November 1, 2020

Helen Jacobi

All Saints' Day     1 John 3:1-3     Matthew 5:1-12

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Think of all the new vocabulary we have added into our mental dictionary this year – PPE, clusters, bubbles, team of 5 million, going hard and early, epidemiologist, coronavirus, genome testing, serology, fake news, conspiracy theories, lockdown, level four, three, two, one, social distancing …

Words that when we hear them in the future, after all this is over, will evoke lots of memories and experiences. Key words that define this year.

Of course there are other things that define this year – different things for each one of us – some have joys to celebrate – births, marriages, overcoming the adversity of the year; some have sorrows to remember – our loved ones who have died – some of whom will be named in the prayers; others have loss of jobs and incomes; loss of opportunities; being constrained by our inability to travel the world to see family and friends.

The words of Jesus we heard today in our gospel reading are key words that define the community of followers of Jesus.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” it begins.

Mysterious sounding poetry. What does that even mean?

One of our problems with these phrases is that they have become so clichéd that we don’t hear them at all.

Another problem is that we hear them as commandments – with a “should” added in – you should be meek, pure and poor. Doesn’t sound very attractive does it.

Susan told us last week that there are 613 actual commandments in the Old Testament and Jesus chose just two as the most important – love God and love your neighbor.

The Beatitudes – as this list of sayings is called – are not commandments but descriptions of the community of people who love God and love neighbor.

Stanley Hauerwas says “This is not a list of requirements, but rather a description of the life of a people gathered by and around Jesus.” [1]

And they are not about us as individuals, but about us in community, with the diversity of gifts we share.

Let’s try hearing the reading in a different way from “The Message” Bible:

1-2 When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and God’s rule.

4 You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

5 You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are – no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

6 You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. God is food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

7 You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

8 You’re blessed when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

9 You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.”

This is a description – in the present – of what we are – and what we can be if we trust in the grace and goodness of God. But it still doesn’t seem very attractive because we don’t want to be at the end of our rope, to have lost someone, to be content with what we have – we want more, and to do better.

We are driven by the sense that if we work hard or work more we will do better and achieve more, and then the income we receive or the house we can afford are all due to our own hard work.

Michael Sandel, philosopher and author of The Tyranny of Merit: what’s become of the common good [2] – would say that our income and achievements are largely due to our parents, their income, and the luck of the draw of having innate skill and abilities. Not much to do with our hard work at all. And discovering this to be true, he says, makes us grateful and humble and the kind of person one might find in amongst the followers of Jesus. He doesn’t mean that we should stop our work, or our creativity, or our striving to make the world a better place but when we do achieve something we realise with humility it is not all down to us.

In the church world the “prosperity gospel” – where people believe that if they are wealthy then God has blessed them and if they are poor then God has not – is a sign of meritocracy gone crazy.

It always puzzles me that prosperity gospel preachers have clearly never read the Beatitudes.

Let’s take the Beatitudes, even though they are puzzling and unsettling. Let’s be unsettled by them and reminded to approach life with humility and gratitude.

Being grateful is taught as part of mindfulness these days, but being grateful is a core mark of our Christianity.

We give thanks today for our loved ones who have died – we give thanks for their lives, their sorrows and their joys. We give thanks that we can gather for worship at all, go to the movies, go to the opera; that we can sing and celebrate.

And we pray for our world that is suffering and mourning.

We give thanks for the formation or our own government and the freedom to vote in elections and referendums.

As Susan said last week we can now think about how we can be part of the world we voted for; what can we do in our community to further the goals we all have of alleviating poverty and saving the planet.

And sometimes that might start with our own attitudes that creep in – can we catch ourselves thinking – if those with low incomes just worked a bit harder they would achieve more – and instead remember that we are fortunate because of many factors, not just our own work. We give thanks with humility and gratitude, and seek to be amongst the blessed who are comforted, and who will see God.

[1] Matthew p 61 

[2] https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/events/2020/09/08/michael-sandel-the-tyranny-of-merit