Love is...(not)

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )
Sermon

“Love is...(not)”
13 February, 2011
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, A


Love or Evil? What we think, where we look,
and what we choose to focus our lives on has alarming importance.

Epistle Text: 1st Corinthians 13:1-13 (* not the Revised Common Lectionary reading)
(NRSV) 1If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Gospel Text: Matthew 5:[17-20]21-37
(NRSV) [17 ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.]

21“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
27“You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall not commit adultery.’ 28But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
31“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
33“Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ 34But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.”

 I don’t do this too often, because the gospels were composed to be heard, but this morning, I’d like you to open your pew bibles to pg 4 in the New Testament, so that some of what I’m going to teach you this morning  will be easier to visualize.


Jesus begins this central part with “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets: I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” and he ends with “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees, you will NEVER enter the kingdom of God.

This is pretty terrifying stuff. Who could possibly be more godly than those who know the law best; the scribes, and those who are renewing the fundamentals of Judaism, bringing it into the (then) modern era? These are the people who do everything just right, according to the laws of Moses, which they have made even stricter by the addition of loads of lesser laws that were eventually called the Mishnah, that our Jewish brothers and sisters have learnt by heart ever since.

But here, Jesus is setting his listeners up for what is coming next.   Following closely on the heels of  the section that our bibles call “The Law and the Prophets” comes several other paragraphs entitled “Concerning anger, Concerning Adultery, Concerning Divorce, Concerning Oaths, Concerning Retaliation, Concerning Enemies, and so on for several more pages.

All of the passages in chapter 5 have a very particular order and a visible consistently repeated pattern. If you look at each section in this chapter, each part begins with “You have heard it said....” then Jesus goes on to say... “but I tell you...” and then Jesus seems to proceed to pile on more stuff, sort of like an executioner piling on more bundles of faggots around someone who is going to be burned at the stake.  It’s as if the law given to Moses is suddenly not good enough for Jesus,  not strict enough, not black and white enough, not pure enough to be used any more. In each case, he takes something that Moses taught and heightens the cliff he’s going to push you off of.

The ultimate effect is generally one of terror.  In the online discussion group of pastors that I participate in, many preachers, especially women, were talking about simply skipping the passages dealing with divorce and adultery, because it was too painful for people in their congregations and sometimes for themselves personally.  But I don’t agree with that. We have to deal with the hard sayings of Jesus, but we also have to see them realistically in context, carefully looking at the passages before and after to really see what is happening here. 

So how do we connect the beatitudes to the “be-beaten-down”-tudes?   The answer is actually not found so much in today’s reading as  a page or so on, when Jesus teaches his hearers the Lord’s Prayer and the Golden Rule.  This is the problem sometimes in reading the bible. We can get stuck on certain passages  like “if your right hand offends you, cut it off” or “whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”, and not see further to the larger message.

And the larger message is this: that nothing we can do will ever make us good enough for God.  And I’m tickled pink to tell you this. Because that is the good news.  In a world where just thinking about illicit sex is as bad as doing the deed (see verse 28), there is just no way to lock up your brain. There are strict denominations of churches that have tried for centuries to put chastity belts on people’s minds as well as their bodies, but to no avail. Our minds are just so sneaky that those thoughts  are there not once, but hundreds of times a day. I even heard this week that one fundamentalist Baptist interpretation of verse 30 is that Jesus is actually talking about masturbation, and that’s why Jesus says we should cut our right hands off. WHAT? Just think of that New York legislator this week who did nothing but flex his biceps on the Internet, and he felt compelled to quit his elected office at the Statehouse and send his career down the drain, all because the thought was as bad as the deed. 

Yet all of these passages in Matthew chapter 5 are part of the same point. Nothing we can ever do will ever make us good enough for God.  Jesus punches this point home, but then spends the rest of his life pointing out that love can do what the law can never do. Like pearls...or more aptly...kidney stones dissolved in vinegar... the things of the law, the endless bickering of rights and statutes and points of precedence are washed and changed by love. The love of God and the love that we share with one another that we learn from Jesus. Prophets announce the absolute will of god and leave it to others to work out how this can be lived out in our imperfect world.  Jesus turned this prophetic mode around.
So I’m tickled pink, this day before Valentines Day, to have this passage set before us, because against each of these passages there is an antithesis...an opposite assertion... that can be made. We heard these read in our first reading this is morning from Corinthians. “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not boastful or arrogant, or rude... never rejoicing in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth”.  These didn’t spring up out of thin air onto Paul’s tongue, this self-proclaimed pharisee of pharisees who struggled with the law his entire life long. Love is what Paul learned from Jesus, though his crucifixion and through his vision on the Damascus Road and then through the followers of Jesus that he encountered after his conversion.

