February 17, 2019
Image: Art4TheGlryOfGod by Sharon
My birthday was last
Saturday.
It was a quiet day. It was
quiet because I didn’t have to get ready for Sunday morning. It was quiet because the snow and threat of
snow kept people hunkered down. It was
quiet because Sylvia, disabled by her broken elbow, wasn’t able to do anything
special for my birthday. Even two of the
three birthday presents I ordered from Amazon (with her permission!) didn’t arrive on time.
It was a quiet day, so I was
able to enjoy reading and meditating, eating favorite foods and skyping with
family. I was able to hear our
three-year-old grandson in Baltimore sing, “Happy birthday,” to me – at first,
off-key with his parents; then later, on-key on his own!
Sylvia posted a number of
pictures of me on Facebook in recognition of my birthday. I’m always surprised at the number of people
from various parts of my life and from various parts of the world who send
greetings. One old friend from the east
coast commented, “Happy birthday, Chris! You look like a happy man!”
And I feel like a happy
man! I feel as though my life has been
blessed. I feel that, if I die tomorrow,
I would have no complaints about my life.
Having just turned 66, it is
more and more possible that I might die tomorrow. Since I am in excellent health, though, it is
more likely that I will remain active for some years to come, with a gradual
diminishment of body and mind over time.
I know that because some of it has started already. I take more naps. I have more things that hurt and the things
that hurt take longer to heal.
I see it in myself and I see
it in other people – a gradual diminishment of capacity and activity and an
ever-shrinking circle of involvement and influence. And who knows what will happen with my
wife? And who knows what will happen
with my sons and their wives and their children?
No, I’m not trying to bring
you down or generate sympathy. I am a
realist. This is the way that life
goes.
And, if we are to believe
Jesus, this is how God works. According
to Jesus, God is the great reverser of fortune.
For Jesus has been up to a
mountain to pray. He spent the whole
night in prayer. When day came, he
called all of his disciples and set apart 12 of them.
Then he came down to a level place, along with the 12, but also with a
great crowd of his disciples, and an even greater crowd of people from all over, even
as far away as Tyre and Sidon. They had
all gathered to hear him speak and to be healed of various diseases and freed
from unclean spirits.
Jesus looked at the disciples
– all who were following him – and said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for the
kingdom of God belongs to you! Blessed
are you who are hungry now; you will be filled!
Blessed are you who weep now; you will laugh. Blessed are you when you are hated because of
me! Rejoice, because that is how God’s
prophets have always been treated!”
But Jesus didn’t stop there.
He went on: “Woe to you who are rich; you have received your consolation! Woe to you who are full now; you will be
hungry! Woe to you who laugh now; you
will mourn and weep! Woe to you when
others speak well of you; for that is how people have always treated the false
prophets!”
If you are like me – and I
expect many of you are – these are troubling words. We are mostly on the upside of that wheel of
fortune. But we should not be
surprised that Jesus said this. His mother said this
first. When Mary visited her relative,
Elizabeth, she sang praise to God, which included the words: “God has scattered
the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the
lowly. He has filled the hungry with
good things and sent the rich away empty.”
Martin Luther called Mary the
first theologian because she correctly identified how God works. This is what God does. "Our God does nothing," Luther said, "but bring down the mighty from their thrones and life up the lowly." God is the great reverser of fortune.
Jesus is pointing out the
same thing. He is identifying for his
disciples how God really works. He is
not giving advice in the beatitudes and woes. (That will come next week!) He is not making statements about reward and
punishment, nor is he making claims about our ultimate destiny.
“Blessed” doesn’t mean saved.
Nor does the Greek word, ‘makarios,’ mean what we typically think – that to be
blessed means to have received a benefit from God. It means rather to be satisfied or unburdened
or at peace. It has the connotation,
especially in this context, of being enviable.
“Woe” does not mean
condemned. Both in Greek and in Hebrew,
this little word, “oi,” is a prophetic word.
It is a lament. It is a
warning. It is a call to
repentance. It is a call to place our
trust, not in the things of this world – for as beneficial as they are, they
are illusory – nor in the rulers of this world – for as powerful as they seem,
they do not hold all the cards – but in God who made both heaven and
earth.
