Last week I had a case of vertigo that hit me like a ton of bricks. So I spent the week mostly in bed, unable to focus my eyes very well. The vertigo has gradually improved but I have still been left with little to do but rest my eyes and … think.
And I have been thinking about the text for the week. About blessing and woe. About the economy of Jesus, about fullness and emptiness. About giving and receiving.
There is no question in my mind that I am among the blessed – by almost any definition of the word. But when I think of the specific biblical meaning, and the unique angle Jesus presents in his sermon on the plain, this is the meaning of blessed that matters the most to me.
To talk about this, I want to go back to my childhood. I offer you today a kind of testimony. Normally when I prepare a sermon I spend time studying, reading a lot, taking things in. But this week I could not read, so I can only give you what is already inside me.
I was brought up in the Lutheran church, a place that was important in our family life. Like many of you, church was the water I swam in as a child, the air I breathed. Nothing to be questioned, only to be learned.
And in the church, thankfully, I learned that I am loved. I learned that I am a sinner, absolutely. But unlike the experiences I know some others have had, it was not taught to me that I am a bad person. I sin because I can do no other on my own. But I am loved as a child of God and therefore forgiven. This was the most important thing I learned in my childhood, I think – that I am incurably prone to sin, but that I am nonetheless loved. Thus, I can confess my sins every day without fear, because God is always ready to forgive. Like the prodigal son, whose father will run out to embrace him when he turns his face toward home, I am forgiven.
I believe this is as solid a foundation as I could have wanted in life. Not everything was peachy keen in my world, but because my parents raised me in church, I have been blessed.
Yet, when I became an adult, I can see now that there was something lacking. I did not seem to feel that I needed to do anything in this relationship. I took what I needed, but I gave little.
It was a set of circumstances in my life in my early 30’s that changed that. When Kim and I moved from Iowa to Pennsylvania, I was unable to find a Lutheran church that felt like a good fit for me. There were three in town, I tried them all, but each time felt the answer was no. Someone suggested I try the Presbyterian Church which was only a five-minute walk from our home. And so I did.
The first time I walked in there I had a clear sense I was in the right place. I sensed that God was opening the door and welcoming me in.
It was in joining this church that I began to have a clear sense that God was doing a little more than loving and forgiving me. God was asking something of me as well. I was asked to serve on session and I knew my answer was yes immediately because I had already felt that call in my soul. I was asked to serve in other ways and the answer was always yes.
I said to you last week that the call comes in many ways and at many times during a person’s life. My first year on session, when it came to stewardship time, I discovered the call to give sacrificially.
I know that word – sacrifice, sacrificial – is loaded with baggage, can be triggering for some of us. But it helps to deepen our understanding of the concept. Someone once told me the definition of sacrifice is to give up something good for the sake of something better.
But doing this always requires trust.
Sacrificial giving to me means giving in trust – But I had never done this before.
Honestly, I had never felt like the church needed my money. There were a lot of other people, and a lot of them had more money than I did. But what I had not considered was my need to give to the church.
Yes, it is my need as much as the church’s need. I am not fully who God intends me to be if I do not give the first fruits of my labor.
And I have to admit to you that it is always a struggle between the angel on one shoulder and the demon on the other. The demon, which will work to convince me that I just need to pamper myself a little more, that I deserve all the comforts, security, and status I can get my hands on. And the angel who will never let me hide from what I know to be true.
I chose as my title “Leaning into Blessing” because that is the choice I believe one makes. Jesus stood before the people of Israel and told them, “This is what it is to be blessed: to be hungry, to be poor, to weep. Even at times to be hated and denigrated.” Because when you seek to walk close to Jesus, there will always be those who oppose you.
We can see that pretty clearly now as so many of Jesus’ teachings are being reviled by people with power. The recent attack against the Lutheran Church, calling them criminals and money-launderers for the work they do around the world to relieve hunger and save lives – this is something that comes to mind. “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven,” Jesus says to the church at such moments.
We are invited to lean into this kind of blessing, not because it “hurts so good” or any such nonsense, but simply because it draws us nearer to God.
It draws us nearer to God and brings God’s kingdom closer to earth.
Because when we give more, then there is less need.
When we share love, then there is less hate.
When we offer kindness, then there is less meanness. It’s the most basic kind of arithmetic.
The word blessed (makarios) can mean a lot of different things to us. We use it in many different ways, so it is easy to get confused about the words of this passage. The things Jesus is talking about hardly sound like blessing to us. Sometimes we see the word “happy” used in its stead, but I have to say that “happy” hardly does justice to its meaning.
It is most fundamentally about one’s relationship with God. In these words of Jesus, it would seem to say that God draws those who are in need close to Godself. So, in my mind, this is where the trust comes from. When we give, we may do so trusting that God will draw us near, that God will make a way.
In fact, if you are choosing to give freely then God has already drawn you near.
May we each find our way to leaning into this blessing. May we remove any obstacles that are keeping us distant from our God who loves us. May we lean in and know the fullness and the joy that await us.
Picture: Adobe Stock Images
