Are you blessed?

 

 Are you blessed? 

A sermon on Facebook Live Broadcast

Sirach 26:10: The Headstrong Daughter

All Saints Day - November 1, 2020

 

Are you the ones?

 

Are you the ones Jesus is talking about in Matthew’s version of The Beatitudes? 

 

Are you ‘blessed’? 

 

If you are, how do you know it?

 

Usually, when people say they are “blessed” they mean that they have not only what they need, but an abundance of it. They are “blessed” they say, with a comfortable lifestyle and good health and really do not want for anything – a home, a car, a loving family, and a wonderful vacation in a warm part of the world to look forward to in the midst of winter.

 

Is that what Jesus means by being blessed?

 

I know people who say, breezily, “I’m too blessed to be stressed.” I find them oddly unconvincing. I mean, if you’re not stressed, why do you have to say that you’re not? Besides, it seems to me that if you are using the definition Jesus gives of “blessed” you have every reason to be “stressed”.

 

For Jesus, those who are “blessed” include the poor, the meek, those who mourn, those who have know injustice, those who have shown mercy, and the pure in heart, along with those who have been persecuted.

 

Anybody here like that? Bueller? Anybody?

 

Thing of it is, even if we weren’t having church “remotely,” – or, as I heard someone call it the other day, “distance church,” a riff off “distance learning,” 

 

I suppose – even if we were gathered together in one place, back in our church buildings, in the midst of our congregations - if I asked for a show of hands of those who fit the definition Jesus gives of being “blessed,” only a very few people would raise their hands.

 

There is this persistent sense that to be a Christian is to be “blessed”. That, with The Lord as my shepherd, I shall not be in want.  That, to be a Christian is to be unrelentingly happy and relentlessly cheerful.  That Christians know about God and prayer and how to ask God for stuff which is why they seem to get things. That Christians have good homes and cars and families where no one causes any trouble.  

 

And, Christians are successful. 

 

And, Christians are, well, damned near perfect.

 

Anybody here like that? Bueller? Anybody?

 

So, what does Jesus mean by ‘blessed’? And, why in heaven’s name are we hearing about The Beatitudes on All Saints’ Day? 

 

Jesus grew up in a good Jewish home where blessings were often said as part of the pattern of a life of prayer. The Hebrew word is “Berakah” and it is an expression of praise or thanks to God.

 

The root of the Hebrew word means to “increase” or “bring down Divine abundance.” So, when a Jewish person blesses someone they are asking God to increase God’s presence, to shine God’s light on you… in essence, to give you more of God’s self.

 

To be “blessed” then, is not to be wealthy or affluent. To be blessed is to be closer to God, to be closer to the Divine Light, to experience an increase of the presence of God.

 

Jesus is saying that, you, if you are poor, you who are meek, you who mourn, you who have know injustice, you who have shown mercy, and you who are pure in heart, along with you who have been persecuted that God is closer to you than you could possibly ask for or imagine.

 

That was not only opposed to everything the Israelites knew about the values of their culture, it was also antithetical to everything they had been taught about God. The God of their understanding was a punitive God.

 

Illness? That was punishment for sin. Death? Everyone knew that God strikes down the sinner. Poverty? It’s just what God has decided for God’s “chosen people” until they were able to get another king, someone who would save them and overthrow the Roman occupation.

 

Until then, there were rules to keep, laws to follow, taxes to pay, suffering to endure. Imagine now how these words fell on the ears of those who heard Jesus say them for the first time. Imagine learning that the thing you thought kept you from God – or was a punishment for something you had or had not done – was the very thing that brought you closer to God. 

 

I want to tell you about one of the saints who helped me understand the deeper, spiritual meaning of what it means to be blessed. More years ago than I'd care to remember, I was a Vicar at The Episcopal Church of St. Barnabas in the inner city of Newark, NJ.

It was a small, struggling congregation. No money. Lots of problems with the building. High un/under employment rate. High immigrant population. Grinding poverty. Not a lot of resources.  In a neighborhood with a sky-high rate of violent crimes and domestic abuse. 

