What the Empty Tomb Provides, by Rev Steven R Mitchell, based on Matthew 28:1-10 An Easter Reflection

What the Empty Tomb Provides

By Rev Steven R Mitchell

Mountain View United, Aurora, Co 4/20/2014

Based on Matthew 28:1-10

 

Then the angel said to both Mary’s: “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you."

In the Gospel of Matthew, the birth of Jesus was first announced in a dream by an angel to Joseph, telling him that Mary his betrothed was with child, and not to be afraid to marry her for this child was the son of God.  This visit by the angel was God’s way to help Joseph accept the news that God was at work in the world.  After the angel’s visit, it was up to Joseph to either accept his invitation to be a part of God’s plan or to reject his invitation.  Now at the end of Jesus’ life, once again an angel from God has come to present an invitation to Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of Jesus to become the voice of God by announcing that Jesus has been raised from the grave and is not dead.   Both Mary’s are told to go back to the disciples and tell them what they had been told by the angel and that Jesus was going to meet them in Galilee.

Matthew’s story varies significantly to the other three gospels.  In Mark, Luke and John, both Martha’s were going to the tomb with spices in order to properly prepare the dead body of Jesus.  In all three of these stories, the boulder that protected the tomb had already been rolled away, the tomb and its surroundings abandoned.   

In Matthew’s account, the Roman guards are still at the tomb and the boulder is still in place and there is no mention of the women’s intensions to finish the burial ritual.  Matthew tells us that both Mary’s were going to see the tomb, much like we would go to the grave site of a loved one to pay our respects, to be near our loved one, and to mourn our loss.  But Matthew tells us that when they got to the tomb there was a great earthquake caused by the descent of an angel of God, who once there rolled back the stone that closed the tomb and then sat on top of it.  The Roman soldiers that were there were so terrified Matthew implies that they fainted.   Then the Angel spoke to the women and say, “I know that you are looking for Jesus.”  In the other stories, the angel asks who they are looking for. 

There is a significant difference in Matthews story of the empty tomb.  In the other three gospels, when the women come up and see the stone rolled away, it leads to an immediate assumption that someone had been there over night and had stolen the body, which was addressed in one of the other gospels, as Mary asked: If you have taken my Lord, please tell me where so that I might go to him.  With the stone still covering the entrance Matthew is telling us in no uncertain terms that nobody has been tampering with Jesus’ body.   The tomb isn’t opened until the women arrive and it is the angel of the Lord who has opened the tomb, it is the angel of the Lord who tells Mary Magdalene and the other Mary that Jesus is not there in the tomb, it is the angel of the Lord who delivers the message of where they will find Jesus.

That in and of itself was enough for the two women to have taken off running to share with the other disciples that Jesus was not dead, yet just like an infomercial, but wait there’s more!  As the two women started back to tell the disciples what had just happened to them, suddenly Jesus met them and says, “greetings” and after a time tells them to tell the disciples to go to Galilee so they might meet with him.  So, as I read this story, I have to ask myself: If the women were already on their way back to tell the disciples what they had been told by the angel, why would Jesus need to appear to them and tell them the same thing?

Several things are going on here, I think.  First off, I think what the angel is saying to both Mary’s is “fact giving information – that Jesus who had been crucified and put to rest in the tomb was not there; He was not there because he had been raised from the dead.”  When Jesus came before them, the fact has now become a personal experience.  They didn’t have to rely on a secondary source, meaning the angel’s testimony, they have had a personal encounter with Jesus – they know by experience that Jesus is alive.  I also think we see a difference with the angel telling the disciples to do something and of Jesus’ invitation to come meet him in Galilee.

What is the significance to us who live in twenty-first century?  Science tells us that there is no such possibility of a physical resurrection.  So, if we wish to accept the story of Jesus’ resurrection as truth, does this mean that are we forced to choice between what science says is and isn’t physically possible, or that to believe in what the scripture is telling us means we have to throw science out and take scripture on a literal basis and accept it as physical fact?   

I think if we get caught up in those types of questions, we are missing what the real question might be.  The question that comes to my mind is, “What does the empty tomb provide?”  As I read Matthew’s account of these two women who are going to mourn at the tomb of their dead Rabbi, I think we are being told without a doubt that God is doing something extraordinary in our world.  Matthew starts out his story about Jesus saying that God is doing something extraordinary in our world, as the angel announces to Joseph that Mary is pregnant with God’s son.  Now at this tomb which holds death, God again sends an angel to announce that even in the tomb, there is not death but life.  In this story, we have been given hope that we too, when we physically die, will not be held in the grave by death, but also will be raised to life.

