beatitudes – pastorsusan

Blessed Are the Farmworkers of Half Moon Bay

If you tried to plan a day to contrast two extremes of power, I don’t think you could come up with anything better than what we’ve got today. In just a couple of hours, there will be four – count ‘em – four football teams that will begin either their final leg on their Super Bowl journey or their last stop. Even if you’re not a fan, with the 49ers in the mix, the games are hard to ignore. There’s going to be a lot of weight being thrown around – both on the field and off. Big displays of power happening on the field, with the biggest players, the offensive tackles, weighing in at an average of 314 pounds. There’s big-time power brokering happening off the field as well, with advertisers lining up their millions of dollars for Super Bowl ads.

Then we have Jesus. The contrast is stark. As Matthew Skinner commented in Enjoy the Super Bowl; Be Suspicious of Its Values: “Careful, Jesus, or you’ll get blamed for contributing to the wussification of America.” I mean, how can a nice Jewish boy compete with the likes of Nick Bosa and Trent Williams?

First of all, the playbook Jesus is using is the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, and he’s paying special attention to the prophets – offensive linemen like Isaiah when he stands up in the Temple and announces his mission in life: “to bring Good News to the poor, proclaim liberty to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, and release to those in prison.”

He would also have known very well the passage from Micah we just heard: “you know very well what’s required of you: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

On any other Sunday, we might nod our heads and think, “Oh yes. Beautiful. That is how the world should be.” But today, as we watch the spectacle of 300-pound titans crashing into one another and then we put that image up alongside Jesus; it makes a very bizarre picture.

And then, to add to the incongruity, we get part of his most famous sermon – we call them the Beatitudes – in which he identifies those who are blessed, namely the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted – none of whom what we would describe as powerful people. And then Paul gets into the act too, with what even he admits sounds like the absurdity of the message of the cross: that God’s weakness is more powerful than human strength. Again – in the context of what today is all about, it sounds even more ridiculous.

*Sermon on the Mount,* *Prem Dan, one of the houses established by*
*Mother Teresa and run by the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, India*

Now, I’m not knocking football, although I do have serious reservations about the physical dangers of the game, like severe head trauma and brain injury. But that’s a subject for another day. What I appreciate about the juxtaposition of the Beatitudes with today’s big games is the way that it throws into very sharp relief the values of Jesus – the values that Jesus not only embodied but calls us to embody as well.

But appreciation doesn’t make it easy. It may be a big football day, but it’s also the 4^th Sunday after the Epiphany. We’ve moved from the sweetness of the birth and baptism of Jesus to the Sermon on the Mount, where the revelation of what means to follow Jesus is taking shape. And it’s beginning to look like a mighty big challenge. It’s not a game and it’s not a spectator sport. The revelation of what it means to live in the realm of God has radical implications. One of the hardest is to reject conventional ways of power and control. After Jesus’ death, Paul radicalizes it even more by appealing to the wisdom, power, and strength of the cross. Clearly a life of Christian disciple is a stark contrast to what usually passes for wisdom, power, and strength.

This isn’t new to any of us. We’ve heard the Beatitudes many, many times. But there’s a danger in these beautiful, familiar verses, a trap we could fall into if we’re not careful: that is believing Jesus is setting up the conditions of blessing, rather than actually blessing us. In other words, I might hear Jesus stating the terms under which I can be blessed. So when I hear “Blessed are the pure in spirit,” I might think, “Am I pure enough in spirit?” or “I should try to be more pure in spirit.” Or, when I hear “blessed are the peacemakers,” I think, ” I really should be more committed to making peace.” And, of course, in so doing, I fail to see the point.

Maybe events in our recent news cycle can help us see more clearly what Jesus was trying to convey. The horrific mass shooting of workers at two mushroom farms right here in San Mateo County last week brought once again to our attention the issue of gun violence. But in the wake of this deadly shooting, what came to light was the conditions in which all the farmworkers were living, conditions the San Mateo County district attorney described as “squalor.” Representatives of local nonprofits said that they regularly took food and supplies to the farms to help workers and their families, who are struggling because of the high cost of living and the low income they make.

