Jesus, Not Jesús: Finding The Divine In The Space Between Us.
  • Be Kind
  • About this blog
  • About the author
  • Contact
  • Be Kind
  • About this blog
  • About the author
  • Contact

Between: Our Blessings and Our Woes.

2/13/2022

0 Comments

 

"Jesus doesn’t distinguish between rich or poor, hungry or well fed. He just tells us to do it towards everyone. He tells us God is fair. And there is equality in God’s kingdom. Jesus came down to the level plain where God has leveled the playing field."

Picture
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you...

William Willimon once wrote, “A sermon is a sermon when it is about God. We learn implications for human behavior only after we learn who God is and what God is up to.”
 
No one did this better than Jesus, who never shied away from talking about God and often did through simple stories; ones that usually shocked a few people.

But I think that was his point. To shock us awake. We get a pretty good view of what that looks like from this reading from Luke.  It's one of those perfect stark, faith-rattling declarations of Jesus to tell us who God is. And what God’s up to.

 
READ: Luke 6:17-26​
You don’t have to be a Christian to know life is a mixture of blessings and woes. Those who choose to follow Jesus know that we are called to live with the tension in between the two.
 
The beatitudes is a fairly well-known passage. Luke’s version, however, is different than the longer one found in the gospel of Matthew. To be honest, it’s not my favorite.
 
Luke’s rhetorical balance between these four blessings and four woes forces me to look deeper at my faith than I sometimes want to. Moreover, the conditions to be blessed don’t really seem like blessings. In fact, I lean more towards the woeful situations. Even if being rich comes with a warning, it still has to be better than poverty or persecution. And does it really count if I make myself weep or go hungry to earn a blessing?
 
If we choose to follow Jesus, then we have to hold the tension between these two worlds where we are blessed when we are comforted by God’s grace and love in our times of hardship and pain. But we are warned not to confuse our good fortune for faithful discipleship.
 
If you want to see God or know what God is up to…well this is it.
 
As the story goes, Jesus comes down from the mountain to the level plains, where people from all walks of life have gathered.

It’s here, between the mountain top and the streets below, Jesus meets people who are sick and who haven’t eaten in a while. Some are possessed or suffering a mental disorder. While others have come simply because they’ve heard about this rabbi whose new interpretation of scripture was turning everything upside down.
With all eyes on him, he begins to speak. “Blessed are you...you who are poor...you who are hungry...you who weep and are persecuted.” And the people were stunned.
 
“Hearing this,” wrote Barbara Brown Taylor, “was like drinking from a glass of what looked like lemonade and finding out that it’s bug spray instead.” That’s because people like these folks were not used to receiving tender attention, muchless a divine blessing.
 
But like I said, Jesus often shocks us, because sometimes that’s what it takes to open our eyes to see God among us. With these words, Jesus tells those who society has deemed unfit or unimportant that they matter to God. People like you and me, God considers blessed!
 
With open eyes, Jesus wants us to look into the heart of God and discover all the possibilities that come from it. When our eyes are open to how God blesses us, it should be easier to see how we can bless and care for each other - especially those in need.
 
Thus, it’s here, between blessings and woes, we must make a choice. Jesus isn’t telling us what to do. He’s not saying ‘thou shalt be poor and persecuted’.
 
When Jesus commands us, you know it. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

Jesus doesn’t distinguish between rich or poor, hungry or well fed. He just tells us to do it towards everyone. He tells us God is fair. And there is equality in God’s kingdom. Jesus came down to the level plain where God has leveled the playing field.
 
Barbara Brown Taylor describes it like riding on a Ferris wheel. She says, “The Ferris wheel will go around, so that those who are swaying at the top, with the wind in their hair and all the world's lights at their feet, will have their turn at the bottom. While those who are down there right now, where all they can see are candy wrappers in the sawdust, will have their chance to touch the stars.”
 
It’s in this space between the stars and the sawdust Jesus removes any barriers to seeing God's image reflected in our lives.
 
