03/20/2023
I enjoyed Pastor Jessica’s sermon Sunday in which she looks at the Sermon on the Mount, and specifically the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 as “a map of where we can find Jesus.” Listening to her exploration of where and how we might best discover Jesus, Jessica did point out his unique identification with the poor and hurting of our world. It reminded me of the following from a Catholic theologian and churchwoman.
Author Monika Hellwig suggests that there may be a reason that the Hebrew and Christian God consistently goes out of His way to lift up the poor and their plight. She offers a variety of “advantages” that she’s put into the beatitude format famously used by Jesus. After all, those beatitudes—both in Luke and Matthew begin with “Blessed are the poor….”
Blessed are the poor for they rest their security not on things but on people.
Blessed are the poor because they do not have an exaggerated sense of their own importance, nor an exaggerated need for privacy.
Blessed are the poor because they expect little from competition and much from cooperation.
Blessed are the poor because they can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.
Blessed are the poor because they already know that with God’s help it is possible to survive great suffering and want.
Blessed are the poor because when the gospel is preached to them, it sounds like good news and not like a scolding.
Blessed are the poor because they are free to respond to the call of Jesus with abandon. The poor are especially blessed because they have so little to lose and almost everything to gain.
I think if Jesus were speaking to us today, in person, he’d close this list of blessings with: “Blessed are the well-off who come to the aid of the poor and blessed are the poor who aid the well-off in seeing the good news in a new light.”
*I excerpted and ‘beatitudized’ this from Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew
Archived Posts
Back and Forth with Chat GPT
Many of you know that I’ve found a new consultant to bounce my ideas off in regard to preaching. My good buddy Chat GPT and I sometimes disagree—often miscommunicate—but usually come up with some fruitful illustrations.
One More Thing About Becoming Wholly Human
I was talking Sunday about the work of Hare and Woods and their idea of ‘the survival of the friendliest.’ Essentially, they conclude that “our greatest evolutionary advantage wasn't that we could do everything ourselves. It was that we could do things together.”
Here’s a preview of our congregation’s Core Values
In the coming weeks we will be exploring the importance of presence, prayers, gifts, service, witness, and growth in grace. These are at the heart of what we commit to when we join a Wesleyan grace-led church like ours. But we choose to broaden them out and state them in a new way…
The Biblical prayer we don’t know what to do with
Psalm 137 is written by people who have experienced catastrophic loss.
They have been conquered...
Patience and Trust
Sunday, in my benediction (which traditional folks did not hear) I talked about the Marshmallow Test. The original results of that test with children was that those who could delay gratification did better in life than those who could not.
Gandhi and the Sugar
I wasn’t preaching Sunday, Reverend Jackie Chandler was. And she talked about the power of influence you get when you practice what you preach. This famous illustration came to mind. It fits Jackie’s points quite well. Enjoy!
Not Just for Parents
Our current sermon series is about How To Talk Parent, but it doesn’t require any of us to be parents to appreciate the bits of wisdom OUR parents shared with us growing up.