Did You Have Other Plans? ~ Sermon (Advent 3)

Oh, Joseph.  You did have plans, didn’t you?

And weren’t they wonderful plans?  You had a trade – you were a carpenter, which in your day, meant that you were a master builder: a stone worker, a woodworker, a mason.  In your small town in the world at that time, no one had the luxury of specializing in one form of construction alone – but your knowledge and skill meant that you were much in demand.  You built houses out of all sorts of materials – and you also made shelving, and furniture, and maybe even some items simply for the beauty of them.  You had a trade that all but guaranteed you the ability to support yourself and a family.

And you had a fiancee’ – that family you hoped for appeared to be more than a mere possibility, but a soon-to-be reality.  Your marriage to Mary was arranged and, as we know, such a betrothal was a serious business.  There had not yet been a wedding ceremony, and you had not yet begin to live together, but for most intents and purposes, the two of you were married. Your families had reached an agreement, some property may have changed hands, and you two were set – as good as married.

Yes, you did have plans, didn’t you?

And then – and then –

Somehow -- and the Bible doesn’t tell us how, or from whom – but somehow word got to you: Mary was pregnant.  Pregnant with a child she claimed had come from the Holy Spirit.  Pregnant in an era in which women did not have babies unless and until they were securely married, to the man of their father’s choosing.  Pregnant despite the fact that she was carefully supervised and sheltered by her parents.  Pregnant with a story as well as a baby – a story that made no sense at all.

And your plans, Joseph?  Shattered. Shattered along with your heart.  How betrayed you must have felt!  How disappointed!  How angry!   

You would have been well within your rights to act upon that anger and disappointment.  Mary’s story?  Highly unlikely.  The law?  Women found guilty of adultery – and what better proof than a pregnancy?  – women found guilty of adultery were subject to the punishment of death by stoning.  No one would have criticized you, had you walked into the center of town and asked that such a sentence be visited upon Mary.

But – you didn’t.  You decided instead to  “dismiss” her – to break the marriage contract, and to do so quietly, so that she would not be humiliated.  Why was that, we wonder?  Had you already developed some affection for Mary?  Did someone else suggest that option to you?  Or did you yourself find the law overbearing and oppressive, a worse injustice than the act of which Mary was apparently guilty?

We don’t know your reasoning. All we know is: no sooner had you made up your mind, than you had a dream.  And what a dream that was!

An angel.  An explanation.  And very clear instructions:

[D]o not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

This news did not fit with your plans, did it, Joseph? Plans for work and marriage and children.  Plans to live as an ordinary member of your community.  Your plans did NOT include angels - and mysterious conceptions - and entanglement with God - and a son born to save the world.  You had other plans entirely.

Now, we all know something about that saying, “Life is what happens when you’re making plans,” don’t we?  And sometimes the most amazing things happen!  Things in which we do indeed rejoice and give thanks!

I’ve told you that my niece and her husband adopted a baby a few weeks ago.  Now, they did have it in mind to adopt a baby.  They’d been working on that project for quite awhile.  But they didn’t have a definitive plan, and they certainly weren’t ready – not in the way that you get ready when you have nine months of pregnancy during which to plan and prepare.

Nope – they got a call on a week-end that there would be a baby the next week-end.  And so they started to get organized, and my niece, who’s a teacher, told her principal that she’d be starting maternity in a week.  And they started making lists and planning – planning – to buy paint and baby furniture and baby clothes and baby supplies.  They had a week to get it all finished.

And then they got a call on Monday – the baby will be delivered to you tomorrow!  Tomorrow!

They had other plans. 

A week earlier, they had been planning to host their first ever Thanksgiving dinner in their home.  A day earlier, they’d been plan to furnish a nursery.  And then, suddenly – a baby!  Right then and there, in their arms!

Now, that’s a really good sort of change of plans.  A really wonderful interruption. Craig Barnes, who’s now the President of Princeton Seminary, which is one of our Presbyterian seminaries, but a few years ago was one of my professors at Pittsburgh Seminary – Craig Barnes is fond of talking about when God interrupts our lives.[1]  When God expects changes from us.  And there are, indeed, lots of interruptions and changes, like the arrival of a new baby, even with only a few hours’ notice, that we welcome with great joy, and for which we are willing to change everything.

