6 Epiphany Yr C Feb 17 2019

Audio  6 Epiphany Yr C Feb 17 2019 Jeremiah 17:5-10, 1 Corinthians 15:12-20, Luke 6:17-26, Psalm 1

You just heard Deacon Doug read this passage from Luke, that we often call the Beatitudes. I want you to hear it again, this translation is from N.T. Wright, who is the former bishop of Durham, in the UK.

Blessings on the poor: God’s kingdom belongs to you!

Blessings on those who are hungry today: you’ll have a feast!

Blessings on those who weep today: you’ll be laughing!

Blessings on you, when people hate you, and shut you out,

But woe betide you rich: you’ve had your comfort!

Woe betide you if you’re full today: you’ll go hungry!

Woe betide you if you’re laughing today: you’ll be mourning and weeping!

Woe betide you when everyone speaks well of you: that’s what your ancestors did to the false prophets.

The trouble with this text is that it is hard for us to hear. It is hard for us, who are not really very poor, who are not usually hungry. We don’t really know what to do with it. And Luke’s version has these woe statements. Matthew, the other gospel writer who included the Beatitudes in Jesus’ sermon on the mount, didn’t do that. We hear the sharp edges of these woes and wonder where we find ourselves in this sermon of Jesus’.

I remember sermons that tried to teach me about Be-attitudes. You know the ones, where we learned that these are all about having the proper attitude toward the challenges in our lives. If you just have the right attitude or do it the right way you can overcome the obstacles in your path.

I’m not sure that’s the correct approach, I think that misses out on the incredible grace these blessings offer, and the corrective the woes offer. The word itself, blessed or blessing, could be translated happy or fortunate, and has been so in many of the bibles we read. But even happy or fortunate does not come close to depth of meaning of blessed. Happy is a great word, a great way to be, but being happy is really up to me, isn’t it? It is much like having a good attitude. Fortunate is a word that makes me think of lucky, as in, “I was lucky that car didn’t hit me!” and maybe a bit capricious or arbitrary.

Blessed and blessing is not capricious or arbitrary. Being blessed is not a result of a transaction with God. Blessed is who you are. Blessed is who you are created to be. Blessed is connection and relationship. We are blessed, we are related, we are known. And that blessing is for all of us. Every part of God’s creation is blessed, the whole of God’s creation is blessed. That’s the point in the first chapter of Genesis, God created and God blessed. God creates and God blesses.

So when I hear these blessing that are beatitudes, what I hear is blessings on you, all of you, even the poor, who society shuts out. Blessings on all of you, even you hungry people, yes even you, you people who are excluded from the finer dining establishments, you who are excluded from getting jobs that pay a living wage, even you are blessed. Blessings on you people who weep, even you, blessings on you when you close yourself off in your home and cry, thinking that no one wants to hear you. Blessings on your tears when you think no one can see you. Blessings on your broken heart. And blessings on you, even when you stand up for what is right, blessings on you when you stand for justice and peace, blessings on you who preach with your lives that God loves all of creation and weeps when this earth is mistreated. Blessings on all of you.

And in this gospel, blessings bestowed on all of God’s creation, even on those who society has forgotten, or turned out, turn into anguish and grief for those who misuse wealth, money, and power. Woe betide you, aren’t those great words? This is not simply do or do not. Because it is not a transaction. This is a call to deep transformation, not just to doing good, no matter how good that is. It is a call to us who are blessed, to all of us, to participate with God in the healing of our planet, in the healing of our nation, in the healing of our hearts.

You see, this is the sermon on the plain. In Luke’s good news, Jesus stands shoulder to shoulder, side by side, with the people who gather to hear him. In Luke’s good news, remember, at the very beginning, we hear Mary sing,
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy, The promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.”

The words that Mary sings as she learns of her child, and this sermon that Jesus delivers in this field, form the foundation for Jesus’ teaching in this gospel according to Luke. For Jesus this life is not about what you have and who you are, this life is about empowering those without power. This life is about raising up those who have been cast out. This life is about filling the hungry with good things.

This life is about standing together when our hearts are broken, and being filled with the only thing that can put us back together again, Jesus. This life is about loving no matter what, even when it seems absolutely impossible to love.

Jesus’ very life and death and resurrection shows that. On the cross, in the midst of the pain and anguish, Jesus gives his life, and Jesus forgives those who hate. Blessed are those who forgive when it is easier to hate. Blessed are those who love when it is so very hard to love. The good news of this sermon on the plain is that Jesus stands with us, all of us. Jesus stands with those who are hungry, those who are grieving, those who downtrodden. And we are all joined on this plain because we are all in need. And, through our need, by God’s favor for us and all who are in need. “Jesus’ came down with them and stood on a level place, so that we might, too. So that we may be blessed to be a blessing.