A second theme that is being told to us through both the beginning Jesus’ life and now here at what seems to be the end of Jesus’ life is an invitation to join in these extraordinary events that God is orchestrating.  Joseph and Mary both are invited to be an active part in God’s plan to begin building God’s kingdom here on earth.  Here again, as Jesus interacts with both of these women, he extends an invitation for the disciples to join him in Galilee, where he will be waiting to meet them.  But why Galilee, why doesn’t Jesus just meet the disciples there in Jerusalem where everybody is already gathered.  I think the underlying message is, that in order for the disciples to be able to meet Jesus comes by their acting upon this invitation.  The disciples have to do something; they have to go in order to accept Jesus’ invitation.  If we are interested in having Jesus as a part of our life, we too must take action.  If we are wishing to follow Jesus, he says that we must pick up our cross to follow him, and in that following, we die to ourselves, and find life in him.  I truly think this is the hardest action for us, for we by nature wish to protect our life, and the life that Jesus is speaking about is the very core of who we are, our nature, our ego.  If we wish to follow Jesus’ teachings, those things that create heaven here on earth, those “blessed are” of the Beatitudes, we have to be able to make room in our hearts for God’s desires and that comes only by letting go of inner self.

And finally, Matthew shares with us how we are able to let go of our inner self, by that personal encounter with Jesus.  The only way that we can truly know that Jesus lives, is through a personal encounter.  I think this is why Jesus appeared to both Mary’s, to give them the confidence that they were going to need to stand up to the disciples and tell them that Jesus was not dead.  I think this is the reason why Jesus found in necessary to meet with the disciples, to give them that personal experience of Jesus had risen from the grave, so that they too would have the courage to take his message to others.

I cannot tell you what a “personal” encounter with Jesus is for you.  That has to be a personal thing between you and Jesus.  But I can tell you assuredly that without this personal encounter with Christ, you will always have a little bit of doubt about the truth of God.  What the empty tomb provides is the hope of building God’s kingdom while here on earth.  It is what gives us the confidence that death and defeat does not hold power over God’s desire for life.  Christ is risen, Christ is risen, indeed!   Amen.

Discovering a Beatitude Filled Life, "Blessed are you when...", based on matthew 5:11-12, by Rev Steven R Mitchell

Discovering a Beatitude Filled Life

“Blessed are you when…”

By Rev Steven R Mitchell

Mountain View United Church, Aurora, CO 4/13/2014

Based on Matthew 5:11-12 & Matthew 7:21-23

 

        I love Palm Sunday!  I love all the motion that comes with this day!  I love the moving around and waving our palm branches, the special music, and the use of video clips all of which makes for a special celebration.  It is the day that we call the Triumphal Entry, a phrased set aside for a king.   This day of celebration is the start of a chain of events that ends not in triumph but in disgrace and defeat at the end of the week.

          In Matthew 21 we read about Jesus riding into town on a young donkey, the streets lined with followers of Jesus waving palm branches saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”  This of course attracted people who didn’t know Jesus or who hadn’t received the e-mail to come and welcome Jesus into Jerusalem.  Hosanna has become a word of “praise” over the centuries, but the original Hebrew meaning of the word was “save” or “rescue”.  So if we were to change these words to what the crowd was actually saying, it would read something like: “The son of David who saves!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “The one who is highest in heaven is the rescuer!”  When you put this with the tradition of how a king is greeted into the city by his subjects, riding on a horse along streets filled with waving of palm branches, you can see why Caiaphas and Pilate were concerned about Jesus and his agenda!  The whole understanding of the word Messiah in Hebrew is the king who saves his people from foreign powers, who makes Israel safe to live under it’s own rule.

        But this is not the teaching Jesus gives in his Sermon on the Mount; for his teaching of the Beatitudes does not speak to peace through force, but rather through having a poor spirit, the ability to give mercy, and be peacemakers.  In Jesus’ last beatitude he says, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” 

        In this morning’s dramatic reading, “Are We Clapping For The Wrong God?” there is a piece that says, “Today we are the crowd, screaming: He’s agitator,” at those who are speaking up for humane treatment of non-documented immigrants.  “Today we are the crowd, screaming: He’s a revolutionary,” of those who advocate equal distribution of resources for all, that there is enough for everybody.  “Today we are the crowd, screaming: He tells them to love God, Yet he breaks the Sabbath laws,” How dare the pastor and worship team, want to sing new modern songs and use instruments that you would find in a show tune.  “Today we are the crowd, screaming: He tells them to do good, Yet he dines with sinners.”  “Hey Edith, are you aware that the woman sitting over there is a lesbian, and that couple behind us live together and aren’t married, and see that college student over with that really weird dyed hair color, I’m not sure I feel comfortable having visitors thinking we accept those kind of people.”

