Sermon on the Mount conclusion

 

²⁷ And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?

 

Yesterday, we learned the four spaces where anxiety/anger/fear/joy, really any emotion, can reside and call home.  To review: emotions can exist in you.  Emotions stirs and swirl in your mind/heart/soul/body.  Second, emotions exist in others.  You feel this when you talk to a friend.  Third, emotions exist between two people.  Sometimes we absorb the energy in motion from the person we are talking to.  We might arrive to lunch whistle a tune, only to turn into Grumpy dwarf when our lunch companion starts ranting and raving about the broken world.  Finally, emotions exist in a group of people.  We see this at political rallies, meetings, any time three or more gather. 

 

One note, this isn’t necessarily good or bad.  I am not asking you to become a judge (remember the morning meditations from last week about judging and removing the log from our own eye/ ways of seeing). 

 

But many of us have been taught or caught that worry/anxiety/anger/fear is the only way.  More than that, we have actually rationalized our emotions with words that we hope make what we are feeling so logical. 

 

Jesus’ gospel medicine is that there is life beyond what we know as reality here.  I am NOT talking about heaven.  I am talking about another way of life while we still here on earth.  Jesus offers us freedom from that which narrowly defines and confines us and freedom toward a way of life where the Beatitude guide and ground us.  We are coming full circle here, that if you want to know some ways to let the good news reside in you, go back and re-read the Beatitudes, which turns us toward prayer, which grounds us in beloved-ness and that I don’t have it all figured out (my point of view is a view from one point ~ not the whole truth).

 

Today, I invite you to notice and name where emotions are swirling within you ~ between you ~ in another ~ and in groups where you find yourself.  The more we are aware of this, the more we can begin to show up in different ways that I will turn toward and talk about tomorrow.  Please pray with me:

 

God, Your expansive embrace can hold all that we carry within us, between us, and those who gather with us.  Continue to enfold us; empower us to name/claim the energy within us; and open us to Your good news of unceasing grace and unconditional love.  Let the momentum of Your movement be our vision this day wherever and with whomever we find ourselves.  Amen.