But we all know that there are other sorts of interruption as well. Other ways in which our plans are altered.  Interruptions which cause us to wonder aloud at this idea that we should rejoice always and give thanks in all circumstances.  Changes which make the holiday season the most difficult time of the year.

There’s the meeting with the doctor, and the diagnosis that will change your life.  You’ll be spending the next month undergoing chemotherapy instead of taking that long-awaited vacation in California.

There’s the unexpected phone call, and the news that someone you love has died.  Your plans change, abruptly and completely, and you pack up the car and go.

The doorbell rings in the middle of the night, and the police are there, your son or daughter in tow, and your plans change to accommodate a court date and increased supervision of a child who seemed to have been doing well.  

All you have to do is open your newspaper or computer, or turn on the television or radio news, to be reminded that there are countless ways in which plans are demolished every day.

The question is not whether your plans will be upended.  They will be.

The question is: Will you see God at work in the interruptions in your life?

And then the next question is: How will you respond?  

Will you say yes?  Will you remain faithful to God?  Will you make room for the surprising grace of God in your life?

Craig Barnes tells us that “it is always at the turn in the road that God is most visible to us.”[2]

I would add: If we are paying attention.  If we are alert.  And isn’t that what Advent is about? Paying attention?  Being alert?  Keeping awake?

Now, what about Joseph?  Do you think that when his own great plans were interrupted, he felt more like my niece and her husband, overjoyed at the prospect before him?  Or did he feel a good deal less enthusiastic?  Worried? Afraid?  Confused?  What about those other words we’ve used – Betrayed? Angry? 

I  would guess that at the outset he felt a lot of the latter.  Isn’t that a natural set of human reactions?  Think of changes in plan which have been proposed to you lately – in your family, in your church, in the world at large.  Have you felt worried and afraid?  Betrayed and angry?  Pretty normal, yes?

But something happened to Joseph.  Whatever his initial feelings, the feelings that caused him at first to plan to put his relationship with Mary aside, those feelings were dramatically changed by his encounter with the angel Gabriel.

New Testament Professor James Boyce tells us that Joseph is

"a person of strength and purpose. He is committed and faithful to his religious tradition and ready to act on that commitment.  . . .  When the call comes, Joseph speaks not one word either of question or objection. He simply acts directly and immediately in obedient response to the  call.  . . .  . Joseph becomes visibly and audibly an example of the power of God's call to              transform our decisions and our lives."[3]

As you know, we are sharing the Bible study Taste and See[4] with folks from B. Church this week, and I’m preaching on this passage today as a way of elaborating a bit on the Bible study.  And it’s this matter of transformation which the Taste and See study emphasizes.  Joseph’s presumed fear and anger, the natural reactions any of us might experience in a situation as bewildering as the one in which he finds himself, those feelings are transformed by the grace of God.  Transformed by grace into the grace of acceptance and love.  Into the grace of determination and commitment.

Have you ever thought of Joseph as a role model for your own life? Maybe it’s time to do that. 

We don’t really give that much thought to Joseph, do we? Let’s face it: he barely makes it into our consciousness, and only during Advent and Christmas at best. But maybe we need to pay a lot more attention to this man, especially when we have plans which are interrupted.  Maybe when someone suggests that we do something differently, that we follow an unexpected course of action, that we accept a new role in a new set of circumstances – maybe then we need to ask:  Is God the one interrupting my expectations?   Maybe when life falls apart, when what we had hoped for and longed for is disrupted by disaster (and I don’t mean to suggest that God causes disaster – but I do mean to point out that God is present and at work no matter the circumstances) – maybe we need to ask: Is God calling me to change direction?  To rejoice regardless?  To give thanks anyway?

Yes, Joseph, you had other plans, didn’t you? Plans for an ordinary life in Nazareth. 

And yes, you might have hesitated when that angel showed up.  You might have protested.  You might have said, “No way! I have other plans!”  We would have understood, because we usually have other plans, too.

But you – you opened yourself to God’s transformative power, to the movement -- of possibility, of hope, of love – in the universe – and you found grace.  You became the earthly father of the Savior of the World!

To what, my friends, are we called? To what grace-filled transformation does this Advent season invite us?  How is God inviting us into the work of God?