         In the second part of the ninth Beatitude Jesus says, “Rejoice and be glad {when these negative things happen to you because of me}, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  We in America have been greatly blessed by God with a modern day prophet by the name of Rev Dr Martin Luther King, and his courage to speak out for justice for people of color in a society of white privilege.  For me, the 1960’s have to date been the most turbulent decade that I have lived through, but life changed dramatically because of Dr King’s prophetic voice.   As the followers of Dr King readied to march in Selma, Mississippi in 1965 he said: I can’t promise you that it won’t get you beaten.  I can’t promise you that it won’t get your home bombed.  I can’t promise you won’t get scarred up a bit – but we must stand up for what is right.  If you haven’t discovered something that is worth dying for, you haven’t found anything worth living for.  Because of the courage of many who stood up against racism during the 1960’s, life is better today, when you think about Jesus telling us that the “kingdom of God is among us,” then you can understand what he meant in the 9^th beatitude when he says “great is your reward in the kingdom” for it is in part the physical.

        On the wall of Shishu Bha- Van, a children’s home in Calcutta operated by Mother Tersa’s order, the Sisters of Charity, are these words, which capture the heart of all the Beatitudes as brought into focus by the this last Beatitude.  People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.  Love them anyway.  If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Do good anyway…  The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway….  What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight.  Build anyway.  People really need help but may attack you if you help them.  Help people anyway.  Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.  Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.”  The Beatitudes For Today by James C Howell, chapter 12

        Today we celebrate Palm Sunday.  But where will we be come Good Friday?  Are we willing to stand up against the insults, the bad things that come with standing for justice, for mercy, for peacemaking?    We wave our palms this morning but are we wanting to follow a Jesus that the crowd in Jerusalem was expecting, a messiah that will save us from all the bad people, or are we wanting to follow the Jesus of the Beatitudes, where mercy, forgiveness, justice, and peacemaking are used to create God’s kingdom here on earth? 

        In the beatitudes, old barriers lose their power and old wounds can lose their sting.  In the beatitudes, we are revolutionaries to the world, we become the agitators of what is not right, we can speak the true word of Love, and dine with sinners and most of all forgive when we have been wronged.  By living a Beatitude filled life, we are on that donkey with Jesus, riding toward the cross that tries to deny God’s power in a world that thinks it holds the power.  Amen

Discovering a Beatitude Filled Life, "Blessed are those who are perscecuted for Righteousness...", based on Daniel 3 and Matthew 5:10

Discovering a Beatitude Filled Life

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for Righteousness…”

By Rev Steven R Mitchell

Mountain View United Church, Aurora, CO 4/6/2014

Based on Daniel 3 & Matthew 5:10

 

        This entire week I have been thinking about the word “persecution” with respect to: What does it truly mean to be persecuted?  My partner Paul recently recorded a series that is a few years old now, call “The Big C”, the “C” meaning cancer.  There are four main characters: husband, wife, son, and a live-in student (around the same age as the son).  The wife is dealing with the big “C”, the husband actually died for three minutes and came back to life, the son is struggling with being 16 yrs old and having parents who are literally fighting for their lives, the live-in female student is struggling with her African American heritage.  One of the common attitudes that I have noted in this family is that each of them is feeling persecuted in one fashion or another. 

The husband doesn’t feel appreciated or supported by his wife in his new found career as a public motivational speaker.  The mother with cancer, feels persecuted because everyone thinks that she is spending too much energy on herself.  The son is feeling persecuted, well because he is a teenager and all of what goes with being at that stage of life.  The young African-American girl is feeling persecuted because of her color. 

The truth is, most of us feel personally persecuted on some level.  The church in the U.S.A. felt persecuted when prayer was forced out of the classroom.  Teenagers feel persecuted when they are subject to curfew hours that might not match with their friends curfew hours.  The truth might be,  when we feel that we are not “getting” our way, we often translate that feeling into the act of being persecuted.

Yet is that true persecution or is it really a matter of our “egos” being bruised?  Is “persecution” really just a matter of differing opinions or is there something deeper in the act?  I would say, “Yes” and “yes”.  When one person or group of people feel their way is the only correct way, coupled with a sense of empowerment, you then have the formula for persecution to arise.

Persecution can occur as: victimization, abuse, torture, torment, oppression, tyranny, discrimination against, mistreatment, ill-treatment, maltreatment, and subjugation.  Now, there is only one population in middle-class America that I can think of where the majority of these types of behaviors occur and that is within the teenage population.   Honestly, can you show me a teen-ager who doesn’t feel persecuted? 

Seriously, when we read the Gospels, we read it as if it was being recorded as it was happening, yet Matthew wasn’t written until a generation after Jesus had died and it was written to an audience that had already experienced the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans.  The first audience of Matthew already was living under persecution.  They understood firsthand the reality of living under the power of a foreign government; they understood firsthand the persecution that came by following the words of Jesus, and of being ostracized by the traditional Jewish community.