In our comfortable lives, in an affluent area, we often forget about our neighbors who do not enjoy the same standard of living. While advocacy organizations have said that these conditions are standard across the state and across the whole industry itself, it’s often when a tragedy strikes close to home that we pay particular attention.

I was eating a slice of mushroom pizza yesterday and suddenly wondered where those mushrooms had been grown, who had grown them, what were their lives like, did they themselves have enough to eat, enough to bring security to their families.

And when I re-read the Beatitudes, especially the blessings of the poor in spirit (Luke’s version says simply ‘the poor’ and those who hunger and thirst for justice (Luke’s version says ‘those who are hungry,’ I couldn’t help thinking of these lowly mushroom farmworkers – these blessed ones. Not blessed in power or status or wealth, but in stature in the eyes of God – as Jesus well knew and wanted us to know, too. And in knowing, caring. And in caring, looking for ways to, as best we are able and in whatever ways we can, bring close the kingdom of heaven to those so loved by God.

This isn’t to say that we care only for those closest to home. It’s just that oftentimes the revelation of a need in our own backyard stirs us to compassion and action. But as I was working on announcements for today and saw again our Christmas/ Epiphany appeal for Women for Afghan Women, I recognized our interconnection with all the blessed ones – both local and global. The Beatitudes cause us to take the blinders off our eyes to see them – much the way the prophets of Israel cause us to do.

It’s been said that the prophets were about two things: criticizing and energizing. They disturbed the status quo. They made people question the usual order of things, see the normal state of affairs in a different light. They afflicted the comfortable and the complacent.

But they also comforted the afflicted and energized the people of God. They weren’t just negative naysayers; they offered positive affirmation, and encouragement. Their intention was to generate hope in a new future. They advocated for a new way of living – in every dimension of human life: personal, social, spiritual, economic, and political.

Micah was such a prophet. When you read the entire book, you hear his words of disaster and destruction. But then he turns and energizes God’s people with words of hope, and he gives us one of the most memorable passages in the Bible: “What does God require of you? Simply this: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

How do these words land with us as we read about the farmworkers of Half Moon Bay?

Jesus continues in the prophetic tradition, bringing both challenge and comfort. His Beatitudes turn the values of the world upside down. Wealth, position, fame – not bad in and of themselves. Successful football players have earned them, but we remember, too, the dangers of the sport.

Even power isn’t necessarily an evil thing. But as it is said, “Power corrupts.” The temptation to abuse power is always present. The terrible news of the beating death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, a black man killed by five black police officers, is an example of the ubiquitous nature of the temptation to abuse power.

How do Jesus’ words land with us as we read about the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis and about the farm workers in Half Moon Bay?

How do we align our values with those prophesied by Micah and taught by Jesus?

Today, according to Jesus, the workers in the smelly compost of a mushroom farm are first in the kingdom of heaven. What does that mean as we think about doing justice, loving our neighbor?

Later on, during the announcements, I’ll share a message from Pastor Sue Holland at Coastline Lutheran Church in Half Moon Bay about ways to help the farmworkers. We can decide how the words of Micah and Jesus land with us – as individuals and families and as a congregation.

I don’t think I’ll ever eat a mushroom pizza in ignorance again. For – as Jesus said, “Blessed are the farm workers of Half Moon Bay. The kingdom of heaven is theirs.” Amen.

FIRST READING Micah 6:1-8 In spite of all that God had done for Israel in the past and all their sacred rituals, the prophet is declaring, they had really missed the essence of what it means to be religious. Totally rejecting their sacrifices as worthless, he declares the simple truth: God requires only justice, kindness and humility. It is written . . .

