January 28, 2018 The Beatitudes: Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst After Righteousness

Tanya has two brothers, one of whom retired from the Air Force in July of 2015.  As I was on sabbatical at the time, we traveled to his retirement ceremony, and as we enjoyed the program I thought about his story of survival training many years before.  He was dropped in the wilderness with almost no supplies beyond a fishing hook, some fishing line, a knife, and a live rabbit.  Among the instructions he received was to see how long he could go before he ate the rabbit.  I don’t think it took very long.  In fact, I remember him telling me that it’s not long before one is hungry enough to root around in the ground looking for bugs to eat.  Most of us would probably protest that we would never eat bugs, regardless of how hungry we become, but I think we would all be surprised at just how quickly we would eat just about anything once real hunger set in. 

We are, certainly, blessed that we have never experienced true hunger.  Real hunger comes after several days of no food.  That kind of hunger drives a person in a way that, thankfully, we do not know.  Sure, we say all the time that we are starving, but it’s more of an expression than a reality.  The truth is, we know neither real hunger nor real thirst.  When we are hungry, we open the refrigerator or pantry and get something to eat.  When we are thirsty we open the refrigerator or turn on the tap and get a drink.

The power of hunger was one well known to many of those in the audience when Jesus offered the Beatitudes.  In the time of Jesus, most people lived on the edge of very real hunger.  The financial uncertainty that was a part of everyday life for so many led to food insecurity and many questions about where they would find their next meal. It was not possible to keep much food in one’s home, because there was no way to safely store it or money to purchase more than perhaps a day’s worth.  And imagine, in that part of the world, where much of the landscape is barren, that you are traveling and the wind begins to blow sand and dirt and you have to cover your face because you are walking or riding an animal.  There is no way to keep the sand and dirt out of your nose and mouth; imagine then, how much you would long for a drink of water.  Those who listened to Jesus know real hunger and real thirst.  Jesus certainly knew hunger as well.  After his baptism, when he went into the wilderness, he went forty days without food.  It was then that he was tempted to turn the stones into bread (1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” 7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him (Matthew 4:1-11).

This morning we continue our study of the Beatitudes, and as we do we come to the fourth beatitude, in verse 6 – blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  Once again the Beatitudes touch a very deep nerve in the lives of Jesus’ listeners.  His audience was made up of those who were indeed poor in spirit, those who had much to mourn, those who were meek, and those who understood real hunger.  Just as Jesus used the first three parables to speak to his listener’s lives, using them as a jumping off point to speak about deeper issues, he uses hunger in such a way as well.  As difficult as physical hunger can be, and as much as that hunger can drive us, Jesus reminds us there is another kind of hunger as well, and it is spiritual hunger, of which Jesus often spoke. 

As we have been doing each week, and will continue to do throughout this series, we will read the passage that contains the Beatitudes.

Matthew 5:1-12 –

1 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him,

2 and he began to teach them.  He said:

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

In this beatitude, Jesus asks us to remember this very important truth –

We are spiritual beings.

As I read, I often clip interesting articles for future reference.  Here’s one from a few years ago that is a fascinating and revealing statistic – according to Psychology Today magazine, in the year 2000 there were fifty books published on the topic of happiness.  Fifty.  That seems like a lot to me, but only eight years later, in 2008, the number was higher.  I want you to guess how many books on happiness were published in 2008.  How many do you think?  Another fifty?  One hundred?  Two hundred?  In 2008, only eight years later, there were four thousand books on the topic of happiness published.

(http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200812/the-pursuit-happiness). 

You heard that right – four thousand!  I’m not sure if anyone was made happy by all those books other than the publishers, but isn’t that an amazing number!  What do you think that says about our society that in only eight years there would be such an exploding market for books to help people find happiness?  And the question is, did those books help anyone find happiness?

I think that statistic says that there is a great spiritual hunger that exists in our society and it is a hunger that often goes unaddressed.  There is, I believe, a great number of people who feel as though something is missing from their life.  In spite of our affluence, in spite of our multitude of activities, in spite of the many entertainment options, and in spite of our ability to travel, there seems to be a great deal of spiritual lethargy and ennui.  There is a sense that there must be something more than simply pursuing entertainment, sensory stimulation, work, and responsibilities. 