Take a look at the paragraph at verse 21 “Concerning Anger”.  If we read this through the lens of Jesus life and the Great Commandment,  we discover that we can look at it from the opposite end. Love shows no hostility.  If you love your brother and sister, you will not insult them in the first place, nor call them bad names. If you have love, even if you should make that mistake, the way is always open to apologize and make amends.

Now concerning Adultery. While the 7th commandment  is strictly concerned about the rights of husband and householders to keep their property safe from outside interference so that their bloodline can remain uncontaminated. Love..real love...is something else. In a phrase we can sum this up as “Love is not predatory”.  In other words, Love is about relationships, not self-gratification, or conquest, or a contest. If you really love others you see each person male or female as important as yourself, and other’s relationships as sacred.  If you love others, you could not bear to be the cause of a ruptured relationship and heartache.

Which brings us to the third paragraph in verse 31 “Concerning Divorce”. Love is uniting, not dividing.  So much ink has been spilled over this, wars have been fought and indeed, the Episcopal church was formed in 1534 in large part because of the difficult question of divorce. Incidentally, that question was not resolved in the Church of England until 2002. Again it’s the importance of relationship.  It is interesting to note that in the law of Moses there was no prohibition against divorce, it was fairly easy for a husband to obtain, and very common in Jesus day, it seems.  The question is all about remarriage.  It is true that there is no where in scripture that says that remarriage for divorced persons is permissible, yet when we look with the eyes of compassion, how can we countenance making  people outcast and miserable for the sake of a law chiseled in stone? What kind of love is that? Are humans made for the law, or law made for humans? Jesus eventually cycles the divorce question back to the question of adultery, and again we have to state, Love is not predatory. If a relationship exists to perpetuate pain  or even worse, violence, then it is not a relationship, but a torture device,  from which release is a blessing and makes new relationships possible and hopefully fruitful, healing and joyful. Loving relationships are about life, and Jesus is consistently trying to build all kinds of relationship throughout his ministry, his healing and his sacrifices.

 But we are not always made of love, that is why we still need the law as well, to help us to figure out where the boundaries lie.

Jesus went on to talk about the laws about oaths and vows. To put this another way, Love is unconditionally truthful. This is one that Presbyterians in particular have taken to their hearts. In fact when Presbyterians go into court we refuse to swear upon a bible book, precisely because of this scripture. Instead we agree to affirm that we will tell to truth. We don’t need to invent scenarios to prop up our truthfulness.

In fact Presbyterians have stretched this idea out to cut out cussing and vulgar language in general because there is nothing loving or caring about it, so let it drop into the cesspit where such things belong.

We come now to retaliation, “if someone smites you on one cheek, turn the other as well”.  Do you see how Jesus is operating here? He says “love is not retaliatory”. Just because someone does something ugly or cruel to you does not mean that you have to hit them on the cheek, or knock their teeth out, or blind their eye. But I do think that we have misunderstood what Jesus is saying. I don’t he is saying let yourself get beat up, or worse, stand by while someone else is getting abused. Step in. Stop the abuse, but don’t retaliate.  Perhaps the most famous modern example of this is the Marshall Plan that, instead of grinding our enemies faces in the ground after world war two, saw us instead of retaliating, rebuilding not only buildings and infrastructures, but relationships as well. It was perhaps the single most important reason that World War III and the collapse of the world as we know it never happened.  And I dare say, if we had done a better job of this same sort of thing in the Middle East, the world would be much better for it ten years on.

Which leads us to Jesus last passage in this chapter. Love for Enemies. And I can’t say it any better than Jesus did:
 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Brothers and sister of Uriel, let us therefore be perfect in our love.  Happy Valentine’s Day from Jesus to you. Amen.

