Blessed are You

Luke 6:20-31
All Saints Day

Jesus was a good public speaker, wasn’t he?
He really knew how to draw people in with his words.

Now some people think that Jesus had everything all thought out
or it was dictated to him from God.
Or maybe because that’s how it looks whenever
we see Jesus in movies, like there’s no spontinaity.

Like he’s Laurence Oliver
standing up and reciting a Shakespeare soliloquy.
“Blessed are the poor. For theirs is the kingdom of God.”
As if he’s moved by hearing his own voice
and dramatics more than anything else.

But I like to think of this sermon of Jesus–
and all of Jesus sermons -- in a different way.
I like to think that Jesus spoke from his heart and
emotions much more than he seems to in movies.
I like to think that what he said
was changed by the people he was talking to.

This Gospel today is called the “sermon on the plain”
or the sermon on the mount in Matthew, or the beatitudes
and it’s one of Jesus most familiar sermons.

Now just previous to giving this sermon,
it says that Jesus chose his twelve apostles and they were with him
and that a huge crowd was gathered around him
wanting Jesus to heal them and get rid of their bad spirits.
It says that Jesus healed all of them that were gathered there that day
and that they could feel the power coming out of him.

After it was over, Jesus must have been exhausted,
his 12 new apostles must have been excited and a
little scared with their new role.
And the people there probably would have been poor,
and desperate and disheveled
but more hopeful than they had been in a long time.
All those faces in need looking up at Jesus
He knows they need to hear something. Something to sum up
this experience, something to help them understand what it meant.

Maybe he planned on giving them some instructions, like
“Go and be kind to your enemies”
which he does eventually get to later.

But right now, he looks at his disciples --
which in Luke means the whole crowd of followers --
he looks at them and he knows that they need something more than instruction.
He looks at them and his heart is filled with love for them.
and he says this instead:
“Blessed are you who are poor.
For yours is the kingdom of God.
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 exclude you,
and revile you. Blessed are you. You poor and hungry and hated.

And woe to those who can still laugh while you cry,
who can feel rich when you go to bed hungry.
Woe to those who just see you as lazy or stupid
And woe to those who roll up their windows
when they see you standing on the street corner,
Woe to those who don’t look at you in the eye,
because if they did, they would see what I see:
God’s beloved children” 
I like to think of this sermon
as an unplanned, un-rehearsed verbal hug to the
people that were drawn to Jesus and who Jesus was drawn to.
The saints of God.

In the church before the Reformation,
saints were only seen as someone who did something special.
Someone who were stellar examples of the faith,
who performed a certain amount of wonderous tasks
who had spiritual depth.
God’s special class of blessed people.

But Martin Luther helped us see that
people are not blessed by God because they do wonderful things.
People are blessed by God just because
God is wonderful.

And Jesus did not love that crowd of people
because they had some splendid achievements
or they had done some great miracle
or even because they had extraordinary compassion for others.
They were loved by Jesus only because they needed to be.
These poor, unlucky people needed God.
It shone on their faces, in their voices,
in the way they approached Jesus.

Unlike the rich,
they had not figured out other ways to get their needs met,
They didn’t think they could do it all alone,
And they were not above asking Jesus for help.
And Jesus was happy to give it.

So this crowd’s lack, was actually their biggest asset.
They didn’t have their own blessings,
so they had room in their life for God’s.
People, God is waiting. Just waiting for us.
For those times in our lives when we know how hopeless we are.
How we’ve failed, when we feel rejected or overwhelmed.
Not so God can wag the divine finger at us
and tell us where we’ve gone wrong
or give us a sermon about what we should have done.
God is waiting for the moment when we will
stop depending on our own blessings
and make room for God.

So blessed are the poor. Blessed are the hungry.
Blessed are the failures, the rejected,
the heart broken, the insecure, broken and inept.
Blessed is anyone who finds the courage to call out in desperation.
Living or dead --  we are all God’s beloved.
We are all the saints of
God.