In our time-starved, activity-obsessed, entertainment-saturated society, the needs of our spiritual selves are very often ignored.  And here is the tragedy of this spiritual starvation – when we are physically hungry we will spare no expense or effort to make sure our physical hunger is filled, but much of the time we don’t even realize we are spiritually hungry.  Physical hunger manifests itself in very obvious ways – our stomachs growl and the emptiness makes us physically weak and it is impossible to miss the fact that we are hungry.  I am starving, we will often say, even though we are a long way from being truly hungry, let alone starving.  In fact, most of the time we don’t really experience true hunger because we are so surrounded with food and it is so readily available.  But think about this for a moment – when was the last time any of us said I’m starving spiritually!

We must never forget that we are more than physical beings; we are spiritual beings.  God created us to be more than flesh and blood; we are spirit and soul as well.  That’s what Jesus said when he was tempted to turn the stones into bread in the wilderness – man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).  And he said that after forty days of fasting.  Forty days!  I’m not sure I could make forty hours of fasting.  Some years ago I tried fasting on a regular basis.  I thought it would be a good spiritual discipline.  The first thing I learned about fasting was this – it should be called something else, because it does not go fast.  Maybe slowing would be a better word.

But spiritual hunger is different, because we don’t always realize that we are spiritually hungry.  What are the signs of spiritual hunger?  The physical signs are easy, but what about those of spiritual hunger?  We might recognize that something is missing, but we can’t quite put our finger on it.  Interestingly, even someone as adamantly opposed to religious faith as the author Sam Harris recognizes we are spiritual beings, and he was taken a good deal of criticism from his fellow atheists for his emphasis on the importance of spirituality in a book he wrote about cultivating spirituality.  Isn’t that rather fascinating?

In this verse Jesus speaks of something even deeper than the drive for life’s most basic needs – food and water – and that is our spiritual hunger and thirst.  Some people may not recognize or accept the truth, but we are spiritual beings and there is a deep, spiritual longing within us.  Built into the language of this beatitude is the idea that we are much more than just our next bite of food or drink of water; we are, we must not forget, people with a longing for something that will once and for all bring a sense satisfaction.  Living in a consumer-driven, stuff oriented society it is easy to seek to fill that hunger and thirst with stuff.  Buy this, buy that, get this, get that, but where does it get us? Does it ever give us a sense of satisfaction?  No, but that doesn’t mean we turn elsewhere; often it means we simply go out and buy more stuff.  Jesus is telling us in the beatitudes that we must tend to our souls and not simply chase after the things in life that do not build us up spiritually or nourish our souls.

Feed Your Soul.

In the early 80’s, when I was attending seminary, I shared an apartment with two other students.  We were trying to get by as simply as we could, mostly because we had to, as money was very scarce.  At that time – which was the ’81 – ’82 academic year – I tried to get by on no more that $15 a week for food.  Even in 1981-1982 that was not much money for food.  I can remember one day when the three of us sat around what passed for our dining room table staring at our dinner, which was a frozen pizza from Kroger that costs 79-cents.  Do you know how big a 79-cent frozen pizza is?  Not big enough to feed three hungry young men, I can tell you that!  To this day, I don’t like to eat certain foods because of their association with a time when I had very little.  I don’t understand, for instance, how anyone can go out to a restaurant and order bean soup.  When we had bean soup it meant there was nothing else left to eat, so the last think I will ever order in a restaurant is a bowl of bean soup, I can assure you!  Our apartment reflected our humble circumstances.  We didn’t have curtains on the few windows; we had sheets or towels or whatever we could find to cover the windows.  We did have some bookshelves, which were made of concrete blocks and a few boards we had scavenged from somewhere.  Our dining room table was one of the those big wooden spools used for cable and the chairs were the folding cloth chairs that you would put in your trunk and take on a picnic.  And there were no bed frames; just mattresses on the floor.  We had only one decent piece of furniture in that apartment, as seemed fitting at the time for three guys in their early 20’s.  We had a big, giant, absolutely killer-sounding stereo system in the corner.  We couldn’t afford curtains, or a dining room table, or chairs, or a couch, but we could really crank up the Lynyrd Skynyrd and Led Zeppelin on that nice, big, fancy stereo!