Do you have other plans?  Do you want to cling to the past, to the old expectations and the old ways of doing things? 

Or are you willing to welcome God’s movement in your life?  Are you willing to let fear and anxiety be transformed by the grace of God?  Are you willing to let God change your lives and lead you to possibilities you’ve never imagined?

There is no doubt about it: You are called –like our model Joseph -- to participate in the life of Jesus Christ.  You are called – like Joseph – to exchange your plans for God’s.  You are called – like Joseph – to embrace a new life. 

Rejoice, and be glad!

Amen.

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[1] Craig Barnes, “When God Interrupts.” Shadyside Presbyterian Church Sermon.  (9/4/2011).

[2] Ibid.

[3] James Boyce. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=15 (2007).

[4] Jan Johnson, Taste and See.

The Second Mile (Sermon - Matthew)

When I was a little girl, the distance of two miles had a very specific meaning for me.

You see, we lived out in the country, and the nearest small town was just about two miles away.  It was a very rural area – although we didn’t live on a farm, most people out there did, and there were maybe eight farm houses strung along that two mile stretch of road.  When my brothers and I wanted to go to town – something we often wanted to do, so that we could look around the drugstore, maybe buy a Cherry Coke or a candy bar or even a 45 record (remember those?!), we walked or rode our bikes those two miles.

At about the one mile mark, there was a house – and that one wasn’t actually a farmhouse, for Mr. Lampkey, who owned it, had only about four or five acres.  Mr. Lampkey was a scary kind of guy, at least to children.  I don’t know that he intended to be scary – if he passed us in his car, he always raised his right hand in a greeting, as country folks generally did.  But his car was an old clunker, and so was his house.  His house always looked as if it were going to slide right into the overgrown grass surrounding it.  And after he died, it pretty much did.

But the really scary thing about Mr. Lampkey, at least as far as children on foot or on bikes were concerned, was his dogs.  Mr. Lampkey always owned two or three huge German shepherds, and they lolled about in the middle of the road as if they were the road’s owners.  Which I guess they were, because what child is going to mess with an 80-pound German shepherd?  We had lots of dogs as we were growing up, and we all loved dogs, and those German shepherds never did anything except stretch out and yawn so that we could see their teeth – but they sure looked menacing to a couple of ten-year-olds trying to sneak  by them.

For us, going the second mile, going the second mile which we needed to take to get to town or, in the other direction, to get back home, meant passing those dogs.    Going the second mile meant that we needed to face a challenge.  Going the second mile meant that we needed to overcome fear.

Now, Jesus says some hard things, some difficult things, to us this morning:

Turn the other cheek.

Give your cloak as well.

Walk the second mile.

Give.

Lend.

Love your enemies.

Really, Jesus?  This is what you want of us?  All of these things are counterintuitive, aren’t they?  These are not things that we do naturally.  But – is this what you mean when you say, “I have come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it”?  “To complete it”?

Jesus acknowledges that these commands of his do not come naturally to us.  In fact, the old law itself did not require them.  “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” – that was the very old law.  A law that exacted justice in the sense that that wrongs done to someone had to be evened out – not ignored, and not exceeded, but evened out, at least insofar as they could be.  “An eye for an eye” – well, if someone put your eye out, the punishment imposed, the putting out of his own eye, did not return your eye to you.  But at least the wrongdoer suffered in equal measure and, more importantly – the wrongdoer doid not suffer more than you did out of some misplaced sense of revenge.  You could not kill someone who put out your eye.  Even the old law enforced a degree of restraint.

But Jesus is not talking about restraint.  Jesus does not take the position that we are creatures of such extreme limitation that the best we can do, the most we can do, is to prevent ourselves from harming someone even more than they have damaged us.  That approach is merely a starting point. 

Jesus seeks much more from us, much more for us, than merely “an eye for an eye.”

Jesus does not see us merely as creatures of limitation, as people who have to be restrained from making matters worse rather than better.

What have we been saying these past weeks about who we are?  About what God longs for from us?

We are people of justice and joy.  We are people of grace and peace.  We are people who scatter salt and light.  We are people who bring God’s love out into the open.  We are people who choose life.

We are God’s beloved.

And how do we demonstrate who we are?

We don’t hit back, or yank out another’s eye.  We turn the other cheek.

