an openness and willingness to live for something beyond this world as it is right now.

Woes are promised to us who are comfortable, satisfied, and secure not because we are rich, full, and happy but because we are self-satisfied. Our self-satisfaction almost always attaches us to things as they are and then we do all we can to keep it that way. Our life becomes self-contained. There is no openness and receptivity to a new life or a new world. We have no need to look beyond ourselves. Woe to us who are convinced that we have no needs beyond this world. Woe to us who are convinced we have no need to change.

Blessings are promised to us who are empty, weak, and grieving not because there is any glory in poverty or misery but because we are open, receptive, and looking for a new world. We have nowhere else to turn so we look for something other than the values of this world to rule our lives, provide meaning, and establish identity. We need something different from things as they are. We may live in this world but we look toward and hope for another world.

Jesus is not describing a system of rewards and punishments. Jesus is not rewarding some with blessings and punishing others with woes. He is describing two ways of living and their consequences. We either live for this world or we live beyond this world. It is a choice we make everyday of our lives. We choose our blessings and our woes. Truthfully, we are not one or the other, a people of blessings or a people of woes.  We are both at the same time.

We could all name a time when the circumstances of life left us so empty and desolate, spiritually and/or materially, that we have to look in a new direction. We had to open ourselves to a new way of being. We were in that moment receptive to God’s blessings and presence. Likewise, there have probably been times when success, accomplishments, or reputation, again either spiritual and/or material, left us feeling pretty rich and full of ourselves. Woe to us who attach ourselves to what is temporal, passing, and changing.

The saints we remember and honor today are people of blessings and woes. They faced the very same choices we do. They are special, set apart, and different from others but not because they are God’s little overachievers, because they prayed all the time, had perfect doctrine, were always good and did what was right. They are holy ones, blessed, not because of what they did or had but because of who they needed, who they allowed to rule their lives, who they lived for, and sometimes who they died for – Jesus the Christ. Their blessing arose from their need. Poverty, hunger, mourning, exclusion and defamation, sometimes spiritual, sometimes material, freed them to live expectantly for the Kingdom of God.

If we, like the saints, can truly listen to the deep need within us, not be too quick to fill it up by our own doing, it will guide us into holy living. It detaches us from this world and opens us to an alternative reality, enabling us to live lives that reverse the values of this culture: loving our enemies; doing good to those who hate us; blessing those who curse us; praying for those who abuse us; turning the other cheek; withholding nothing as our own; and giving to those in need without judgment or ridicule. We do to others as we would have them to do to us.

So what is it for you, blessings or woes?