We had next to nothing, but I remember that stage of life very fondly.  My memories are of a time when I had very little free time and didn’t get much sleep, but it was a happy time.  The humble circumstances didn’t seem to dampen our spirits at all. I’m certainly not minimizing the fact that many people live in very humble and difficult circumstances, but the point is this – happiness, joy, and contentment all come from a much deeper source than our life circumstances.

As we read the Scriptures there are great examples of how circumstances do not affect people’s happiness.  Paul, in a Roman prison writes in Philippians 4:11-12, I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  Luke tells us in Acts 16:25 that Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned and while in prison they were singing hymns to God.

Again, I’m not minimizing the struggle of anyone living in humble or difficult circumstances, but what I am saying is that genuine happiness is not circumstantial.  It is not based on what we have or don’t have.  To go back to the reference of the many books published on happiness, allow me to make this observation – have you ever noticed how rarely the Bible uses the word happiness?  It varies according to the translation but the word is not used very often.  Some translations don’t use the word happiness at all, while others use it only a few times.  The word happy appears anywhere from a dozen to two dozen times in the Bible, depending on your translation.  That’s not very many times, is it?

But the idea of happiness permeates most every page of the Scriptures.  There are five Hebrew words and two Greek words that can be translated as happy in the Bible, but they don’t have the same meaning as what we usually think of as happy.  The best way to translate those words are as blessed.  Happiness, according to the Scriptures, is a byproduct of living a blessed life, and a blessed life is one in which we feed our souls.

I heard a young man pray a very interesting prayer some years ago.  He was in the 5^th grade and volunteered to pray at a gathering and said this – Lord, help us not to see you as nothing more than a big vending machine, ready to give us whatever we want.  I don’t know where he got that but he was demonstrating wisdom beyond many of us much older!

When we learn to feed our souls we will find that a byproduct will be a greater sense of happiness and satisfaction about life.  We will find that our longing – our spiritual hunger and thirst – will be filled.  Interestingly, one of the words that can be translated as happy is a word that is often translated as blessed, and it is the word used in the Beatitudes.  What I will do is read the Beatitudes once again, but this time I will read them with the word happy instead of blessed.  As we read those words, remember that it is the way that Jesus confirms that hunger and thirst for righteousness and happiness are all tied together, and as we live for righteousness we will indeed be filled – with happiness.

Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.  His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them, saying:

Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Happy are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Happy are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Happy are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Happy are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Happy are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

When we care for our souls, when we feed our souls as well as we feed our bodies, we will live a truly blessed – and happy – life.

January 21, 2018 The Beatitudes: Blessed Are the Meek

If I were to ask you to list adjectives that you would be pleased to have attached to your name, what would you say?  Perhaps you might say kind, loving, compassionate, smart, or funny.  There are any number of other adjectives you might choose, but I would feel very confident in guessing that meek would not be one of them.

But what’s wrong with being meek?  What is it about the word meek that makes us want to say don’t use that word with me!  We probably wouldn’t mind a synonym, such as gentle, but let’s leave meek alone.  The word meek sounds too much like doormat or milquetoast for us. 

I was an avid comic book reader when I was young, and in almost all of them there appeared an ad for a Charles Atlas workout program.  If you read comic books back in the 60s and 70s you probably saw it too.  I have to admit, as a rather scrawny kid, I was tempted to send off for the workout plan in hopes that I could overcome the perception that I was meek and weak.

The problem with the word meek is that it reminds us of that scrawny guy on the beach getting sand kicked in his face by the big, muscular guy, and who wants to be that guy?

This morning, we continue our series of message on the Beatitudes, and today we come to the third beatitude – blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.  For our Scripture text we will again read the passage that contains the entirety of the beatitudes –

Matthew 5:1-12

1 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him,

2 and he began to teach them.  He said:

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

When we talk about the word meek there is one thing we need to clarify at the beginning, and it is this,

Meek Is Not Weakness.

Our culture has basically destroyed any idea that one would aspire to meekness.  No one wants to be known or remembered as weak.  No one ever says, in answer to the question, how do you want to be remembered?  Well, I would like first and foremost to be remembered as being a very meek person.

One of the difficulties of a verse such as this one is the way in which the meanings of words change over time.  Some words take on different meanings and we lose any understanding of what the word means in its original context.  What do you think when you hear the word awful.  Something terrible, correct?  The word awful once meant to be full of awe towards something, such as God.  What about backlog?  We usually think of that big pile of work on our desks, but it used to mean the biggest log on the fire.  Sick used to mean to be ill, and still does, but it is also often used to mean something that is really great, such as that song is really sick!  But please do me a favor and don’t tell me on your way out today that my sermon was really sick!

