Beatitudes continued...

 

We continue to find our way through the Sermon on the Mount, prayerfully seeking ways these words might find a way into our minds, hearts, souls, and whole lives.  Last week, we let the words of the Beatitudes sink and settle and sing to our souls.  We noticed that while we usually think, “Blessing/Happy are those who are famous and have a fortune and thousands of followers,” Jesus says, “Um excuse me while I tear up that script of life and run it through the shredder.” Eek! 

 

I wonder how many people sitting at Jesus feet on the mountain turned to their partner and said, “Honey, I am outta here.  I’ll be in the car.”  Insert people stomping off and slamming the church door.  By the way, I know Jesus was outside and there was no actual door.  The words of the Beatitudes can be difficult and demanding to embrace and embody day after day.  Maybe that is why in Matthew 5:1, the writer has a distinction between the “crowd” and “disciples”.  How many people went up the mountain?  Are we willing to go up the mountain to not just listen to these words, but find ways to live them?  We recognize this is a spiritual summit. 

 

After Jesus upends the script of life, he draws a comparison between your life, my life, our life together and salt and light.  Jesus says when salt has lost its saltiness or zest-iness, you might as well toss and throw it out the window. Here is the irony and contradiction, salt rarely loses its saltiness.  According to the Morton’s website, and they must be the authority because my grandparents bought Morton’s salt, salt doesn’t expire.  Sure if you add other chemicals to the salt..which means it is not longer really salt…it might lose some of the flavor.

 

Pause with me…what does it mean that you cannot lose your saltiness?  Or maybe we do lose some of our flavor when we end up adding too much to our lives?  What would it mean to live the truth that there is a zest-iness built and baked into your life because you are created in God’s image?

 

Wait…don’t race through that last question.  Try to answer that question right now and every day.

 

Jesus continues, that you don’t light a lamp and put a basket over it.  Of course not!  Did you learn nothing from Smokey the Bear…that could start a forest fire!  More to the point, for a lamp to be a lamp it needs to shine.  If that sounds familiar, that is an echo of Christmas Eve, when we centered around that truth that for a candle to be a candle, it needs to be lit. 

 

As we approach the threshold of turning the calendar to February, I wonder, what is adding zest or spice to your life right now?  What is adding flavor?  And where are you encountering light and where are you letting your light shine? 

 

One final thought has you ponder prayerfully those questions: salt and light are every day, ordinary, ho-hum things ~ true in Jesus’ day and true today.  So, when reflecting and responding to those questions, you don’t have to figure out some special or set apart moment.  This doesn’t have to be, “My vacation skydiving and running with the bulls in Spain is totally going to be salty.”  (By the way, that vacation itinerary just made my anxiety say, “No thank you”.)  You don’t have to think, my light is so brilliant and bold that I will inspire everyone around.  Most of the time, our precious ordinary lives offer a dash of salt (which is always enough) and a bit of light which can help illuminate the next right step.

 

Sit with these images of salt and light to consider ways you might embrace and embody these in beautifully ordinary ways this day.  Amen.

Beatitudes Part Four

 

After living with Matthew 5-7, and specifically the Beatitudes this week, what was one insight or new idea that stirred within you?  What is one question you still hold?  (Wait, you think, just one, I have a thousand questions about this Sermon!)  Does the insight and question connect in any way? 

 

Sermons are not just speechifying…I am not just giving a talk on Sunday mornings.  For me, preaching and teaching is art.  I seek to share what is in my soul (as imperfect as I am) with you.  I trust that God moves in the spaces between words, the pregnant pauses, and the stirring of your sacred imagination to create something I did not intend but is profoundly beautiful for the sake of the world. 

 

Jesus didn’t just go to give a talk on a mountain.  I believe he was laying out the way he was living his life.  He lived a life of poverty, compassion, reaching out to the lost and lonely… and as Jesus did, people discovered right there was God’s realm while Jesus was on earth.  The call for us, you and me, is to not just believe these words intellectually, but live these words intentionally in our bodies. 

 

But…that takes our attention and intention. 

 

We will return to the Sermon on the Mount next week too.  For this week, on this Friday, continue to let God’s wisdom work in your life.  Notice how you are getting caught up in a great symphony God is creating and conducting right here and now.  Take our lives, O God, let them be consecrated/lived faithfully today and always.  Amen. 

