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Reverend Michael Richardson
Today we celebrate All Saints' Day, one of the major feasts of the church year. We spent a good
deal of time yesterday with the children of our congregation and several other Episcopal congregations in
Colorado talking about this special feast day. We told stories of saints, drew pictures of saints, made
banners with the symbols of the saints and sang about the saints. The hymn, "I Sing a Song of the Saints
of God", should still be reverberating in the Parish Hall today.
There are many interesting stories about the saints, from folks who talk with birds and squirrels to
those who face wild lions in the arena, from men and women who put on battle armor and lead God's people
in charges to those who refuse to take up arms against others. But the one thing that the saints had in
common was this; they were uncommonly devoted to our Lord.
The Gospel we read for this feast is the same every year, the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the
Mount. And it's no wonder why we read that Gospel for a day that is about uncommonly devoted people. The
Beatitudes call us to an uncommon life, a life that is lived apart from the values of the world and
according to the strange and wonderful values of God. John Stott, a theologian and writer from the last
half of the Twentieth Century, said that the most hurtful thing that could be said about a Christian is,
"But you are no different from anybody else." The Beatitudes do not call us to be like everyone else in
society, but to be at one with God's ways of living.
The virtues spoken of by the Beatitudes are strange and wonderful, but they are also difficult. Many
people dismiss them either as impossible to accomplish or so simplistic that we need not work at them.
They are not meant to be read with either "foolish optimism or hopeless despair", Stott tells us, but are
meant to be a guide for all Christians in our life of service to God and in thanksgiving for the Grace of
God bestowed on us through the life of Jesus Christ.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This is the first saying of
eight in all. The first four seem to talk about how life is lived with God or what attitude we take on as
we live our life. The second four seem more concerned with how we live with each other and how we treat
one another. This first teaching creates the atmosphere for all the rest of the teachings. Poor in Spirit.
Poverty of Spirit. "At the end of your rope," Peterson calls it in his New Testament version, The Message.
It means that we have nothing to bring to God but are so completely lost that we can only turn to God for
help in our prayer and life.
These are the times when we cannot even think of how to pray or what words to use. Our poverty of
Spirit is so pervasive that we simply come to God and rely on God to do the praying for us. There is no
need to be a spiritual weightlifter or a superstar prayer warrior ready to take on the world the flesh and
the devil. All that is required is the knowledge that we need to be filled; the knowledge and acceptance
that we are empty and cannot fill ourselves.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." If this is truly about our attitude in
life, not just about how we live with other people but how we live for God, then this Beatitude has much
more to say than simply mourning for lost friends and companionship. Our mourning follows on our
acknowledgement that we are lost and at the end of our rope. There is true sorrow in coming to know that I
will not live forever and that I cannot be the complete master of my own destiny. But the only way that
God can comfort us in our loss of self mastery is when we are in need of that comfort.
Have you ever tried to comfort someone who had lost someone but did not want to be reminded of the
loss or take comfort in the company of friends? It's impossible. There is no way to give comfort to those
who are not willing to accept it. Mourning, the feeling or experiencing of loss of self or loss of love
allows us to be vulnerable enough to receive the comfort promised by God. When we are incapable of doing
it all on our own and then in mourning for that very condition of weakness we put ourselves in a position
relative to God that allows us to receive the kingdom of heaven and be comforted.
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." We all say the confession during the
Eucharist and admit that we have sinned. But we aren't too keen on someone else admitting for us that we
are sinners. That is what it means to be meek, to know oneself and allow others to know that same self
without the masks or projections that are more appealing to the outside world.
I'm not suggesting that the meek will run around the neighborhood shouting out their sins to
everyone, but that they will lead a transparent life that allows people to know that they are not perfect.
We can know we are not yet perfect but are striving toward that perfection and still maintain the sense
that we are doing the best we can at the time. In this sense the meek are those who are willing to get to
know themselves while letting other people get to know them as well, without being defensive about their
shortcomings.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." It is not
enough to know that we are sinful or to mourn our own spiritual poverty; we must also hunger and thirst
for righteousness. We must genuinely care to live our lives in such a way that God comes first and we
recognize that the emptiness of our lives is due in part to separation from God's love.
Our desire for righteousness cannot simply be a desire for looking as though we are doing the right
thing, but a genuine desire to do that right thing. Jesus said, "For I tell you, unless your righteousness
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (v. 20) But hunger
for righteousness, as Jesus hungered for righteousness, always has to do with changing our hearts toward
God, not about judging others in comparison to ourselves. We are told that our righteousness must be
better than those who do this kind of judging and weighing. Our righteousness must be from the
heart.
