February 6, 2005
By Jack Price

This will be a brief survey.  Over the last several weeks, I’ve presented a series of sermons around the subject “what we believe”.  Today, let’s check in to see if you’ve thought some more about what you believe. 

            First, what do you believe about God?  (responses ad. lib.)  Your responses seem to include the idea of God as reality itself, the ground of all being.  At the same time, God is also personal, and available for relationship.  You touched on the idea that God is eternal and constant without being static – that our understanding and interpretation of God must always be evolving and developing.

Second, what do you believe about Jesus? (responses ad. lib.)  Your responses include that he was an historic person.  Jesus engaged in teaching and healing ministry.  He also endured a martyr’s death.  Christians look to Jesus as the clearest expression of the divine nature and purpose in a human life.

Third, what do you believe about Church? (responses ad lib)  Your responses coalesce around the understanding of church as community.  It is not a building, but church is people.  American Baptists provide a good working definition of church as “a worshiping, teaching, witnessing, and ministering community.  Another way of expressing the idea of church is:  a community throughout space and time that helps people’s experience and understanding of God.

            When we talk about beliefs, it seems pretty clear that members of this congregation believe some different things from each other.  At least, we tend to express our beliefs in some different language from each other and from other faith communities.  Hopefully, we will be open to learn from each other. 

There are several excellent opportunities for continuing this conversation and theological exploration.  These include the current House Church study of Marcus Borg’s The Heart of Christianity, and the Adult’s Bible study class on Sunday morning.  We face the challenge of identifying and living with our questions and also living into the answers.  The same is true with today’s question:  “What do we believe about life?

People seem to spend lots of time and energy looking for what will bring them to life and what will make their life meaningful, or at least tolerable.  Jesus’ focus, according to the gospels, was about life lived fully.  The Latin phrase Dum vivimus vivamus can be translated, “while we live, let us live”.  It reflects Jesus’ idea of living life abundantly.

            Author John Powell (Through the Seasons of the  Heart) expresses this idea in terms of the value of each life:

            God sends each person

into the world with a

special message

a special song

a special act of love

no one else can

speak my message

sing my song

offer my act of love

it is entrusted only to me

Another illustration is the story of Rabbi Zuscha.  As he lay on his death bed, the rabbi was asked what he thought about life beyond the grave.  Zuscha pondered awhile, then said, “I don’t really know.  I do know this:  when I get there, I will not be asked, ‘why weren’t you Moses?  Why weren’t you David?’  I will be asked, ‘Why weren’t you Zuscha?’”  (Dewar, Invitations)

The thirteenth-century Turkish mythic character Nasrudin was sitting around the tea house one afternoon shooting the breeze with some friends.  Finally, one of them asked, “You’re a wise man.  Answer this question:  what about life after death?”  Nasrudin replied, “It’s people who don’t know what to do with this life who want another that will last forever”.  He then added, “Is there life before death?  That’s the

real question”.

Toward answering the question for today, “What do you believe about life?” the following question are preliminary, yet vitally important: (responses, ad lib)

a.                  what do you want?

b.                  what are you looking for?

c.                   what brings you to life?

d.                 (maybe) what deadens you?

Thanks for your help with the survey.  For four weeks now, the question “what do we believe?” has led us to today.  What we believe about God, about Jesus, and even about church rests on what we believe about life.  This is not just what we think.  It’s what we believe, trust, are passionate about, and give our whole lives to.

The exciting promise of Christian faith is abundant living.  It is life lived to the fullest.  This is the gift of Life itself, God’s gift, just for being alive.  The challenge is how to receive it, how to appropriate it, how to live it.

Jesus’ primary teaching on this subject, interpreted by Matthew’s gospel, rests on eight  beatitudes, eight sayings of blessing.  What it means to be blessed is to live fully.  Blessedness equates to being deeply happy.  It is to embrace life in all its fullness.  Do you want it?  Let’s delve in.  Listen closely and try to identify the beatitude that really excites or draws you in, or really challenges you – perhaps the one that seems the most clear to you.

 “Blessed are the poor in spirit”.  Poverty is not blessed.  It is not being excused.  For people to live in poverty is out of Sync with God’s Spirit of abundance.  Poverty itself denies the goodness of God.  This is a message to the affluent.  Poverty means being in need and those of us with enough often suffer from an inflated sense of our own needs.  It is a gift to clarify and simplify our needs.  It is a gift not to condemn others for their poverty.  It is a gift to choose to do with less ourselves.  The ability to be poor in spirit is to know you can’t earn God’s love.  It is the blessing of choosing God’s love as your treasure.  It is the  “inner attitude of submissive openness to active power of God’s presence in life and world.”  (The Spirituality of the Beatitudes, Michael H. Crosby).  People who receive this gift identify with God’s new creation.  The Spirit’s transformation is seen in them already. 