Pause

 

Breathe in God’s blessing for you today…breathe out the people who live rent free in your mind and seem to love the reaction of pushing your buttons.  Too often these people are the very ones who cause us to distrust God’s promise.

Breathe in God’s energy for you…breathe out those who steal your joy.

Breathe in a love that enfolds and holds…breathe out the ways we are caught in systems that cause us to give our attention and allegiance to trying to score points on an imaginary scoreboard.

 

God of wisdom and courage, too often Your will is not done on earth.  Your will of openness and love and curiosity; Your will of honoring all creation as beautiful and reflecting Your creativity; Your will of people finding ways to dwell together rather than the walls we build between our side and those people.  Forgive us.  Call us back to sit at the feet of Jesus’ teaching that does challenge us to our very core and cause us to wonder, “Is this really possible?”  For in the space that question opens, there You can enter in.  Abide, inform, and inspire my living this day and for countless days to come.  Amen.

Praying the Beatitudes

 

At the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, is the question, what kind of world do we want to live in? 

 

Wait, don’t rush or race through that question!

 

What kind of world do you want to live in?  Hold that, turn that different directions to let the light reflect through the prism of life, lean in, and listen to additional questions can provoke/evoke.

 

Jesus’ opening wisdom about blessings and where God’s presence can be found points to a different world that doesn’t make a lot of sense and there is not a lot of evidence that Jesus words equate to what we know as “success”.  A few weeks ago, we hovered with the question, does your life or mine give evidence of an encounter with God? 

 

Jesus is saying these are people/places/spaces of poverty, pain, persecution, and pushed to the fringes and fray ~ that is the place God hangs out. 

 

Do we really want to live in a world where the poor, weeping, wounded, hurting, hungry brothers and sisters are the location of where God’s blessings show up?  Are you and I willing to step down so that someone can rise up?  Are we willing to share or do we cling to what is ours?

 

For me, these questions could be asked every day for the next eleven months, and I’d never exhaust or fully embrace all that is prompted in my head/heart/soul.  These questions could be asked the next eleven years of my life, and I’d never exhaust or fully embrace…which is why God’s grace helps fill in the gap between who God creates me to be and how I live. 

 

Please pray with me: O God, help me move past easy to swallow answers where I think I have it all figured out.  O God, help me do more than nod or give a polite, passing, “Amen” to what Jesus is saying.  May these words create a world in me where Your vision and presence can dwell always.  Amen. 

Sermon on the Mount Part 2

 

Yesterday, I invited you to read the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7.  I encouraged you to look at different translations.  The Sermon on the Mount begins with what is called the Beatitudes or Blessings or state of goodness.  But Jesus doesn’t say, “Blessed are those who are privileged or powerful or have a growing social media platform.”  Here is the Voice Translation of this passage:

 

Now when He saw the crowds, He went up on a mountain (as Moses had done before Him) and He sat down (as Jewish teachers of His day usually did). His disciples gathered around Him.

 

² And He began to teach them.

³ Jesus: Blessed are the spiritually poor—the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
⁴     Blessed are those who mourn—they will be comforted.
⁵     Blessed are the meek and gentle—they will inherit the earth.
⁶     Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness—they will be filled.
⁷     Blessed are the merciful—they will be shown mercy.
⁸     Blessed are those who are pure in heart—they will see God.
⁹     Blessed are the peacemakers—they will be called children of God.
¹⁰     Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness—the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

 

 

Pause with me, when in the last few months have you been at the end of your rope?  When have you lost someone?  Our church right now is grieving the deaths of a number of our members, some suddenly.  There is shock and rawness to grief; a pain that takes effort and energy to process.  Note that grief is complex, we grieve not only the death of loved ones, but lost opportunities, missed moments, or feeling emotionally cut off from family.  When have you felt restless, hungry for God, compassion for other? 

 

Find yourself in the Beatitudes.  Name and notice when the words described and defined your life. 