Hear now what YHWH says: “Come, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice! Listen to my indictment, you mountains and you enduring foundations of the earth; for I have a dispute with the people and I am putting Israel on trial. O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Give me an answer! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent Moses to lead you, and Aaron, and Miriam! My people, call to mind the plans devised by the ruler Balak of Moab, and how Balaam ben-Beor answered him! Remember the journey from Shittim to Gilgal and recall how I brought you justice”

“What shall I bring when I come before YHWH and bow down before God on high?” you ask. “Am I to come before God with burnt offerings? With a year-old calf? Will YHWH be placated by thousands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oil? Should I offer my firstborn for my wrongdoings – the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Listen here, mortal: I have already made abundantly clear what ‘good’ is, and what I require of you: simply do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

SECOND READING 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 According to the world’s standards of power and might, the message of the cross seems stupid and offensive. Yet it reveals the paradoxical way that God works power and salvation through weakness, rejection, and suffering. Hence the message of the cross becomes true wisdom and power for believers. It is written . . .

For the message of the cross is complete absurdity to those who are headed for ruin, but to us who are experiencing salvation, it is the power of God. Scripture says, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and thwart the learning of the learned.” Where are the wise? Where are the scholars? Where are the philosophers of this age? Has not God turned the wisdom of this world into folly? If it was God’s wisdom that the world in its wisdom would not know God, it was because God wanted to save those who have faith through the foolishness of the message we preach.

For while the Jews call for miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, here we are preaching a Messiah nailed to a cross. To the Jews this is an obstacle they cannot get over, and to the Greeks it is madness – but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, Christ is the power and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

My friends, consider your calling. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, and surely not many were well-born. But God chose those whom the world considers foolish to shame the wise, and singled out the weak of this world to shame the strong. The world’s lowborn and despised, those who count for nothing, were chosen by God to reduce to nothing those who were something. In this way no one should boast before God. God has given you life in Christ Jesus and has made Jesus our wisdom, our justice, our sanctification and our redemption. This is just as it is written, ”Let the one who would boast, boast in God.”

I Have Bad News; I Have Good News

Who doesn’t love a good news/bad news joke?

Defense lawyer says to her client: “I have good news and bad news.”
Client says: “What’s the bad news?”
“Your blood matches the DNA found at the murder scene.”
“Oh, no!” says the client. “What’s the good news?”
“Well, your cholesterol is way down.”

Teenager says to her father: “I have good news and bad news.”
Father: “Give me the good news first.”
Teenager: “The airbags work really well in your new Mercedes.”

Husband: “I have good news and bad news.”
Wife: “Tell me the bad news first.”
Husband: “The washing machine broke.”
Wife: “Oh, no. What’s the good news?”
Husband: “The dogs are really clean.”

OK, so I know that neither of the writers of neither Jeremiah or Luke intended to make a joke. But I couldn’t help seeing the good news/bad news theme in both passages today, and even in the psalm.

In Jeremiah, the good news is first:
Blessed are those who trust in God, you’ll be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. You won’t fear when heat comes. You won’t be anxious in times of drought.

Ah, if only he had stopped there. But then comes the bad news: “Woe to you who trust in mere mortals whose hearts turn away from God. You’ll be like a shrub in the desert. You’ll live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”

That is definitely not funny. Nor was it meant to be. It’s not for nothing that a long lamentation or complaint or list of woes is called a jeremiad. The prophet Jeremiah preached to the Hebrew people in a time of great national crisis. The Babylonians were on the move and coming their way. As we know, they would conquer Judah and take their best and brightest into exile.

Jeremiah is often (rightly) seen as a prophet of doom and gloom. But as we can see by the good news part of his prophecy, there are blessings to be had even among the woes.

Then there’s Jesus. First the good news:
Blessed are you who are poor, you who are hungry, you who weep. Blessed are you when you’re hated, excluded, and reviled. You will be rewarded.

Then he drops the other shoe:
But woe to you who are full; you’ll go hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now; you’ll be in mourning. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you; you’ll be known as a false prophet.

This, too, is no joke. If you’re wondering why these beatitudes sound different from the ones we’re used to, it’s because we’re in Luke’s gospel, not Matthew’s. We don’t get to read this version that often in church. We read Matthew’s beatitudes every year on All Saints Sunday. Luke’s, on the other hand comes around in the lectionary just once every three years on the Sixth Sunday of Epiphany.