Be These

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )
Communion Meditation

“Be These”
6 February, 2011
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, A


The savour is in the message

Hebrew Text:Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b-12)
1   Shout out, do not hold back!
          Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
     Announce to my people their rebellion,
          to the house of Jacob their sins.
2   Yet day after day they seek me
          and delight to know my ways,
     as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
          and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
     they ask of me righteous judgments,
          they delight to draw near to God.
3   “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
          Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
     Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
          and oppress all your workers.
4   Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
          and to strike with a wicked fist.
     Such fasting as you do today
          will not make your voice heard on high.
5   Is such the fast that I choose,
          a day to humble oneself?
     Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
          and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
     Will you call this a fast,
          a day acceptable to the LORD?
6   Is not this the fast that I choose:
          to loose the bonds of injustice,
          to undo the thongs of the yoke,
     to let the oppressed go free,
          and to break every yoke?
7   Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
          and bring the homeless poor into your house;
     when you see the naked, to cover them,
          and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
8   Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
          and your healing shall spring up quickly;
     your vindicator shall go before you,
          the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
9   Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
          you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
     If you remove the yoke from among you,
          the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10  if you offer your food to the hungry
          and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
     then your light shall rise in the darkness
          and your gloom be like the noonday.
11  The LORD will guide you continually,
          and satisfy your needs in parched places,
          and make your bones strong;
     and you shall be like a watered garden,
          like a spring of water,
          whose waters never fail.
12  Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
          you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
     you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
          the restorer of streets to live in.


Gospel Text: MATTHEW 5:13-20
13“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
14“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

We opened the bible last week to begin listening to what Christ had to say, sitting on a low mountainside that slides gently all the way down to the sea of Galilee. Matthew tells us  about Jesus’ teachings we call the beatitudes. Today  we're listening to  the second of five passages from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as recounted by Matthew. On this day that we ordain and install new elders, it’s so easy to hear Jesus' words as a requirement rather than a blessing, a command rather than a high commissioning. But take note: Jesus doesn't say, "If you want to become salt and light, do this...." Or, "before I'll call you salt and light, I'll need to see this from you...." Rather, he expresses both  ideas simply and directly, "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world." It’s the same thing with last week's Beatitudes, Jesus simply recognizes those around him  who are wonderfully poor in spirit, those who are doers of mercy and makers of peace. When Jesus says “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world it is sheer commendation straight from God  and bears blessing, affirmation, but also a  commissioning for service. All of this also makes it a wonderful passage as we give thanks for the work of elders of this church, most especially for Wendell Hinson and Bobby Beaty

I realize, of course, that he goes on to say that salt that has lost its saltiness is useless and that light wasn't made to be put under a bushel, which might imply for some that there is, indeed, a threat hiding amid this pronouncement. But I wonder. While salt really can lose its saltiness, is it ever really absolutely useless? It used to be in Jesus day that even poor quality salt was useful for making camel dung fires for cooking and heating...if you want the details, ask me after lunch...and then after it was used there, it was hard enough to still be used in road making.

And are candles ever put under bushel baskets? Wouldn't that snuff the flame or, worse, start a fire? but on the other hand,  it could make a nice romantic glow through the chinks and holes. Maybe Jesus is implying that one can lose one's status as quality salt and light. Or maybe he's just naming the absurdity of the possibility of losing one's essence as salt and light in order to underscore the reliability and resilience of the gift he bequeaths. "You are the salt of the earth! You are the light of the world. That's the way it is and that's the way it will stay. Now go use it."

Even if you're inclined to suspect  that Jesus is trying to make  us into  be salt and light rather than calling us so – walk with me a little further to consider of what value it might be to think of this passage in a way that commends rather than commands us.

Think about how we humans are built. We are often pretty vulnerable. I read recently that child psychologists say that for every negative message elementary-aged children hear about themselves, they need to hear ten positive ones just to get their sense of self-esteem back to where it had been previously.  Truthfully, I don't know if anyone has studied this with other age groups, but I’ll bet that it must take 20 positive affirmations for teenagers and then MAYBE goes back to about 10-1 again for us adults!)

To put it another way, Children become what they are named. Keep calling a kid bad long enough, or stupid or silly and he or she will believe you and act bad. Call a child (or teen or adult for that matter) worthless or unlovable or shameful, and eventually he or she – all of us! – will live into the name we've been assigned. But it works in exactly the opposite direction too. In the same way, call us good or useful, dependable, helpful, or worthwhile, and we will try hard so hard to grow into that identity and behavior as well.

