The Fourth Blessing

When I was in college, my favorite time was Sunday evenings. This is when the campus would come together for a service called Koinia, when we would sing and pray and read scripture together. We had chapel services throughout the week when we would hear sermons - this was a different worship space, a time to simply pour our hearts out to God. And it was in this particular setting that I was introduced to worship songs, like the one that kept coming to mind this week - Hungry. “Hungry, I come to you, For I know You satisfy I am empty but I know

Your love does not run dry. So I wait for you. So I wait for you.”

Jesus is speaking of this type of hunger in today’s portion of the Beatitudes. The type of hunger that isn’t necessarily physical, but a deep longing after God. But Jesus is also speaking to people who knew what it was like to be physically hungry - because middle class folks in this area of the Middle East, knew what it was like to be one meal away from starvation in some cases. Think of the woman who gave her last few coins to the temple, or the prophet Elisha who told the woman who had just a small portion of oil left to trust in faith to pour it in order to sell it to protect her sons from being sold into slavery.

Some folks in America know that type of hunger. The deep hunger and thirst that can be felt in one’s bones. Not knowing where or when your next meal would come. But there are also folks on the other side, folks who give into cravings more than hunger. All too often we use hunger to indicate not a deep need, but instead to indicate that we want more - that we have not yet had our fill. 

Water was the same thing. We are blessed in most cases to turn our our facets and to have water come out. It is plentiful. We don’t have to put much effort in being able to drink it. But it wasn’t that way back in the time of Christ. People had to work for water - traveling to wells, often several times a day, to draw the communal water. There are lots of countries around the world where this is still true - water, the source of life, took a lot of effort to get. It was considered precious.

Yet, here is Jesus saying that blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are those who yearn for righteousness, like those who yearn for food or water in times of intense need. Jesus is essentially asking what are you hungry for? Are you hungry for God?

Righteousness is such a particular thing that Jesus is speaking about - the word he uses literally means living God’s way. Do we hunger to live a life for God? 

The truth is that the way we think and act and live overflow from who we are deep within. When we are in right relationship with God, it overflows, church.

Some of you know that I am an avid tea drinker. I like just about all of it. Loose leaf. Tea bags. My friend even found me something for Christmas this year called tea drops - which is essentially pressed tea. When I am truly in a tea drinking mood, not just rushing to have a cup before moving on to the next thing, I will set out my tea cup and saucer. Do you remember those? The little cups that sit under the fragile cups. What are they for? A varsity of things - to set your tea spoon or biscuit on, but also to catch any of the water that may over flow from the tea cup. When the cup is so full, it spills over onto the saucer. 

Friends, that is what righteousness like. When we are deeply connected to the heart of God, hungry and thirsting after God’s way, then it is going to overflow out of us and splash on to other people. 

Another image of righteousness can be found in Psalm 1. Psalm 1 is one of my favorite Psalms and it has this image of a tree planted by a stream of water, drawing life from it. It presents life and the choices in it as something relatively simple, you are either righteous or wicked. Good or bad. Accepting wisdom or rejecting it. But life is rarely that simple and choices are not always clear.

When I read this Psalm the image that captures my imagination is the tree planted by streams of water, yielding fruit in due time. Life is full of hard choices, but when it comes time to make those choices what are you rooted in? Where are you drawing your life source from? Who is advising you? I once surprised a group of college students I was mentoring, telling them for me rootedness was not so much about memorizing scripture, but having a well worn Bible. A Bible tattered from years of reading, so much so that the scripture has sunk into your heart. When I need to make a decision, I don’t often recall chapter and verse, but I can recall stories that I find meaningful at that particular moment - stories that I wouldn’t know if I hadn’t read them time and time again and that wouldn’t necessarily be helpful if I only memorized a few lines from it. 

