Blessed

For the past several months, I’ve been trying to find a church.  This is quite a lot like dating…

There is a first impression based on appearance.  You seek out and wait for similarities to arise, subconsciously hoping the experience is to some extent a reflection of yourself.  You compare the reality to your ideal and measure the proximity or distance of one against the other.  (A strongly foul odor would immediately mean a no go...)

And, like dating, I have my priorities: excellent (and educated) Biblical teaching, a moving worship service, and strong community, i.e. friendly seeming people.  I specify that the people must seem friendly because there is no way one could deduce their true level of friendliness from just one visit.  But I stand a better chance that the people are friendly if they seem so.

Needless to say, my search has yielded few results worth revisiting. (Much like dating…)  Perhaps my priorities are too demanding.  Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places and haven’t met the “right church” yet. 

I’ve noticed, however, that as I walk with God, my priorities are shifting, or better: reordering. Hearing the right message or singing the right songs has grown less important than finding the right community...

A little while ago, I spent a good amount of time in the gospel of Matthew.  Reading Matthew brings Judaism to life.  Jesus is never more Jewish in his customs and teachings than in Matthew.  He is truly the Law and the Prophets fulfilled, page after page.  Very early on in Matthew, we read the Sermon on the Mount.  This here, Folks, is the end of all wars, the ultimate code of human behavior, the highest calling, the best living, the whole description of the human being in perfect relation to self, God, and others.  If only we all lived by these words…

The Sermon starts with what has come to be known as the Beatitudes:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…

(Matthew 5:3-11, New International Version)

I spent some time here…

Blessed are the poor in spirit…  This word “poor” doesn’t mean wanting, blue collar, or hard up.  That isn’t the word Jesus chose.  The word he chose means destitute, beyond hope for “upward mobility,” begging, at the mercy of the charity of others.  I can only speak for myself, but I simply don’t enjoy that level of neediness.  I don’t take fish; I learn how to fish.  I’m a “I’ll-take-it-from-here” kind of person, not a “can-you-do-this-for-me-explain-this-again” kind of person.  But here’s Jesus: telling me I’m blessed if I’ve got my hat in my hand…

Blessed are those who mourn...  I’m familiar with grief.  I’ve paced the hallowed halls in the house of mourning (Eccl. 7:4) a few times in my life.  I’ll be honest again here: it’s not the mourning that’s the most difficult.  There is a beauty in mourning that I’ve learned to embrace.  It’s the kind of company I offer when I’m mourning that presents the difficulty.  I’m pensive, quiet, heavy, distracted from life with thoughts of death, and I fear the rejection and abandonment of others who can’t stand the weight.  And here’s Jesus: telling me I’m blessed when I’m the girl on the street with the heaviest heart…

Blessed are the meek...  The gentle.  Those with a soft touch, a tender reaction.  Those who provide the cushion for the blows of life.  My heart screams out, “But I’ve been hurt!  I’d be gentle if I believed it was safe.  But it’s never, ever safe.  Gentleness is for the weak.”  The part of my heart that is armed and protected behind walls of stone rages at the thought of gentleness.  Gentleness is a close cousin to vulnerability.  And here’s Jesus: telling me I’m blessed if I choose to live from conscious vulnerability instead of passive brutality…

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…. We watch the news in horror, especially of late, at the depravity of our human race on display.  We shake our heads, maybe we say a prayer, and then return to the cocoon of our safe and predictable lives.  We yearn for a better world, a more loving society.  We gasp at the horrors around us or inwardly hurt when a good deed goes unnoticed, unrequited.  We want goodness.  I don’t particularly enjoy the state of hunger or thirst.  It’s a state of wanting, needing, yearning, pining, dreaming, fantasizing, and ultimately not being satisfied.  And here’s Jesus: telling me I’m blessed when I’m in agony for more love in myself, in the world…

Blessed are the merciful…  The truth is that to forgive releases the heart of the one who was injured, not just the offender.  But unforgiveness carries a special deception that masks that truth: to not forgive is to maintain a false sense of power.  The offended party, by not forgiving the wrong done to them, holds their anger and hurt like a shield.  It is indeed a false protection, but difficult to detect.  Unforgiveness is the heart’s way of saying, “by not letting this go, I guarantee that you can’t hurt me again.”  Forgiving appears to be unsafe, again placing us in a vulnerable position.  As I mentioned above, this is a sophisticated lie, but it is believed and practiced by all of us to some extent, at some time or another.  And here’s Jesus: telling me that to let it go is freedom…

Blessed are the pure in heart… Purity.  Innocence.  Benevolence.  Gone are the thoughts, intentions, and deeds of malice, vengeance, superiority, comparison of one against the other, or dominance.  Like unforgiveness, we use the above as weapons of control, however false.  We reflect on our appearance, our intelligence, our cars, our status, our degrees, our bank accounts, our strengths as means of assigning our worth and social desirability.  We do not see one another as brothers and sisters and simply want to serve and elevate one another above ourselves.  No.  We love the appearance of such virtue while we clutch the souvenirs of our significance with a white-knuckled grip.  Jesus says that loosening that grip, letting go of our symbols of worthiness, and being wholly concerned with loving God and others with a whole heart - this is to be blessed.

Blessed are the peacemakers… I recall a fight breaking out on a stairwell platform during middle school.  I had been walking up the stairwell with friends between classes, and, upon seeing the fight, I rushed into the middle of the blows, unafraid of being struck, and demanded that the boys stop with both arms outstretched between them.  I simply hated violence, and standing by watching or cheering while two peers sought to draw each other's blood was unacceptable to me.  As a result, I was mocked by my peers for being “uncool” and stopping the fight and chastised by my teachers for endangering myself.  The message was: don’t get involved; it’s none of your business.  And maybe it wasn’t, but being a peacemaker always involves stepping into conflict and risking harm from the blows that inevitably fly.  It’s placing oneself in danger personally or physically, for the greater safety… Jesus says that in this effort, in this intention, we are blessed.

Blessed are those who are persecuted… This one got a double mention.  Since I’ve become a Christian, I’ve had people step out of my life intentionally for the very choice.  People I believed were family.  I won’t compare this to true martyrs who are beaten, tortured, and killed for Christ.  But I will say that in my life, I’ve cried, grieved, and ached over the pain my choice to follow Christ has meant.  I’ve certainly been mocked to my face.  I’ve endured the condescending “patience” and “lectures” of those who believe they’re far above the "simplistic" confines of religious thought.  I’ve felt abandoned, confused, lonely, grieved, saddened, and angry.  Here’s Jesus: blessed are you, Vanessa.

~ ~ ~

I sat in stunned silence that particular morning when I realized what the way of Christ is: destitution, grief, vulnerability, yearning, forgiveness, innocence, purity, courage, and outright rejection.  While all of these states of being are accompanied by promises of reward and fulfillment, this is a difficult road to walk.

And I realized what I really want in community… people who understand this.  See, the above list doesn’t describe followers of Jesus Christ on our worst day.  If we are being honest, this is who we are every day.  Imagine a society where goodness prevails, purity is prized rather than power, and brokenness is expected.  Jesus called this his church.  A community of broken, vulnerable, courageous souls... yearning for a better world, willing to stand in the fight.