The Greek word translated as meek is praus, and it does not mean to be physically weak or easily intimidated or any of the qualities that we would normally associate with being a meek person.  It was often used to describe, for instance, a very strong horse – perhaps a warhorse – that had been broken.  Its strength was not removed, but rather was controlled and contained.  The word then came to mean someone who had strength and power but used that strength and power in a positive way, rather than a way that was harmful or destructive.  That’s a very different way of thinking about meek, isn’t it?

Jesus was saying that the people who are meek – the people who will inherit the earth – are people who understand the true nature of power.  Real power is not the kind that imposes its strength upon others, as we commonly see power exercised in our world.  History has shown us time and again that such power – military might, in particular – is what so many leaders and nations aspire to, but it is not the kind of power upon which God’s kingdom is based.  Empires and rulers and armies come and go, but Jesus says there is a power that outlasts all other powers, and it is greater than the kind of power sought after by the kingdoms of the world.  Now, that is not to say that the power that forms the foundations of kingdoms and empires and armies does not have an effect upon people.  That kind of power has harmed and oppressed and killed scores of people throughout history, and it is that harm and oppression and violence that Jesus says must be opposed and it is what he opposed.

Jesus was not a meek person; not in the way most people think of meekness today.  It took a great deal of courage to enter into the Temple, to fashion a whip, and then take that whip and drive the moneychangers from the Temple (13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” John 2:13-16.)  To challenge and disrupt the commerce and financial system that had overtaken the Temple in that time took incredible courage, courage that recognized taking such action was to risk one’s life.  Jesus was not afraid to publicly criticize the religious leaders for their hypocrisy, for their lack of compassion, and for their corruption.  He was not afraid to say to them 27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness (Matthew 23:27-28).  He was not afraid to call them blind guides (Matthew 15:14).  That is a kind of strength and power that is willing to stand up for those who are oppressed, for those who are treated unjustly, for those who are cast aside by society, and for those who are forgotten by those who have the power and the means to make their lives better.  There was a power to Jesus, but it was a power of a different kind.

It Is This Kind of Meekness – Which is God’s Kind of Power – That Will Inherit the Earth.

At the beginning of this series I said that part of what Jesus sought to do in the Beatitudes was to open our eyes to truth.  We are products of our time and our historical moment, and as products of our time we are very influenced by the context in which we live, including the ways in which we think.  Jesus always sought to open the eyes of his disciples to the reality that their thinking was also conditioned by their time period, and that means that we don’t always recognize the faults in our thinking.  This is why Jesus often spoke in paradoxical statements, such as you have to lose your life to find it (Matthew 16:25); the first shall be last (Mark 10:31); and whoever wants to be great has to be a servant (Matthew 20:26).  This is the way that Jesus points out that much of what people think and aspire to is wrong.  Our context can condition us to think that we should be out for ourselves, when the gospel teaches us that we are to serve others.  Our context can condition us to be out for what we can get for ourselves, when the gospel teaches us that we are to give to others.  This extends to how we think about power as well.  We live in a culture that worships power.  We certainly see the jockeying for power in our political realm every day.  It is a realm where power reigns supreme.

To say that the meek will inherit the earth is, once again, similar to other statements Jesus made, in that they do not line up with the general expectations about the ways in which the world works.  And therein lies an important truth and it is this – the ways in which the world works are often in direct opposition to the ways in which God desires for the world to work.  In a worldly fashion it is the strong who get to call the shots and who get to control the ways in which the world works.  In God’s kingdom, however, the rules are not set by those who are the strongest or by those who exert the most brute force and sheer power.  In God’s kingdom, it is the expression of humility and gentleness that is lifted up as the model for the way in which we should live.  And while it seems that brute force and power always carries the day, we know that kind of power is not the ultimate victor.  Jesus is that great example of this truth, because though it seemed the mighty Roman Empire had the last word on his life and mission the resurrection proved otherwise.  Humanity’s thirst for such power has always proven to be a failed path.  How many other great kingdoms, with all their might and power, have fallen to the sands of time and become little more than a distant memory?  The powerful may control the earth for a time, but they never keep it.  Never.  Alexander the Great sought to rule the world and almost succeeded, but he and his empire are long gone.  The great British Empire?  Long gone.  The Soviet Union that struck fear in the heart of Western countries as they spread their Iron Curtain across Easter Europe?  Gone.