We live in America, where being a Christian has no penalties, where we are not persecuted when we identify ourselves as being Christian, because Christianity is an acceptable religion.   So how do we “Christians” understand the perils of persecution as Jesus was teaching in the Beatitudes?  Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Well, for the church in America, the identification of being Christian isn’t the key to this teaching.   The key is found in the word “righteousness”, that of doing right!

In this morning’s text about three young Jewish men who refused to bow down to the idolatry of worshiping false gods, namely King Nebuchadnezzar, they are persecuted for standing strong to their religious convictions of following their one God.  These men even though they were Jews, had been given great power by the King in helping govern Babylon.  It was out of jealously that the Kings court conspired to persecute not just the Jews but specifically Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  Once the King discovers that these three young men would not bow down to him, in a rage he had them thrown into a fire. 

I think the lesson in this story comes in the reply these three young men gave when asked by King Nebuchadnezzar to change their allegiance saying: If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it,…But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.  These young men trusted God with their lives to deliver them from the tyrannical power of the King, but even if they were not physically rescued they believed so strongly that it was better to die following the law of their God than to give in and become a part of the system that they understood as unjust. 

We who call ourselves Christian in this country know very little about persecution for our faith, because the church in general is a part of the status quo.  By definition, one who follows the teachings of Jesus is called a Christian, and the larger body of Christians we call the Christian Church.  But, if you find yourself stepping outside of the acceptable norms of the church, then you might very well find yourself in hot water. 

When a Christian Church speaks out against the victimization of segregation, or against the popular tide of building walls along our boarders, or against the discrimination that says not all people in our country should have basic medical care, adequate housing, or access to upward mobility, then that church that is fighting for justice can expect to be persecuted. 

Back in the 1980’s there was an Underground Railroad movement by a number of churches in our country which was labeled as “Sanctuary Movement”, helping refugee’s from Nicaragua cross through this country into Canada.  It was an underground movement because our Government refused to give asylum to people whose lives were endangered by staying in their homeland.  Those people in this country who were helping in this underground movement based on religious conviction (based on their understanding of doing “rightness”) were being persecuted by various departments of our government in retaliation for their actions.  I know of several churches in the Seattle area where members of those congregations were abused by our government for what the larger Christian Church would call righteousness sake. 

That type of persecution is past history, yet there is a new Sanctuary movement happening today!  I was on a conference call earlier this week concerning the potential housing by a local congregation, of a family who has one or more members under deportation orders.  The conversation discussed what the legal implications would be for the hosting church as they provide housing for this family.  We also discussed how other churches can help in a supportive role with finances, food, clothing, education and other things that are needed for a this type of undertaking.  There are now three States where churches are becoming involved in this type of civil disobedience, which is legally defined if charged as a felony.  But because Immigration reform has continually been stalled in Congress, citizens in various communities along with non documented immigrants are taking a more radical stand in protest to the broken immigration laws that currently exist.

I bring this particular example up under this Beatitude because it deals with persecution in its most basic form.  I would expect a good many members of this faith community to be viewing this new sanctuary movement as fundamentally wrong because on the surface it seems to be promoting the issue of “illegal” immigration.  Then there are those who would be supportive of this type of civil disobedience because of their perception of what constitutes just and unjust laws. 

This is a very complex and critical issue and it makes me tremble to think that I was even on a phone conversation discussing such a topic.  I tremble because I wonder if I could act out in civil disobedience for something that I might in theory think is an injustice needing to be challenged.  I wonder if I could be a Shadrach, Meshach , or Abednego or would I be just one of the countless millions who would turn a deaf ear out of fear of being persecuted for doing the “right” thing.  It is in topics such as immigration reform, of equal rights for minorities, of how we view the natural resources of our mother earth, and many other issues that we struggle within our spiritual walk of understand “justness” and “righteousness.” 

Persecution comes at many levels, some in big topics like distribution of resources which include issues like immigration, race, sexual orientation, and the ecology of our planet, but many come in less obvious levels and are more personal.  For most people, I think, we want to do what is right for all, but the understanding of justice varies from person to person.  It’s the old saying, “Where two are gathered, there you will find three opinions.”  The truth in the eight Beatitude is of Jesus’ warning to be prepared when you are doing “righteous” acts, because the odds are, it will not be consistent with popular standards and when that happens you will be persecuted.   Right actions know no boundaries, but is a call to all of humanity to honor one another as brother and sister.  Amen

 

Discovering a Beatitude Filled Life, "Blessed are the peacemakers..." By Rev Steven R Mitchell based on Matthew 5:9 and James 3:13-18

Discovering a Beatitude Filled Life

“Blessed are the peacemakers…”

By Rev Steven R Mitchell

Mountain View United Church, Aurora, CO 3/30/2014

Based on Matthew 5:9 & James 3:13-18

 

        Each week we close our service with a Benediction, which is a word of blessing as we leave this time of worship, then we form a circle of sorts (the fact that it is always a very peculiar looking circle holds a great deal of theological reflection in its self) joining hands and we sing a little chorus with these words: Wider and wider, our circle expands.  As to the world we reach out our hands.  Led by the Spirit, we’re learning to bend.  Loving, and growing, and loving again.  At the end of this song we close with the words Shalom and Salaam!  Shalom coming from the Jewish tradition and Salaam from the Muslim greeting.  The reason that we say both is in keeping with one of our core values of “inclusion.” 