And so it is with us when we grow up too. We need to hear positive things from those we love and admire. From our friends, our spouses and partners, our mothers and fathers. Perhaps one of the reasons that I love coming to church is because everything: scriptures, hymns, the people I interact with tell me that God loves me, and that I am worth so much to God that God sent his only child to give me that message and proved it by loving me still even though I beat up and killed him to test his love. And if God loves me that much and still sees me as worthy and fruitful, then what do I care that there are those in  the world who want to wear me down to build themselves up? And I hope that you feel the same way. That you are important and worthy and gifted. So here it is: YOU, people of Uriel are salt and light. Jesus Christ is trusting you and recognizes you as a wonderful integral part of life. Salt is humble and easily overlooked, but without salt we can not function; light is so pervasive and common we forget what a blessing it is, that without light nothing can survive. You've been called to an extraordinary life in Christ Jesus. Give savour to the earth. Light the world. Glorify your Parent in heaven, giving thanks for your of your "rightness" in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Leading From Your Blind Side"

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )
Sermon

“Leading From Your Blind Side”
23 January, 2011
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, A

Blind side is a football term meaning to tackle someone from an angle

they can’t see. The beatitudes are sorta like that....

Hebrew Text: Micah 6:1-8
        NRSV
1   Hear what the LORD says:
          Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
          and let the hills hear your voice.
2   Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the LORD,
          and you enduring foundations of the earth;
     for the LORD has a controversy with his people,
          and he will contend with Israel.
3   “O my people, what have I done to you?
          In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
4   For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
          and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
     and I sent before you Moses,
          Aaron, and Miriam.
5   O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,
          what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
     and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
          that you may know the saving acts of the LORD.”
6  “With what shall I come before the LORD,
          and bow myself before God on high?
     Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
          with calves a year old?
7   Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
          with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
     Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
          the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8   He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
          and what does the LORD require of you
     but to do justice, and to love kindness,
          and to walk humbly with your God?

Gospel Text: Matthew 5:1-12
NRSV[23   Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.  24  So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them.  25  And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. ]

1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Maybe it’s because we’re getting ready for Souper bowl sunday next week, but both the psalm that we opened worship with and Jesus teaching the beatitudes got me thinking about the parallels with the only football movie I’ve ever liked.

The 2009 hit movie The Blind Side is based on the real-life story of pro-football player Michael Oher (pronounced ‘Oar’). For most of his high school career, for all that Michael was physically enormous, he was academically invisible, almost completely illiterate, seemingly retarded, thanks to a truly awful home life. To the world at large, he was just an abstract cypher passing through a series of schools  as he was shuffled through the foster care system; a abused, downtrodden black kid in Tennessee who on fluke got into an elite white private school that was looking to beef up it’s football team.
Michael is a picture portrait of the qualities Jesus talked about in the beatitudes: Poor in spirit, mourning the lack of a mother and father; meek, hungering and thirsting...all the things the jesus is drawing attention to in our gospel reading today.

 On his first day at this intimidating posh school, a precocious fifth grader from a well to do white family strikes up a friendship with this silent, hulking black 10th grader, and soon Michael Oher comes to the attention of the little boy’s Mom.

Now this particular mom, Leigh Ann Tuohy (‘Too-he’), is a force of nature to be reckoned with; a steel magnolia of the toughest and spring-iest kind. Whether it’s working on an interior design contract, handling business for her church or sorting out her children, what Leigh Ann wants, the world better deliver, or suffer the full blast of her not inconsiderable energy.

But this determined and resourceful woman is about to be blind sided, and so was Michael. Blind siding is a football term for when you tackle a guy from an angle he can't see or expect. Neither this woman nor this young boy could have imagined the changes that were in store for them.

When this pushy socialite saw her son’s new friend wandering down a dark November-cold street in shirt sleeves, with a direct practicality typical of her style she confronts him to find out where he left his coat, and within 5 minutes determines that not only does he not own a coat, he doesn’t even have anywhere to lay his head that night.

 Standing in the pouring rain, her mom-ness is completely blind sided by the needs of this oversized black teen in wet smelly clothes who is as meek as a contrite 10 year old. Now Leigh Ann Tuohy may be a barely contained focused force of nature, but that very focus makes her pay attention to what she hears in church and she doesn’t even hesitate. She takes him into her family. Soon Michael is the one who is blind sided by the the first person in his life to have goals and ambitions for him.

And you might call the things Jesus outlines for us today goals and ambitions as well. The crowds gathered to hear Jesus' first major teaching seminar probably expected the familiar, comforting guidelines of traditional Jewish wisdom . Jewish teachers taught that right behavior earned you right rewards, the virtues that you practiced will bear fruit of prosperity, plenty and honor. The book of  Proverbs is a long list of this kind of thinking and even many of the Psalms are written to assure us that courage and bravado, outward strength will win divine blessings.