Ah, but there was a Very Big Spirit in that Little Church.

One of the very big spirits in the congregation was Ms. Eula Jefferson, now numbered among the saints. Eula was a feisty African American woman who had lived in the neighborhood most of her life. She had been "a domestic" - cleaning the once lovely but now rundown old Victorian houses in the neighborhood which had been the exclusive address in the then affluent "Roseville" section of Newark.

Ms. Jefferson loved to tell the story of how she used to pass by St. Barnabas whenever she was on her way to catch a bus into The City.  One day, at the end of a long day, she found herself especially weary. "Past the bone and into the soul weary," she said. She thought she'd stop by for a little rest and some quiet time in prayer with Jesus. It was the early to mid 1960s.

As she walked into the church, she realized that some sort of service was going on. She was Baptist in those days, she said, and had no nevermind about joining the service. She just wanted a place to rest her weary bones for a few minutes before continuing her travels and say some things to Jesus that were on her heart.

You know how the rest of this story goes - or, at least, you can hazard a good guess.

She was, of course, stopped at the door by a member of the church - "a fellow who was a long drink of white milk" she said - and very politely told that the service was "for members only."

She said she smiled at the man, said she understood, and asked if she might just sit in the back pew for a bit, just to catch her breath and say a few prayers.

"This church," she was told, "is for members only."

Mind you, this was The Episcopal Church. In the early to mid 1960s.

"What did you do?" I asked, marveling at her calm, at least in the retelling of the story.

"Well," she said, "I just looked right past that man in front of me and looked at the man hanging from the cross that was over the altar."

"I said - right out loud - 'Mr. Jesus, sir, you'll excuse me if I can't visit with you here right now. This gentleman here says you'll only hear the prayers of people who are members of this church. Now, you and I know that ain't right, but I ain't gonna mess with him. You know where that will get me. So, we'll just have to wait until I get intoThe City and find a church where we can continue this conversation.'"

"'But, one day, Mr. Jesus, sir, I'll be talking to you from inside this church. You know that's right. I ain't never made a promise to you I knew I couldn't keep, and I ain't making one I can't keep now. And, I'm making it to you now, in front of this man who tells me I can't. Thank you.'"

And then, she said, she turned around and left "my head held high, on my own steam and with Jesus in my heart."

And that, she said, was both part of the cause of the 1967 Newark Riots - and the reason she eventually became a member of St. Barnabas, Newark.

The priest at St. Barnabas at the time of The Riots opened the church doors as a 'sanctuary' (imagine that!) of safety against the dangers of walking the streets of that neighborhood. Provided them with food. A place to gather to organize the community. A place to rest from the weariness of the world. A place to have a few words with "Mr. Jesus."

I asked her how she managed against the adversity, the violence, the poverty.

She smiled and said something I'll never forget: "Child, if the mountain was smooth, you couldn't climb it."

If the mountain was smooth, you couldn’t climb it. See? The things that look like obstacles may actually be the very thing you need to put your foot or your hand on so you can lift yourself higher.

 

Ms. Jefferson sounds a bit like her Mr. Jesus, doesn’t she? Here she is taking something you expect to be bad and unexpectedly turning it upside down. Just when you think you are being kept from God, turns out God has never been closer.

 

It’s a new beatitude: Blessed are those who climb mountains, for they have a footstool to the heavens.

 

So, I’ll ask my question again: Are you the ones? Are you the ones Jesus is talking about in Matthew’s version of The Beatitudes?

 

Are you ‘blessed’? Perhaps if you look again at the conditions Jesus names with the understanding that God has never been closer to you, I suspect a lot of hands are going up in real time in cyberspace.

 

God is with us – even when we don’t think so.

 

Especially when we don’t think so.

 

And, I suspect, all the saints – especially Ms. Eula Jefferson – are part of that wonderful Light that increases and shines upon us to bless us.   

 

Amen.