Oct. 3 Sermon: Blessed Are You
Blessed Are You
Holy Covenant UMC, Oct. 3, 2010
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd
Luke 6:20-31
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Jesus looks out at the world and says:
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Josh awakes to loud alarms beeping and harsh light suddenly flipped on. It’s 5:30am, everybody must be out of the shelter by 6. He stumbles out of his top bunk, grabs his backpack, and hurries to the bus, hoping to make it to his high school in time for breakfast. The three buses and a mile walk take much longer than the route he took from home, before his parents kicked him out. They said they didn’t like the way he “dressed” or “acted”, but what they really don’t like is that he likes to kiss boys. He tries to choke back tears on the bus ride, steeling himself up to be strong at school. He makes it in time to grab breakfast—one of the sweet cafeteria workers always passes him a tray with a wink and tells him he doesn’t need to pay. He stuffs down as much as he can and saves the banana for lunch. It’s all he’ll eat today.
The students at the table next to his are gathered for a morning bible study, reading out loud the words: blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Josh almost snorts the chocolate milk out of his nose. God has done nothing to bless him. He’s alone in the world, fighting to pay to eat and find shelter and buy shoes that aren’t worn out. Blessed are the poor? Those kids know nothing about being poor, he thinks, and neither does God.
Jesus echoes: woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Rachel sits in her desk, looking down on the Chicago streets, just a few blocks away from Josh’s high school. She’s not what you’d consider rich, exactly, but she is proud of how far she’s made it in life. Rising up in her company, so that now she has a corner office instead of a cubicle.
And she did it all by herself, without any help.
She’s haunted by the graffiti found on their building this morning: woe to you who are rich. First of all, not everybody who works here is rich, she thinks defensively. I mean, she’s able to rent a nice apartment and drive a modest car, but come on, it’s not like she owns a house or even 2 or gets massages every week. And second, even if she does well, why the woe? She’s not cursed, thankyouverymuch. She’s living the American dream and she finds great contentment in her success. She feels blessed to lead this life, not cursed.
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
Martha sits at the foot of Rachel’s office building. She hasn’t eaten for 24 hours and is feeling really faint. She sees a man outside the sub shop and asks if he could buy her a sandwich. He refuses, but looks deep into her eyes and says: blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. The last thing Martha feels is blessed. You’ve got to be kidding me, she thinks. She remembers that text from her Sunday school days, growing up in a good Catholic family. Having sympathy for those who didn’t have enough, feeling good about herself when she served at a soup kitchen. Proud of a God who looks after the poor.
But on the other side of that bread line, she’s not looking for a blessing. She’s looking for a meal. And for someplace to stay. Mostly, she needs some healthcare to keep her mental illness under control…the ability to see the right doctors and refill the right medications.
She feels more cursed than blessed.
You will be filled? When? She wonders. In Heaven? She’s not ready to go there yet, though if things keep going like they have been it might not be that far off. She retorts back to the man: don’t look at a hungry person and tell her she’ll be filled up in the future. She may not make it to the future.
Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
Ted shops for his family at the local Dominicks, like he does every week, his Friday afternoon ritual. He feels blessed by this place. Grabbing a latte at Starbucks on his way in, a bunch of flowers for his wife, just because. He feels blessed by all the choices in the cereal aisle. They’re on a budget these days, so he picks from the variety of the store brand rather than the boxes with the cartoons or the fancy organic brands. Still, though, he buys three boxes, tailoring them to his children’s preferences. He read one of the most famous passages in Scripture this morning, during his daily devotion, the beatitudes from Luke. He was startled to read a curse on those who are full now. Because standing amidst the abundant produce, available year-round, he doesn’t feel cursed. He feels satisfied, full, and can’t imagine a day when he will ever be hungry. He’s been blessed by God with a beautiful family and plenty to eat. There’s nothing to curse about in his life.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Josh’s mom weeps every night before she goes to sleep. Despite her actions, she loves him, she really does, she tells her friends. And if it were up to her he could still live there. She worries about him every hour of every day. She puts on a happy face for her daughter, but late in the night, at 2am like clockwork, she goes in the bathroom and weeps.
She doesn’t feel blessed to have a son she doesn’t understand, to have such a stubborn husband, and to have all this going on while she’s taking care of her aging parents. It’s hard to imagine a day when she will laugh.
Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
Parents visit with one another at a park playground, outside of their church, laughing about the silly things their kids say. Dads swapping lines from this week’s Office episode, chuckling deeply about Dwight’s new love affair. Moms getting a good laugh about the new exercise equipment at the gym.
Woe to these parents? Enjoying some family time before going to church? Keeping a positive and upbeat attitude?
It’s now Sunday morning, and all of these folks pile into the same church service, enter through the same sanctuary doors. Some of them hug one another, others hang back and sit alone. They’re looking for hope and love, excited to see friends, ready for some inspiration to make it through the week again, just needing a warm place to sit for a while on a cold day.