        The traditional body action used with Salaam is that of a low bow and the hand placed on the forehead.  This gesture places the person giving the greeting in a submissive posture and elevates the person being greeted.  Both Salaam and the Jewish Shalom are words for Peace, yet not in the same understanding that we use “peace” in our language.  These two ancient Aramaic words translate into a description about the well being of God’s people, of all God’s people, from the richest to the poorest, from the most agile to the lame, from the brilliant to the slow of mind.  Shalom is about justice, living out the truth of God’s kingdom. The Beatitudes for Today, by James C Howell   So when we say Shalom or Salaam, we are using the word peace, not in the sense of absence of conflict (which is our modern day understanding) but rather in the promotion of well being to those whom we say it to.

        Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.  For many people the idea of peace means no fighting.  Yet one can live in the absence of fighting and not experience peace.  Think of a home where there is no equality between the spouses, where one perceives themselves as being in authority over the other, there may be no fight because the spouse of lower stature has kowtowed to the other, bringing the appearance of peace because of no conflict, when in reality, there is the devaluing of the one spouse. 

        A common understanding of being a peacemaker means working at ending a war.  I remember signing my first petition at age 14, protesting our military involvement in Vietnam.  Yet to be a peacemaker by the definition that Jesus speaks of in this seventh Beatitude, Pope Paul VI in 1972 highlighted saying, “If you want peace, work for justice.”

        I want to share a reflection by Anne Sutherland Howard, author of Claiming the Beatitudes.  She writes: It’s taken me decades to learn this (Pope Paul VI’s remark about working for justice).  I used to think that peacemaking simply meant ending war.  As one who came of age in the Vietnam War, with my two brothers watching their draft lottery numbers, staying in school to avoid the draft, and ultimately getting drafted and serving in the National Guard, the war and the body count on the evening news was front and center in my family’s daily life.  My heroes were Father Daniel Berrigan and his little brother Philip both being on the FBI top ten list of most wanted because of their dramatic protests against the war.  I saw peacemaking as stopping that war: “Blessed are the peacemakers” meant “Blessed are the war protesters.”  A decade or so later, with Vietnam over, the Cold War was heating up with the massive weapons buildup of the early 1980’s.  I was working for an interfaith nuclear disarmament group, and I saw peacemaking as ending the nuclear arms race: “Blessed are the weapons protesters.”

        “But a rabbi’s question helped me see that peacemaking is something more.  I went to talk with Rabbi Leonard Beerman one day in the early 1980’s when I was discouraged, feeling that it was futile to protest the nuclear arms race when the nuclear stockpiles rose higher each day, and every day our country sold more and more weapons to more and more economically undeveloped countries.  “Our efforts are so puny and nobody cares, nobody listens, nobody can change anything.  Why do we bother to keep working for social and political change?”  I asked him.

        Rabbi Beerman listened, as he always listened to my questions and complaints, and in his gentle, quiet way reached into his desk and brought out a picture of his new grandson, Matthew Benjamin.  He asked to see a picture of my new baby son, Benjamin Michael.  He told me to think about these two little boys who would graduate from high school in the year 2000.  He told me to think about what we owed them.  And then he asked me, “if we cannot cultivate a passion for what one human being owes to another, what are we?”

        From that rabbi, and that question, I began to learn about shalom, about what we human beings owe to one another as children of God.  As President Dwight Eisenhower had said back in 1953, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  This world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” Claiming the Beatitudes, pg 98-100   

        Once the Christian Church became the legitimate state church by Roman Empire Constantine, the church has dealt with the ethical arguments for and against war based on either pacifism or “just war” theory.  The just war theory was codified for the church by St Augustine at the beginning of the fifth century in an attempt to answered the question, “When, if ever, is it justifiable for a Christian to participate in war?”  The tenets of just war say that war can only be waged (1) as a last resort, (2) by a legitimate authority, (3) to redress a grievous wrong, (4) with reasonable assurance of success, (5) to establish peace, (6) with violence proportional to the injury suffered, and (7) with weapons that discriminate between combatants and civilians.  These tenets were challenged by Baptist Theologian, Glen Stassen’s 1992 book “Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace”, moving from “Should we go to war?” or “Should we go to this war?” to “How can we prevent war?”  Claiming the Beatitudes pg101 

        How do we say “Yes to peace?”  After the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, any attempt to ask this question was labeled by our Government as being “unpatriotic” and “anti-American”.  Yet as Christians we need to hear the call from Jesus for transformative living.  Jesus challenged the accepted practice of “an eye for an eye” with “You shall not kill”, because he saw that revenge only brings more revenge.  In the Epistle of James we read: For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.  The lack of peace stems from basic human nature of envy and selfish ambition.  Out of this nature we nurture fear, hatred, jealousy, revenge, dishonesty, basically all the elements that lead to a non-peaceful existence.

