Blessed
Communion Meditation for: All Saints/All Souls Day – November 2, 2008
First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.

How often do we use this expression: “Oh, I’m blessed!” Or we’ll look and say, “What a blessing he/she/that is.” This section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount looks at blessing – the word can also be translated as ‘happy’ or ‘congratulations.’ I think it is important for us to think about what it means to be blessed, especially given the world in which we live.

One of the things that came out during the Congregational theological symposium I attended this weekend came from the Rev. Doctor Gabriel Fackre, who talked about “middle axioms,” or ways in which we articulate our Christian ethical principles. He used the New England “election sermon” as an example of this concept. Yes, they used to get together at the meeting house before the election – which was done by voice or a show of hands – and listen to a sermon on the virtues and appropriate behavior of God’s people, who formed the Christian commonwealth, and for the elected officials who they chose to govern them.

Now, this is as close as I am going to get to an “election sermon,” because I want us to remember something: regardless of the economic downturn, the political turmoil, the threats all around us – we’re blessed. We’re blessed with faith, with family, with friends, with food, with all the necessities of life. We are blessed whether we’re better off than we were four, or eight, or even twelve years ago. We are blessed….and what we need to take into the polling place with us is that realization and the importance of how blessed people are to act in their world, the difference we are to make.

Richard Hays, a New Testament scholar, wrote a book several years ago that is challenging and powerful, The Moral Vision of the New Testament. This is what Hays has to say about this passage.

The character of that kingdom, however, is surprising. The Beatitudes (5:3-12) contravene common sense by declaring that God's blessing rests upon the mourners, the meek, the peacemakers, and (especially) those who are persecuted. (Note that vv. 11-12 reiterate and expand the blessing pronounced on the persecuted in v. 10.) Thus, the Beatitudes limn an upside-down reality, or -- more precisely -- they define reality in such a way that the usual order of things is seen to be upside down in the eyes of God. The community's vocation to be "salt" and "light" for the world (5:13-16) is to be fulfilled precisely as Jesus' followers embody God's alternative reality through the character qualities marked by the Beatitudes. The community of Jesus' followers is to be "a city built on a hill," a model polis that demonstrates the counterintuitive peaceful politics of God's new order. (p. 321)

Near the end of the chapter, Hays cites the Beatitudes again in summarizing the symbolic world of the entire New Testament:

Finally, the New Testament texts depict a symbolic world in which the real struggle is not against flesh and blood, in which the only weapons that the church wields are faith and the Word of God. The truth about reality is disclosed in the cross: God's power is disclosed in weakness. Thus, all who are granted to see the truth through Jesus Christ will perceive the world through the lenses of the Beatitudes and the strange narrative of the Apocalypse, in which the King of kings and Lord of lords is the slaughtered Lamb. The power of violence is the illusory power of the Beast, which is unmasked by the faithful testimony of the saints. In this symbolic world, wars and fightings are caused by divided and unholy desires within the individual (James), but those who are made whole in Christ become ambassadors of reconciliation and participate in the body of Christ, the community whose oneness signifies the ultimate reconciliation of the world to God. And the deepest truth about reality is rooted in the character of God, who loves enemies and seeks to reconcile them to himself through the death of Christ. (p. 340)

We are blessed if we understand that the ‘real world’ is far from it. We are blessed if we can understand the reality that the overwhelming materialism and greed that drove an economy to the brink of collapse is not real nor is it normative. We are blessed if we understand that what is really important in this world are the people who matter to us, the ones whom we love and the ideals which motivate us and keep us living in the right way – for the pure of heart will see God. We are blessed, truly blessed, if we understand that, ultimately, the Christian faith is not about us, about what we think, about what we like, about what we want or about what we expect, but rather that the Christian faith is ABOUT GOD and about what God thinks, likes, wants and expects OF US.

We celebrate those who know behold God “face to face.” The saints who inspire us and those souls – known and unknown – who lived to God and now live with God. We are truly blessed if we understand that they got it and that’s why we celebrate. This week, read the Beatitudes before you go to the polling place, form your conscience, vote your convictions, but do so as one blessed.