But we don’t always have a Sixth Sunday of Epiphany. Depending on when Easter is, which determines when Lent begins, and therefore when Epiphany ends, Epiphany 6 doesn’t come around that often. Because Easter is late this year, today and next Sunday – the sixth and seventh Sundays after Epiphany – we hear lessons we seldom hear. These are portions of what’s called the “Sermon on the Plain,” the parallel in Luke to the longer and more familiar “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew.

According to Luke’s account, Jesus had just spent an entire night on a mountain in prayer. He then called all his followers together and chose twelve of them to be his apostles. Then Jesus came down from the mountain with them, healed many people and then preached this sermon, on a level place, beginning with a series of blessings or “beatitudes.” Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and those who are reviled and defamed.

There are fewer blessings in Luke (four, compared to Matthew’s nine). There’s nothing about the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, or the peacemakers. And two of the remaining ones have some major differences: Luke’s ‘poor’ becomes Matthew’s ‘poor in spirit’ and to Luke’s ‘blessed are you who hunger, Matthew adds ‘for righteousness.’ Luke moves from a spiritualized ethic to a more practical one.

And, unlike the beatitudes in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Luke’s Jesus includes four ‘woes’ to those who refuse to hear and embrace these teachings – very reminiscent of the warnings we heard from Jeremiah. It’s also reminiscent of what we heard not all that long ago, back in Advent, when Mary sang the Magnificat:
My soul proclaims your greatness, O God and my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior. The mighty, who may be flying high now, will be brought low. The oppressed will be lifted up; the empty will be filled. Those who are full will taste what it feels like to be empty.

When you read the entirety of Luke, you see that a major theme of this gospel is this great reversal of fortunes in God’s reign. See how the blessings and woes are paired together: poor/rich; hungry/full; weeping/laughing; rejected/accepted. In other words, there are ‘woes,’ there are consequences to living in opposition to God’s intentions. There’s an edge in this part of the teaching that maybe we’re not used to hearing. I’d venture a guess that most people like Matthew’s version better than Luke’s. My first recollection of the Beatitudes is that they were pasted into a back cover of a Bible under the heading “For Those in Need of Comfort.”

But I’ve never seen a similar thing for Luke, under the heading “For Those in Need of Challenge.” But here we are on Epiphany 6 with Jesus speaking to the crowd on a level place. Might we also hear Jesus speaking to us – on the level?

This long Epiphany season of revelation is taking us even deeper into the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. On the surface, it seems pretty simple. We could see the blessings and woes as an either/or situation. Either you live right, or you don’t. Either you’re blessed or you’re cursed. But the reality is not so cut and dried. I don’t consider myself to be rich, do you? Except we are rich, compared to most people in the world. I’m never hungry, not really. In fact, we’re so full so much of the time that many of us have health issues from over-consumption.

We do weep, some of us more often than others. And we take that seriously. But we also love to be entertained, to distract us from the overwhelming tragedies of the world. Syria, Yemen, Ukraine are far-away places; let’s change the channel and watch more funny cat videos.

And we rarely have people saying seriously bad stuff about us, especially on account of Jesus. We’re respectable, comfortable, nice, good people. Except when we do speak out in a prophetic way, letting loose a jeremiad against those who exploit the poor, the hungry, the oppressed – when our desire to make a stand for justice outweighs our need to be liked.

It’s often hard to know if we’re in the blessings column or the woes. The reality is that we’re complicated creatures. Martin Luther said it best when he described us as simultaneously saint and sinner.

These blessings and woes remind me of the challenge we have these days with understanding privilege: white privilege, male privilege, middle class privilege, straight privilege, cis-privilege, able-bodied privilege. We get into all kinds of tussles about who’s using their privilege and when.

But here’s the thing. I know that I enjoy certain kinds of privilege – as a white, middle-class, able-bodied person. I also know I’ve experienced the other side of the coin. As a woman, I obviously don’t enjoy male privilege. We could each name where we have privilege and where we don’t. That’s why many are calling for intersectionality, which says that all oppressive systems (racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and can’t be dealt with separately from one another.

