Blessed Are

Matthew 5:1-12

Blessed are, not blessed will be or blessings are to come, blessed are. This is the first teaching in Matthew that Jesus gives to his disciples. There is a big crowd. It takes place on the top of a mountain. Jesus tells them this: Blessed are nine different, inter-related realities of life circumstance. 

Right now we are poor in spirit. Our systems need change and we are hesitant to delve into the controversy. Claiming there is right and wrong. We are mourning for another black man killed by society. For others who have been gunned down in mass shootings. It is hard to see the blessing here.

All of the things Jesus says are blessing are hard things. It is not easy to be peacemakers when we see so much injustice. It is not easy to have mercy when we feel wronged. It is not easy to be low and poor in our spirit. It is not easy to mourn. It requires us to let go. It requires us to have compassion. It requires us to feel instead of be numb. 

Blessed are...blessing others with mercy means we want solutions instead of stalemates and cut offs. To divide each other out into factions. To stand with our righteousness and deny the other a voice. To be peacemakers we must find this way though. We must stand into the tension of the moment and admit what is the truth about the feelings people have regarding loss, pain and suffering. 

We may not feel blessed when we are going through this. Blessed are we who dare to try. All of this was said in the shadow of an occupier, Rome. Rome who conquered by force. Rome who made sure any controversy was snuffed out. Who by force of might expected all to bend to their will. To deny their culture. To take strength of force as the only way. To be cruel to one another because they could. In this time, in this place Jesus reminds people of the blessedness of living into our weakness. Into the places where it hurts. Into being vulnerable.

Blessed are you when people revile and persecute you because you want to do what is God's dream. Love one another. Show off our wounds. Become vulnerable enough to hear the story of another without judging first. This is the gospel news of becoming blessed. We can't force it, we have to be at our most vulnerable point to be it. There is nothing we can do to earn it our be there, but we can acknowledge when we have hit those places.

So hear the story of Tyre Nichols. Acknowledge the blessed mourning of another mother. Then go and be the light we were called to be. Search for what will bring peace because this weary world is in need of it. Become the ones who will search for what might bring us into the right place with one another. Because only in this way do we see the blessedness Jesus shared on the mountain with those first disciples. Jesus didn't want them to loose their hope in the face of might and neither should we.