"For all the Saints" (sermon)

Chetwynd Shared Ministry

November 5, 2017 (All Saints Sunday)

Scripture:  Matthew 5:1-12

Blessed are the rich, for they will become richer.

Blessed are the emotionally numb, for nothing will disturb them.

Blessed are those with bombs and nuclear codes, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those with enough food, for they can afford to give away the crumbs from their tables.

Blessed are those with privilege, for they will decide what is right and what is wrong.

Blessed are those in the comfortable pews, for they can feel smug about their virtue.

Blessed are the bullies, for they can control the actions of others.

(pause)

OK – so maybe Jesus didn’t say it quite like this.  But if you look at the way that our world works, what Jesus is saying in today’s reading from Matthew doesn’t make any sense.  If you look at the way that our world works, it usually isn’t the meek person who is given power, who inherits the earth.  If you look at the way that our world works, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness usually don’t get to see the fulfillment of their hunger.  If you look at the way that our world works, the poor in spirit, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers aren’t usually the people who are exalted, the people who are respected, the people who are celebrated.  In fact it’s often the opposite.  Usually it is the people who hold the power, the people who are rich, the people who are beautiful, the people who come from the “right family” – these are the people that our world celebrates.

So what does Jesus mean when he calls the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers – what does Jesus mean when he calls them blessed?

Think about what the world means when it says blessed.  Someone brings supper over to you – “blessed.”  There is good weather for walking your dog – “blessed.”  You get to sleep in for an extra hour in the morning (though not in this region!) – “blessed.”

This is how we normally understand the word “blessed”.  It describes good things happening in life.  Any sports fans here this morning?  I hear that there’s going to be a big football game in three weeks.  I wonder which players are going to call themselves “blessed” in the post-game interviews.  I’m guessing that it’s not going to be the losing team.

And yet Jesus isn’t saying, “blessed are the winners of football games.”  Jesus isn’t saying, “blessed are the materially fortunate.”  Jesus isn’t saying, “blessed are those with an abundance of food.”

Thinking about all of this, I wonder what was actually meant by that word, “blessed.”  Last winter, I did a bit of work on this passage from Matthew’s gospel – what we sometimes call The Beatitudes.  I wanted to look up what was meant by the original Greek word used in Matthew’s gospel – surely it didn’t have the same meaning as what we think of as “blessed.”  In the school library we had a great big 12-volume “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament” – the volumes are so huge that this dictionary has a table to itself in the library.  I looked up this word, “makarioi,” that Matthew uses to see what else it might mean besides blessed.

When I found the right volume and opened it up, it fell open right to the word I was looking for – telling me that I wasn’t the first person at the school to wonder what Jesus meant by “blessed.”

At first it wasn’t too helpful.  It told me that “makarioi” meant blessed or happy.  It told me that it meant, and I quote here, “the transcendent happiness of a life beyond care, labour, and death.”  It told me, not very helpfully, that in the New Testament, it was a word usually used to express a beatitude.  But then it started to get more interesting.  To be blessed, in this sense, is to see the present in light of the future.  To see the present in light of the future.  It implies tension between the state of the present and the state of the future.  The dictionary called it a “sacred paradox.”  (Wednesday night bible study folks – you might recognize this concept from our conversation last Wednesday.)

And I think that this is the key to understanding the blessings of the beatitudes.  Even though the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake – even though they don’t appear to be very blessed in Jesus’ time or in our time, in God’s coming kingdom they will be blessed.  They will receive the joy, the blessing, the transcendent happiness that comes from being fully present with God.

These beatitudes, the opening verses of chapter 5 of Matthew’s gospel, are the opening words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  In Matthew’s gospel, this is Jesus’ first public discourse, his first public teaching that is recorded by Matthew.  Essentially, we are hearing the opening words to Jesus’ first sermon.

And Jesus uses the opening words of his first sermon to proclaim a vision for the world that is radically different than the world that we see around us.  Jesus is proclaiming the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God where the power structures aren’t just re-arranged but are completely turned upside down.  Jesus is proclaiming a world where the poor in spirit are blessed; a world where those who mourn are blessed; a world where the meek are blessed; a world where the pure in heart are blessed; a world where the peacemakers are blessed.