After they sing and pray, the liturgist gets up and reads a passage from Luke that makes every single one of them uncomfortable. Blessed are the poor, woe to the rich…it keeps going…blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. *If this passage doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you’re not really listening*
It keeps going: woe to you when all think well of you.
Really, they think? We just want to be thought well of—by our families, our friends, at school and at work, here at this church. What’s wrong with being thought well of?
Consumed with their own stories, their blessings and their woes, they don’t really hear what the preacher has to say.
They’re too busy feeling guilty or self-righteous, empty or defensive. They start to wonder: what does blessing really mean? Everything is topsy turvy and upside down in this passage.
Before they know it, the sermon is over, and the Pastor is inviting everyone to the communion table. He says “this is the place where all of us are welcome. Where we feast together: the poor and the rich, the hungry and the full, the laughing and the weeping.
This table is where we are all equal and beloved in God’s eyes. We don’t wait until we get to heaven to share the same meal, it’s happening right here, right now. All of us gather around this common meal and we feast”
And he continues, saying, “may we heed the words of Jesus: ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.‘”
Those words wash over everyone in the sanctuary. Love for enemies. Good in the face of hate. Prayers for peace and turning away from violence. Extravagant generosity for those in need. Treating others as we want our children, our coworkers, our partners, ourselves to be treated.
They come and receive, every last person in that sanctuary.
One of the parents, who moments ago was laughing on the playground, sees Josh, 18 but still so much a child, ask the server in a whisper if he can take the extra communion bread with him. And her smile disappears as tears well up in her eyes, seeing this boy she’s known so long, now hungry. Maybe she could take him to lunch? Or take him in? They have an extra bedroom. She can’t stop crying for the rest of the service. In her tears she is blessed with compassion and compelled to action.
Martha hangs back, afraid that she doesn’t smell good enough or look clean enough to come forward to the table. She knows she’s worthy in the eyes of God, but afraid that she’ll be rejected by God’s followers, like she is most days of her life. But something about that bread compels her forward. She receives the bread and the cup and knows love. As she turns around, she looks at Rachel, in line behind her, and says “I am blessed, for I know God’s love”.
And Rachel, who still has work on her mind, checking her blackberry in the bathroom before communion, approaches the altar with emptiness. She hasn’t anchored herself in God’s love for so long…too focused on what she does or doesn’t have, what she can do to earn more, how she can take care of her own needs. When she witnesses Martha’s place at the table, she doesn’t know up from down anymore. She doesn’t feel blessed because she’s not living out of love or generosity. Something about that bread compels her to change and to share.
She goes back to her seat, and for the first time in a long time, instead of checking her e-mail, she prays about ways she can learn more about women like Martha, hear other people’s stories, and truly connect. She is blessed.
Ted begins to realize just how hungry he is, even though he’s filled up with homemade pancakes and fresh blueberries and imported coffee. For he longs to know what true blessing means. He felt so satisfied walking into church, believing God had favored his family, for they are so healthy and full. And now, looking around the table, realizes that luck or fate or illness or an unexpected cut at work could have left him fighting for his next meal, just like some in line around him. That moment of recognizing that God favors the hungry just as much rocks his world.
Josh’s mom watches as her son takes home 2 loaves of bread, always such a good eater, watches his sister, her daughter, run up and embrace him. Watches others in the church hug him and a smile comes across her face. She’s not yet laughing, but she can’t deny that she’s meant to share her table with her son, whatever her husband says. This table has convicted her that love, for her child, must win.
The meal is a blessing. Is an extravagant gift of God.
This meal turns everything upside down. What we know about emptiness and hunger, favor and love, insiders and outsiders, how we think of blessings. How we receive blessings.
If blessing is the extravagant grace and love of God, then nothing else can take its place. Not the cereal aisle or the corner office or a safe neighborhood park.
If woe, if curses fall upon that which fills us up and is not God, then woe to us who don’t feast at this table. Who fill ourselves up on that which is not God. Woe to us who know that poverty and hunger and violence and hatred are real, and do nothing to transform the world.
This meal is real for us today. Who walked into the same church service, through the same sanctuary doors. It’s what Jesus preaches and it’s what U2 sings. That blessing isn’t about the material gifts we receive, believing we “deserve” our lot in life, or that we’ve created it completely on our own. Blessing is unconditional love in the face of suffering and injustice. Blessing is peace in the face of violence, love in the face of hate, generosity in the face of greed. This table is a place, not only where our spiritual needs are met, but where we are called to change the material needs of the world. So that we live in a world where everybody has enough, everybody has access to food. Not too much and not too little.
As we come to this table, may we be blessed. Filled up with the knowledge that we are unconditionally loved and the passion to share that truth with others. To do unto others as God does unto them. Working for that day when peace is a reality, and we all sit at the heavenly banquet.
Jesus says: Here at this feast, all of us are blessed.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Tags: Kate