When I was growing up, I got
tired of hearing my grandmother declare, “Money! You just gotta have it!” I dismissed it as an attitude that grew out
of the Great Depression when she often didn’t know where the next meal was
going to come from, and, as a farm housewife, she worried about that a lot and it was something I never had to worry about at all.
As I got older, I came to
realize that, although money couldn’t give you everything, it made some things
much easier – not only keeping the refrigerator stocked, but also in paying
unexpected bills, like repairing the car when it won’t run or a trip to the hospital.
Still, we are in trouble when
we trust the gift, rather than the Giver.
So, what can we do?
First, we can hold the things
of this world – even the really good things – more lightly. Treasure them for now.
Know that they are precious, but they are not forever. Know too that when we hold on to something we
may miss something else that is even more important. So, hold it more lightly. Even let it go.
Second, when you let it go, if
you can, offer it to others. Since we
can’t take it with us – whatever it is – the best thing to do is to use it for
the benefit of others. Maybe that’s one
of the things we miss when we focus on what is in our hands. We miss seeing others. We miss the chance to connect with others by
sharing the good things in life.
Finally, we can plant
ourselves as trees by streams of living water.
This is an image from Psalm 1 that is shared by the prophet
Jeremiah. One scholar, J. Clinton
McCann, points out that the first word in Psalm 1 – Happy! – is not only
repeated in Psalm 2. It is used more
than 20 times in the Psalms, and he says that it might not be a stretch to say
that this is the theme of the pentire salter.
The psalms begin with
happiness. But it is not happiness in
the way we normally think of it. For us,
happiness is mostly about us – our income level, our relationships, our health,
our accomplishments. The Psalms instead say that true happiness is not rooted
in any of those things. It is not even
rooted in us. Rather, it is rooted in and
grows from God.
It grows out of our practice
of the Law, not a list of do’s and don’ts, but the teaching, the instruction
that God has given us. It is a teaching
upon which we meditate day and night, so that our life becomes grounded in God
and shaped by God and led by God. And no
change of season or circumstance will dry up the stream that waters it.
This “meditating day and
night” reminds me of Paul’s encouragement to us to “pray without ceasing” (I
Thessalonians 5:17). While it seems
impossible to us, there are many Christians who have sought to live out this
teaching.
There were those who, in the
fourth century, went to another plain – the desert – to escape what they
believed was the watering down of Christianity through its official acceptance
in the Roman Empire. They used the
verse, “Be pleased, O God, to deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me,” (Psalm 70:1) and held it in their mids and hearts. Andrew Drietcer, professor at
Claremont School of Theology, says that the prayer expressed faith that God was
present, that God would not abandon them to wild animals and destructive inner
voices. It also expressed their need for
God and their desire for God, especially God’s infinite compassion. (cf. “Living
compassion: Loving like Jesus,” p. 57)
If you don’t feel like a monk
– or like retreating to the desert – let me offer one more suggestion – a
Lutheran one. In the Luther movie,
starring Joseph Fiennes in the title role, Luther is given a phrase to say by
his spiritual mentor, Johann von Staupitz, when he was in great spiritual
turmoil, believing he was too sinful to be a priest, too sinful even to be loved by
God.
Von Staupitz places a
crucifix in hands and speaks the words, “I am yours; save me.” This verse gave Luther a strong feeling
of God’s presence and protection. It
gave him a way to express his deep desire for God’s mercy and to open his heart to that
mercy.
So, let’s take a minute now.
Close your eyes. Get comfortable in your seat.
Bring a phrase to mind. It could
be one of those I just shared. “Be pleased, O God, to deliver me.” Or “I am
yours; save me.” Or it could be
another. “Lord, have mercy.” Or “The
Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
Repeat it a few times. When you
get distracted, come back to it. You
don’t need to say it continuously in mantra fashion, but say it enough that it
starts to descend from your head down into your heart. Let utterance be a seed planted in your heart...
True happiness is not based
on our outer situation, but on our inner orientation. It is not found in anything in this world,
but in doing what God wants done in this world.
This happens, not when we follow a prescribed list, as helpful as those
are, but rather in opening ourselves to God in a continual way and allowing our
life and our actions to flow from our relationship with God.
In this way, our lives will
become grounded as trees planted by streams of living water and, no matter what
the season or circumstance, we will be fruitful as God intends us to be
fruitful. This is the best kind of life. This is what it means to be happy. This is what it means to be blessed – blessed
in and by and for love.
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