- We are beginning our collections for Fuel Assistance for local families in need
- Death Cafe January 24th at 4pm (we meet monthly)
- Discussion Circle is the Last Sunday after Church
- You, Me, and We: Walking Together with Love March 29th after Church
Visit our Calendar of Events to explore our upcoming dates and times
Our Sunday Reflection is recorded and can be found HERE (posts each Sunday by late morning or early afternoon).
It can be easy to read the familiar passages and think, oh, I already know this one and then stop listening. Other times, the words wash over us as familiar and comfortable, almost like a balm.
These words were surprising, to the point of shocking. They should still surprise us, shock us, and change us.
Even though we know the story and how it goes and how it ends, it should still change us. Every time.
There’s a reason we reread beloved books and rewatch beloved movies. It’s not that we think it’s going to change this time around, although sometimes we may hope it will. It’s often to imagine a different ending or to walk with beloved characters through a beloved journey. It’s to dream of different possibilities. It’s to learn, once again, and anew, something about who we are, about life and how to live it.
And these Great Stories! That’s what they do, they teach us once again, and anew, something about who we are, about life and how to live it. But they can’t do this if we no longer allow ourselves to be surprised or to see anew. If we come at the stories thinking we already know, we’ve dismissed and closed the door to what we might uncover and discover. We don’t let in a fresh wind. We don’t allow ourselves to be moved and changed.
The Beatitudes turned the usual, the known, the normal upside down! These were shocking words. And if they don’t still shock us and surprise us today, then we are missing something.
What happens if we read as if for the first time? What if we allow in the disorientation of these words to reorient to a new possibility?
Whenever something is happening on a mountain in these Stories, we are being told to pay attention. Something exciting is about to happen. It is often a bridge. A bridge to something new. A bridge between us. A “thin place”. A bridge between heaven and earth.
An interesting thing is that there aren’t really any mountains in Galilee where this moment takes place. PAUSE So there’s something more to the words that simple geography.
He went up on the mountain where there is no mountain tells us that something Big is happening.
The crowd starts small. This is the beginning of Jesus’s ministry and at first there are only the disciples who have just joined Jesus. Imagine what is going through their heads as they hear just these beginning words. PAUSE. They’ve just come to join Jesus. There’s excitement. Possibility. Expectations. Then…these words.
These words make it clear that things are going to get messy and scary along the way.
At the end of the Sermon, there is a crowd. Things grow and grow quickly. This also could be a way of talking about Jesus’s whole ministry. It’s starts small and then it grows and grows.
There are so many ways to read these Stories. So many nuances of time, place, and translation that we don’t quite understand—easily lost in translation as the saying goes. So many things within these words that lie between the lines—things that aren’t said. I like to think…those hidden lines are awakened when our hearts are aligned with Grace. Have you ever had those moments where everything just feels “aligned” and there’s something spectacular happening? It’s like that. Those moments where it all just “makes sense”.
Let’s come back to being surprised. The very first word of the Beatitudes challenged what it meant to be blessed or happy. The Greek word here can also be translated as “happy”. Happy are…
At the time, there were three ways of being blessed/happy. One: your were a god and therefore had no troubles. Two: you were dead and no longer chained to the sufferings of life. Three: you were rich and therefore had no troubles.
To be blessed, you were rich, dead, or a god. To be blessed/happy, you were beyond the worldly, day to day, human troubles.
Now, let’s read:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
For they shall inherit the earth.
Jesus begins with the poor, the grieving, and the meek. Everyone who is not ‘traditionally’ blessed. Jesus says the common people are Blessed. Perhaps even more so than the rich and the powerful who can (better) avoid life’s challenges. Jesus turns blessed on its head. Blessed (and happy) are those within the challenges of life…blessed are you in the worldly, day to day, human troubles.
You are blessed.
And that carries to us today.
We are Blessed, especially when we are carrying heavy loads.
As we keep reading the Sermon, beginning with these words, we find a way of living that seems impossible. PAUSE. What do we do with that? To land us in some of these very hard, almost unattainable, ways of living, consider how hard it is to love thyself, love thy neighbor, love thy enemy, forgive those who have hurt you, give everything away, welcome the stranger…
They must be “unattainable” or hard for a reason.
It’s not to bring the bar down to meet us where we are at. We could. We sometimes do. We don’t lower the bar to lift ourselves up. We could. We sometimes do.
Leave the bar high, reach for the “unattainable”. Reach for the hard work. We reach to stretch our beyond our limitations to become better followers. Why? To do the work that is needed in this world. We are the hands and eyes and feet and ears of Grace in this world. We wouldn’t want to set our bar low…we are asked big things. Reaching will change the world.
And it’s okay to fall. We are still blessed/happy in our challenges. Maybe that’s part of it: we will get bruised and bloody. We will earn some scars along the way. But we are still blessed and happy.
I envision a pull up bar way above my head (actually, what I really envision are the uphill monkey bars with really hard gravel below, but a single bar is enough). You jump. You throw yourself to the bar hoping to catch it. You learn technique. You stretch your skills and your muscles. It’s never easy and it’s still often out of reach, even as we get stronger and more skilled. There’s always the possibility of falling and getting hurt. Sometimes, the only way up is to get a boost. Sometimes, the best thing is to have a “spotter” to help as we learn.
Who are we looking for to get a boost? Who “spots” us? Well, on the course, it’s your team. Perhaps, our team here is one another, our Community.
Who are we looking for to get a boost? Who else do we trust to “spot” us? Grace. Grace for us. Grace for community. Grace for ALL of us.
We don’t bring the bar down, we keep reaching and stretching. We boost our strengths and our muscles of Goodness. We keep practicing goodness and love and grace. And then Goodness and Love and Grace also reaches down to us.
Both, and…
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It is to the hopeless that Jesus offers heaven, here and now.
Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted.
It is the blanket of human solidarity (our “team”, our Community) and the comfort of Grace that Jesus offers us, here and now.
Blessed are the meek,
For they shall inherit the earth.
It is to the meek, the gentle, the Jesus offers the earth, here and now.
These words are a constant reminder that our gentle steps, our gentle words, our gentle kindness, our gentle tending is exactly what we are asked to bring to this earth.
Jesus offers us not riches or kingship or godliness or death to avoid the trials and challenges of life. That is not what makes us blessed or happy. Happiness is found in these real and ordinary moments of our lives. Now.
Jesus teaches us that hope is found in peace, compassion, humility, and tender kindnesses. Grace teaches us that blessings and happiness are found being in kinship with one another, where we reach toward one another. Eternal Love is found in the practice of reaching and lifting ourselves and our community toward the reaching hand of Eternal Grace and Eternal Peace.
Community Church of North Orange & Tully 