 

I mentioned yesterday that Jesus is offering God’s alternative vision for the world.  I am not sure as people of faith we know what to do with the gap between what Jesus describes and the world we experience/encounter today.  I encourage you to continue to let these words roam and rummage within you.  Continue to ponder prayerfully which words open your soul and which words you want to slam the door shut upon and pretend are not there.  Hold this and pray with me:

 

God, Your challenge to lean into these words can cause us to feel flummoxed and frustrated.  We struggle to see blessing in moments of tension or when we are weak/worn/tired.  We have been taught and told that what Jesus says is a blessing, is the exact opposite of what we are to seek.  What gives?  How in the world do we reconcile, embrace, and embody these words?  Do we really have the courage?  We believe and trust in You, help our unbelief and resistance for the revolution You are plotting and planning in our hearts.  Amen. 

Sermon on the Mount

 

In the coming weeks, I invite you to dive and dwell into the Sermon on the Mount with me.  The Sermon on the Mount can be found in Matthew chapters 5-7.  My favorite quote about this these three chapters is, “The Sermon on the Mount was probably not preached all at once, because that might have caused the disciples’ heads to explode!”

 

Indeed.

 

In these chapters you find God’s alternative vision for the world or what has been called, “A curriculum of Christlikeness”.  Yet, the words that fall from Jesus’ lips describe a world that is upside down from the “normal” way of life as you and I know it.  In our world, we seek fame, fortune, power, privilege, and positioning.  We want (dare I say, need) to win.  We stuff our lives with stuff and long for people to like our posts on social media.  Jesus’ wisdom is that blessing/goodness/God-ness/peacefulness is found not in the balance of our bank accounts, but among the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, hungry, justice-seekers, those who walk humbly with God, cultivate peace, and are even persecuted.

 

Huh?  That is not easy to hear or understand.  With a job description like that, it is surprising anyone followed Jesus OR still attends church.  I imagine people walking away from the Sermon on the Mount shaking their heads in disbelief.  I imagine the angry emails he got afterwards.   

 

How do we live in the tension between how the world we know describes and defines as blessing/goodness and how Jesus preaches and teaches the way of blessing/goodness?

 

I don’t think that question is easily solved or resolved.  That question needs to sit and simmer on our souls.  The Sermon on the Mount is like learning a foreign language, it takes time.  Jesus is laying out an alternative plan for life that will challenge us to the very core of our being; that will ask us to look at our calendars, checkbooks, credit card receipts, and conversations we are having with God and others and ourselves.

 

Today, I invite you to read all of Matthew 5-7.  After you read, write down the chapters/verses that you find meaningful (for example, I love the image of salt and light in chapter 5 and the instructions on prayer in chapter 6).  Also, name and notice what feels like sandpaper to your soul.  I confess the Beatitudes of chapter 5 of how Jesus talks about blessedness make my mind spin!  Moreover, the part about loving your enemy at the end of chapter 5 causes the defense attorney in my mind to stand up and say, “Objection!  This is NOT how the world works!  Plus, you don’t know how much my enemy hurt me!” (More on this part of the Sermon on the Mount in the weeks to come).

 

Soak yourself in these words.  Let them rummage and roam around your life.  You may want to re-read these chapters several times in the coming days as a prayer practice.  You may want to read different translations of these words to see if the words of one translation opens you to a different insight.  Please note, I am NOT offering a money-back guarantee, that at the end of the next few weeks of studying the Sermon on the Mount there will be some kind of spiritual break through (in fact, it might feel more like a break down).  But, I trust that when we dwell in the Word, the Word begins to dwell with us in ways that make a difference.  I trust this ancient wisdom of Jesus was not just good advice we may or may not accept, but a way of life that causes my soul to be curious.  Let’s dive in to see where this journey takes us.

Prayer

 

God of January days that continue to flow on in endless song.  I give thanks for the moments the melody of Your love set my soul dancing.  For people who cause me to be caught up in Your grace and love; for a church that prayerfully seeks/searches to be open to You; for worship and Bible Study and morning mediations, thank you, God.  I pray for our world, bruised and broken and busy.  I pray for places of war and famine and hatred.  I pray for the ways these narratives too often are the only story I tell myself.  Let Your grace and good news work/wiggle in my life this day.  I pray for those grieving.  I pray for family and friends hurting.  I pray for myself that I will be grounded and guided by You.  Continue, Authoring God, to help me find ways to live values that You have placed upon the shelves of my soul.  Help me be open to learning, deepening, being, striving, and resting in You so that Your rhythm might be the soundtrack to my life.  Let this be more than words on a screen I read, but a way of life I live today.  Amen.