Blessing

All Saints' Sunday, 11/2/14
Revelation 7:9-17; Matthew 5:1-12

Salvation belongs to you, O God. Bring us to the water of life and wipe away all tears from our eyes. Amen.

Long ago a baby was born to a Hebrew woman. Though not much is known about this baby between his notorious birth and the beginning of his ministry, we know that this man spent most of his adult life in a very close relationship with God. He attracted some followers, and tried to help these other people grow in their relationship with God as well. This man spent some significant time on mountains – they seemed to be places where he could always be sure to meet God. On one particular day, this man shared a list of messages from God with the people, hoping that it would help them to follow God more faithfully.

Does this story sound familiar?

The man in question, by the way, is Moses.

Moses was one of the top prophets in Judaism, and he ended up having a huge impact on the religious people of his day. Among other things, Moses introduced the people of God to the law that would help them more faithfully follow God’s wishes for their lives.

The Gospel of Mathew was written in such a way that Jesus would remind the reader of Moses.

Jesus is the new prophet, following in line with Moses and the other prophets of the Hebrew Bible. The first followers of Jesus, who still considered themselves to be Jewish, would have been glad for the comparisons that placed Jesus right in line with other Jewish prophets. By casting Jesus as a new Moses, the Gospel of Matthew immediately carries credibility – Jesus as a teacher is immediately recognizable to the people.

This past week in Confirmation we played a game with the kids.

Each group of students came up and acted out a movie or TV show for the rest of the class. We had Hunger Games, The Walking Dead, Dora, and other shows that I can’t remember right now.

And we learned the very important lesson that if you weren’t familiar with the show being acted out, you had no hope of guessing what the charade was all about.    Some previous knowledge was required.

That’s why I’m starting a sermon about the Beatitudes by talking about Moses.

If you don’t understand the cultural reference that’s being made in this story, you’re going to miss a lot of the meaning of the things going on right in front of you.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is portrayed as a prophet in line with Moses and others in the Hebrew Bible.

You don’t need to be a biblical scholar to understand the basic comparisons.

The law that Moses taught the people is comparable to the teachings of Jesus.

Just as Moses had direct communication with God, and spoke with God’s authority, so does Jesus.

So in today’s passage, the teacher is Jesus, not Moses. Jesus doesn’t come down from the mountain with the law of God written on tablets of stone… he brings his followers onto the mountain with him and preaches them a sermon about how to grow in relationship with God.

Jesus’ sermon on the mount begins with a list of those people who are blessed.

This list is descriptive, not prescriptive.

These verses are not presented as a to-do list for the listeners – Jesus isn’t saying, “Go! Make yourself become poor in spirit     so that God will bless you!”

Instead, Jesus is describing the people whom God has already blessed.

         “See that shy, timid, meek person over there? God has blessed that person.”

The people listening to Jesus would have had a hard time believing him.

That guy? Blessed? In what universe?

Blessed was a Greek word used in literature and in Scripture to describe the gods, or humans who had died and gone to the world of the gods, or people in the upper classes of society, or those who had many possessions and an overall happy life.

(Brian Stoffregen, Gospel Notes)

From God’s perspective, Jesus tells us, blessing has nothing to do with those earthly measures of success. The ones who are blessed by God are the ones who are least valued in society.

And Jesus speaks with the authority of a prophet, so even if we don’t understand everything he’s saying, we know that it comes from God and is true.

According to one author, “Matthew’s beatitudes are not practical advice for successful living, but prophetic declarations made on the conviction of the coming-and-already-present kingdom of God.”

(Boring, Matthew, New Interpreter’s Bible, quoted in Brian Stoffregen, Gospel Notes)

So, God’s kingdom is present in those places where these words are true – in the kingdom of God, the meek will be blessed, and in fact, since they will be blessed in eternity, which has no beginning and no end, the meek are already blessed, even in our world, even when we don’t see it.

Are you following? This is kind of heady stuff.

Let’s go back to the Bible passage for a closer look.

The Beatitudes are a list of blessings – that’s where the word “beatitude” comes from, the Latin word meaning “blessed.”

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.

Blessed are all these people, because Jesus has declared it to be so, and he has the authority of God to bless whomever he chooses.

For us, today, on All Saints’ Sunday, this is good news.

By at least one of these measures, each of us can probably fit into the framework of the Beatitudes somewhere.

In a few minutes, many of us will come forward to light candles in honor of our loved ones who have died.

And today, in our grief, Jesus tells us, blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Jesus doesn’t tell us to go out into the world and seek grief – he simply states that for those of us who are already living with it – we are blessed.

Or, maybe mourning isn’t your thing today. Maybe you’re pretty happy with your own life, actually. But you see the unrest in the world around you. Whenever there’s a school shooting or military action or gang violence or armed robbery, it pains you. And so you work to stop the violence.

         You are a peacemaker. And you are blessed. 

Jesus says so.

And by saying it, Jesus makes it so.

That blessing is God’s promise to us when we die, as well.

On All Saints’ Sunday, we remember those who have passed away, celebrating that they are all saints, even if they will never be canonized by the church.

We hear in Scripture that a great multitude that no one can count, from every tribe and nation, speaking all kinds of different languages, all of the faithful who have died, will spend eternity in heaven praising God.

This is true because God makes it so.

It’s not true because everyone who dies was so wonderful.

I mean, sure, sometimes they are. But that’s not always the case.

        

Several years ago I did a funeral for a woman who was… very difficult to get along with. She was not close to her children – in fact, they didn’t like her very much.

This woman was grumpy and judgmental all the time.

I couldn’t find anyone who had happy stories to tell about her.

Some folks from the church remembered the contributions she had made in the quilting group or by helping out in the kitchen – they respected her, but they didn’t particularly like her. Just about everyone who showed up at this funeral did so because they felt that they should – they didn’t come out of love for the woman who had died.

         It’s kind of a sad story.

But here’s why it’s important.

That woman is still a saint.

She wasn’t sweet and loving and generous and kind – she wasn't’ any of those things that we usually say about people who have recently died.

But none of that matters, because God still chose her. God still claimed this woman, and she still gets to spend eternity with the rest of that countless multitude before the throne. That makes her holy – it makes her a saint.

You remember the movie The Ten Commandments? The one from the 50s, with Charlton Heston as Moses.

Yul Brynner played Pharaoh in that movie. He had a line that got repeated several times, that has stuck with me.

When he made a command, Yul Brynner’s character would say, “So let it be written. So let it be done.”

Pharaoh’s power, however, was not the strongest in this story.

God won out in the end. God’s power is shown every time God speaks – nothing needs to be written, nothing needs to be done – once the words are spoken, a new reality is made.

“They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;

the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;

for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

All the dead have become holy – they are saints – simply because of God’s word.

Blessed are those who mourn.

And so it is.

Wherever you find yourself in the Beatitudes, or whenever you recognize that God’s unexpected grace has show up in your life, then, you are blessed – not because you earn it, but because God says so.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.