We don’t respond defensively to another’s greediness.  We hand over what they seek, and more as well – the other cloak.

We don’t turn our backs on those in need.  We give, or we lend.

We don’t merely love those whom we value as family, friends, neighbors, and allies.  We extend love to enemies – to the family member who has hurt us, to the friend who has misunderstood us, to the neighbor whose child trampled our garden, to the political opponent in the other party, or on the other side of the world.  

And: We let go of fear and we walk the second mile.

Now you might not know it, but that word ”walk” is an intriguing word in Hebrew, in the language of the Old Testament. 

Let me start explaining with a bit of a digression.  Most of you know that I used to teach in an Orthodox Jewish school.  In an Orthodox school, the students follow two curricula.  They study all the usual subjects – English, history, math, science.  But they also take a full load of Jewish subjects: Hebrew language, Jewish history, scripture, and law. 

You may know that, for the Jewish people, the law is God’s revelation of who God is and how God is in relationship with us.  For us, that revelation is Jesus Christ: he shows us who God is, and he is God in relationship with is – as friend, as companion, as guide, as teacher, as healer, as redeemer, as hope, as love, as light, as life.  But for the Jewish people, God’s law, starting with the commandments given to Moses and flowing through history as interpreted and applied to daily life – that law is revelation and relationship.  And the word for law is halacha.  I got used to hearing that word in my Jewish school teaching days, because the high school students took a course in halacha each year, and they were constantly debating halachic interpretations and applications.

Imagine my surprise when I got to my seminary course in Hebrew and learned that the Hebrew word for “walk” is halach.  Halach – halacha –  in Hebrew, the root word for the word “law” and the word “walk” is the same  Of course, it makes sense: If you follow the law, you walk in the way of God.  If you walk in the way of God, you discover and follow the law.

And what does Jesus tell us?  In the Sermon on the Mount, parts of which we’ve been exploring the last couple of weeks, he tells us that he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.  Not to destroy the law, but to complete it.  To enlarge it.  To invite us into a law that expands and creates.

And today he tells us: Walk the second mile.  Walk the second mile in fulfillment of the law.  Walk the second mile as a follower of the one who completes the law.

Go further.  Go a longer distance.  Accept the challenge.  Walk past fear.  Cross the barriers.

To walk the second mile does not mean, not necessarily, to double the tangible distance you walk.  To walk the second mile means that you understand that you are not called to a mile, or a walk, of limitation, of scarcity.  You are called to a life of more, of abundance.  

To walk the second mile means to walk in companionship with Jesus, to walk in the way of God. 

To walk the second mile means to walk in attentiveness to the world around you.  

To walk the second mile means to walk in openness toward the needs that surround you. 

To walk the second mile means to walk with the confidence that comes with knowing that you are a beloved child of God.

To walk the second mile?  Maybe it means that as you are walking from your car into the grocery store, you stop to help the man who is struggling to manage his walker while he pulls the door open. 

Maybe it means that you open your eyes to see, to really see, the other people on the street or at the bus stop or in the airport and to say a prayer for them as you walk on. 

Maybe, on the third Sunday of the month, it means that you walk into the kitchen to help with the community meal. 

Maybe, if you are in a wheelchair or a in hospital bed, to walk the second mile means to walk into a deeper life of prayer.

To walk the second mile means to walk past fear.  To walk the second mile means to know that you are not called to a mile, or a walk, of anxiety or worry. 

To walk the second mile means that you are called to accept challenges, to cross the same barriers Jesus crossed.  To walk the second mile means that you are called to a walk, to a life, of courage, of hope, of light. 

To walk the second mile?  Maybe it means that you walk into a doctor’s office or a hospital in trust that you are held in God’s hands. 

Maybe it means that you walk into a challenging assignment or situation and cast aside the “buts” – but it will take too long, but it will be too hard, but I don’t know how to do this.

Maybe it means that you walk in a protest march, or onto a speakers’ platform, or into a school to educate kids about an issue that matters to you.

Maybe it means that on the last Saturday of the month you join the Lakeshore Ministries’ Prayer Walk through Euclid – which, by the way, we are finally hosting at the end of March – so that you can walk, or perhaps sit in the sanctuary, in prayer with your church community, your neighbors, and complete strangers, all walking and listening for God’s call to this community.

