A Beatitude for the Driftless

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Savior of the world Jesus the Christ. Amen.

When I was a part of the local Baptist church in my college town in northern Iowa, for three years I heard a ton about how people felt blessed. I heard the refrains weekly on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings: “I’m just feeling so blessed right now”, and “God has really blessed us.” Today, I wanted to spend a bit of time talking about what it means to be blessed. Many of us think of blessing as a gift from God when something goes right, or according to plan, in our lives. Many of us think of blessing as something given to us by God for following in the footsteps of mercy, love, and kindness. I know that I have felt blessed in many ways – in my family, in seminary, and as a pastor – and how we feel blessed: how we express our gratitude and thanks to God for the good things of our lives is no small thing, and I lift up and value the ways that you each see your life as blessed.

In today’s world of Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook, where social media platforms continuously find themselves evolving to share our content with the world, I think it’s really intriguing how our lives are shared through them. People here too are quick to share how they are “blessed”. A quick search on Instagram reveals that the word “blessed” has been hashtagged approximately 120,459, 266 times. That’s a lot of blessing – people who are grateful for their circumstances, relationships, and where they are in this moment in life. And that in and of itself is something to be glad for. Yet, I can’t help but wonder if Jesus in our Gospel story for today has something else in mind when he is giving his Sermon on the Mount. In this part of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has just called his disciples, and his public ministry is just beginning. He is in a unique position now as he sets the tone for what his service will look like throughout Israel. We know from the beginning of this story that Jesus’ ministry will involve those who have been cast-aside: it is a proclamation that the kingdom of God belongs to those who are on the underside of society and those who are cast out. God’s kingdom cares for women, for orphans, and for widows, and for those who live far from Jerusalem. I wonder if Jesus’ announcement of blessings here is not merely spoken, but performing as well – that in speaking the words, Jesus is not only speaking platitudes but declaring the truth: these bodies around him – those who are meek, those who are poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who work for peace, those who are nothing less and nothing more than human beings – are the ones who are blessed by God, the ones who will inherit the coming world. Jesus’ sermon here is showing a new way, one that the Roman Empire does not fully understand.

In order to bring Jesus’ litany of blessings off the pages of Scripture and into our pews today, I wanted to share with you a beatitude that I wrote. This will hopefully be a blessing that performs upon you – that calls you blessed, and transforms you towards greater hope. In this blessing, may you recognize something of God deep within your bones. I’ve titled this tentatively “A Beatitude for the Driftless”. I believe that Jesus would tell our congregations this:

Blessed is this landscape. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are you who work in the cold. Blessed are you who tend to cattle and work the land. Blessed are you who feel uncertain. Blessed are you who are struggling to figure out what’s next. Blessed are you who break your backs for low crop prices. Blessed are you who will yet again till the soil in the warmth of spring’s sun. Blessed are you who live by the fruit of this land. Blessed are you who love this countryside. Blessed are you who struggle here and wonder what else is out there. Blessed are you who mourn for what you left behind. Blessed are you who believe in your souls our community is worth it. Blessed are you who managed to persevere for another day, for God sees you and welcomes you.

Blessed are our bodies and our complicated humanity. Blessed are you who are feeling isolated and alone. Blessed are you who are fighting to break cycles. Blessed are those who have contemplated suicide and yet have found a way through. Blessed are you who fall asleep during my sermons, for God will still move through you. Blessed are you who desire a new start, or a restart. Blessed are you who are juggling too many things right now. Blessed are you who are tired, who have had too much coffee for the day, and who wish for a moment of rest. Blessed are you who feel the crushing weight of grief. Blessed are you who feel unloved. Blessed are you who doubt. Blessed are you who haven’t given up yet. Blessed are those we have forgotten, those who are unemployed, and those who can’t catch a break. Blessed are those who are in the closet, and blessed are those who are becoming their true selves. Blessed are you who are struggling with family relationships. Blessed are those who need to set boundaries, for God sees your hurt and lifts you up in love.

Blessed is this church. Blessed is our ministry. Blessed are you who search and hunger for righteousness, and those who can still be surprised. Blessed are our young ones and blessed is their laughter and their tears. Blessed are our confirmation students and their questions and their joys. Blessed are the peacemakers among us and those who step up to stop a fight. Blessed are those who mourn Aiden and Avery and Dylan and Spencer and Kari, and blessed are those who grieve any and all loss. Blessed are our aged beloved members, for their wisdom and knowledge and compassion and their stories across the generations. Blessed is our ministry together, even in the midst of struggle and discernment. Blessed are those who know that there is more than this, for they are right. Blessed is each of us, because we are bringing God’s world here.

My friends, in these long days of winter, may you find reason to hold on to blessing, if only because Jesus’ words, as much as they were for the people of his time, are also meant for us. It is easy to lose sight of what we have been gifted because often life can feel overwhelming. Yet it is precisely in the midst of the overwhelming, suffocating moments that Jesus chooses to speak. The people he is preaching to in Matthew 5 are people who have nothing less to lose, who are risking everything to place their hope in this man they have only heard of, who they are seeing now in the flesh. And Jesus moves them. He does something that the state and religious community cannot do – lifts them up and calls them favored of God. This favor of God – inheriting the kingdom, seeing blessedness in meekness and in the pursuit of justice – is something that cannot be wrenched away. May our whole lives – individually, as a community of faith, and as citizens of our larger world and of God’s kingdom, be a search for this blessing, and may we continually proclaim God’s favor. Thanks be to God. Amen.