Sermon on the Mount

 

Yesterday, we read the whole Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7.  I invited you to sit with places Jesus’ words fascinated you and where these words frustrated you.  I invited you to hold places where you wanted to know more and where you were ready to storm off the mountain side in a huff.  Following Jesus is not always smooth sailing on calm seas.  The life of faith is not an insurance policy or money back guarantee to the “good life”.  If anything, God is continually turning our world upside down…or I am convinced…right side up.  We heard this a month ago at Christmas, when we pondered, what if we had the courage of Joseph to stand with those who are poor and poor in spirit, those who mourn and are meek (which can also mean strength under control), those who are hungry and those who are hurt by systems of oppression?  This will not earn us fame or fortune or followers on social media.  Oh, sure, initially you can make a splash by sharing love and at some point, people will be saying, “That isn’t the way we have done things around here.”  Jesus starts off the sermon with the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-12.  I invite you to re-read those today.  As you read, pause after each verse and ponder who you know or how your story finds space and a place in what Jesus says.  Or maybe where the statement so shatters the status quo of the place we call “home”?

 

For example, as you read, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”, who are poor in spirit?  What does that phrase, “poor in spirit” even mean to you?  Does it mean that the person’s soul is empty?  Or there are too many cobwebs amid the cardboard boxes of emotional life shoved into the corners (that describes me all too often)?  Is poverty a financial condition or a way of being in the world?  I know people who take endless vacations to exotic destination and locations but often come back mumbling and grumbling that the plane was five minutes delayed, and the food was meh and the biggest ball of twine is sooooo overrated, even though they snapped countless selfies in front of it and posted online that it was the, “Best. Day. EVER!”.  Poverty is an expansive and evolving word.  We don’t need to confine the definition of poverty to one box.  Who and where and how has the word, ‘poverty’ been a lived reality in your life.  I can think of my childhood when my dad lost his job, and we had to go on food stamps and had grilled cheese sandwiches with block cheese we picked up from the Union headquarters trying to help us out.  I think of my parents barely making ends meet.  And I think of the beloved of God I saw this morning in a sleeping bag on the streets.  Thirteen words of Jesus can stir so much within us when we sit with, hold and are held by these words. 

 

When have you mourned and what are you grieving right now, because grief is always a thread and theme in life.  Where are you feeling meek, maybe silenced on the sideline, what are you hungry for both in your stomach and in your soul?  Where do you long for mercy and where do you resist mercy for another?  I pray you will let these words simmer in your soul and sing to your heart.  May your mind, heart, soul, and life start to discover/uncover ways of blessing in the very places/times our world says have no blessing at all ~ because God is everywhere ~ especially in messy manger and unpolished/less-than-perfect stables of your life and mine.  With God’s love.  Amen.