In other words, we’re all in this together – in both the blessings and the woes of life. We all have some form of sin and brokenness in our lives. Sometimes our sinfulness or brokenness is visible, oftentimes it’s invisible, but it’s there, nonetheless. Yet even in the midst of our complicated blessings and woes, God calls us into a way of transformation – both for ourselves and for our communities and our world. It’s called resurrection life.

St. Paul, in his plea to the Corinthians to remember their faith in the resurrection of Christ, reminds us where we need to put our trust as well. Living as we do in the paradoxical way of being both saint and sinner, we must rely on the life-giving power that is beyond our own efforts and will power.

Resurrection isn’t just about eternal life when we die, but is also about the promise of new life, new possibilities in the midst of seemingly impossible problems. As we confront our own brokenness, sinfulness, the ways we’re caught in systems from which we cannot break free (our woes) – we also open ourselves up to the blessings. In this very challenging manifestation of the person and work of Jesus in the world, we are called to follow in the way of resurrection and blessing. The call to discipleship demands a response.

Depending on how you look at it, the way of Jesus can be a good news/bad news story: the good news is that God loves you. The bad news is now you have to do something about it for the sake of the world. Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Let’s turn it around. Jesus has bad news and good news: the bad news is that you’re a sinner and you can’t free yourself and you live in a world of woes. The good news is that you are beloved and perfectly OK because God has made it so. Now go and do something for the sake of the world.

Jesus has come to us “on the level” to tell us that the good news wins. Resurrection wins. Love wins – for our sake and for our prophetic work and witness in the world. And that is no joke. Amen

Jeremiah 17:5-10
Yahweh says:
Cursed are those who trust in human ways who rely on things of the flesh, whose hearts turn away from me. They are like stunted vegetation in the desert, with no hope in the future. It stands in stony wastes in the desert, an uninhabited land of salt.
Blessed are those who put their trust in God, with God for their hope. They are like a tree planted by the river, that thrusts its roots toward the stream. When the heat comes it feels no heat; its leaves stay green. It is untroubled in a year of drought, and never ceases to bear fruit.
The human heart is more deceitful than anything else, and desperately sick – who can understand it?
I, Yahweh, search into the heart, I probe the mind, to give to each person what their actions and conduct deserve.

Psalm 1

Happy are those who reject the path of violence,
who refuse to associate with criminals
or even to sit with people who belittle others.
Happy are those who delight in the law of Yahweh
and meditate on it day and night.
They are like trees planted by flowing water –
they bear fruit in every season,
and their leaves never wither.
Everything they do will prosper.

But not wrongdoers!
They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
They won’t have a taproot to anchor them
when judgment comes,
nor will corrupt individuals be given a place in
the congregation of the righteous.
Yahweh watches over the steps of those who do justice;
but those on a path of violence and injustice
will find themselves irretrievably lost.

1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Tell me, if we proclaim that Christ was raised from the dead, how is it that some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching has been meaningless – and everything you’ve believed has been just as meaningless. Indeed, we are shown to be false witnesses of God, for we solemnly swore that God raised Christ from the dead – which did not happen if in fact the dead are not raised. Because if the dead are not raised, then Christ is not raised, and if Christ is not raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sins, and those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If our hopes in Christ are limited to this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But as it is, Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.

Luke 6:17-26
Coming down the mountain with them, Jesus stopped in at a level place where there were a great number of disciples. A large crowd of people was with them from Jerusalem and all over Judea, to as far north as the coast of Tyre and Sidon – people who had come to hear Jesus and be healed of their diseases, and even freed from unclean spirits. Indeed, the whole crowd was trying to touch Jesus, because power was coming out of him and healing them all.
Looking at the disciples, Jesus said:
Blessed are you who are poor, for the reign of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they scorn
and insult you and spurn your name as evil because of me.
On that day, rejoice and be glad: your reward will be great in heaven;
for their ancestors treated the prophets the same way.
But woe to you rich, for you are now receiving your comfort in full.
Woe to you who are full, for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will weep in your grief.
Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in the same way.