Are we rooted in God’s Word and God’s heart, friends?  The Psalmist tells us that either we will be rooted or we will blow away like chaff. Either we bore fruit of groundedness and security in the Lord, or destruction. In the context of this part of the Beatitudes, I would add that we either seek after righteousness or we seek after fulfilling our own cravings.

At the first church I interned at, I led a couple of Bible Studies and book studies. The first book we explored was Soul Craving by Pastor Erwin McManus, who essentially said that we in our human nature have cravings - the question is are we craving God. Do our cravings connect us deeper with God or do they can distract us along the way. 

A little bit further into the Gospel of Matthew we find Jesus talking about some of the things that can distract us. And at first glance they seem like really good things - what we are going to eat, what we are going to drink, what we are going to wear. The problem emerges when we put so much focus on worrying about these things that we push God to the side. Jesus ends this part of teaching with a line you may have heard before: Seek first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

When we put God first, when we seek God’s kingdom first, when we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we are saying that we want to be part of something that really matters. Something that changes hearts and lives. But here’s the thing about this type of hungering and thirsting - its not temporary. When we seek after the righteousness of God, we are doing it for the long hull. It’s an indication that we want to grow closer to God ever single day. 

But when we make that decision and take the first steps towards it, it changes us as well. It changes the way we seek after God. It even changes the way that we pray to God. Especially when we realize when we seek righteousness, this right relationship with God, at all times, not just when it seems convient to us or when things are going well. 

Friends, how badly do you want righteousness? What could change within us and within this world, if we were a people who hungered and thirst for righteousness alone? Amen. 

Elk's Mother's Day Sermon

I grew up attending an event like this at the Clearfield Elk’s. Every Mother’s Day for years we would gather around a round table in the main dining room and eat together, laugh together, and share stories. It’s a fond memory from my childhood.

But as I look back on those Mother’s Day celebrations, I think the fondness didn’t actually arise from what we did necessarily, but who we were honoring - the women in our lives who did extradionary things for us every day, like you do for your families as well. 

We are told in scripture to honor our mother’s and our father’s. Now there are a lot of commands that we find within scripture, some of which need a bit of explaining in order to live into them, but others seem pretty straightforward. They are timeless and we are all called to abide by them. For the people of God, these are the ten commandments, which can be summarized as loving God and loving your neighbor. When I was little, I remember seeing the ten commandments written on paper stone tablets taped to my classroom wall and having a patient Sunday School teacher explain that the first four commandments tell us how to show our love for God and the second six how to love our neighbor, but they are all held together by love.

The first four commandments have to do with how we love God. But the later six all have to do with our relationship with one another, and smack dab in the middle of all of that you that we are to honor our parents. Dishonoring one’s parents by hitting them or cursing them was punishable by death, under Hebrew law. While this is no longer the case in today’s society, the basic premise is the same, honor your mother and father because to dishonor one’s earthly parents is linked to dishonoring one’s heavenly parent, God. This honor does not depend on the worthiness of the parent, it is simply to be given, not earned. This commandment is seen eight different times in the scriptures. This requires that children obey their parents, as long as their requests are reasonable and permissible under the other commandments. It also requires that children let their parents know that they are safe when they are traveling. A child must never put their parents to shame or speak poorly of their parents.

And in return, God commands that parents teach children, refrain from showing favoritism to any one child over another, train a child. In other words God requires that parents give their children the ability to thrive in the world by teaching them about the commandments and demonstrating what love is through their words and actions.

As I was reflecting on this idea of honoring our Mother’s this week, I was struck that really honor is what ties together a gathering like this. Yes, we have come to honor our Mother’s, but we have also come to a very particular place to do so - an Elk’s Lodge. 

Think about what principles the Elk’s stands for - Charity, Justice, Brotherly Love and Fidelity. Are those not about honoring one another? Not just on this day, but every day?  

But here’s the thing - some of those same principles are connected to the history behind Mother’s Day as well. The first Mother’s Day was celebrated in 1908 by Anna Jarvis who held a memorial for her mother at St. Andrew’s Methodist Church in West Virginia. She had been working since 1905 to make this a holiday, following her own mother’s death. 

