When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:"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. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matt. 5:1-12)When I was in grade school, I remember a science experiment we did when we were learning how our senses of taste and smell work. As we all know, our sense of taste and smell are very much tied together. In addition to our senses of taste and smell, our vision plays a big part in how we taste and smell things. We know this experience all too well. It happens every day with the hamburger and pizza commercials we watch on television or see on billboards. In fact as I am writing this, I am watching bits and pieces of the Food Network. My wife is making “ummm” noises as we see the delectable looking foods they are preparing. Neither one of us can smell or taste the food we see on the television, but we can imagine the taste and smell of that food all too well.
The taste experiment I remember from grade school was for us to be blindfolded and given different foods to feel, smell and taste, then guess what they were. Some foods we could identify right away because of their texture, smell and taste. Peanut butter on a spoon was a no-brainer…
Then the teacher brought out a tray with several bottles with droppers in them. Some of the liquids in the bottles were colorless and others were colored in bright primary colors of blue, red, purple, green and yellow. Without being blindfolded, our teacher would put a drop of the liquid on our fingers to taste and we would have to then guess what the flavor might be. This was much more difficult than it would seem, especially since some of the colored liquids did not match up to the flavors… banana flavor in the blue liquid, cherry flavor in the green liquid… lemon in the purple, etc. It just did not match up… it confused our senses and the way of thinking about what we were tasting. What we knew in our heads did not match what we were seeing and experiencing…
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7) that we began reading today in our lectionary, are some of the most endearing and well known sayings of Jesus in the whole New Testament. Our readings from this 5th Sunday after the Epiphany (Matthew 5: 1-12) are what are known as “the Beatitudes.” They are seemingly comforting words. However, if we are to really push ourselves and think about these words in the context of our own experiences in the world, it could be like my experience with the flavors in the dropper bottles. One can come away feeling confused and challenged about how we normally perceive things in our own life experiences; especially what it means to be or feel blessed.
This account of Jesus ministry appears in both Matthew and Luke. Some biblical scholars speak of “The Beatitudes” as a poem. This is because when the passage read as it would been spoken in ancient Aramaic, there is a rhythm and rhyme quality to the words that Our Lord used. These words are so very familiar to us. If you go into any card shop and stroll through the inspirational sections, you are guaranteed to find these words inside a large number of the cards. On the surface they seem to bring comfort.
But one of the things that can manage to slip past us about these familiar words, is how radical they really are. You see for that day and time, and even in our own, to be considered blessed for having some sort of hardship or malady is just absurd. In the original Greek , in which the New Testament was first written, the word “blessed” come from the Greek word “makario” which means to be happy. So when thinking about this meaning of the word blessed or to be happy, the words of The Beatitudes seem confusing. It would make much sense for us to say I am blessed because my (401)K is doing well… or I am blessed because my house is nice and has not been foreclosed… It is would be more likely for us to say that I am blessed because I have a job and got a raise this year… We are blessed because we have an unlimited amount of food and clean drinking water available to us…
What we would NOT say is exactly what Jesus DID say. We would not say, “I am blessed because I am struggling with depression” … we would not say, “I am blessed because I am consumed with grief”… we would not say, the people living under political oppression and abuse are blessed; nor would they say that of themselves…
Most of us have experienced the pain of grief and/or feelings of uncertainty that life tends to hand us over time. And when we are in the very midst of those painful times of grief and uncertainty, these words feel audacious and somewhat insulting… “Blessed are those who mourn…?” “Blessed are the poor in spirit…?” “Blessed are the persecuted?”
Two weeks ago, we all were horrified as we heard the news of the crazed gunman in Tucson taking the lives of innocent people and injuring so many others. As I watched little Christina Green’s funeral I asked “why?!” I experienced a sense of outrage that someone could do such meaningless act of violence… there was no point to it… there was no blessing in that!
For us to find blessing in the hardships of life is just as confusing to our senses as those little bottles of flavors my school teacher brought out to us. It is confusing to hear Jesus say that when we suffer it is a blessing. If you are like me, I have a hard time buying into that idea.
Nonetheless, in my own life’s experiences, I know for sure I have received the blessings of others when life has been most difficult. My wife’s diagnosis of breast cancer is not what I consider a blessing; Christina Green’s unnecessary death is not a blessing… people losing their jobs and having their homes taken away as a result of greed is not a blessing… people suffering from the results of natural disasters or wars is not a blessing…
But people sending cards and offering meals during a time of uncertainty and recover, that is a blessing… a community rallying around a mother and father overcome by grief, that is a blessing… friends and families giving another family without a home or a job a place to stay, that is a blessing… giving disaster relief and sending food to those torn into by wars and disasters, that is a blessing… Offering up to God in prayer those that we despise … that is a blessing…
The kingdom of God is all around us. Like the flavors in the dropper bottles, sometimes what we think we know in our heads about God and life’s challenges just do not match up. You see, blessings never come from what you have nor the privileges we are given… blessings never come from the situation you are in… there is no blessing to grief and hardships. The blessings come from what is given to us by others during our tough times… And the blessings also come when we reach out to each other during those times when we are most vulnerable. That, my friends, is the Kingdom of God… that is when Christ becomes incarnate…
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