Paying the Light Bill - A Sermon for Sunday January 29, 2023
GOSPEL: Matthew 5:1-12
The holy gospel according to Matthew.
Glory to you, O Lord.
1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
The gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
SERMON (ELW p. 206)
Do you remember as a child,
the excitement when you’d get to check the mail
and there was a letter or a card just for you?
My children used to love checking the mail box,
running ahead with the key
just in case there’s a card for them.
And it would happen,
a couple times a year,
a letter or card just for them.
It made them feel special.
Since becoming an adult,
I do not like checking the mail.
It is rarely a card or letter from a loved one.
It’s usually a bill.
I don’t like getting bills
because bills have to be paid,
and it seems that I’m the one who has to pay them!
On the one hand,
I am thankful,
because the electric bill means that
I have a refrigerator
and a television
and lights to help us see in darkness.
But I don’t need to tell you;
the light bill is expensive.
I’ve been pastoring since 2011,
and year after year,
particularly at budget time
I continue to be shocked
at how much we spend
just to keep the church lights on.
When we think of what it means to be the church today,
it might appear to an outsider
that that’s all we’re concerned with:
keeping the lights on.
What it really means to be the church today,
is what it meant to be in covenant with God
in millennia past:
we are blessed to be a blessing.
The church is not a business,
but the church is in the blessing business.
God’s work is blessing all creation
so the church finds its purpose,
we find our purpose,
in blessing.
So what does it mean to bless?
In the church, we bless marriages,
we bless people
at the close of communion and worship,
we say “Bless you” when people
do something nice for us,
or we say “Bless you” when someone sneezes.
But do we know what we are saying?
When Jesus talks about blessing
in the sermon on the mount -
Jesus is describing reality - God’s reality,
and it is backwards.
The Greek word for blessed is Makarios.
It can be translated as happy or lucky,
but those words miss the point.
You are not happy or lucky when you suffer,
but God’s blessing is yours.
God’s presence is most prominent in our suffering.
Grief is real,
suffering is real,
and it hurts.
Jesus is not singing the Bobby McFerrin song
“Don’t worry, be happy”
Rather, Jesus is saying that
God’s love and favour is yours
amidst real and genuine suffering.
The beatitudes stand in direct contrast
with the world we live in -
with the society that we have created.
So to grasp what blessing means,
we ought to remember
what blessing does NOT mean:
Imagine you bring your child to the doctor,
and she says your child needs her bloodwork done.
Your child sits in the chair,
rubber band around her arm
afraid,
unsure about this giant needle
about to go in her arm.
The ordeal is over,
the bandaid is fixed over the tiny wound,
and the nurse says,
“Aren’t you brave!
It’s all finished.
Here is a shiny sticker for you!”
The child is rewarded
for doing what is expected.
This kind of positive reinforcement
in the long run,
will make health care seem less scary,
normal even.
Anxiety and fear of the needle
is a thing of the past.
But that’s not how God’s blessings work.
God doesn’t give us a shiny sticker
when we do what God requires of us
When we do justice,
love kindness,
and walk humbly with God,
God doesn’t give us a lollipop.
Our service,
our good work in God’s name
is its own reward,
much like excellent health care
will be its own reward.
God’s children receive God’s blessing
regardless of our successes or failures.
Another example:
God does not reward or bless anyone with a big house.
God does not bless anyone with a six figure salary.
If this were the case,
then obviously God is not blessing
the millions of people
who live off of one dollar a day,
let alone the billions of people
who earn much less
than the average Canadian family.
Similarly, the family with a 5000 square foot home
is not more blessed than the family with 800 sq. ft.
God provides for our every need,
our catechism teaches this -
but this is not a reward based system.
I learned about blessing first hand
when I was in Madagascar 15 years ago-
one of the 5 poorest nations in the world,
I hang this traditional Malagasy garment in my office
to remind me.
I was warned that I will regularly find people
checking out my shoes.
I found this a little odd -
why would these people,
some of the poorest in the world,
care about my sneakers?
For those who live off about $1 per day
checking out your shoes
is like me checking out
what kind of car you drive.
Many Malagasy simply can’t afford to drive -
but they might get excited
over a nice pair of shoes.
God does not bless you with an automobile,
because then God would not be blessing
the vast majority of our world’s population
who can only dream of having an automobile,
let alone decent shoes.
People in Madagascar are no more nor less
blessed than people in Canada.
So what then is a blessing?
Fundamentally, blessing pronounces God’s favour -
Blessing is about God’s work.
Blessing announces you are
God’s beloved.
Fundamentally,
being blessed is to receive God’s grace.
Tso-drano Zava-mahery - says the garment.
“A blessing is a strong thing”
When we receive the blessing
at the close of our worship service,
and at the close of Holy Communion,
it is as a way of sending us out for God’s purposes:
for God’s mission:
to be a blessing to others,
to be a blessing for all creation.
to pronounce God’s favour on all creation.
When it comes to blessing a marriage:
it is the same.
We ask for God’s blessing upon the couple,
that they might join God’s work
and bless each other,
and those around them.