What does that image look like?
 
Like our friend who is a single mom, runs her own business, and struggles to keep her head above water – financially and mentally. And to her Jesus says, “You are blessed.”

But it also looks like someone I know who was given a second chance at life and became successful in business and achieved great wealth. Jesus tells him, “You are blessed.”
 
Yet, to both, he also says, “Whoa!” As in, don’t let your good comfort or your bad situation be your priority. Put your faith in God. Not some of it. But all of it.
 
As followers of Jesus, we stand between receiving God's grace and comfort in times of suffering knowing we also contribute to both the hardships and blessings of others. We must make a choice. To live into our blessedness. Or not.
 
Here, in Anamesa, in the space between, Jesus gives us a holy pause, a time to set our priorities and make room for God “who loves everyone on that Ferris wheel.” You. Me. And even the most despised person you can think of. This is who God is. And how it works in God’s kingdom.
 
As he moves through his ministry, Jesus will go on to show us how our true worth and value does not depend on anyone, or anything, other than God. If you know Jesus, then you know how far God is willing to go to bless us and love us. A love given freely to us with the intention that we will freely give it away to one another.

It’s ours to choose. To borrow from Rev Dawn who reminded me in her sermon this morning, “God trusts our choice.”
 
So, as we stand here today, in the tension between our blessings and woes, I invite you to imagine Jesus next to you telling you, “You are blessed because you are a person worth being loved and to give love.”
 
“You are blessed because you are created out of love and live in the embrace of a God who didn’t hesitate to send his only son to die for you.”
 
Let that sink in for a moment. Jesus believes you and I are worth everything God has to offer. And he will empty himself of everything he has so that we might know it. For those of us who refuse to see our worth in God’s eyes, Jesus tells us there will be woes ahead.

Eugene Peterson wrote it like this, “If you are only satisfied with yourself, and what you can do, your self will not satisfy you for long.”
 
The good news here is that Jesus opens our eyes to see God. And gives the beatitudes as a map to God’s heart so we can see who we really are: God's Beloved, made in the Divine image of everlasting love.
 
When we realize this truth, perhaps we will be better at doing what Jesus actually does commands us to do: to share, to love, to pray; to forgive those who, in their own brokenness, have also received God’s blessings.
 
As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “No one gets to stay at the top of the Ferris wheel forever. What goes around, comes around. That is not advice. That is not judgment. That is God's own truth.  It is the pure blessedness for those on the bottom, who never really expect to get off the ground.”
 

For those who are on top today, Jesus calls you down to be a part of the Kingdom of God. For those of you at the bottom, Jesus lifts you up so you can bathe in the richness of God’s everlasting light. It’s in our going up and coming down we see all the things that make us laugh, and cry, and hunger for all God has to offer. It’s in this holy space our hearts our open to receive a gift greater than anything money or talent could buy.
 
To make that choice easier, there is nothing we can do to earn God’s love and no way to repay God for such redemptive grace. All we can do is accept it.
 
Once we accept that we are absolutely, unconditionally loved by God, once that shocking knowledge of God’s goodness penetrates our hearts then and only then can fully embrace and live, laugh and love like Jesus did.
 
When we follow Jesus, living in Christ like love, only then can we truly love one another, truly forgive each other, and truly live side-by-side in peace.
 
It’s in that holy moment we see how truly blessed we really are. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
WORK CITED
BartLett, David L. and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol 1. Westminster John Knox, 2009.
Peterson, Eugene. The Message. Navipress, 1995
Taylor, Barbara Brown. Home By Another Way. Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Ian Macdonald

    An ex-copywriter turned punk rock pastor and peacemaker who dedicates his life to making the world a better place for all humanity. 

    "that they all might be one"  ~John 17:21


    “Prius vita quam doctrina.”
    ​~ S
    t. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)​
    * “Life is more important than doctrine.”


    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    February 2011
    December 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010

Be Kind

About this blog

About The Author

Contact

Copyright © 2011