To walk the second mile?  It’s not really about walking, is it?  It’s not about feet or walking shoes, or orthopedic boots or crutches.  The second mile is about identity.  It’s about who we are and who we are called to be.  The second mile is about who walks with us and shapes us into the people we are created to be.

The apostle Paul remind us today that, “you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.”  To  walk the second mile means to live deeply into that knowledge – that you belong, that you are beloved, and that you are called – not to less, but to more; not to scarcity, but to abundance, not to fear, but to hope.   Know who you are, walk into the light, and walk with the one who accompanies you on the second mile!  Amen.

 

               

               

               

              

               

 

 

Subterranean Salt? (Sermon - Matthew)

How many of you know that Cleveland is home to a huge salt mine?  Cargill owns a mine 1800 feet under Lake Erie and four miles out from downtown. This Cleveland mine and another out by Fairport Harbor combine to produce a huge portion of the salt mined in North America.

            And have any of you ever heard of the Salt Cathedral in Poland?  I wouldn’t know anything about this one [show image] but for my daughter having spent a college semester in the Czech Republic.  While she was there, she was able to travel quite a bit, and on a trip to Poland she learned about this enormous salt mine, now closed, in which the workers left quite the record of their presence, carving out rooms and sculptures and an entire chapel, which is often in use for weddings!  Imagine getting married in a salt mine!  Even those chandeliers are made of salt, salt that’s been treated until it is so fine that it looks like glass.  And the sculptures, like this one of The Last Supper [shpw], look like granite – but they, too, are salt.

            A salt mine, whether it remains in its original state, as the Cleveland mines do, or has been transformed by Polish miners, is a pretty spectacular sight.  Huge deposits of salt carved into rooms so that miners can reach their goal – huge deposits far underground, in places most of us don’t know exist.  Huge deposits of something we take completely for granted – I’m sure there are several salt shakers in your homes – but which, until about 100 years ago, was a product of great value, difficult and expensive to attain.

            I want you to think about the church for a moment.  Think about the church, this church, as salt.  At one time, it was a beacon of great value.  A tremendous amount of money, and energy, and time, went into the building of this church, starting with this Foster Hall as its first sanctuary.  Back in the 1960s, and in the 1860s, churches like ours were deemed to be of momentous importance.  They popped up in neighborhoods all over the place, and were filled with people who were called to flavor their communities with the salt of God’s love.

            Have we now reached the point where churches like ours, like salt, are taken for granted?  People expect to see them, and most of the time they walk right on by, just as we expect to find salt in our kitchens and on our tables without taking any notice of them.  When folks think they need a church, say for a funeral or for a wedding, they expect us to be here, just as we expect to find a salt shaker when we reach for one at the dinner table.

            What has happened to our sense that we are salt for the world?  Have we become more like underground deposits of salt than like salt scattered across the globe?

            Deposits of salt, by themselves, are not of much use to us.  They go unnoticed – until just a few years ago, I had no idea that Lake Erie’s waters covered salt mines – and even if they are transformed inside, as Poland’s salt mine was, very few people realize that they are there.  Salt has to be brought out into the open before it becomes a commodity useful in preserving and preparing food.   Useful in favoring the world.

            And once it’s in the open, salt plays amazing roles in human relationships.  Perhaps even in human relationships with God.  That’s what both history and the Bible tell us.

            There’s a wonderful book entitled SALT. The nonfiction story of SALT is a whirlwind tour through world history, through which the compound salt runs as a crucial, savory thread.  Salt lies at the bottom of major world events: exploration, trade, currency, revolution, warfare.  SALT could probably be turned into a smash hit television miniseries, filled with travel and adventure and danger and romance and royalty. 

            Salt, above ground and out in the open, creates transformation.  Mine salt, and people start looking for more, and start to discover new possibilities.  Sprinkle salt around, and revolutions start: people see that life can be different than it is. 

            What does that mean for us?  If we stay as we are, we are like a salt mine under the lake – no one knows that we are here.  If we create something beautiful here in our own church and keep it here, we’re like the Polish salt mine – an intriguing place for tourists and brides, but not an exciting force in the world.  BUT – if we mine our salt, if we dig deep into scripture and prayer and worship, we will start to discover possibilities that have never occurred to us.  And if we start salting our neighborhood, perhaps a revolution will begin, will begin with a vision of new life and energy on Lake Shore Boulevard. 