So what does this mean for us?  After all, we are living in a world that blesses the rich, the powerful, the privileged.  (quiet voice)  But the thing is, we are an Easter people.  We know that the world doesn’t get the final word.  We know that even when God dies on a cross and it seems as though the world has won, we know that the story doesn’t end on Friday.  We know that two days later, we will be celebrating the empty tomb, and God’s final word of joy and hope.

And because we know this, we can trust in the beatitudes.  We can trust that God’s kingdom will have the final word over the powers and principalities of this world.

Today, we are recognizing All Saints Day, which falls on November 1 each year.  On this day, we remember all of God’s saints who came before us in the world.  This includes saints whose names might be well known to us, like St. Theresa of Avila, St. Augustine, St. Peter, or Mother Theresa.  But it also includes all of God’s people in all generations – everyone who walked this road of faith before us.  People whose names may have only been known to those who loved them, and people whose names have been lost to the passage of time.

These are all of the saints who have gone ahead of us, who trusted the Easter message, who have caught glimpses of God’s coming kingdom.

The letter to the Hebrews tells us that we are surrounded by “so great a cloud of witnesses” and that we don’t travel this journey of faith alone.  There have been thousands and millions of saints who have made this journey before us.  There are thousands and millions of saints around the world who are making this journey with us.  We never need to be discouraged because we are never alone.  Not only has God been our constant companion since before we took our first breath; but our fellow saints are also always with us.

When I think about All Saints Day, I think about my Grandma.  She was born on a farm in south-western Ontario.  She was born in 1916 in a Methodist family, and when the United Church of Canada was formed and her family joined, she was 9 years old.  Church was always an important part of Grandma’s life, right up until she died.  She also loved school and studying, and dreamed of going to university; but never had an opportunity to do so.  She married a farmer and raised three children, and imparted a love of reading and learning in all of them.  She had 8 grandchildren who all inherited her love of reading, and all of us had the opportunity to go to university.  If she were alive today, she would now have 17 ½ great grandchildren.

She loved her family and she loved reading and learning.  But towards the end of her life, she became blind, as well as paralyzed from, as she described it, her “armpits down.”  She lived the last year of her life in the long term care wing of her local hospital.  But she never lost her gentleness and her love and her sense of humour.  Her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would visit her at the hospital; and if one of the nurses was having a bad day, they would go spend a bit of time in Grandma’s room, and leave there ready to face whatever else their day might hold.

When I think of God’s saints, and the great cloud of witness who surround us, I think first of my Grandma.  To me, she embodied the beatitudes that Jesus talked about.  She didn’t always have an easy life, and from the perspective of the world, she wasn’t showered with material blessings.  But even when times were difficult, she lived out these upside-down blessings of Jesus.  She saw the world, not through the hardships that she faced; but instead, like that definition I mentioned earlier, she saw the present in light of the future.  She was blessed.  I pray that I might be able to live my life with just a fraction of the grace with which my Grandma lived.

I want to take a minute, this All Saints Sunday, to remember the saints who have been important in each of our lives.  All of us have had mentors in our faith – people who have taught us, people who have inspired us, people who have influenced us, people who have led us.  This might include people who we have met and known well, or it might be people who have inspired us through their words or their actions or their writings.  We give thanks for all the saints.

At this time, I invite you to take the red heart from your bulletin and write on it the names of God’s saints that you want to remember and give thanks for today.  These might include the names of people you knew well or the names of people you never met.  These might include the names of people who have died, or the names of people who are still living.  I invite you to write the names of the saints for whom you give thanks, and when you are ready, I invite you to come forwards and place the names in this basket, and offer your thanksgiving here at the alter.

(people write and bring forward names)

Let us pray:

God of all times and all places,

today, we offer thanks for all the saints,

            for the saints who have been named here this morning,

            for the saints who have mentored us in our faith,

            for the saints who are well known,

            and for the saints whose names are known only to you.

We give thanks for women and men of faith

            who have gone before us,

            who have led us,

            who have walked with us on our journey.

We give thanks that we are part of the Communion of Saints,

            and surrounded by a great cloud of witness

            who have walked this road before us.

Help us to always travel this path of faith,

            trusting in your promise of blessing,

We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ,

            the author and perfecter of our faith.

Amen.

(Grandma with three of her grandchildren, circa 2001)