January 30, 2011 "Blessed Are You"

Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12
Only a month after Christmas, knowing that in CNY we can receive cold and snow through Easter and Mother's Day, to have had an accumulation of ten feet thus far this month, surely makes the downhill skiers shush and the ice fishermen dance a jig, but many at this time of year see an unending winter. Blessed are you, because of the warmth of your hearts, the compassion and caring of our fellowship.

From the time of Abraham, people have tried to know what they must do to succeed, to win, to enjoy life. Is it a matter of whoever has the most toys at death wins? What must we then do to satisfy God? If Kings want taxes and tribute, how much more must we give to appease God Almighty? This afternoon at Drummonds, the estate of Bernie Madoff is being auctioned off. Rolex watches, paintings by Picasso and Renoit, Ferraris and Furs, here was all the stuff one of the richest scoundrels in the world tried to collect, to make himself happy and full, but as one who had built his life on bilking others he could never be satisfied, and could not take it with him.

Some have used the passages this morning as a kind of treasure map, a secret plan to success, for what we must do. The problem is that the Beatitudes are not a check list that one can accomplish or possess. Despite the Reality Shows, it is not living for a month hungering, or in poverty, or meekness, that are themselves salvation. Others have psychoanalyzed these words to be a kind of Divine Consolation Prize. We know who the winners were, the ones with gold statuettes, for all the rest may you be blessed. NO.

No, there is a link between these passages, in perceiving what pleases God and blesses us in life. Of late, there have been several of those among us, who advanced in years have already given to God their spouses, and sometimes their children and peers, their hearing, and their eyesight, for whom getting out of bed is a major effort each day, not because of depression, that is different, but because of the effort of living. These are among the ones, for whom these passages were spoken.

To understand, we need to know what it means to be “blessed.” Throughout the Old Testament and Wisdom literature, even the Book of Revelation there are Beatitudes, pronouncing blessing. Typically, the word MAKAR is translated “Happy, At Peace, Salvation, Victorious, Okay, Good and Fine.” Can we agree to eliminate from common usage words without meaning? Four letter words, “Like, Just, Good, Fine, Okay” are filler telling us nothing of what a person feels, what they believe, who they are. Makar/ Blessed means a great deal more than Good, Fine and Okay, but as beatitudes, these refer not only to the persons being described, but are also indicative of God. “Makar/ Blessed” is to Be SEEN and KNOWN for what you have done, for who you are BY GOD.
Blessed are you who are Poor in Spirit, For your spirit has been paired with The Spirit of God.
Blessed are those who mourn the loss of others, For God will reunite you giving you comfort.
Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For you shall see God who has seen you.

To be blessed, is not only a statement of fact, that we have been seen by God, that lives matter and are known, but also to be blessed is to demonstrate to all the world that the existence of God, the presence of God in our lives matters to us. This is not a conscious choice but an implicit commitment.

This week as the Bible Study met reading Isaiah, we encountered the Biblical idea of “The Remnant.” What is it to be The Faithful Remnant, those who never gave up, the few who survived when all the rest were lost. Being The Remnant cannot be a matter of Self-Righteousness, like Elijah claiming before God, “I and I alone am left,” but rather being the remnant, the survivor, changes us, we have to make sense out of why God has used us. Being a Remnant, being Blessed, are not statements of Self-Righteousness not Arrogant claims of knowing better than others, but rather acknowledgement that we have been instruments of God, used by God without our knowing.
I would share with you one of my growing edges this morning. This is a hard issue especially for me and for this congregation, because we have many who are entrepreneurs, who see a problem and set out to fix it. My realization has been that whenever I have tried to figure things out all on my own, to understand why my brothers acted as they have done, or what are the needs of an individual or the community, when I have tried to discern right things on my own, I have invariably been wrong. Time and again, I have seen others come into a Bible Study or a Committee Meeting having figured out the answers to a circumstance from their perspective, which only fit in the abstract of their private thinking. Yet, when the body meet together, when we share as a physical communion, when we question and listen and converse from the heart, we come up with communal answers we never could have found on our own.

Part of Jesus Sermon on the Mount, is that he went up and sat down with the crowd, and named as Blessed, not only the poor, not just the meek, not the pure set apart or the righteous all by themselves, but that the crowd, the body, the church is blessed by having among its communion those who are poor in spirit, and those who are meek, and those who are peacemakers, all together.

What does the Lord Require? It is not having the right answer. Not winning, or avoiding wrong. Ironically, as the Covenant Community, what the Lord requires is not even obeying the Covenant. Not riches, or accomplishments. What does the Lord Require of us: To Do Justice, to love Kindness, to walk humbly through life as a human being with God.

We live in an amazing place and time. Not only for the technological advances, which are many. Not only for the beauty and majesty of this place, which we regularly forget and neglect to notice. Not only for the privileges which we often do not know we have compared to others in this world. We live in an amazing place and time, because of the people who are part of this community. Recently, the clergy from all the churches met together, to learn from one another about Baptism and Communion and Ministry, the nuances of difference in our traditions, as well as the communal understandings. No one was perceived as having all the right answers, but Protestant and Catholic, Congregationalist and Ordained, we could in humility and honesty share and learn from one another. The most amazing experiences of faith I have witnessed in this community have been when we shared together. Years ago there was a death in the community, and the priest had been on retreat, so the other clergy joined together for the visitation, to console and comfort. There was boating accident, and as a pastor, I was called forward by the priest at the funeral to kneel and pray at the table.

One of the realizations from our conversation, was that in other traditions, Catholic and Protestant, it is possible to receive only the bread, or only the cup, as the elements are seen to be complete and representative of the Sacrament; whereas in the Presbyterian Church the Bread is a claiming of our brokenness and need for forgiveness, while the cup is a foretaste of that hope of being in communion with God and one another. To receive the cup without the bread would be a cheap Grace. To receive the broken bread and not want to receive the cup, would be a claim of desire to reman broken and isolated.

Another realization was that as Presbyterians today, we are the only church, which elects, ordains and installs our leadership from among our membership. There are churches which elect their leaders. There are churches which have ordained leaders. There are churches which have elected, ordained leaders. But the idea of being chosen from within the congregation, as minister, elder or deacon, and given responsibility not simply as business leaders but as spiritual leaders, who then step out of that responsibility when we are done in order to trust and support others, this is unique to us as Presbyterians. Tragically, I have known Presbyterian Churches where the leadership did not step aside when their term was done, others whether these leaders vanished after their installation had expired.