Blessed Are...

2011-01-30 Matthew 5:1-12

Lake Hills Presbyterian Church

[Insert playing of Slim Smith - Beatitudes 1]

That's the sound of Jamaican singer, Slim Smith, singing the Beatitudes. I had never heard of Slim until last week when I was trying to find some religious music about the Beatitudes to listen to while writing the sermon. You probably have all his albums, but to me it's a totally different sound, and more, it's a totally different way of hearing the Beatitudes.

Slim Smith was, and still is regarded as one of Jamaica's greatest singers. Slim had a string of #1 hits and lived the good life. He also had a whole lot of problems. Slim died in 1973 while trying to break into his parents' home. He cut himself on a broken window and bled to death. It's the rags to riches back to rags story we hear so often. A great talent, an inspiration to his country, swallowed up by his own demons.

When I hear Slim Smith singing, "Blessed are the poor," and "Blessed are the merciful," and, "O Lord, Don't turn your back on me," I wonder if I have any right to even read aloud this scripture. It reminds me that Jesus would have been much more comfortable with Slim Smith than I would. For that matter, I wonder, was Jesus more comfortable with Slim than he is with me? After all, when Jesus preached his Sermon on the Mount, he wasn't preaching ABOUT the poor, ABOUT the meek, ABOUT the persecuted; he was preaching TO them. 

Now, we may not live like rock stars, but we've got a whole lot more going for us than Jesus' original church of the lakes and hills. We have so many more, countless more blessings to be thankful for. Thanks be to God we don't have to live like the poor in Jamaica, or Haiti, or worse. By grace or by providence that we, truthfully had very little to do with, we were lucky enough, blessed enough, to be born who we are, to live where we are, and to eat, speak, and believe as we do. We are blessed.

But then, as soon as I say that, I feel like the Pharisee in Luke 18 who stood in the middle of town, praying, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector [over there, the one who smells like old cheese, and who I came over here to get away from]'. I wonder, was the Pharisee really blessed or was he just a lucky jerk? I want to thank God for my blessings, but if you stand me next to a slim Jamaican child who gets to eat every couple of days, who's also thanking God for HER blessings, I may not hold up so well by comparison. Am I blessed to have everything, or is she blessed to have anything?

---

Jesus was all about flipping the traditional idea of blessings on its head. The idea that relatively healthy and wealthy people are blessed, or even more blessed than people who aren't isn't anything new. It's what people thought back in Jesus' time, too.

What Jesus was trying to tell the people on his lakes and hills is that the amount of blessing in your life has absolutely nothing to do with external appearances. You may live like a rock star, or a middle-income suburban Caucasian. You are no more (or less) blessed than the people who are economically poor, physically hungry, or societally persecuted. Your degree of blessing has absolutely nothing to do with appearances, nothing to do with circumstances. It doesn't matter if you're rich or you're poor. It doesn't matter if you're meek or obnoxious. It doesn't matter if you bathe in rose petals or if you smell like the dog pound. If you're counting your blessings, start somewhere else. Start beyond the circumstances.

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People who are poor in spirit are usually the ones who've had their optimistic, go-getter spirits sucked out of them. 

People who mourn are those who have lost something, lost someone. They've had their hearts broken.

People who are meek have often been made meek by the force of someone else's will.

People who hunger and thirst for righteousness know what it means to endure without them.

People who are persecuted and reviled for who they are or what they believe have to hang on by their fingernails to their dignity.

All this is to say that judging by the people in Jesus' list, people who are blessed would rather not be. They're trying to get out of their un-blessings.

Or, to put it another way, Blessed are those who hope and pray for blessings. Blessed are those who hope and pray - and act - for a better world. Blessed are those who work for a world where no one is poor, no one is broken-hearted, a world where no one is persecuted, reviled, or treated unjustly. Blessed are those who dream of a better world, especially when this world tells them to wake up and shut up.

Whether this is good news or bad news depends on your circumstances. 

Circumstances are NOT permanent.

That's another message in the blessings Jesus preaches. 

He's saying, if you're broken-hearted now, you will be comforted. 

If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you will be filled.

If you're trying to make peace in the middle of a war, you will be called children of God.

He doesn't say you won't be called a lot of other things first. He doesn't say when things are going to turn around; but he does say they will, and in some pretty miraculous ways. Things are always darkest just before they get really, really dark. But Jesus came as a sign that even the deepest darkness won't last forever. Jesus came to show us that no circumstance is permanent. Not even death. It's like Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Rom 8:22-25)

Whatever your circumstances - good or bad - they're NOT permanent. So if you know the good stuff won't last forever, you're thankful for what you've got. If the bad stuff won't last forever, you're hopeful for when it'll be past. 

Thankful. 

Hopeful. 

Thankful or hopeful.

Thankful and hopeful.

However you say it, it sounds pretty blessed to me.