“Blessed are those who mourn.”  The gift of mourning is to touch brokenness and know healing grief.  It is the process of transformation through what is hard -- not avoiding sadness and not clinging to the familiar.  It is learning to be open to the new.  “Where our treasure is, there will our heart be also.”  The blessedness of mourning is to be aware of the hope present in honest grief.  When you live this way, you inspire others and you are comforted yourself. 

            “Blessed are the meek.”  They will inherit the land.  This brings forth images of Jubilee:  the cancellation of debts and the restoration of freedom.  It evokes an image of the messiah entering Jerusalem to reorder the world in God’s image, not of power or might but the force of God’s Spirit.  The meek point to the Spirit, not to themselves.  They are less self-conscious because self gets in the way.  They are Spirit conscious.  Inheritance of the earth is not understood as a reward, but as the opportunity to embrace this earth and make God’s Spirit visible. 

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”  They strongly desire prophetic justice.  Theirs is a dream of no one in need, a dream where all are free, a dream of healing for all.  They hunger and thirst for the truth to be known and told within themselves, to themselves, and with each other.  They desire all secrets to be known and all shame forgiven.  Their creed is “love your enemies and pray for them”.  These people are filled as they see the whole creation filled with this justice -- all made whole. 

“Blessed are the merciful.”  These are people able to move beyond the rule to human need.  They know that mercy connects us to each other and the lack of mercy separates us.  This is not passive submission, but rather active nonviolent resistance.  It is not fight or flight.  It is assertive engagement without violence.  The merciful hold no grudges, but cherish the forgiveness of others and self.  When we cannot forgive, it is often because we cannot embrace forgiveness for ourselves.  Be merciful and you can receive mercy.  We can accept that we are accepted and acceptable.

“Blessed pure in heart.”  In Jesus’ culture, heart meant what we often mean when we refer to the mind.  Purity in heart involves purity of thought.  It affects how we look at anything.  An impure mindset allows us to treat others as less than human or as a means for our advancement or our pleasure.  It reflects a mindset that blocks our ability to see God in others or in things.  A pure mindset embrace the full value of all creation – especially of each person.  It is the ability to see God in others.

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”  You cannot be a maker of peace when hostility fills you within.  There is a need to be reconciled within yourself and with those around you from whom you are estranged or in conflict.  The danger of anger is how close it bring you to the loss of love.  Anger quickly turns to judgment and judgment to condemnation.  Makers of peace put relationship ahead of everything.  Love can be warm.  Love can be tough.  Love is the sign.  Love your enemies as sisters and brothers in Christ.

“Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”  When you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, when you are committed to bring justice and peace, you will naturally challenge those who desire to maintain the status quo to their advantage.  When your efforts are to seek what is just -- justice as spoken of by the Old Testament prophets, put you conflict with powers that be and you suffer because of it, that is the time to be happy!  Don’t be happy because you are suffering, but because you are faithful.  You belong to God’s new creation and that is true without a doubt.

Which beatitude excites you?  Which beatitude draws you or seems clearest to you?  Ask yourself, “how can I incorporate that teaching in depth into my life today?  What help do I need to do this?

            Which beatitude really challenges you?  All of them are challenging.  The key is this:  we can’t live any of them and stay where we are.  Inner transformation is essential.  We have to be taking on the mind of Christ, the perspective of Jesus.  Transformation is not a magical change of a person’s nature, but it is a change of nature.  It begins with choice and continues with practice.  It is the gift of the Spirit.

            Ask yourself, “What small step can I take to embrace that teaching, that beatitude, in my life today?  What help do I need to do this?  Ask God for the will, the courage, the clarity, and whatever else you need.

Do you believe that living life fully is one of the most important of Jesus’ teachings?  How does your beatitude, the one you selected, reflect life lived to the full?

            As a congregation, it’s not a matter of knowing our favorite or most challenging beatitude, which one excites and connects for us, which one challenges us.  We are excited by all of them just as             we are challenged by all of them. 

            There are certain ways of worshiping, teaching, witnessing, and ministering we’ll do well.  We pretty well know who we are.  We know as well as anyone can the direction we need to go.  There is a large degree of commitment by this congregation to this congregation.  There is lots of love.  There is lots of desire to touch and bring healing as well as to reach out and expand this community.

It is time to trust the Spirit’s presence.  Let’s do it.  Let us be church as God has called us and as God guides us.  We know the way already.  It lies straight ahead of us.

            After finishing the beatitudes and all of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, according to Matthew’s gospel, said “whoever hears and does these words of mine is wise, with a solid foundation.”  They own “a piece of the rock!” that rests in the Spirit.

             We ask to know God’s will

without guessing

that God’s will

is written into

our very beings” (O’Connor)

            We will not experience

            the full revealing

            of the identity we have been given or

            the direction we are being led

until we give ourselves

fully to the journey

living what we already know

in our bones

            We have often affirmed that life is a journey and that the journey is our home.  Let us be on our way, walking in the Spirit each day, in Jesus’ name.