Blessed is Mountain
View When…
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 2/2/2014
Based on Matthew
5:1-12
Each
week we sing a thank you, an exhortation to God as we bring up our financial
offerings and the very first line of that song is “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” It is easy to think of “blessings” as those
things we perceive to be the “special and good” in our lives, like sugar on our
cereal or the frosting on the cake, and conversely think of those negative
things in our lives as “trials and tribulations.” Yet what if the word “blessed” doesn’t mean just
the “good things?” What would you think if
receiving a blessing meant living a life that is not necessarily filled with
the “good” that popular culture has assigned to the word “blessing”, or
“Blessed”?
The
Gospel written by Matthew tells us that Jesus starts off his ministry by
delivering nine “Blessed are you…” declaratives to his disciples and a crowd
that had gathered. These nine statements
are then expanded throughout the story of Jesus’ ministry with stories of
giving to the needy, prayer, fasting, treasures in heaven, do not worry,
judging others, ask – seek – knock, narrow and wide gates, wise and foolish
builders, cost of following Jesus, healing, and restoration of possessed men,
all of these are the subject labels given in my bible in chapters 6-8.
We
read stories found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures of fathers passing on his
blessing to the eldest son. It is in receiving
that blessing that one receives the inheritance. We still pass on blessings today. When someone is baptized we include a
blessing, when a building becomes occupied with a faith community, we bless
that building, when we commission our Sunday School teachers and other church
leaders, or in the ordination or installation of a new pastor we give a
blessing. In that blessing we are
passing on the inheritance of God’s will, of God’s desires.
These
past few months have been especially tough months for us as a congregation as
we entered into some very tough discussions centered on financial realities and
how this will affect the ministry of Mountain View. These discussions culminated in last
Sunday’s Annual meeting with a vote to make some very dramatic adjustments in
staffing and the call for a stronger lay involvement. To some it may feel as if we are moving
backwards instead of forward, to others it may seem that the health of the
congregation isn’t what we have envisioned, all these giving a lot of emotional
pain to many.
What
better opportunity for us then to hear the words that Jesus delivered in what
we call The Sermon on the Mount! The
other evening the Design Team met to discuss “where does Mt View laugh and
play” or another way of asking this question is “where do we find our energy”
or “Where do we see the Spirit of God at work in our congregational life?” For clarification, the Design Team has been
doing a study of the church using the Appreciative Inquiry model, which looks
at where our strengths lay and how we can use those strengths in developing
short-term and long-term goals and strategies for growth.
As
we began our meeting, it was evident that last Sunday’s vote was still looming
over us, clouding our ability to recognize the question at hand. Yet it was specifically that question of what gives us our energy, where do we laugh
and play, and where do we see the Spirit within our congregational life
that allowed us to realize the blessings that we have. By the end of that meeting, everyone present
was making the observation that in asking this question helped bring us back
into reality of just how Blessed we are at Mountain View, even if we don’t have
any money. “Blessed are the poor” is the
way the Gospel of Luke states it.
Honestly,
if we look to the Beatitudes as a list of things that we have to do to get into
Heaven, we are truly missing the point of what Jesus was saying and what Jesus’
message to the world was about. Remember
the phrase, “on earth as it is in heaven” in the Lord’s Prayer? Jesus
was asking that the life in God’s kingdom be reflected here on earth as
well. A Beatitude, then is a description
as to the way we live out God’s kingdom here on earth. A summation of the Sermon on the Mount can be
found in Micah 6:8 that touch three areas of life, “and what does God require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
The
Design Team was able to identified 15 specific areas that we see the Spirit of
God moving in our congregational life, 15 ways in which we find energy at
Mountain View, 15 ways where we laugh and play.
So fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, as Betty Davis
once said in the movie, All about Eve. This list is not in order of importance:
The
Spirit, the energy, the laughter and play is found when we are making breakfast
burritos, in post worship communion, through our Harambee circle, our music
“the specials” as well as congregational singing, in the children’s time of
worship, our congregational time of prayer, the closing circle, our fellowship
through special gatherings such as the auction dinners, the pumpkin patch, the
combined garden diners, those gatherings that are not focused on spiritual
growth per say, special projects like the women’s group making scarves for
those who are marginalized, there is energy and joy in the community garden, in
the Friday group and in choir practice with Ruth Leadership and Mary’s
dedication at the piano, hot cakes and hot topics has expanded it’s reach
beyond our original goals, underground youth as it works through S.A.L (our own
youth program), in our children and the joy they give us during worship, and in
the way we as a congregation support our members in their social activities,
such as attending school programs of our youth or in the going to community concerts
that our young adults perform in.
So
you see my brothers and sisters, we at Mountain View are truly blessed. We are blessed with ministries that too often
we forget in how they reflect Jesus’ teachings.
I am sure that there are many more areas that are not mentioned and I
invite you at this time to speak aloud ministries that give you energy, space
to laugh and play, and feel the Spirit move within Mountain View.
Jesus
says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are
the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed
are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers ,
blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, blessed are you
when people revile you on my account.
Beloved, Mountain View is Blessed because we as a congregation are
living out the Sermon on the Mount. Just
like our walking in the Marade last week was an act of Repentance, so are we
living the message of Jesus. We have so
much to rejoice about and to continue to grow into the Blessings that Jesus
speaks about because over all, we are moving forward and helping bring about
the kingdom of God here and now.
Blessed is Mountain
View as we continue to lift God up first in our lives, when we do
justice, and when we love kindness.
This is the year my friends to
Celebrate who we are – a people of God.
To celebrate our living into the Beatitudes that help build the kingdom
of God. Amen
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