When I was young I was often bullied.  It started when I was in elementary school and went through middle school and high school.  I was never a very big guy – and I certainly wasn’t intimidating or threatening – and I guess I made an easy target.  When I was in fifth grade I was being bullied often on the school bus.  A couple of guys would sit behind me, or across from me, or in the same seat, and tell me today might be the day that we get off at your stop and beat you up.  It made for many a difficult day, wondering what might happen when I got off the school bus?  Was I going to be beaten up?

Even though it was a long time ago, I very vividly remember the day when one of those guys slid into the seat behind me, put his arm on the seat in front of us to make sure I couldn’t get out of the seat, and said today’s the day.  What are you going to do?  Now, maybe I was desperate, but I remembered at that point something that my Sunday School teacher once told us.  She said that God would not want us to fight, because God wanted us to love others.  Perhaps she was simply trying to get through to a class filled with some rowdy boys, but her words stuck with me, and on that day I was ready to try anything, so when he asked me what I was going to do, I looked at him and said, nothing.  I’m not going to fight because God doesn’t want me to fight.  He wants me to love others.  I think he was stunned by my reply!  I remember him nodding his head and saying, okay.  Okay.  He kept nodding his head and saying okay over and over.  Finally, he got up and he and his cohorts left me alone.  And I thought, wow!  This stuff really works!  So let me ask this – who has ever been, or is now, a Sunday School teacher?  Please know this – if you have ever been, or if you currently teach Sunday School, it is incredibly important for you to teach those Scriptural lessons, and please know that what you say to your class is not only heard, but taken to heart!  Sunday School teachers, don’t ever think that your students aren’t listening!  I was.  I took the advice I received in Sunday School and guess what?  It worked!

Empires, rulers, and armies come and go, but Jesus says there is a power that outlasts all other powers, and it is the power of meekness, which is another word for love and humility.  We should never mistake meekness for weakness.  Meekness is a different kind of power.  It is the power that comes from love and from humility.  Jesus says this is a power far greater than that which is sought after by so many in our world.  It is true power, it is the power that fuels the kingdom of God, and it is the power that Jesus asks us to demonstrate!

January 14, 2018 The Beatitudes: Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Listening to the radio last week I heard the song Alone Again, Naturally, by Gilbert O’Sullivan several times.  If you are from my era you probably remember the song, which is a nice, catchy, bouncy song, at least musically. Lyrically, it is very depressing, and includes the following lines.  Would you like me to sing them to you?  Um…no.

But as if to knock me down

Reality came around

And without so much as a mere touch

Cut me into little pieces

Leaving me to doubt

Talk about, God in His mercy

Oh, if he really does exist

Why did he desert me

In my hour of need

I truly am indeed

Alone again, naturally.

While I like the tune of Mr. O’Sullivan’s song, I would disagree with his theology.  While Mr. O’Sullivan believes that God deserted him in his hour of need, I would beg to differ.  I do not question Mr. O’ Sullivan’s feelings or grief – absolutely not – but I do question his sense of God and his mercy.  Just because one feels deserted does not mean one is, in fact, deserted by God.  We too often equate feelings and personal experience with reality and truth, but they are not the same.  Just because we feel something does not mean that what we feel is true.

But I do understand Mr. O’Sullivan’s sentiment.  Grief – as universal as it is – can be very isolating and lonely.  It is in a time of grief that a person will ask all of their deepest and most difficult questions of God.  Where is God, one might ask, and that’s a fair question.  God does not fear our questions, we should remember, and asking questions is one of the ways in which our faith grows and matures.

This morning we continue the series of messages based on the Beatitudes as we come to verse 4 – Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  Again this week we will read the passage in which we find the Beatitudes – Matthew 5:1-12.

1 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him,

2 and he began to teach them.  He said:

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I want to speak about grief in relation to two categories this morning – the grief that comes with death, which is what I will call specific grief, and every other kind of grief, which I will call general grief, and I will begin with that type of grief.

Allow me to also add a word about our Stephen Ministry.  When you are going through a time of grief – any type of grief – or any other time of struggle, we have trained Stephen Ministers available to assist you.  If you would like to learn more about the Stephen Ministry, please contact either Laine or myself or the church office.

