November 5, 2023

November 5, 2023

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Matthew 5:1-12

On Thursday morning I was at my desk trying to gather my thoughts for this All Saints Day sermon. I had studied and read and pondered since Monday afternoon sometime, so some ideas were falling into place. As always happens with more thinking and pondering and studying and considering, more ideas started to fall into place, and that was good but sometimes when ideas fall into place they bump into other ideas that are already there and they don’t agree with each other. And one idea isn’t always willing just to pack up and leave to make room for the other one.

So I was trying to sort out what Jesus means when he keeps using this little word “Blessed.” Over the years I’ve been sure that he doesn’t mean that suffering is good, or that being poor in wallet or spirit is actually a blessing. And I’ve argued with people about how Jesus doesn’t mean “It’s good that you’re grieving” when he says, “Blessed are those who mourn.” I’ve been sure about so many of these things, but sometimes, and it happened this week, there’s this voice – we’ll call it the Holy Spirit – that keeps on saying, “So Paul, what makes you so sure of all that? Can you speak for everyone who has grieved? Do you know what it’s like for that person over there to be poor in spirit? Do you know that it might be different for them than for you?” Can you tell someone who Jesus calls “blessed” exactly what Jesus has in mind for them?

So I was feeling cluttered in mind and spirit, and honestly, I still wasn’t sure what exactly Jesus means with the little word “blessed.” Maybe I never have been.

And then a saint came into the office to talk to Sandra about something, and that same saint poked their head into my office door and asked how I was doing. I thought for a minute and said with kind of a laugh, “My brain is scattered and flustered.” And that wise saint from Epiphany thought for a minute and said, “It must be the moon. Or – it’s All Souls Day. How can you have your thoughts together? We’re in two places at once.”

Over these All Saints Days, from the evening of October 31st to the evening of November second, and now this morning, we are in two places at once. We’re all doing the things we do – working or looking for work, or getting supper ready or studying for an exam or going to the gym or struggling with whatever we struggle with and just generally doing what we do to get through another day…and at the same time we’re remembering all those who are not doing those anymore, who have died and who are now somewhere else – however you understand that “somewhere else” that we call heaven but really don’t understand. We saints are here in our day-to-day lives, and we remember saints we’ve known and all the ones we don’t know, who are not here…but still sort of here…. Some people say that around this time of year heaven and earth are closer to each other than at any other time.

Maybe right now, more than at any other time, we find that we are in two places at once. A foot in heaven and a foot on earth. A foot in the present and a foot in the past in a world of regret or nostalgia, or a foot in the present and a foot in the future in a world of hope or a world of worry.

We’re in two places at once, while we sit on a hillside listening to Jesus talk about the blessed ones who are out in the crowd. But we’re not just looking at the crowd. We’re also out there in the crowd, aren’t we? Maybe one or a bunch of us know what it is to be poor in Spirit or broken in Spirit, and it’s hard to believe or trust, or there is just something inside that is just barely able to keep going some days. Or on a day like this All Saints Day we are the ones Jesus talks about who are mourning, and maybe it feels like a blessing to let that all out or it doesn’t feel like a blessing at all to be that sad. Maybe we are the merciful or the peacemakers who are blessed, even when we know that it’s easier sometimes just to choose sides or to turn away or get revenge than it is to try to make peace.

All those people Jesus talks about are in two places at once, and maybe we all are: In a place called Poor in Spirit, and at the same time we are in a place called Blessed. In a place called Merciful at the same time as a place called Blessed. In a place called Mourning, Grieving, at the same time as a place called Blessed.

I was in another kind of two places at once this week while I drove in the solitude of my car – that’s one place - through a neighbourhood full of people – that’s a different place. Two places at once. I was listening to a program on CBC called What on Earth – maybe you know it; it’s all about the environmental crisis and some of the ways that people are trying to respond to it and turn it around. On this episode the Laura Lynch was interviewing a journalist from the U.S. and a Palestinian/Israeli scientist who lives in East Jerusalem. They have both worked for years in different settings in Israel and Palestine, and their work has been focused on addressing environmental issues that affect both Israelis and Palestinians, especially issues of water quality and water scarcity. For both of them, their work brings together Palestinians and Israelis to collaborate on common problems, and they have come to see their work as something that builds peace. Instead of seeing each other as potential enemies, they see other people who share the same climate. And so as one of them said, “Climate unites us.”

The Palestinian scientist, Tareq Abu Hamed, said that this kind of working together has helped to build understanding over the years. They talk about it every day. And then he said this: “These people doing this environmental work gives us the chance to see the human in the other. That’s a game changer.”

I could imagine Palestinians and Israelis learning to see each other that way over the years. In times like these times that we are in today that might get stretched really thin, but if they’ve learned to see the human in the other maybe it gives them something strong to hold on to and something that keeps coming up when it’s tempting to see each other only as enemies or strangers again. They’ve had all this chance to see the human in the other.

Maybe it’s a bit like that for us when we listen on a hillside in Galilee or on a flat spot in Winnipeg. Jesus says “Blessed are all these people: The poor in Spirit, the grieving ones, the meek, the ones who are hungry for justice – that’s another way to translate the word for righteousness, by the way - the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the ones who are persecuted.” And when Jesus calls all those people blessed he’s teaching us again that they are human. They’re not projects or problems or causes. They’re human. And they are blessed. And they are a blessing.

When Jesus calls all these people blessed he’s teaching us and helping us to see all the people around us as human. Nobody is just someone to be pitied, or to be put up with. Nobody is a problem to be solved, and nobody needs to be made into something better. Nobody is an annoyance to be ignored, nobody is just some pesky person trying to make impossible peace. They are all blessed. It’s like Jesus gathers up all of these people in the crowd, and he says, “See all of these people, all of these people we can call all kinds of different things? I will keep calling them one thing. Blessed.”

Everyone around us is more than what we think we see. Everyone is human. And Jesus says they’re all blessed. Just imagine how differently we will see the world around us when we keep on remembering that we are surrounded by blessed people.

And remember that way back, when God called Abraham and Sarah to go to a new home, where they would be blessed and they would be a blessing to everyone? Just imagine how differently we will see the world around us when we remember that we are surrounded by blessed people who are a blessing.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Once he’s finished reminding us that all of those people are blessed, he turns to his disciples, to us, and says, “Blessed are you. When you are persecuted or ignored or called all kinds of names. Blessed are you when you’re not popular or feeling like you’re particularly blessed. Blessed are you, maybe even and especially when you think you’re maybe not worth much.”

And imagine how differently we will see ourselves when we remember that we are not a problem to be solved, or something to be improved upon or made into something else. “Blessed are you,” we, us. And you, we, are a blessing. Not when we’ve gotten better at something. But right now.

So what about All Saints? What about being in two places at once? Jesus says Blessed are they and Blessed are you, and he gathers us all together into one people called blessed, where we see each other as human, as blessed, and as a blessing. What about being in two places at once? It’s true that we can feel scattered and like we’re kind of in two places and once in all those ways we pondered before. But on the other hand, today we remember that we are in one place - the Body of Christ. One place – the communion of saints. Regular people – humans – here and there and then and now and yet to come. One people blessed. One people a blessing.