        Is it actually possible to say “yes to peace?”  South African leaders determined that the only way to move forward in the post-apartheid era would be to form a “Truth and Reconciliation” commission.  All over South Africa, victims and perpetrators told their stories; women faced policemen who had murdered their husbands and children and told of their agony.  Henchmen who carried out vile orders admitted their guilt.  Justice was meted out, and yet the most astonishing moments of reconciliation, which would strike many of us as implausible, happened – because the truth simply had its day out in the open.

        The Hebrew understanding of justice is not about the good being rewarded and the bad being punished, nor is it about fairness to the individual, but rather health to the community.  (Mishpat) Justice occurs when the poorest in a community are cared for.  For those who have questions about the “appropriateness” of our burrito breakfast sandwiches that we give to the day labors once a month, we are doing justice, we are caring for the poorest in our community, not questioning the legality of their presence, but relating to these men as one child of God to another.  In our walk of Harambee with Georgia and her family in Greeley who suffered total loss of home in last Septembers flooding, we are practicing peacemaking, for we are working out justice with a family who became a part of the “least of these” in our extended community. 

        How do we say “Yes to peace?”  It starts with what we do locally, by working for justice, which means bringing about health to the community.  As Rabbi Beerman asked, “If we cannot cultivate a passion for what one human being owes to another, what are we?”  James end today’s reading by saying: Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.  His brother Jesus tells us: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.  Peacemaking isn’t about stopping war – it’s about working for justice – the bringing about health to the community – to the world community.  Amen

Discovering a Beatitude Filled Life, "Blessed are the pure in heart..." by Rev Steven R Mitchell, based on Matthew 5:8 and Matthew 25:31-46

Discovering a Beatitude Filled Life

“Blessed are the pure in heart…”

By Rev Steven R Mitchell

Mountain View United Church, Aurora, CO 3/23/2014

Based on Matthew 5:8 & 25:31-46

 

               

        Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  The heart is so central to our well being.  It is the one muscle that pumps life giving nourishment throughout our body.  Health professionals are always concerned about the levels of cholesterol in our body because too much can clog our arteries and put too much stress on our hearts.  When we develop a blood clot, again Doctors are very concerned that the clot does not travel into the heart, which would cause a heart attack.  So it’s pretty evident that having impurities in ones heart is not a good thing.

        The heart is purely a muscle, yet poets and romance writers consistently refer to the heart as if it somehow is able to produce emotions.  Yet it is the brain that developed the ability to process thoughts and emotions.  It is the brain that allows for reasoning, it is the brain that is the home of our consciousness, and it is the brain where feelings originate.  When our brain senses danger, signals go out into our body which can cause physiological changes in our breathing, our legs may become momentarily immobile, we can lose our ability to make sound, and our heart beat can increase.

Yet we attribute all of our feelings as centered in the heart.  Phrases such as:  Have a heart, He is heartless, I’m half heartedly working, She will steal your heart, My heart isn’t in it!  All these indicate emotion.  In the story of The Wizard of Oz, the Tin-man was seeking a heart.  As the Wizard gives him a mechanical clock in the shape of a heart, the Tin-man is told, “the heart will never be practical until it is made not to be broken.”  A short time later as Dorothy is getting ready to leave, you see the Tin-man crying as he says, “I must truly have a heart, because I feel it breaking.”

        What is it about our heart, this non-thinking, non-feeling muscle, whose only purpose in life is to pump our blood yet we attribute it with having the capable for emotion?  Every one of us has had some occasion to feel emotions that we say come from the heart.  We would never say things like: I have a broken brain, my brain is sad, I have joy in my brain.  Rather, we know for a fact that emotions like: love, greed, hate, fear, revenge, care, and compassion are felt in our heart.   

        Last Sunday I went and saw the new movie: Son of God.  As I sat through this movie watching with a critical eye (as I am always suspicious about Hollywood doing any portrayal of Jesus’ life), I found myself tearing up a great deal, especially when Jesus was saying, “I am the truth, and the way, and the life.”  It wasn’t my brain being touched by these words, but my heart.  My heart was being touched because I have experienced the spirit of Jesus and these words were penetrating my heart as if words of love were coming from my spouse. 