But prior to it becoming a holiday - it was about having Mother’s Day work clubs that were focused on public health issues. Anna Jarvis was quoted as saying that a mother is “the person who has done more for you than anyone else in this world” so she wanted to share with the world in need the love of her mother and mothers. Charity, Justice, and Love were central tenants of those Mother’s Day Work Clubs. 

So how do we honor our mother’s today. Certainly with expressions of our thanks and love. As I was browsing through Hallmark cards to give my own mother, I was struck by how many thanked moms for showing love and teaching their children throughout life. In a way the cards were saying thank you for teaching me the commandments and loving me enough to show me the right way to live.

But perhaps we also show honor by the way we live our lives. By teaching others the ideals and principles that our mothers showed us. By sharing the love of the mother with the world in need. By expressing principles of compassion and care. Charity and justice. Love and faithfulness. 

How do you want to honor your mother today?

The Third Blessing - Matthew 5:5

The TED Radio Hour is a program that takes one over-arching theme per week and has several people talk about it from different perspectives. One such topic recently was “approaching with kindness”. The topic struck a cord with me instantly. We live in a world where we don’t see much kindness celebrated in large ways, but everyday kinds can make an impact on our lives. 

I was particularly struck by Dr. Laura Trice who told the story of how a lack of kindness impacted her dad negatively - as she remembered going to visit him in the hospital after having trouble with his heart manifesting from stress at work. This memory led her to eventually study what difference kindness makes in the workplace - and the answer is a lot. A lack of kindness can cause people to not work up to their potential. To quit. To become ill. So if a lack of kindness is so detrimental to work performance why aren’t folks nicer? Because they don’t want to appear weak. 

Which is perhaps our trouble with today’s text as well. We equate meekness with weakness. The dictionary defines being meek as quiet, gentle, and easily imposed upon. Submissive. The word that Jesus used more commonly translates as gentle and lowly. And in today’s culture, when we look at that list of definitions relating to meek, not many people would jump at being identified in that way? Why? Because in layman’s terms we define being meek as being a doormat - as letting other people use you. But is that really what Jesus is saying?

The truth is while in our culture we sometimes see meek as being a deficiency, being gentle and lowly in Jesus’s time was considered more positively. To be meek was to have a balanced and ethical life. And most importantly it was seen as being the opposite of arrogant. 

Yet, today, we seem to celebrate the arrogant. Or at the very least, we celebrate people who are confident in life, even if they end up hurting other people. This world teaches us to win, to dominate, the get all we can, no matter what the cost. And that is the opposite of what Jesus is trying to lift up in this teaching. 

For Christ, this idea of meekness was tied in with reducing selfishness and pride. Which of course is deeply scriptural. In the 16th chapter of the book of Proverbs, we find this wisdom, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. It is better to be of a lowly spirit among the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud.” We’ve heard those words before, haven’t we? That pride goes before the fall? Meekness stands in the face of pride and teaches a new way of living. 

I’ve shared before that one of the things that I do, every single day, is read the obituaries. Obituaries can be fascinating, because they try to give us a glimpse into who someone was in this world. Sometimes they do that by listing accomplishments, but more often than not it’s through the difficult work of describing who this person was in relationship. What their best characteristics are.

I cannot tell you how many obituaries I have read, or how many times I have sat down with a family to plan a funeral and have them describe their loved one as kind-hearted. Never saying a bad word about anyone. Someone who tried to love others above self. Do I think these descriptions are true? Absolutely I do. Because I have had the privilege of deeply knowing someone of these people, and how their loved ones would describe them, that’s how I would describe them as well. 

I think of people like the woman who got cancer far too you, fought a hard battle, and whose dying wish was to pass onto her children what it means to live with kindness. I think of the woman who could not leave her home for decades due to illness, yet made gifts of love to send to people who would never have the opportunity to know her, but whom she wanted to bless. These were people who lived lives of gentleness and kindness. They embodied for me the understanding of meekness in this passage, and it touched hearts and lives, dear friends.

