Blessed are those who mourn.........

.......for they will be comforted.  Matthew 5.4

Now, that's a promise.  When you are sitting in the darkness of grief, knowing for certain that comfort is coming may be hard to believe, but it is at least something to hold on to. God's comfort in the face of our grief as a very real blessing.

But there is more.  Jesus is not just teaching about our personal faith life; he is teaching about the kingdom of heaven (other gospels use the phrase kingdom of God but Matthew prefers kingdom of heaven).  Jesus is laying out before his disciples and potential followers the dimensions of the kingdom Jesus is creating even as he sits teaching the crowds.

These crowds are well aware of the kingdom in which they currently live.  They understand the power of the ruling Romans, their oppressive taxation system, the tendency of their own people to take advantage of fellow Israelites, and the terrible toll that life itself takes on a body.  Jesus is announcing the intervention of God in this system through Jesus.....and in Jesus....and the establishment of a new kingdom with new ways of being.

In this kingdom, God blesses a series of behaviors and attitudes. Kingdom behaviors include those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful.  These are the folk you will find in God's kingdom. At the same time, those who seek the kingdom of heaven will become those who are poor in spirit, mourn, etc.

So this mourning is rooted in a larger picture.  Jesus is calling out to those who mourn the system that oppresses and destroys.  These mourners are crushed by the evildoers and the powerful elite whose actions lead to the kind of mourning that all families know.  They mourn the very presence of such evil in the world. In God's kingdom, those who have been oppressed will see freedom; oppression will not have the last word.

Perhaps that is the most helpful of images when dealing with the Beatitudes.  They are about who gets the last word - and what that last word will be.

Jesus tells the crowds the last word is blessing...God's blessing... and it will include those who know no blessings today.

Do you want to be made well?

Can't imagine anyone answering No to that question can you?  So, why ask the question in the first place?

Because some folks really don't want to be made well.  Some folks prefer the devil they know to the possibility of a life without a devil at all.  "I would love to have a happy family but there is no way I'm forgiving Jane for ......" 

When we are made well we will need to leave behind all kinds of things: the attention we get for our illness, the self-righteous attitude we humor because 'we are right', the excuses we give for not helping a friend, the insistence that we must be treated differently.

So Jesus asks, "Do you want to be made well?"  What is your answer?

It's not about the wine

Now, that might not be particularly good news for you nor would it have been for the wedding reception guests when they found out that the wine was all gone.  (John2.1-11)

They had been partying for 3 days and the wine was all gone.  But instead of signally the end of the festivities, the lack of wine would have been a huge faux pas for the hosts.  A sign of poor hospitality.  A sign of stinginess.  An embarrassment of the first order.  To quote David Lose, "Wine isn’t just a social lubricant, it’s a sign of the harvest, of God’s abundance, of joy and gladness and hospitality. And so when they run short on wine they run short on blessing".

So Mary 'suggests' that Jesus address the situation.  He thinks he isn't ready to get involved in such matters.  It is not yet 'his hour'.  She ignores him.  She was the one who gave birth to him and so she knows something about timing.  Babies come when they come.  It was time for Jesus to step out into this new world as he had been called. 

So he turns 180 gallons of water into wine - very good wine..."more than enough for even three more days. No one...could now leave this wedding thirsty, for abundance and blessing overflowed."

And yet, it's not about the wine.  It's about Jesus.  His time had begun, and he could bring full and abundant blessings into the most ordinary of situations, like walking and living among us as a brother in the flesh.  Jesus inaugurated a time of 'sheer possibility' and opened the future for all who had eyes to see. 

So enjoy the wine, it is a gift to you.  Brought to you by Jesus, the gift beyond all others.

Who's calling?

"I need to remind myself every now-and-then that when I am called to help someone they are not calling me......I am being sent by Him (or Her)."

Blessed to be a blessing...........Amen

"Therefore, because you trample on the poor...."

Should you be listening to a prophet, beware of the word "therefore."  It always announces judgment - God's judgment, a judgment that will cut away all that keeps us from following God and living in God's light.  A judgment that is experienced in pain and/or sorrow.

Amos has been sent by God to the power center of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and he has nothing to say that anyone wants to hear. 

A little history here:  the Northern Kingdom functioned separately from the Southern Kingdom and had grown very prosperous in the last decade.  The leadership of the Northern Kingdom, King Jeroboam, was convinced that the peace in the land and the prosperity of the people (some of the people) indicated God's blessing.  They were secure in their position as God's anointed ones.

Amos is there to burst their bubble.  Their prosperity was built on the backs of their own people and the aliens and strangers in their midst.  He points out that the people cannot wait for the Sabbath to be over so they can cheat their neighbors in the marketplace.  He calls the "Housewives of Bashon" cows.  He rejects their sacrifices and rituals because they are nothing but lip service while the wealthy continue to levy taxes upon the poor who cannot pay.

This is what leads to Amos saying, "therefore, because you trample on the poor..." and the judgment is this: you have built fine, fancy houses but you will not live in them.  You have secured land and planted vineyards, but you will never taste their wine.  In other words, this all will be taken away from you.

And so it was.  The Assyrians, who had been busy with other wars, marched through the Northern Kingdom, took possession of the land, and forced EVERYBODY into exile (722-723 BC)  After this invasion, the Northern Kingdom was wiped from the face of the earth.

Amos never said I told you so.  But he could have.

Look for part II on this text.     Amos5.6-7,10-15

Could you bless me?

In this morning's worship service here at Hartwick, we heard a story about a pastor (wearing her clerical collar) who was trying to successfully cross a big and very busy intersection in downtown Chicago with her little pull along luggage.  As she approached the intersection, waiting for the light to change, her eyes met the eyes of a man who was standing on the opposite corner selling newspapers.  He looked a little sketchy.

The light changes; she hurries into the intersection and is met halfway by the man from the opposite corner. He kneels before her right in the street and asks, "Could you bless me?"

Well, OK.  She let's go of her luggage and places her right hand on the man's head and pronounces a blessing. 

There were no horns honking.  No cars pressing them to get going.  It was as if time stood still.  When he stood, she grabbed her luggage, proceeded to the other corner and life resumed as it was......

Or did it?  Who knows why he needed or wanted a blessing.  But for the rest of the day, he was blessed and he knew it.

Be ye always ready to bless someone else, in Christ's name, for their sake.  You can do it; you can do it exactly right because you know what it means to be blessed.  Pass it on.

Bless us and keep us O Lord.  AMEN