        So how does “purity” enter into this equation of the Beatitudes?  Do we have to roto-router out all the cholesterol to make a pure heart, or have a blood transfusion in order to have a pure heart?  The word pure is often translated into “clean”.  Psalm 51:10 : Create in me a clean heart, O God.  And renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from thy presences.    The Psalmist makes it very clear that having a clean heart is important in order to be in the presence of God.  Wouldn’t it be marvelous if we just had a machine washable and perma pressed heart, to where all we would have to do when it becomes soiled is just throw it into the washing machine to make it clean!

        Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.  What does it mean “to see God?”  Is this not the goal of our faith journey, to see God?  For if we see God, are we not then in the presence of God?  So again, I ask you what does it mean “to see God?” 

        Rev James Howell in his book, The Beatitudes For Today, suggests that: It may be helpful to think of purity in two ways.  There is a purity that looks like simplicity, focus, single-mindedness; and there is a purity that looks like goodness, cleanness, holiness – and the two are not unrelated.  The human predicament is that we let ourselves get frittered away in multiple directions. Trying to be and do everything, when we were made for just one thing, for the one thing that finally matters: God.  If purity of heart is “to will one thing,” then focus is everything.  The pure, like a race horse, need blinders to block out their peripheral vision, so they keep their eyes on the one goal, the presence of God within the heart.

        Think about the story of Mary and Martha, when Jesus came to visit.  Martha was busy doing the hostess thing, cooking, trying to get things set up so Jesus’ stay would be a pleasant one, all the time being busy and missing out on the interaction with her guest.  While Mary was not bothered by all the “things” that should and could be done and chose to sit at Jesus’ feet, listening to what he had to say.  Private prayer time or the discipline of meditation are several forms of taking the needed time to clear one’s mind so one can be like Mary and sit and focus on the truly important thing needed to make us whole.  When we are able to discard all the distractions that keep us from focusing on God, then we have achieved a “pure” heart, that single-mindedness.

        Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  Part of our Christian family say’s that we will not see God until we die and enter into heaven.  Another part of our Christian family say’s that we can see God right at this very moment.  In the parable found in Matthew 25, Jesus talks about finding God where we live life.  ³⁴ “…’Come, you who are blessed by God; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷ “Then the [pure in heart] will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The [Jesus] will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

        What does it mean to see God?  Jesus tells us we see God when we show compassion and mercy on our fellow brothers and sisters.   I remember a story told by Rev Dr Tony Campolo, sociology profession at Eastern College in Philadelphia, PA some years ago when he was visiting a very poor village in South America.  When he was boarding the small plane at the airstrip located next to the village, a woman came up to him trying to hand him her baby boy, asking him to take her son back to the States with him, where her son would have a chance for a better life.  Tony says, as he looked into her eyes, for the first time he was able to see Jesus in human form.  From that point on in his life, he realized that as a follower of Christ, if he could see Jesus in the face of the person he was dealing with, the way that he would treat that person would be completely different than if he didn’t see Jesus in that face.  What a powerful and sacred experience and revelation Dr Campolo had.

        Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is at hand.  He also pointed out that when we are doing acts of compassion to the least, then we are interacting with him.  I think a pure heart goes beyond just showing compassion to the least, for we can show compassion all day long and never see God.  I think the pure in heart, comes when we like Tony Campolo can begin to live life seeing Christ in each person that we meet.  It is at that point that we have the single mindedness that allows us to treat one another at the level we would if Jesus were asking us for a cup of water.  It is at that point that we can then truly see God.   Amen

 

Discovering a Beatitude Filled Life, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...", by Rev Steven R Mitchell for Mountain View United, Aurora, CO 3/2/2014

Discovering a Beatitude Filled Life

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…”

By Rev Steven R Mitchell

Mountain View United Church, Aurora, CO 3/02/2014

Based on Matthew 5:6

 

        Once a month we come to this table for communion.   There have been many words used to describe communion over the centuries: the Eucharist, The Lords Supper, The Passover Meal, and Communion.   In more recent times I often hear it called the Love Feast.  I like the sound of that one, for it integrates two aspects of my theology about what the faith community of Christ is supposed to represent, love being that of extravagant welcome, and for the feast, the body of Christ, and the body of Christ goes beyond the symbols of the wine and bread for me, to includes the teachings of Jesus. 

        I find it amazing that the last Passover meal that Jesus had with his inner circle, the disciples, has become the most powerful ritual that we practice in any gathering within a Christian faith community that of breaking bread with one another and how it ties in so intricately with this week’s Beatitude of hunger and thirst.  We invite any and everyone who seeks Christ to come and eat from this table, with the idea of being filled.  Throughout the telling of Jesus’ ministry, the Gospels bring up story after story about Jesus and food in one fashion or another.  His very first miracle of turning water into wine was at a wedding feast; massive crowds coming to hear Jesus are reportedly feed, and there were leftovers.  Jesus was always attending dinner parties hosted by the upper classes such as the Pharisees, as well as by sinners and tax collectors.  The point being Jesus and food go hand in hand.   Even in the Hebrew Scriptures, we read about how God provides a banquet table, even in the presence of our enemies.  

