Thank you for helping me with that reading. I couldn’t think of a better way to get the blessed emphasis right! (1) It’s hard for many of us to hear the blessedness in the Beatitudes. I once heard someone say, “I’m just not a fan of the platitudes – I mean – the Beatitudes.” She didn’t say why, but my guess is that the Beatitudes often get used in a way that makes us feel excluded from the blessings. Perhaps we hear the Beatitudes as some kind of tired old yardstick that proves yet again that we don’t quite measure up. Maybe we don’t want to be reminded that while we might not fit these descriptions of blessed ones, our lives could change in a flash and we could find ourselves begging for relief. Or maybe we fit the descriptions of the blessed ones and we are not persuaded by the words of Jesus because they sound trite and dull and unable to stand up to how awful we actually feel.

One of my seminary professors, biblical scholar Larry Wills, used to say that if you find something uninspiring in scripture, always ask if you are missing something. I like the elbowroom that he gives with the word if – ask if you are missing something. In my experience, I’m always missing something when I come across a passage of scripture that leaves me cold. I love the story of the old Carmelite nun who responded to the observation that she had read scripture daily for so many years with this, “I read the text until it surprises me!” (2) This time through with the Beatitudes I started thinking more deeply about blessedness – and about what the opposite of a blessing is: a curse.

You know, in ancient times, in the olden days, people believed that a curse released a negative power that could shape future events. They believed a blessing released a positive power that could shape future events. And I have to tell you, I think they were right. It’s not about magic or superstition for me. It’s something about the power of envisioning a future – the power of envisioning a future with or without the necessary resources. The visioning itself contains power to shape the future. As I thought more about the power to shape the future, I realized that all three of our readings today are about curses and blessings.

In our scripture reading from Micah, the last two verses are so beautiful and compelling that they eclipse the first part of the passage. In it God is imploring God’s people to listen and remember. In the Hebrew Bible, God actually says please (hundreds of times). I think please is the least translated most important word in Hebrew scripture. In Hebrew, this passage reads: Please hear. Please remember. Please hear – you have been redeemed from slavery (in other words, stop acting like slaves). You have been given great leaders in Moses and Aaron and Miriam (in other words, stop acting like you don’t know how to behave). Please remember what happened with King Balak and Balaam, please remember what happened from Shittim to Gilgal. Now this is the part that is supposed to make us laugh – to make us know that this is more of a gentle chiding than a harsh rebuke.

This is the part that is supposed to make us laugh because what happened with King Balak and his prophet Balaam is a hilarious tale from the Torah. (3) It’s the story of a talking donkey and a comic reversal of a curse into a blessing and the triumph of the people of Israel over a wicked enemy. “O my people, please remember that very funny story about Balaam and his talking ass and what was supposed to be a curse turning into a blessing,” says the Lord. “I don’t require the prostrations or the oppressive sacrifices. What I want is for you to behave justly, love mercy (wherever you encounter it) and go humbly with me,” says the Lord. “This is how I want you to go forward. This is how I want you to shape the future,” says the Lord.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is also about a curse turned into a blessing – a convicted criminal suffering the most humiliating and excruciating death ever devised, turned into a redemptive story about how even death does not have the last word when it comes to Divine Love. Paul knows that a savior who gets crucified is utter foolishness to those who are seeking conventional wisdom and completely scandalous to those who are seeking conventional power. With a rhetorical tour de force, Paul is writing to his audience in a way that communicates implicitly, “You are very intelligent and have experienced the power of the Spirit; I’m so surprised you didn’t get this! God has made a blessing out of what looked like the worst curse ever.” This is what Paul wanted the church in Corinth to remember as they went forward, navigating their arguments and their divisions. God can turn curses into blessings.

 It seems to me that this is what Jesus is talking about as he began to teach his disciples. He saw the crowds, Matthew tells us just before today’s passage: the large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. People from everywhere who were sick, who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and Jesus cured them and they started following him to see what next! Jesus went up the proverbial mountain and sat down like any good teacher would, and his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak.

According to Matthew, Jesus delivered what has become known as the Sermon on the Mount. (In Luke, it’s known as the Sermon on the Plain.) He was teaching his disciples, but we know that the crowd was listening in because when he gets to the end, Matthew tells us that the crowds were amazed. I have to tell you that I had always read the idea that the crowds had been able to hear Jesus’ teaching as Gospel hyperbole, and maybe it is. But when I visited the Sea of Galilee and climbed up the little mountain on the western shore, I learned first hand the natural amplification provided by the limestone caves that can function as little amphitheaters. Someone speaking in a conversational tone of voice at the mouth of such a cave can be heard from a remarkable distance. So teaching the disciples so that the crowds can hear doesn’t seem like such a stretch to me anymore.

It is a stretch, however, to hear and receive blessings whenever what we feel is spiritual impoverishment or crushing grief. It’s a stretch to imagine that gentleness will prevail in the face of power plays, and mercy will beget mercy, and that it’s humbleness, it’s lack of guile that will clear our vision so that we will see God. It’s a stretch to imagine that people who make compromises to make peace will be called children of God rather than illegitimate, and that people mistreated, slandered and scorned for their acts of justice and loving kindness will experience the blessings of the realm of God – the realm of God which has come near. (You know, when Matthew speaks of heaven, he is using a placeholder word for the Name which is too holy to speak out loud. The kingdom of heaven, for Matthew, means the realm of God, and it is very near.)

It’s also a stretch to remember that, as my friend Gretchen Grimshaw says, these are the Be-attitudes, not the Do-attitudes. This teaching is not about what to do in order to receive God’s blessing. The Beatitudes are not directives or imperatives or prescriptions for well-being. The Beatitudes are blessings conferred on people who thought they were cursed. They are descriptive of the drama of God’s shalom; reminders of what the Torah teaches about God’s special concern for any who are marginalized and vulnerable, pressed down and pushed out, shamed and ashamed. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed. Nine times blessed.

Here’s the thing. These blessings are proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount before even one instruction is given. And the first instruction in this sermon on this mount? Rejoice and be glad. Chin up. God is going to make something out of this mess. Maybe you know the saying, “With all this manure there has to be a pony here somewhere.” Rejoice and be glad because nothing, not even death, has the power to separate us from the love of God. There is no sorrow, there is no shame that God cannot heal. There is no sin, there is no suffering that God cannot redeem. For those of you who are sitting there thinking, “Oh yeah? You haven’t seen mine,” I say it’s not about filling up the holes blown in your hearts or about a nice tidy package of happiness wrapped up in a bow. It’s about doing the next right thing. It’s about loving kindness – especially kindnesses extended to people other than yourselves. It’s about putting one humble foot in front of the other.  

Emmanuel Church, please hear that God’s blessings precede all our efforts to do whatever is right, and to love whatever is kind, and to be humble as we go. Please hear that. Please remember God’s ability to turn curses into blessings, to turn tragedies into triumphs. Please remember that. Please hear that you are God’s beloved. Please remember to claim your citizenship in God’s realm. Emmanuel Church, please hear and please remember that this is the beginning of the story – not the end of the story. Please know that your blessedness has the power to shape the future.