            Salt was a valuable commodity long before Jesus’ time, and a valuable commodity in Jesus’ time.  And it’s a commodity with a specifically Biblical history.  Did you know that in the Old Testament, in the Book of Numbers (18:19), God refers to temple sacrifices as a sign of God’s covenant with them, as a sign of the “salt covenant?”  And that in the Book of Leviticus (2:13), God instructs the people, through Moses, saying, “You shall not omit from your grain-offerings the salt of the covenant with your God; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.”  Salt was from the earliest times of the life of the Hebrew people a sign of God’s promises to them and of their reverence for God; salt, that valuable and hard-won commodity, was a sign of the love of God and of relationship with God. 

            Those Biblical allusions would have been well known to the people to whom Jesus spoke, and the people to whom Matthew wrote. One of the important things to know about the writer whom we call Matthew is that he seems to have been a Jew intent upon convincing his largely Jewish audience that Jesus was indeed the messiah promised in scripture.  Matthew spends a great deal of time on Jewish customs and scriptural passages, making all sorts of connections between Jesus and earlier writings.  Some of these connections we might not recognize right away.  We know, for instance, that salt is important.  We know that while we take it for granted, not so long ago it could not be taken for granted at all.  But we may not realize that in Jewish life, salt was a  sign:  a sign of God’s covenantal relationship with God’s people, a sign of God’s presence and promise of love and care.  The word “salt” and all that it meant was probably obvious to those who listened to Jesus, and to those who listened to or read the words of Matthew, but we ourselves have to give it some thought.  

            And what is it Jesus says about salt?  In our reading today, he’s still up on the mountain, preaching the words we know as the Sermon on the Mount, and in The Message translation, which we read this morning, he says, “You’re here to be salt-seasoning.” Interestingly, in the NRSV, the translation we usually used, he says, “You are the salt of the earth.”  You ARE.  Or, “you ARE here TO BE.”  Present tense.[1]  Not “you will be” or “you might be” or “you could be.”  But you ARE.  Already.

            Imagine what those words meant to Jesus’ listeners.  Matthew’s listeners.  They already knew what salt meant: God’s presence.  God’s covenant.  God’s love.  Now they know something else: They – we – are God’s presence and covenant and love to others.  We ARE the salt of the earth.

            Notice something else that Jesus tells them: “I come not to demolish the law or the prophets, but to complete them.”  More evidence that Jesus is paying attention to Jewish life – the law, those commandments God gave Moses on another mountain long before – but expanding that law.  Not throwing it out at all, but saying instead: You are the salt who will help the make the love which is the foundation of the law known.  And Jesus is paying attention to the prophets, those who proclaim God’s justice, those who clarify what we are to do: Jesus says: You are salt; bring out God-flavors in this world. 

            And how, I ask you again, will we do that?  Not by leaving God’s gift of love buried deep under the ground, like a salt mine is.  Not by allowing it to remain beautiful but hidden, like the Salt Cathedral in Poland.

            Not merely by saying, “we have all that’s needed, here in this underground church mine that we run.  We can store God’s love safely right here.”  Not by saying, “We’ve got something beautiful here, and we’ll wait for people to come and find out – as people traveling in Eastern Europe happen upon the Salt Cathedral.”

            No.  Instead, we’re going to start asking ourselves: Are we leaving the salt of God in a subterranean cavern today?  Are we forgetting that subterranean salt is for sharing with the world? 

 Our charge comes from the God who made salt a sign of promise ro God’s Old Testament people. Our charge comes from Jesus, who took that sign and said, “You are the ones!  You are the salt!”  Our charge comes from Matthew, who wrote a gospel so that Jesus’ words would echo across the centuries.  Our charge comes from the Spirit, who says to us:

 Mine the salt!  Bring it up to the surface and scatter it around a world in need of the taste of the Lord!  Remember that salt glistens with the presence and promise of God – and so do you.  For you ARE the salt of the earth and you ARE the light of the world.  Amen

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[1] Amy Oden. “Preaching This Week.” workingpreacher.org, 2014.

