St. Paul's On-the-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

All Saints Sunday; November 2, 2008

Matthew 5:1-12

STRESSED, BLESSED & A BLESSING

Frustrated! Isn’t that what we are, much of the time? Frustrated with our lives, frustrated with unconquerable sadness, frustrated with difficulty living our lives, frustrated with not finding the goodness in the world we need, frustrated with the world itself.

Frustrated, stressed, distressed, sad. What do we do?

Jesus says, we mourn.

When we have accepted how poor we are, when we have accepted how little we can do, when we have accepted how difficult or unjust the world is, when we know that nobody knows the trouble we’ve seen – we mourn.

Anybody can do that.

Not many can change their situation – however hard they try.

Not many can change the world – however hard they try.

Not many can change their community – though perhaps some can.

Not many can change sickness or sadness.

But all can mourn.

Some try to escape in entertainment. It works for a while, but not for long, and after a while we run out of money.

Some try to escape in alcohol or other substances. It works for a while, but not for long. It wears off, and leaves damage, and leaves the sadness intact. And it costs money too.

Mourning doesn’t cost money. We can all mourn.

Jesus is surrounded on that mountainside by all these poor people, all these powerless people. They have come to him seeking healing. The previous verses tell of how they came from all over seeking healing.

He can’t possibly heal them all. So, “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.”

He couldn’t – or didn’t – heal them all. He didn’t. He got away, and taught a small group. And he didn’t teach that small group how to heal. He taught them how to teach.

We get away from the crowds. We get away to the mountainside. We separate ourselves from the sad and sick and frustrated crowds. We come to him. He – teaches us. He doesn’t – heal us, even if we’re sick. He doesn’t teach us to heal others – even if they’re sick.

He teaches us to teach.

He teaches us to declare a blessing.

How does he teach?

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Blessed are those who know, in their spirit, that they are poor before God, don’t have much before God, don’t amount to much before God today, depend only on his love, his limitless grace. Blessed are those who know who they are before God – both nothing and everything – just like those who have already died whom we remember before God, who orbit God like angels, both nothing and everything before him, totally unaware of themselves, for who are they before him? Nothing. Everything. Poor in Spirit. Rich in Him. So too can we be, before death.

And if we are not there yet; if we are still overwhelmed by our difficulties and frustrations, still overwhelmed by the difficulties of the world and not yet at that point of sweet surrender to God – we can mourn. We can mourn, and in our mourning find communion and comfort with God.

How do they say you feel after a good cry? Comforted.

And then what is the next step in our walk of righteousness and goodness, our journey toward sainthood?

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Perhaps when we’ve cried for who we are not, perhaps when we’ve stopped spending money to approximate who we are not, we can accept who we are – meek, powerless, weak.

And, having looked around, finally, at who we are instead of who we hope to be, we can also accept from our father-god’s hand: this earth that we inherit – not with the stuff we’d also like to receive, but the earth itself, the nature, the plants and trees, the air, the sky. It’s ours – not the stuff we’d like to put on it, the stuff of humans; but the stuff of God’s.

Having accepted who we are and not what we might be and what we might buy – what next?

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Hunger and thirst in terms of fasting, not being hungry. Hunger and thirst as a spiritual discipline. So righteousness – goodness and the right relationship between all people in the world – becomes a spiritual discipline, a spiritual calling for each of us; not something to leave to political leaders, but something we are called to work on ourselves, all the time, in our communities and our world; not seeing our communities and our world as a potential playground for wealth and power, but as a home for all these people who live in it, ourselves included. That home should be organized along the lines of goodness. And we are called by our religion to play a part in it.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, whose religion and life forces them into the world to work for people, whose religion or life is not simply a refuge.

The disciples seek refuge with Jesus to seek guidance about how to live. He takes them, teaches them and sends them out – to teach and bless others so that those others might learn and bless, and be a blessing to others still, and others still, and others still.

We are sent to serve.

We come to rest. We rest and are taught and are sent, and again rest and are taught and are sent, and again and again to others and others and others still.

We are the salt of the earth – as Jesus says in the very next few verses. Here where we rest he makes us salty with his seasoning. There where we are sent, we salt others and transform others until they too can salt the world along with us.

What a calling we have – to lead others into leadership – rather than simply serving the world, or consuming from it.

Blessed. We are blessed indeed. The word for blessed here is the word reserved for those who live in the presence of God, usually in heaven.

We live in the presence of God here. And this is how to behave when we do.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” My goodness it will actually work! They will be filled. If we work for it, as a spiritual as well as a material discipline, something will happen. That’s encouraging, especially when hungering or thirsting for recreation and escape never fills you for long.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”

So that is the first thing we can do – for others. We can have mercy, and kindness, for them.

Having mourned our situation, having confronted our poverty of spirit and mourned our powerlessness and the world’s injustice and difficulty, having realized how meek and normal we are, having set about the spiritual discipline of goodness to others – we can begin our first official act of goodness, which is mercy and kindness.

We are no longer absorbed in our own troubles. We have accepted them and not escaped from them. We have mourned them because they still face us full in the face and are not going anywhere. Having mourned them and tried to do good for others now – we can be kind and merciful to them. We have what it takes. Perhaps we have learned it in that first official act of kindness and mercy to ourselves – mourning, instead of escaping ourselves.

And then? “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Perhaps our mourning has cleansed our heart the way a good cry feels like it does. Perhaps the abandonment of false riches has removed those false desires from our heart and we stand cleansed before God, ready to do God’s will in the pursuit of goodness; already making a beginning in mercy and kindness toward our neighbor.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Not children in terms of beloved of God. Children in terms of ‘a chip off the old block,’ just like mom, just like dad. “Oh yeah,” people say as they see us do that; “you’re just like your dad, just like your mom.” A peace maker – just like God.

And not a peace maker who just brings people together; but a peace maker who works so that all things are at peace with all other things, in God’s shalom, God’s harmony, God’s peace where all are interconnected and working together for the greater good.

Blessed are the peace makers.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Blessed are those who are actually noticed for doing all these things.

If we’re not doing it, we’re not noticed and we’re certainly not persecuted. If we’re not noticed or persecuted or at least ridiculed, perhaps we’re not being as righteous as we think we are; for Christianity is a public religion, true goodness is a public pursuit. If the public doesn’t notice any change, are we being as busy – as Christian – as we say we are?

“Blessed are you – when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

It means they noticed.

“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

The prophets – who said something and were heard. The prophets – who did something and were noticed. The prophets – who led and were followed. The prophets – who improved the world with good and righteous action, and words of mercy when there were none, and acts of goodness when there were few.

The prophets – whom we can be; we who sit at Jesus’ feet, afraid of all those people out there with all their demands for healing.

We’ve learned here what we can do with our frustrations and crises and sicknesses – mourn them in the presence of God and this kind and merciful fellowship when there is nothing else we can do.

Then, healed by the mourning, comforted by the fellowship, see that we have the strength to have mercy on others having first had it on ourselves, see the need to work for justice and goodness as a spiritual discipline, beloved of God.

Be filled with God’s ability to do it, having cleansed ourselves of our false, and newly mourned, desires and escapes.

Then purity, peace just like God worked for too. And maybe we’ll be noticed. Maybe it’ll hurt. But maybe we’ll do some good – and teach others to do some good too.

Amen