1.  General grief.

We grieve over many matters, actually, not just the end of life.  Many other areas of life come to an end, and those endings also trigger grief.  Many people find themselves in mourning because they lose a job.  In my home area, in the northern Ohio Valley, thousands upon thousands of people were once employed by the steel mills – at very good pay and very good benefits – for very many years.  Then, in the early 80s, that economy began to unravel.  The hiring ended and the layoffs began.  Then came the closures of the mills.  Today, years after the collapse of that economy and the loss of the jobs, the sense of grief is still very palpable, because nothing else has ever replaced those jobs.  Some people mourn because a friend or family member moves to another part of the country.  This is most common when kids grow up, go off to college, and most likely move to another part of the country, away from parents.  It never occurred to me to wonder if my parents had any grief when I left home.  Maybe they had a party!  Tanya and I have been married for over 33 years, and we have never lived near our families or any other relatives.  There has always been an undercurrent of grief that our lives have taken us away from our families.  We’ve wondered on more than one occasion whether or not it was the right thing to do, to move away from our families.  Was it fair to our kids?  Was it fair to our families? 

But there are other kinds of mourning as well, and it is the kind that is not tied directly to our personal experience; it is the kind of mourning tied to the human condition.  It is a mourning that was expressed by Jesus as he rode towards the city of Jerusalem for the Triumphal Entry.  As he approached the city the heart of Jesus broke because of what he saw there.  As Jesus saw the city, he wept over it, Luke 19:41 tells us.  Matthew’s gospel tells us that Jesus said of the city O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing (Matthew 23:37).  Jerusalem, the holy city, had become in large measure a place of corruption and greed, bringing great grief to Jesus.  The religious leaders had turned the Temple into a place of corruption rather than protecting it as a place of prayer and worship.  The politics of the day had filled the city with coarseness, cynicism, and danger.  Jesus challenged those who were in positions from which they could improve the lives of others but didn’t.  His grief at what he saw did not remain only a feeling; what Jesus saw moved him to action as he sought to alleviate the struggle that he saw all around him.

To look at the condition of our world today certainly should bring to us a sense of mourning.  As we see such pervasive violence, brokenness, great physical and spiritual need, and the amount of hatred in our world it is not hard to feel a sense of grief.  While we have progressed in many ways, it is clear that humanity is still mired in violence, hatred, and many other ills, just as in the day of Jesus. 

If we cannot look upon the hungry people in our land and around the world and not mourn then our hearts have grown hard.  If we cannot look upon the warfare and bloodshed and violence and not mourn the absence of peace and love then our hearts are indeed grown hard.  We ought to mourn when we look at the world and see the condition of humanity.  Our mourning ought to move us to step beyond ourselves and into the lives of others to heal that brokenness.  It is possible to look at the condition of the world and say forget it.  I’m after what I can get and everybody else is on their own.  But faith calls us to move beyond the boundaries of our own lives and our own concerns to heal the brokenness in the world.  It tells us that if we can do something, then we should do something.

2.  Specific grief.

I would hazard a guess that if you ask 100 people to define grief, 99 of them would most likely say it is associated with the loss of a friend or loved one.  Very, very few, I assume, would talk about general grief.  When we speak of grief, this is what we almost always mean – the specific grief that comes to us because of loss.

Grief was an ever-present part of daily life in the time of Jesus, as survival was precarious and the lifespan of most people was far less than what we enjoy today.  Death, because of poverty, lack of medical care, and disease, was a fact of daily life, and was never far from claiming another among its ranks. One of the most famous passages in the Scriptures is when Jesus comes to the tomb of Lazarus, where he weeps (Jesus wept, John 11:35).  It is a very touching scene, as Jesus weeps over the tomb of his friend Lazarus, and on behalf of the heartbreak of grief of his sisters, Mary and Martha.  Loss is very, very difficult.

     

Interestingly, this beatitude is different from all of the others in one respect.  I never noticed this until I was reading the beatitudes the other day.  All of the others are voluntary.  You don’t have to be poor in spirit, you don’t have to be meek, you don’t have to be merciful, you don’t have to be pure in heart, you don’t have to be a peacemaker, and you don’t have to be persecuted.  All of those are conditions that come about because of how one lives, but being one who mourns is a condition we experience simply because we live.  Mourning is the only one of the beatitudes that is, first, universal, and two, not a condition in which we find ourselves at least partially because of choice.  It is part and parcel of the human condition.  It cannot be avoided.