Countercultural Christ ~ Sermon (Micah and Matthew)

“Blessed are those who make lemonade out of lemons!”[1]

“Blessed are those with talent and drive, for they shall be unstoppable!”[2]

Isn’t that what Jesus said?  Blessed are those who use all of their gifts and talents to solve their problems?  To achieve the highest of heights?

Oh, wait – he didn’t?

Then it must be the prophets of the Old Testament, right? The ones whose teachings Jesus himself clarified for us?  They were the ones who told us:  Remember the saving acts you have performed for yourself!” Right?  They told us to “Exercise power, love determination, and walk with confidence” – didn’t they?

Oh, no . . . is it possible that we have it all wrong?  That we get it wrong  every day?

Let’s take a look at what Jesus really taught, then and today:

We have before us today a well-known Gospel narrative, Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus has hiked up a mountain, much as Moses centuries before had headed up a mountain.  Now, when Moses trudged up the mountain to which God had called him, he returned with the Ten Commandments.  When Jesus reaches his destination and begins to speak with his disciples, he, too, has a great teaching to convey.  His we know as the Beatitudes.   Words so familiar to us that I think I can safely say that many of you barely heard them a minute ago.   So let’s listen again, carefully, as though we’ve never heard them before, to just the first three of these statements:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

What can these words possibly mean?  We could spend weeks on these and on the rest of the Beatitudes,  but today we will drink only the smallest sip, take only the tiniest bite, of these extraordinary words – but we will catch a glimpse of Jesus ‘s broad and countercultural vision for our world.

(Countercultural, but not new, I might add.  Jesus adheres strongly to a long Jewish tradition of what is often referred to as tikkun olam, “repair of the world” or “healing of the world.”  If you look at our banners in the sanctuary, one of them illustrates “Healing.”  Our mission statement says that we are about “offering forgiveness and relieving hurt and pain,” and that we are “working to bring new life to barren places” – in other words, we recognize that we, too, rely on the tradition of the prophets and the teaching of Jesus.  We understand that we ourselves worship and serve in a long line of people called to “repair the world.”)

Jesus’s vision and words, though, seem to stretch those of the prophets to new degrees.  Imagine those famous words of Micah as a piece of fabric, stretching across the universe, the words that tell us to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”  Now imagine that fabric pulled and stretched at the edges as Jesus proclaims how justice and kindness and humility are accomplished: by poverty of spirit, and by mourning, and by meekness.  And that those who  live in those ways, the ways of poverty of spirit and mourning and meekness, are blessed.

Does this sound like something you want to sign up for?  Poverty of spirit?  Mourning?  Meekness?

Let’s think about that word “blessed” for a moment.  The Greek word, makarios, is often translated as “happy” or “fortunate.”    Hmmm.   I want you to take a moment, and speak with your neighbors at your table, and share with one another the answer to this question: When have you felt most happy or fortunate in life?  When have you felt most blessed?”

[Pause.]

Now, how many of you came up with times of blessing that had anything to do with meekness or mourning?  Can you even describe what poverty of spirit means?  That’s a tough one!

As I considered this text, two items popped up on my computer last Monday morning.  The first was a family photograph – friends of mine with their entire clan gathered for Christmas: mom, dad, six adult children, five in-law children, and at least seven, maybe eight, grandchildren.  They all live in the same general neighborhood, they’re all strong and healthy, and the photograph exudes joy.  We would all call that a depiction of blessing, wouldn’t we?  That picture was followed by several others posted online by different  families, vacationing on various beaches over the past few weeks.  They all look pretty blessed to me ~ although, truth be told, I know well that tremendous sorrow is concealed behind some of those eyes laughing in the sunshine.  But on the whole – blessing, right?  Warmth and sun and fun family times.

The second thing that appeared on my computer was a quote from Etty Hillesum.[3]  Esther, or Etty, Hillesum was a young woman, a Jewish woman, famous for the diaries she kept during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II and for the letters she wrote from a sort of interim detention center.  She was eventually, along with most of her family, transported to Auschwitz, where she died in 1943.  In much of her writing, she detailed her relationship with God during those tumultuous years.  The quote which caught my eye is from a postcard card she threw from the train to Auschwitz, which read in part, “We have left the camp singing.”  It was her last communication to the “outside,” and it read more fully: "Opening the Bible at random, I find this: 'The Lord is my high tower. We left the camp singing."[4]

Does Etty Hillesum’s experience sound like what we might term a blessing?  Etty Hillesum’s family was not headed for the beach, or even for a family holiday photo; in fact, none of her family  survived the next years.  And yet she found blessing in a deep, rich sense, in the presence and abundance of God even in some of the darkest days humanity has faced.

