How Shall I live my life, Jesus?

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year A: St. Martin’s Episcopal, Moses Lake, WA by Sr. Annette Fricke, OP Last Sunday and the Sunday before that, we read in the Gospel lessons about the calling of Jesus’ disciples Andrew, Peter, James, John, and an un-named disciple. Last Sunday, the gospel was from Matthew, Chapter 4. However, the last two verses at the end of chapter 4 were left out. Chapter 4:24-25 reads: “So his fame spread throughout Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.” Jesus’ teaching had wide appeal. Worshiping at the temple in Jerusalem was a pilgrimage for Galileans that they despised because of the way they were treated by the Judeans. Unlike most of what we find in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this is not a set of parables; this is direct teaching from Jesus. There is no disguise here. Here are nine beatitudes, short and succinct. The same first words are on each one, “Blessed are…” Blessing in Jewish thought is a divine action, sometimes coming through an intermediary, like a priest, a rabbi, or a parent. The pattern is similar for Christians today. However, much like long ago, we live also in an atmosphere when blessings come to those who succeed, often at the expense of others. To be poor in spirit, peaceful, merciful, and meek will get us nowhere in a culture that is grounded in competition and fear. At first glance, these teachings of Jesus seem to be quite impractical. How could anyone but the saintliest people live these out? And so, we look to people like Dorothy Day, who took in the poor for a long time without the blessing of the Catholic Church or Martin Luther King, Jr. who was shot and killed because he advocated for civil rights for all people or Desmond Tutu who worked for non-violence, justice, and against the oppression of the poor. All of them worked for some of the same things in a world that still ignores their positive mark on society. There are still poor people and people are still discriminated against, and countries still go to war. So, is it impossible to live the beatitudes? What are we to make of this teaching? What does all this mean? They are an invitation into a way of being in the world that leads to specific attitudes. There are three principles for living into the spirit of the beatitudes: simplicity, hopefulness, and compassion. Think about the three people I named. These people all defied the people around them. These people acted on their convictions. They were leaders in a society of people who either sat back, doing nothing for the causes they led or worked against them. How can we live in simplicity? One thing Dorothy Day did was to buy all her clothes at discount stores. She did not rely on her parent’s money for school but worked for her own living. Is there a way to see Jesus’ teaching in the simplest form without reading into it our own values and desires? What if we tried our best to be open to hearing this teaching for what it simply is so that we don’t obscure it’s meaning remembering Jesus’ promise, “You are blessed in this life whenever you demonstrate humility, bring a peaceful presence, open your heart to others, and show mercy on those who cry for it.” The second principle is hopefulness. Jurgen Multmann once said that the death of the church is when the overall attitude moves from anger to cynicism. Cynicism accepts what ever is, regardless of consequences. It is like the common phrase I still hear, “It is what it is.” Cynicism offers little hope that things will get better. Another word that’s equivalent is apathy. The beatitudes invite us to the opposite attitude which is hopefulness. Hope brings the possibility of change. When we are hopeful, we stand in the world sure of the possibility that the day will come when mercy, humility, peace, and love are the descriptions of what it means to live. The third principle of beatitude living is compassion. This is the overarching principle for every Christian interaction with the world as well as fellow believers. Everything that we do or say needs to be born out of compassion for the world in which we live and work. According to Henri Nouwen, compassion “grows with the inner recognition that your neighbor shares your humanity with you. This partnership cuts through all walls which might have kept you separate. Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge, and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, destined for the same end.” Finally, God’s reign is what matters. Persecution, insult, and even martyrdom may come from living a life united to Jesus. Those who receive God’s favor are those whom Gold deems worthy, not by virtue of their own achievements or status in society, but because God chooses to be on the side of the weak, the forgotten, the despised, the justice seekers, the peace makers, and those persecuted because of their beliefs. Here we see that the unvalued are at last fully valued as human beings.