So, if the Hebrew Scriptures offer the promise of God providing enough food, and Jesus engaged with a multiplicity of dining experiences, why would Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, lift up the idea of hunger and thirst as a blessing, especially to an audience who generally didn’t have enough money to feed themselves sufficiently?  And more importantly how do we who live in the land of milk and honey, relate to this particular blessing?  

Most of us in this room have never truly known hunger or have we?  As an example, how often in conversations with friends, does the topic of “have you eaten at such and such restaurant” come up?  Most of us tend to tip the scales on the upper side of what Doctors say is the appropriate weight for our build.  So what do I mean when I imply that maybe we are hungry and thirsty, even though we have enough to eat; and not just enough to eat, but enough of “stuff” in general.   I live in a house that is bigger than what I grew up in.  Paul and I have more bathrooms in our house than occupants, yet we are not fully satisfied with what we live in.  Paul wishes we had a master bedroom on the main floor, and I want to change the color on many of our walls.  We both want to have a garden retreat in our backyard.  For those of you who have been in our home, you know that it is a nice house, so why are we not satisfied with what we have?  What is missing that makes us want more?  Let’s expand this question to include: Why do people in our country move from one relationship to another, one restaurant to another, one diversion to another, and still happiness, contentment, and peace seem to elude us?

We are reared to expect a broad satisfaction, physically and emotionally in our culture.  These expectations come by way of a free capitalistic philosophy, which promotes the idea that having more is what will ultimately make us happy and provide satisfaction, and yet Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones tells us that, “He can’t get no satisfaction.  But he tries and he tries and heI tries and he tries, but he can’t get no satisfaction.”  We are not a people who can easily relate to the first century hears of Jesus’ words, who were physically hungry and didn’t have enough clean drinking water available.

You may wonder why I am equating physical attributes to the Spiritual attribute that Jesus was talking about as he said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”   Because what we want, what we purchase, how we act are expressions of how we are doing spiritually.  Song writer Harry Carroll expressed this spiritual deficit so artfully in the song, “I’m Forever Chasing Rainbow’s”:

I'm always chasing rainbows, Watching clouds drifting by, My schemes are just like all my dreams, Ending in the sky.  Some fellows look and find the sunshine, I always look and find the rain.  Some fellows make a winning sometime, I never even make a gain, believe me, I'm always chasing rainbows, I'm watching for a little bluebird in vain.   If we are forever chasing rainbows, it is a sign of lacking something inside, a satisfaction that comes with feeling incomplete.  Author Maggie Ross observes: “We fell empty, but feeling has little to do with being empty.   Don’t we feel empty because we are full of the wrong stuff?” 

As we discover what it means to have a Beatitude Filled Live, one of the neediness’s that we can find to propel us into fulfillment is in the need to be hungry and thirsting for righteousness.  Rev Anne Howard points out that in this particular blessing, “Jesus again quotes the prophets.  This is not a call for personal or individual righteousness or moral rectitude, as some have understood from the Greek translation of this saying.  [In other words] It’s not a call about ‘getting right with God.’  This is a prophets’ call for restorative justice or distributive justice, an echo of Isaiah 61 (The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners…), which restores the powerless and the outcasts to their rightful place.” Claiming the Beatitudes pg 62 

I spoke a little about Mahatma Gandhi last week as being an example of meekness and how he had great power in his meekness.   It was through his hungry and thirsting for righteousness, that he was able to move a country to defy the Imperialism of Great Britain through non-violence and non-cooperation and bring India to be an independent nation once again.   It was an act of restorative justice as freedom from an oppressive government brought back the outcast population of India to their rightful place as citizens of their own country able to be ruled and governed by their own people.

We as individuals are under siege from the rule of capitalism.  We must realize the oppression we live under by a system that denies equality of basic needs which is fostered by the illusion that we do not have enough and the only way we will have enough is if others go without.  We as Christians need to come to understand the dangers of living in the land of milk and honey – that the lie comes in not having enough, but comes from having the wrong stuff.  This can only come by first recognizing that we need to be poor in spirit, relying on God not on external stuff.

Discovering how to live this particular beatitude is hard, not because we have plenty, or because working toward justice is hard, whether it’s in working for immigration reform or helping newly released inmates Claiming the Beatitudes (which by the way will be topics in upcoming Hot Cakes and Hot Topics), but it is hard I believe, because it calls upon us to trust not in our own power, but solely in God’s economy of justice for all; on God’s extravagant invitation to each person.  As we come to this table, the table of the love feast, let us come hungry and thirsting for justice, not for ourselves but come seeking God’s justice throughout the world.  Amen