Blessings on you today and always. Amen.

5 Lent Year C

In John's gospel we come into the presence of characters we know. Jesus, Lazarus, Martha, Mary. These people who populate this story we have come to know as friends. Lazarus, who Jesus brought back from the dead, Mary, the one who sat at Jesus' feet to learn all she could, Martha, who prepared the meal, and was a bit resentful of her sister Mary. Both Martha and Mary wept at the grave of their brother, and yet here he is today, all of them preparing for Jesus' inevitable death, rather than mourning Lazarus' death.

It is a bit like showing up week after week to watch your favorite television show. You get to know the characters as if they are friends. You laugh at them and with them, you celebrate their victories and mourn their defeats. You mourn their passing from the television show and your life. Just like the friends that populate my life from Downton Abbey. I root for Bates and Anna and their roller coaster life together. I hope Thomas can figure out his life and find someone to love. O'Brien I like to yell at across the room. Robert and Cora show us so much about long-standing love and commitment, and Edith, poor Edith being stood up at the altar, I can't even think about Sybil, and Tom pining for her. And there is the dowager, with her quick quips and tender heart. But Mary, and Matthew. Ahh, Matthew, you see, I hold out hope that maybe it just isn't so, and Matthew will rise from the dead, just like Lazarus. I return, week after week, to hear the story of this family.

We return week after week and year after year as we hear about these friends and followers of Jesus. And this particular episode is set at Lazarus and Mary and Martha's house as they gather for a meal. There is Martha, preparing what I imagine to be an amazing and abundant feast, she would not settle for less. The smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the house, fresh vegetables from the garden, a slow roasted lamb with garlic and spices, and for desert, a home made sorbet, more than enough for all. And there they gathered, giving thanks for Lazarus, who should have been dead, but is alive, ignoring the reality that Jesus will be dead soon. These are ordinary people, not unlike you and me but for the place and time they lived. Ordinary people, living in and giving thanks for the abundance and new life that has been bestowed upon them. All of which is gift, none of it deserved, or earned. God's grace poured out.

"Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair." Abundant, opulent, luxurious, overflowing. This is grace, freely given, without price. Flowing out, flowing forth, flowing through. Filling the wounds, the cracks, the fissures with healing balm. This story, populated by our friends Jesus, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, is also about you, and me. With the costly perfume, Mary anoints Jesus for death, with love and grace God anoints us for life.

God's love, like the costly perfume made of pure nard, seeps into the fissures of our hearts, flows into the fragments of our loves, permeates the brokenness of lives. God's love, like the costly perfume made of pure nard, transforms the pieces of our lives into an integrated whole and creates us anew. An amazing gift, God's grace, how do you receive it? How are you transformed by it?

God's love, like the love of the cross, wins. God's love, like the love of the cross, returns violence not with revenge, but with forgiveness. God's love, like the love of the cross, flows in and through and among us. God's love, like the love of the cross, does not rescue us from pain, and sadness, and suffering, but gives us Jesus, who walks with us through the pain, and to the joy. God, in the flesh, loves us. Inhale the fragrance of the nard, it is all for you.

But it seems so extravagant, it seems so opulent, it seems so luxurious. Just think of all the people that money that was spent on it could help. Just think of all the food that money could buy. Just think of all the good that money could do. Most of us spend much of our lives believing that we don't deserve God's love and grace anyway. But it's never about what we deserve or don't deserve. There are many people more deserving or less deserving than we perceive ourselves to be. Thank God that's not how God's grace works. It's what's so amazing about God's grace, God's love, it's not about us at all. It is about God. That's why we have so much trouble with accepting God's unconditional love.

That's also why we are not in the business of judgement. It's not up to us to determine who gets to sit at the banquet table, it's not up to us to determine who sits at Jesus' right hand and who gets the left. It's just not up to us. Our work is to put ourselves in a place to be present to God's love and grace and forgiveness and healing. Our work is to be receptive to the transformation that God yearns to affect in us. Our work is to respond to the Love that wins with mercy, and compassion, and forgiveness.

And it's never about how much money is in the bank. Hunger is not about the money. "You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." Hunger is about the holes in our hearts that cannot see the needs of others. Hunger is about the holes in our heads that make us not understand it's not about how hard we work or how lazy someone else may be. Hunger is about our own brokenness that doesn't allow us to look into the eyes of those who are different from us and know we are just the same. And hunger is about our sisters and brothers who do not have enough to eat, whose homes are sub-standard, who go to the mission to find a place to sleep. The only thing worse than not caring for the poor is pretending to. We don't care for one another because we have something they don't, we care for one another because Love wins.

Breathe the fragrance of God's love, let it wash over you, let it fill your brokenness. It will transform you, it will heal you, it will bring you new life.