Sunday, March 20, 2011

Reflection on Matthew 5:13-20

“God bless you!” the grandma says to the little girl. Smiling, the girl runs off into the living room. “God bless you!” the Uncle says. The little girl giggles and runs into the dining room. Running up to the edge of the dining room table, peering over the edge to see her Mom and her aunt talking, she takes a deep breath and gives out a large sneeze. “God bless you!” the aunt says. “That was fake…you blessing stealer!” the mother playfully chastises. The little girl giggles and runs off, filled with the joy of God’s blessing.

Of course, in the middle ages, the little girl’s sneezing would not have been such a laughing matter. The blessing for the little girl would have stemmed from fear that she had caught the plague. So many people were dying that the words, “God bless you” were used to ward off what many feared was the inevitable. In the middle ages, blessing came out of fear, rather than joy.

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” the father hissed at his son. With the redness of the fight still draining from his hands, the son lowered his head. “Is that any way to solve anything? What did that little display of fists prove anyway? Blessed are the peacemakers!” the father reiterated with force in order to drive the point home.

Again, blessing is used in a context of fear. But, more than that, God’s blessing is used to reinforce failure. I think that I often hear these blessings the same way that the son did, as a reinforcement of my failure. I am not necessarily meek. I am not certain that I thirst for righteousness in the way God would like me too. After-all, you do not see me out protesting on the streets, at the courthouse, or on the lawn of the national mall for the rights of the ones God loves.

“My anger flares way too quickly for me to ever be a peacemaker.” A friend of mine once observed about himself. “You got that right,” I chimed back. “What do you mean?” he fired back immediately, somehow missing to irony of the entire conversation.

But, I do not think that Jesus intended us to hear his blessings in such a negative light. Caught in our own moral shortcomings and failures, we fail to hear the words as actual blessing. But, they were just that, bestowals of honor upon people who God cares about.

We cannot all have righteous anger when we see someone being treated unfairly. But, it is good that some of us do. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Those same people probably are not the peacemakers. Not all of us are mellow enough to sit back, see the situation from all sides, and enact a plan that will resolve the conflict. But, it is good that some of us are able. Blessed are the peacemakers.

The meek will never take charge like those with righteous anger or the peacemakers, and the mourners will be necessarily fixated on something else, but God does not forget them either. Neither does God forget those who are struggling in life; the poor in spirit. Blessed are they.

Blessed are you. People of God, do not forget that you are members of Christ family. You may be as different as the nations of the earth, but that is of no difference. Each of you is uniquely gifted and each of you is uniquely blessed. Together, we are a blessed community. So, blessed are you.

Do not forget, in your baptism, you were named child of God, never to be forgotten. Blessed are you.

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