Be-Attitudes
January 27, 2017
Christine E. Burns
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” Matthew 5:3
I brought in my favorite shell today, a broken whelk I found last year lying at the end of the dock at Tabor Academy. I stopped that morning after dropping the carpool off in the morning and walked out on the weathered boards of the dock in the rain in search of a sign from God. I look for signs from God in the natural world, especially when I am discouraged. My prayer goes a bit like Anne Lamott’s “help me, help me, help me” prayer where I ask God for help in the form of a stone or shell or cloud that speaks to me that God is present in my current situation. I have kept this stone on my desk at work at A Baby Center and now it lives in my kitchen in a new planting of frosty ferns and found shells and beach glass. Every time I wash my dishes, I can look to this whelk and see the beauty in its brokenness.
In crazy times, like our current national climate where daily executive orders seem to shift the ground from calm to build walls on the border with Mexico, to push out immigrants, drill for more oil, repeal the Affordable Care Act, cease support for health care for foreign aid to needy countries supported by United Nations that allows for Family Planning and more in only a few days, I have needed to take a pause from the news cycle and turn to books from my childhood. My favorite childhood author, Madeline L’Engle, was the librarian and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and her children’s literature is replete with science, reason, poetry and complex thought. A winner of the Newberry Award and a multiple Newberry Honor book recipient, she began writing at age 12 and continued writing while raising her family, running a general store in Connecticut before taking her whole family to live in New York City. She wrote over 60 books and plays and for me, a young girl who loved her stories, the most remarkable aspect was when I sent her a letter telling her why I loved A Ring of Endless Light, she wrote me back and told me to keep on writing and that my voice mattered.
Your voice matters; in a world that says despair, or numb yourself from reality with reality television, Facebook, alcohol, the Super Bowl, comparing ourselves with how well the Jones are doing, God says stop it!
In our first reading from the Prophet Micah we learn about what God long for us to do. The setting of the dialogue is in a courtroom and God is speaking to his people, Israel. The people had fallen away from following God and forgotten their covenant to be God’s people, and so Micah reminds them in their question about what they should be doing with their lives that God has three instructions: do justice,love kindness and walk humbly with God. In that time, people sometimes looked to human sacrifice to offer God as a petition for mercy. God said, stop sacrificing innocent human life. The sacrifice God longs for is justice in all of its forms: justice that is a transformative virtue to restore the community means right relationships, equitable distribution of goods and services and social justice. Walking humbly with God means reverence and openness.
Last week I re-read A Ring of Endless Light and one of my favorite poems from my childhood leapt off the pages in the first chapter. Our heroine has come to her Grandfather’s island home to help him die. He is a preacher and lives in an old barn. His wife painted her favorite verses on the walls. Here are the words of Sir Thomas Browne:
If thou could’st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, “This is not dead,”
And fill thee with Himself instead.
But thou art all replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes He says, “This is enow
Unto itself—‘twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me.”[1]
I drew comfort with that verse and thought of my whelk shell. It’s beauty lies in its emptiness. There is room for God within the shell.
As many of you know, I participated with 500,000 other women, men and children in the Women’s March on Washington last Saturday. It was a life-changing experience and one I never would have had the courage to do if our congregant, Marianne Williams, hadn’t invited me to join her on the bus she chartered from Barnstable to Washington D.C.
We left the parking lot at Exit 6 at 11:00p.m. on Friday night and traveled all nightlong arriving at R.F.K. Stadium at 7:30 a.m. I was nervous before traveling, not sure if it would be safe and the night before there was some violence from protesters after the peaceful transfer of power to our 45th President. To prepare for the journey, I spent time praying and reading alone. This poem became a talisman to hold onto to allow my journey to Washington D.C. to be a voyage for all of the women who asked me to march for them as well. And so I thank you, I thank you for supporting me with your prayers, whether you supported the march or wondered why women and men were marching on Washington. Our democracy allows for the freedom of press and the freedom of assembly and I am grateful for both. Marching from the Women’s Suffragettes to the Civil War protesters, and from the Civil Rights Era, Vietnam and the United Farm Workers have all been movements where marchers felt that protest is prayer in action.