Sometimes, as believers, in the words of someone from this parish, we can get so heavenly minded that we aren’t any earthly good. We sing songs that look forward to getting to Heaven, and that’s so important to remind us that this world isn’t our permeant home. But if we get so caught up in what will be that we miss living lives that touch hearts and lives here and now, we aren’t living into the opportunities that God has given us. 

We have a choice about how we are going to live our lives every single day. If we are going to live lives of meekness or not. If we are going to live humble lives or lives that strive to humiliate others. Who we are going to be and how it reflects upon God.

Not too long ago, we were studying the book of Revelation in this parish. And one of the things we talked a lot about was God’s power and authority. About what the Kingdom of God means. And we realized that the Kingdom of God isn’t just about Heaven, its about God’s rule on Earth, here and now, as well. We don’t always recognize the rule of God because people get in the way - rulers that distract us. People who try to impede the rule of God. Princes and Principalities that try to act like they have final authority, not God. But the world is still God’s house. And so maybe we need to be talking a little bit more about God’s house rules. 

I visit people in their homes a lot, and each place has a different set of rules, some which are spoken, some of which are unspoken. Where you sit. If you take off your shoes or not. But God’s house rules are much more consequential friends. They boil down to knowing who we are and who we belong to. How we are to treat others. Because its all a reflection upon the Master of the House, our Lord and Savior. 

But Jesus also modeled all of this out for us in the way he lived on this earth - a King who was born in a stable and placed in a manger. The Messiah who didn’t come to fight and save by the sword, but by the Word of truth and the way we live into it. The Revolutionary who came to redeem and point out the work of the Kingdom of God. The one who rewrote what it means to have success.

Someday we are all going to have someone write an obituary for us. What do you want yours to say? I want mine to say a lot more about living a life that was pleasing to God, living into those rules of the Master of the House that speak to a relationship with God and how I treated other people, then anything else. I want to be seen not necessarily as a success in the eyes of the world, that calls for domination and triumph over others, but as a success in the eyes of God - who calls for us to be meek, gentle, kind, and lowly. Friends, what is the life that we are being called to live here and now, so we can impact the lives of people in the world to come? Amen. 

The Second Blessing - Matthew 5:4

I’ve said before, that there are positive and negative aspects to reading small pieces of scripture each week. But one of the things that we can lose the most is context. We are already at a disadvantage because we didn’t grow up living in the culture of the middle east as a Jewish person in the time of Jesus, which is who the Gospel of Matthew is written to - a Jewish audience. But we also can lose context by taking small enough pieces of scripture that we can digest what is happening.

For example. The Beatitudes, or the Sermon on the Mount that we have been looking at together for the last few weeks, with a few more weeks to come, is found in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. What happened prior to this teaching according to that particular Gospel? Jesus if firmly established as being part of the lineage and line of David and Abraham, the whole way through to Jesus’s earthly father, Jospeh. Joseph received a dream telling him to both take Mary as his wife and to name the child who she is caring Jesus, God saves, because he is going to save his people from their sins. Then the Magi from the East show up, looking for the one who is born the King of the Jews. 

Jospeh is then instructed by God to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt, because Herod is so threatened by the thought of another king, that he starts killing all male children under the age of two. Jospeh is instructed when to return and they settled together, as a family in the land of Nazareth. 

The next time we see Jesus it is through the lens of John the Baptist, the one who is crying out for people to repent, for the time of the Kingdom of God is near. Jesus came to him to be baptize, and John, recognizing who he is, said I need to be baptized by you! Not the other way around. At the time of the baptism, a voice came from Heaven saying, this is my son with whom I am pleased. 