Mourning comes with the territory of living and loving.  With the joy and beauty of love comes also the pain and grief of loss.  We understand that they go together.  It is very difficult to lose someone we love.  We don’t live long on this earth before we lose someone we love.  The separation is difficult and the corresponding awareness of our own mortality comes home to us. 

But Jesus says there is comfort.  That comfort is both present and future and that promise implies divine intervention, I believe.  One of the ways in which we experience that divine intervention is through the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The word for Holy Spirit is paraclete, which means helper, or one who is called to one’s side.  That’s a beautiful image of God, I believe; God coming beside us to help us.  And as God intervenes with us, so we intervene in the lives of others when they grieve.  Grief and loss teach us to enter into the lives of others.  People will drop everything else to be with one who has lost a loved one.  When I pass by a house and see a lot of cars parked out front I assume it means one of two things – someone is having a party or there has been the loss of a loved one.  Sorrow moves us into the sufferings of others.  Faith is about caring.

But there is a future tense to this beatitude as well – blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Future hope does not remove the painful reality of the mourning that we experience in the present.  We would like the full measure of that comfort right now – and there is a measure of present comfort – but we recognize that faith brings to us the final sense of comfort in the future. The only full, complete answer to grief and loss is the knowledge that there is something beyond ourselves and something beyond this life.

I have no idea how many funerals I have done over the years.  I should have kept count, but I’m terrible at math so I don’t keep counts, but I know it is in the hundreds.  I have officiated at funerals for infants, young children, teenagers, young adults, middle age adults, older adults – I have officiated at funerals for every age group and just about every situation imaginable and along the way I’ve learned some things and one thing I have learned is this – it makes a big difference when one has a sense of hope.  A big difference.  Hope brings comfort.  The promise of resurrection brings hope as does the promise that resurrection brings reunion with those we love, and that is incredibly powerful to people.  There are certain Scripture passages I read at funerals, and one of them is Revelation 21:4 – He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.  That hope is incredibly powerful in helping us cope with the sting of loss.

All sunshine, one person has said, makes a desert (Barclay, p. 93).  As rain is necessary to produce growth from the earth, there are certain lessons only learned in sorrow.  And one of those lessons is the promise of hope.  There is a new day coming.  There is a life that extends beyond this life.  Death is not an end, but a beginning.

My father has been gone for over twenty-seven years.  A few years after his passing my mom decided to sell our home place, which she needed to do.  It was too much for her to keep up with and it was the right thing for her to do.  I remember vividly going home one last time.  I was five-years-old when we moved to our farm and it was difficult to go through the house one last time, especially as it was empty.  As I walked into each room I had a video reel playing in my head of memories – birthdays, Christmases, family gatherings, and so many other occasions.  It was, actually, depressing to go through that empty house and see it devoid of the life that pulsed through it for so many years.  I walked out into my dad’s workshop and looked at the small pile of tools that remained.  My dad had added an addition to the house, with one part serving as a garage and the other as his workshop.  I helped him on some of the building of that addition, although I don’t imagine I was much help, as I have never been as skilled at building or working with my hands as he was.  He had a lot of tools, most of which were gone, distributed to my siblings and others.  I stood in his workshop, picking through some of the remaining tools, and though I’m not much of a tool person, I took a number of them home with me.  I even took a torque wrench, even though I have no idea what a torque wrench does.  As I picked through the tools I wondered, is this what life comes to?  We spend a lifetime collecting some things and then someone else has to worry about what to do with them.  Is this what we leave behind?  But even as I asked myself that question I knew the answer – that is not what life comes to.  Life is far more than the sum of our years and what we accumulate.  Life is more, and means more, because of the hope that we have of eternity.  It would be difficult, I believe, if our final breath in this life were the end of all things.  But it is not, according to our faith.  At the end of life on this earth we join what the book of Hebrews calls the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us (Hebrews 12:1).  It is a time when we will have a reunion, a homecoming; it will be a time when God indeed will wipe every tear from (our) eyes.  A time when there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:4).

Yes, blessed are the those who mourn, for they will indeed be comforted!