This part of the Beatitudes can become oppressive if it is understood as being "right" or about
following the rules. It is far too easy to believe that the righteousness that I seek is to make other
people live as I would have them live, when righteousness is really about changing my own heart so that I
will not seek to rule others. The moral and social righteousness that we are hungry for will lead us
toward God's grace and will help us to call for righteousness within our communities by reaching out to
those who are oppressed and downtrodden and by seeking justice in our communities for all
people.
As difficult as it is to be righteous and call our communities to righteousness, we must do it with
an attitude of mercy. The call to be merciful begins the second group of teachings and is appropriate for
us to hear immediately after we speak of righteousness. Just as the first teaching leads us to an attitude
about all that follows, that we are poor in spirit and must rely on God, so this teaching tells us
something about the attitude we will take in our dealings with one another. We begin with
mercy.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy." This is the first of the teachings that
concerns itself with how we treat others in our path. Jesus also says in Matthew "for if you forgive
others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." (6: 14)
There is no explanation about those to whom we are to be merciful. They are not described as people
who are injured or in any particular need so it is left open that we are to be merciful to all people as
God is merciful to all of the creation. There is not a group of people anywhere that is outside of God's
mercy, neither is there any individual who is outside of God's mercy. So who can we put outside the mercy
that God calls us to give? Prisoners? Enemies of the state? Those who seek to do us harm? It is difficult
to be merciful to those who have power over us, or who seek to have power and control over us, but we can
perhaps be merciful in the wresting of that power from them.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." This teaching calls us to be sincere in our
approach to God and our relationships. The sincere person will have no mixed motives in their behavior. I
don't know about you, but I find this particularly hard. This is another call to lead a transparent life
that allows all to see how our relationships work. We cannot be sincere when we strive to put people at
odds with each other or manipulate others to do our bidding. When we tell one friend in school that we
think "so and so" is trying to make them look bad, and then go tell "so and so" that our friend is mad at
them we seek to get both of them on our side and appear to be friends with each of them, when we are
really a friend to no one. We've seen the opposite of "pure in heart" in the corporate scandals
lately.
Those in positions of trust, in positions of holding accountability who have promised to be sincere
in their dealings with us have been motivated by greed to get others to help them steal money from the
companies they have sworn to protect. Their motives of greed made them hide what they were doing from
everyone who was not complicit in their schemes, all the while presenting a picture of purity to the
people around them. That is the same kind of thing that Jeb Magruder talked about in our Sunday School
classes. When we have to hide the "good" that we think we are doing, as in the case of Watergate, we had
better look at how good it really is.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." We are all called to
reconcile people with one another rather than make enemies and cause strife between people. Christ
reconciled the world to God through his death on the cross, so we mustn't think that peacemaking is always
a task that is calm and "peaceful" in itself. Imagine being in the room with Israeli and Palestinian
leaders and asking them to make peace.
Often strife comes because one person or group of people is being deceitful about something, rather
than pure in heart, and bringing peace means bringing things out into the open where the light of day can
help us to determine where the good is. But the call to be peacemakers is not a call to have an easy life.
It is a call to be in the middle of conflict, trying to find justice for all involved.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
How appropriate that Jesus would talk of being persecuted immediately after being calling us to be in the
midst of conflict as peacemakers. People who are in conflict often do not want peace - they want control.
So trying to bring peace only makes them mad at the peacemaker. If you seek persecution for righteousness,
try getting in the middle of two quarreling parties and help them to resolve their differences.
But we are called to reconcile the world to God and accept the cost of doing that work. Dietrich
Bonhoeffer called it the "Cost of Discipleship".
So, these are the Beatitudes, the beautiful teachings of Jesus. They are not easy, but neither are
they impossible to strive for. As I finish reading the last of them I must admit that I am driven back to
the first, to the recognition that I am poor in spirit and must rely on God. The Beatitudes are a picture
of the kind of life that Jesus calls us to as disciples. And we revere the people who have tried to live
this way as saints of our faith history. Today the young people of this congregation are going to talk
about the saints they have known in their lives. People who have shown them the face of God, people who
have shown them mercy, people who have been peacemakers in their lives. Perhaps, if you look around you
now, you might see a saint or two that will be mentioned in our discussion.
We are all called to be saints. Remember the words of the hymn? "You can meet them in school, or in
lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea, for the saints of God are just folk
like me, and I mean to be one too." +
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