While Jesus is not anything like the soldier David, or the rich King who teaches his son the prince how to be worldly wise. but yet, he too draws with deft strokes a portrait of who God’s Kingdom contains, and it doesn’t contain any of the usual suspects, not the men who have spend their whole lives studying scripture, nor the merchants who have contributed to the temple, not even the heroes who have lead the nation of Israel. To the people gathered on the side of a mountain he blindsides them with weakness. What’s so shocking about today’s passage from Matthew is that it sounds like it is full of misprints — yet it accurately reflects the same event in both the gospels of Matthew, and Luke. When you read these words with your ears open and listening, it is so counterintuitive that you figure that there must be typos here.

“Blessed are the poor in Spirit”? The spiritually poor ? How could that be a goal and ambition? When you study what Matthew reports about Jesus’s sermon on the mount and what Luke says, you realize that Matthew seems to be really uncomfortable with the sermon too, so much so that while Luke reports Jesus said “Blessed are the Poor” and, “blessed are the hungry and thirsty”, Matthew feels compelled to change it to “blessed are the poor IN SPIRIT”, and “blessed are those who hunger and thirst FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS SAKE”. Luke even reports that Jesus cursed the rich and the powerful, but Matthew just can’t even bring himself to report that part of the sermon because it’s so disturbing.

    When I think of all these strange attributes that Jesus is listing as our goals and ambitions, I  think  again of the blind sided kid Michael Oher. Here was someone who truly was all these things, he expected to live his life on the bottom of the heap and was contented to do so. So he was completely overwhelmed to be put in the prized position on a football team. Yet even though he had been brutalized and had so much to be angry and vengeful about,  he couldn’t even bring himself to tackle other boys on the football field. He was the high school equivalent of Fernando the Bull. He just didn’t have any of that killer instinct. But then his steel magnolia adopted mom provided him something that he could latch on to. Instead of saying that he had to completely change his personality and become a raging bull in order to be a success, she explained his goals in a way that harmonized with his life and with his skills. It wasn’t about being someone different; he had all the gifts he needed. Among his gifts was an almost superhumanly strong streak of protectiveness, loyalty and dedication. Out there on the field he was meant to protect his family, the family of boys on his team. He was to strive to do this with all his might. It was a revelation to him that his weaknesses could be what his team needed most.

    There are so many loud voices in our world that try to convince us of the power of aggression, the power of riches, the power of fullness, the power of evil and vice. But Jesus blind sided all that. In the sermon on the mount he taught us that mercy and purity were unassailable tools. That kind words were mightier than angry ones. That pursuing the cause of justice gave gifts to the pursuers over and above the goals of justice.

    We are called to lead from this blindside, and to allow these qualities to have the upper hand in all parts of our lives. I don’t mean that being beaten down is what we’re after or that abuse should be tolerated, but fruits of the lowest experiences in our lives are not to be despised, but relentlessly exploited to provide an alternative energy source for Christian life. Just like it took Leigh Ann Touhy to make a difference in the life of Michael Oher, so it takes a dynamo sometimes to turn that raw stuff into gold, but Jesus tells us in the sermon on the mount that it will happen and then shows us how through his own life how his wisdom is vindicated. 

The story of Michael Oher and his experience with the Touhy family is a real life example of how the beatitudes will win out in the end. Michael was not the only one who was blind sided, Leigh Ann and her whole family were too. These rich white people powerful in the things of the world learned the lesson of Christian vulnerability from this poor black teen who became a member of their tight family.
 Michael went on to become an All-American selection for Ole Miss and later a first-round draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens.

For the movie, Sandra Bullock was cast to play the role of mom, Leigh Anne Tuohy. Sandra Bullock is well known in Hollywood as a tough cookie who is wary of Christians.  Bullock had evidently met some people who gave Christianity a bad name,  but the impression she came away from the real Leigh Ann  taught her that when people live a holy life, it shows — and it blesses others.
When Bullock met with Leigh Anne to prepare to portray her, she was so impressed with Leigh Anne’s sincere practice of her faith that Bullock said she now has “faith in those who say they represent a faith.” Bullock says the Tuohys showed her that religious faith can be authentic. “I finally met people who walk the walk,” Bullock said.

Just like blocking, and tackling, and running a ball, Christianity has skills that we have to learn. Some things come more easily than others, but when we dare to lead with our blind sides, with the non-dominant skills and gifts of others, as well as the discovery of the fruits of our own weakness, we are beginning to understand and live the Sermon on the Mount.
  Amen.