I have great photos from the trip and in the March I experienced the hope of a sea of pink hats and empowerment where I was never afraid for my safety or the safety of anyone around us. The National Guard flanked the streets with armored trucks as we marched in towards Independence Avenue and the officers gave us high fives and cheered us on, some even wore pink hats. I am grateful for the women and men who made the experience safe for us and for the first responders who sat up on top of their fire trucks and ambulances to see into the sea of humanity and make sure that everyone was safe. It was a beautiful sight to march with my newfound friends, librarians from Sturgis Library and consultants from Barnstable Harbor. In a few hours, we were bonded through a common experience of hope. There was not one arrest in Washington D.C. on the day of the Women’s March, a symbol of the power and peace of marching and over three million other marchers who joined us across the country and globe on January 21, 2017. There were sister marches on every continent, including Antarctica.
Jesus invites us into what God longs for us as well in today’s Scripture from the Gospel according to Matthew in a famous long sermon known as the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus was also in the midst of a throng of humanity, and the pressure for easy answers and to become a Prince of the political nation-state of Israel was being pushed upon him. He was a quiet man, prone to spending days alone on a mountaintop or in the desert, but God needed his voice and leadership so he sat down on the side of the mountain and spoke to his disciples. They lived in a time of the Roman Empire, where an imperial power ruled over the Jews and other conquered people living within the Empire. Jesus also spoke within his religious context, the elite Jewish establishment. The political and religious elites did not want their social worlds ruffled or transformed; having power and maintaining their power was a fine status quo for most of his followers.
But Jesus, Jesus never lets you, or me, or his disciples stay the same. He disrupts their worldview, and ours. He starts off his sermon to his followers with a series of blessings. He begins with acknowledging that life hadn’t turned out as he had hoped it would be so, here is how blessings from God would be handed out. “Blessed are those who are at the end of their rope, with less of you there is more God and his rule.” He remembers those who have lost money, or hope, or love saying “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to You,”(4) We are enough, we don’t need more stuff, or money or ego because “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are-no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”(5) “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,” you will find yourselves cared for.”(7) One of my favorite modern theologians, Glennon Doyle Melton, writes about why she cries and laughs so much every day, because she is paying attention. If we are humans who are deeply empathic, we will feel the pain of what it means to watch others suffer and to suffer ourselves, but Jesus reminds us that in caring, we will be cared for and loved by God.
Jesus goes on with love and care for his disciples, teaching them that “You’re blessed when you get your inside world-your mind and your heart-put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.”(8) God sees the immigrant, the refugee, the beaten woman, the Samaritan, the prostitute and loves them as completely and wholly as he loves the sinner and the wealthy.
In fact, the Beatitudes teach us that God has a preferential option for the poor. Jesus sat with those who were blind, he healed the leper and touched the untouchable. He sat down and broke bread with the tax collector and forgave his closest friends who betrayed him and sent him to his death on the cross. When he was dying, he looked to the women who stayed at the cross and waited to carry his broken and crucified body to clean it, wrap it with white linens and place it in a tomb. And when Jesus rose again, to whom did he appear? The women! The women were the first to believe. For Jesus knew that those who are pushed to the outside, these are the very ones who shall lead the way to the Kingdom of God. He asked for the children to come first. He blessed those who were forgotten, in debt and who suffered.
And he encouraged his followers that afternoon sitting on the side of a mountain in his sermon to have courage and fight for what is right and just, even if they were persecuted. God’s kingdom of justice in the world means food for the hungry, water for the thirsty, hope for the victims of human trafficking, peace for the warring factions and justice for all. He encourages his followers to remember “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you deeper to God’s kingdom. Not only that –-count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into trouble.”(Matthew 5:10-12)
O beloved people of God, be encouraged even if the times are uncertain. Jesus knew uncertain times. Micah lived in difficult times. The people of God walked in darkness, and yet, the darkness did not overcome it.
Be encouraged and filled with the hope of God that does not fall prey to easy answers or falsehoods. God promises love. God promises justice. God promises hope. God promises peace. And God needs each of us to be the light that the world so desperately needs. “People get ready, a train is coming. You don't need no baggage/You just get on board/All you need is faith/To hear diesels humming/You don't need no ticket
You just thank the Lord.”[2] Amen.
1
[1]Madeline L’Engle, A Ring of Endless Light, p.24.
[2]lyrics to “People Get Ready”