Blessed are those who mourn.  Blessed are the meek.  Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Let’s think again what blessed means.  Homiletics professor David Lose suggests that to be blessed is to “[feel] like you have someone’s unconditional regard. It feels like you are not and will not be alone, like you will be accompanied wherever you go. Being blessed feels like you have the capacity to rise above present circumstances, like you are more than the sum of your parts or past experiences. Being blessed feels like you have worth . . . “.[5]

To be blessed , in other words, is to know deep in your bones that you are God’s beloved.  Remember Tricia’s sermon on the baptism of Jesus?  You are God’s beloved. To be blessed means to know, regardless of your exterior circumstances, that God is with you.  To know, whether you reside in a castle or in a prison, that God’s abundant love enfolds you.  To know, whether you could have run five miles this morning or whether you need someone else to help you get anywhere at all, that the one upon whom you ultimately depend is completely faithful in granting you grace and peace.  That’s what being blessed means.

And meekness?  Mourning?  The poverty of spirit that encompasses them all?

Jesus is NOT talking about people making lemonades out of lemons – although it’s certainly good to be creative and resilient in the face of crisis.  He’s not talking about  take-charge approaches to life or achievement  – although both a take-charge attitude and achievement  itself have their place.

He is telling us, instead, that true blessedness, true happiness, is found in reliance upon God.   Ultimate blessedness is found in poverty of self, in emptying of self, in letting go of our own priorities -- in recognizing that abundance is God’s to give, not ours to achieve.  True blessedness is found in seeing that when we mourn, or when we are meek – when we are gentle, when we defer to others – God offers gifts of insight and compassion to us.

Like many of you, I’m sure, I’ve had a lot of things happen in my life.  Not things I would describe as good, or blessed – no -- things I would describe as bad, as terrible.  Of course, I’ve had many good things happen as well – but the bad ones, the losses, the struggles – they make this broken ankle look like a piece of cake.

I won’t offer you platitudes about those rough times. I won’t say things like “When a door closes, God opens a window” or some of those other phrases that friends and I were groaning about just last week.  But I will say that some of the most blessed times, some of the times in which I have most known the enfolding love of God, have come about after and because of those times.  Because I have survived certain kinds of circumstances in my own life, I feel God’s grace accompanying me when I am called to share similar situations in the lives of others.  These are not situations I would seek, or in which I expect to accomplish anything; they are situations in which I can do nothing other than receive what lies before me and recognize those called to let go of what they had thought was so important.  Honor those who suffer and wonder and sorrow. Stand in awe of those who give themselves over to the needs of others.

In a few minutes, we will be celebrating communion – an event in which we are served by the one who understood more than any of us do what it means to be broken, to be meek, to sorrow. Jesus was not making lemonade out of lemons when he healed the sick.  He was not proclaiming himself as the highest achiever of all when he taught the crowds.  He was, instead, establishing himself as the lowest, as the servant of all, as the one who would die to conquer death, and the one who through loss of life would bring new life.  He was celebrating blessedness as the abundance of God’s love for all of us.  He was enacting God’s command to us: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God --  as we ourselves will re-enact in the meal we share this morning.

And so: let us have a blessed morning together.  Let us have a morning in which we remember that we are blessed in many ways.  We are blessed in the warm and wonderful times we share with family and friends.  But we are even more blessed in those times in which we know God’s presence in the face of our own emptiness, in those times in which we leave singing.  Amen.

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[1] Alyce McKenzie, “Have a Blessed Day!” http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/Blessed-Day-Alyce-McKenzie-01-27-2014.

[2] Ibid.

[3] People for Others, “We Have Left the Camp Singing.” http://peopleforothers.loyolapress.com/2014/01/we-have-left-the-camp-singing/ (2014).

[4] Sue Gaisford, “Review of An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum” 1941-1943. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books-we-left-the-camp-singing-1114317.html (1999).

[5] David Lose. “Beatitudes and Blessing.” workingpreacher.org. http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3020 (2014).