#Blessed??

 

Blessed ~ what comes into your mind when you hear that word?  Is blessing based on external evidence that we can point to and prove your point?  Is blessing tied and tethered to the balance of your bank account or vacation plans or everything going according to your plotting and planning?  It is good to remind ourselves that within Christianity there remains a stream of thought that is called, “the Prosperity Gospel” …and essentially that is what you get when you mix capitalism and Christianity in the laboratory of your life.  You will hear things like, “God wants you to be rich or live your best life ever!”  What is so difficult/demanding is that there is part of us that wants to believe that God and Goodness are infinitely tied together.  Yet, goodness is not perfection.  What is good, may not make it into our top ten moments of life ever!  Good can be a sip of coffee on a chilly Florida day.  Good can be a hug that comes at just the right time, even though it doesn’t duct tape your broken heart back together.  Good can be breathing and being, showing up even when you are not convinced it made a difference. 

 

And, to name the elephant in the room, the goodness Jesus speaks of in the Sermon on the Mount are the very experiences and encounters we tend to question whether God really exists.  Jesus juxtaposes contradictions.  Blessed are the poor?  Well, maybe when they have a good job and house, but not when scrapping together.  Or, we can idealize poverty as somehow being closer to God, like monks and nuns who take vows to never own anything.  I believe the Beatitudes should feel like nailing Jello to the wall, because these words are not just spoken to our minds, but to our whole lives.  This is not just intellectual ascent, but a reordering of a whole system (political, economic, social, and religious) that might cause us to question why we are doing what we are doing.  And of course, most of the time, people like the status quo and prefer that you not ruffle their feathers, thank you very much!

 

There is no one way to solve this Rubix Cube-like puzzle of faith.  I imagine the disciples’ jaws dropping when they heard these words.  “What in the name of Yahweh are you talking about, Jesus?”  God continues to surprise earth with heaven in ways we don’t understand but we stand under to guide us.  I invite you to pick one of the beatitudes today and sit with the mystery shoved in a puzzled stuffed in an enigma that it is.  And I would love to hear your insights and questions into what you uncover as you do this.  May God’s wisdom continue to challenge us in life-giving, discipleship-forming, and never-finished-with-us-ways in these days. Amen.