Sermon for 2/6/2011   

   "Filling in the Blanks"

     Rev. Sharon James Fazel

In Bible Study Thursday morning, upon reading first the Beatitudes, and then this passage that _____ just read for us, which directly follows the Beatitudes (which means, most consistently anyway, “Blessings”) – our group found ourselves in a discussion that encompassed the distinction between physical and spiritual ideals, the nature of justice, and the high calling to which we who gather in Christian community, are challenged.

We spent some time focusing on the setting of this very famous set of statements from Jesus entitled “The Sermon on the Mount.” In Matthew, it begins very early in Jesus’ ministry – just after he called the disciples, as a matter of fact. He moves toward a crowd gathered on a hillside, which is not really thousands of people at all, maybe even less than 100, but he sits at the top of the hill with the disciples within earshot, and begins his sermon with what we now call the Beatitudes – those oft quoted “Blessed are…” statements. Blessed are: the poor in spirit (which may mean that we are not necessarily talking only about folks who are penniless, but folks who – regardless of their net worth or their own proclamation of righteousness -- may instead be poor in the essentials of Christian charity and practice.) Also blessed are those who mourn, those who are gentle, those who hunger and thirst for justice, those who show mercy to others, those whose hearts are clean, those who work for peace, and those who are persecuted because of their struggle for justice. That’s a lot of people who are blessed! But if we take all of those traits at once into the expectations we set for ourselves, it seems an overwhelming bill to fill! So, as we conferred in Bible Study on these statements, the question came up: do we think we are each challenged to do all of this that Jesus describes as “blessed”? 

Frankly, it’s hard to tell, but that doesn’t seem to be the point. After telling the disciples – and therefore us – that he did not come to eliminate Hebrew Law, Jesus proceeds to lay out for us new interpretations of law that, I think withstand even today’s contemporary settings and questions. What Jesus seems to be about here is linking Hebrew teaching in Hebrew scripture to the teaching of his own time and his own purpose. Rather than rejecting the importance of the prophets and Jewish law, Jesus validates them, by explaining to us that they have a new importance in our lives today. In other words, what was “old” is now “new again.” The way Jesus seems to put a new twist on the messages of older scripture, is to frame the Hebrew laws in the language of relationship.

In each case, those who are blessed because of some sacrifice or some diligence or some faithfulness, are rewarded with a relationship with God that none other will experience quite the same. This relationship with God is our reward, whether we experience it in this life, or afterwards. What’s new, then, from Jesus -- is establishing this relationship with God. Talking about individual relationship with God is one thing, but Jesus also talks about the relationship of the community and God – specifically faith community, who are the followers of his “way.”

Today, so many people who speak and write about contemporary faith communities are fond of pointing to the death of the church, in particular to the expiration of mainline denominations. Indeed, Catholics and Protestants alike have been and continue to experience a decline in those who choose to join a faith community which aligns itself with traditional roots in Christianity. “Something new” is what people seem to want. And yet –if these words we’ve read this morning have anything at all to say to us, isn’t it true that God is always creating something new … in us and around us and by us … And isn’t that the  point of Jesus’ word from the hillside?

A paragraph from the online United Church of Christ resource Weekly Seeds lays this all out rather succinctly:

“…The church, for all of its vision, is overpowered, outnumbered, and often overlooked," (Thomas Long writes;)… the challenge is indeed formidable for "a small group trying with mixed results to live out an alternative life, set down in the midst of a teeming, fast-changing culture that neither appreciates nor understands them….The hardest part is not in being Christian for a day, but being faithful day after day, maintaining confidence in what, for all the world, appears to be a losing cause...[And yet] Our calling isn't about institutional survival, but something much greater, (Long continues): "Jesus is saying that what the people of God do in the world really counts."

And, sometimes that’s hard to remember, isn’t it, that what we, even as the people of God, do in the world really counts? In an age of instant news, it’s easy to get tied up in knots about what’s happening in Egypt, or Australia, or Phoenix, or Champlin, or Anoka, or Ramsey, or in our own families, for that matter. It’s easy to feel helpless, isn’t it?

For some of us, the challenges that such an awareness brings may be energizing. For some of us, it may be overwhelming. For some, there may even be a sense of plugging along with activities and assignments and goals and ideas … hoping that something has been meaningful, but oftentimes not feeling at all that it has. Often, there are large blank spaces in our experience, where what we’re doing seems of little or no consequence, whatsoever. We may feel ineffective in some or all of what we’re doing. Do any of you ever feel that way?

I imagine some of you do, because I happen to believe that it’s simply very human to have those feelings periodically. As long as they don’t overtake us and eat us up, they are valuable moments, though they may seem dark in contrast to the moments when we feel “on our game.” But the value of arriving at such a moment is the realization that, if we remain faithful in our hope for a better world, we will feel the presence of the living Christ at long last, when we most need to feel it; even when we most feel the darkness closing in around us.

Jesus tells his disciples – and thereby he tells us – that each of us has the light of God’s presence and love within us. Each of us is not just “salt of the earth” – the spice that invigorates life and urges us to action; but we are also “light of the world” – we each hold within ourselves the power to move toward justice and mercy and understanding and kindness and good will, if we will but trust it, and let it shine forth -- illuminating just what our particular call to action may be.

For us as a faith community, what would our believing collectively in such a statement look like?  Weekly Seeds offers this description.  Let’s try it on for a moment:

“Indeed, when people encounter us--as individuals and as communities of faith--they should see and sense more: they should feel hope, they should feel the possibility of a "different world," (Charles Cousar writes,) "marked by unheard-of reconciliation, simple truth-telling, outrageous generosity, and love of one's enemies." We're called not to make just a refreshing but a reinvigorating difference in the world, so that all who watch us will feel new life, new vitality, new possibility, new hope, new beauty. There is an important difference between building on the tradition (what has been handed down to us, and what we will hand down to our descendants) --and keeping our focus frozen on the past, forgetting that God is in truth doing a new thing today, in this world, in this time.”

And so, as individuals and as a church community, we are called to listen – even during those blank spaces – for Jesus’ voice to us, his disciples. Let us hear that call to listen, and then to act, for there is no salt like yours and ours together, in any other place. There is no light like yours and ours together, from any other source. It is our charge to “fill in the blanks” with the call Jesus extends to us in this sermon given on a hillside. Let us pledge to listen. Let us vow to hear. Let us covenant together to act – today, now, and in the days to come. Please pray with me.

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