Jesus then goes out into the wilderness and is tempted by Satan with immortalty, power, and provision. After banishing the Devil away, he started his earthly ministry, calling disciples to follow him so that he could make them fishers of people. 

We are told he taught and brought healing and traveled, but this, this Sermon on the Mount is the first full teaching that we find in the Gospel of Matthew.

Where am I going with all of this? Up to this point in the Gospel of Matthew, we have been told and clued in on the fact that he is Savior and King, and yet we find him amongst ordinary people teaching about ordinary things in and extradorinaiy way. From this Savior and King comes an absolutely surprising teaching, where he presents simple facts, new facts for some, that call them into a different type of living. 

Out of the mouth of Jesus came this teaching, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” And people were probably shocked. Because if we are honest, how many of us would count mourning amongst our blessings. In fact, if we are deeply honest, mourning scares us and we often do whatever we can to avoid it. 

Mourning means that we are vulnerable. Often when we think about grief or mourning it is over someone we have loved and lost. Sometimes by death. Sometimes they simply walk out of our lives. Sometimes relationships are damaged beyond repair. And so the vulnerability of love means that those who deeply love, often deeply grieve. But does that mean that we shouldn’t love? By no means! In the vulnerability of love, we find life. We find connection. We find meaning. 

Nothing is more heart wrenching than loss. The loss of someone who dear to us. The loss of a job. The loss of an opportunity that we were counting on. And with loss comes mourning. As much as we would like to pretend otherwise, no one is immune from grief. Now, we all mourn differently. Mourning with flesh on it, looks different for each of us, but we still mourn. 

And yet, here is Jesus saying that those who mourn will be comforted. Whenever I read this scripture I think of what was perhaps my favorite praise song when I was in college, “If I Could Just Sit with You Awhile?” By MercyMe. “When I cannot feel, when my wounds don’t heal, Lord I humbly kneel, hidden in you… If I could just sit with you awhile. You could just hold me. Moment by moment ’til forever passes by.”

Every time I hear that song, it brings to mind the image of just sitting with Jesus and finding comfort. Finding healing. Seeking wholeness. And that is what Jesus is offering in this beatitude - compassion and hope. 

But that isn’t the troubling part is it? It’s almost the least starting part of the whole thing. It’s that word blessed. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Those who have walked through the darkness rarely say that it is a blessing. At least not in the moment. 

A few years ago our mid week Lenten study was based off of this book by Eric Elnes, Gifts of the Dark Woods and friends that is exactly what he was talking about. The blessings of darkness. The blessings we often overlook and the blessings we certainly don’t recognize in the moment. When our soul struggles, we trust and believe and put our hope in the fact that God draws near. That we can turn our eyes and hearts to Jesus when it seems like no one else understands what we are going through and Jesus is there. Jesus is present and Jesus understands. Was that book based off of this beatitude? No. But isn’t that what this beatitude is getting at?

This idea of God drawing near to those who are mourning was not new. The prophet Isaiah in the 61st chapter said this about mourning,  to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. 

Friends, scripture tells us that comfort comes from the heart of God. But scripture equally tells us that Jesus understands what it is to grieve. We have a Lord who wept over the entire city of Jerusalem before his passion. We have a Savior who wept for his friend Lazarus upon his death and for Mary and Martha who were grieving. 

And perhaps that is the most surprising and disturbing this about this passage. It is our Savior and King, who completely understands what we are going through because he has been there, who is walking beside us and offering us comfort in life’s darkest moments. Jesus, too, was vulnerable enough to love and to love those who didn’t love him in return. He had compassion on those who would crucify him. He lived out love and its vulnerability to the point of being broken wide open on a cross, Church. He knew our griefs and died our death and mourns with us, because he, also, loved openly and honestly. 

Friends, the beatitudes remind us that we don’t worship a distant God. We are in relationship with the Holy God, right here and right now. And that relationship isn’t reduced at its purest level to legal obligations. Its rooted in love. In hope. In compassion. Will you join me in an attitude of prayer?