Leaning upon the words of liturgical theologian
Jann Boyd,
the blessings do not “make” the marriage,
but rather the blessing makes apparent
God’s gifts in the people
and we ask “for the fullness of God’s promises for life
to become manifest in the marriage.” -
“God blesses creation
so that all creation in its fullness honours God.
We humans who are blessed
are (then) freed to use our whole lives
to mirror to God the fullness God gives
to all that God makes.
Blessing names both the activity of God
and the freedom of our human calling before God.
Matthew’s gospel tells us that
we find that God’s blessings are perfected,
completed, in Jesus.
Blessing is always about God’s work - not ours.
So when Jesus says:
“Blessed are you who are poor in spirit” -
not only is Jesus is saying that
God looks upon you with favour,
but perhaps Jesus is inviting you
to mirror God’s fullness.
When, in God’s fullness,
you hunger and thirst for righteousness,
when you are merciful,
when you are pure in heart,
when you seek for peace,
even when you are mourning -
God looks upon you with favour,
God loves you,
and God invites you
to mirror God’s fullness.
Remember, this is not a reward system:
Indeed, great is our reward in heaven,
Yet Jesus pronounces blessing on people
without any prerequisite achievement.
Know, trust and believe
that you do not have a checklist to complete
before God will bless you -
before God will set you apart
for God’s purposes.
Remember that whether
you are filled with joy to overflowing
or at your lowest point
of pain
and grief
and suffering,
or anywhere in-between -
despite all the losses you’ve endured,
God sees your struggles,
God sees your sadness,
your anger,
your bitterness -
and God pronounces blessing on you,
and God will wipe every tear from your eye.
Your suffering is real,
but suffering does not define your future,
God’s blessing defines your future.
So rejoice and be glad, my family in Christ!
By God’s blessing,
Today, the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.
This Word is worth sharing.
Perhaps that means keeping the church lights on,
even thought it might be expensive.
Lighting up the world comes with a heavy cost.
Light is costly.
The cost to light up the world
- our world - was high.
But Christ paid that Light bill.
God’s own self took on our nature,
our sin,
our pain,
our suffering,
and it was nailed to a cross,
and it died,
and Christ rose victorious.
Light rose victorious.
Blessings shine.
By Christ’s work,
the Light of the world is still on.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness will not overcome it.
And you who are blessed by God,
You are the light of the world - Jesus teaches:
you who suffer,
you who are poor in spirit,
in mourning
the meek
the hungry
the merciful
the pure in heart
the peacemakers
the persecuted and reviled.
You are blessed,
you are the light of the world.
It is costly for us to keep the Light on:
it’ll cost forgiving others
it costs mercy
it will cost leaving aside revenge
and bitterness
it will cost our desire
to have that which we cannot have.
Yet being blessed by Jesus,
the Light of the world,
means more than we could ever ask or imagine.
It’s like when a child opens the mailbox
and finds a letter or a card that is just for them,
they are filled with joy,
with happiness,
with blessing,
because that letter or card says that they matter,
that they’re special.
In the same way,
May you receive God’s blessing this day
with the faith and joy of a child.
May you who are blessed - be a blessing:
mirroring God’s fullness each day,
trusting that it is all God’s work in you.
May Christ’s Light shine in your darkness
so that you may be the light of the world.
Thanks be to God! Amen.
Children’s Message - Backwards
I heard the lessons so far,
and thinking about the Gospel reading I’ll share in a couple minutes,
and things seem a little backwards.
God’s ways are backwards compared to the ways of this world.
What does backwards mean?
Many years ago, long before Jesus was born,
People would make sacrifices.
They might take a bunch of grain from the farm
And burn it - like a gift to God.
There are lots of things the people would sacrifice.
This is what they were told to do,
It would remind them to take their sin seriously
And to be thankful to God.
But then the prophet Micah says
How much is enough?
Instead God wants people to do justice, love kindness
Walk humbly with God.
It might have sounded backwards - not sacrifices,
But be kind to others, help those who have less.
Come with me and lets look at this icon - Jesus on the cross.
when Jesus was born, and centuries before
The people expected a powerful, military leader to save them.
But God had a different idea - a backwards idea.
Jesus, God in the flesh, didn’t fight his way to power.
Instead Jesus was willing to die a shameful death to save us.
God dying on a cross sounds backwards, foolish,
But this is where God’s love and power are shown.
We know that Jesus rose from the dead,
And we might all be saved from sin and death and evil.
This might be lots to remember today,
But lets give thanks that God’s ways are backwards to our ways.
So next time you put your shirt on backwards,
Or see someone wearing a hat backwards
Remember our backwards God who died and rose for us.
Let us pray…
Thank you Jesus, our backwards God, for saving us. Amen.
FIRST READING: Micah 6:1-8
A reading from Micah.
1Hear what the Lord says:
Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
2Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth;
for the Lord has a controversy with his people,
and he will contend with Israel.
3“O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
4For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
5O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,
what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”
6“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Word of God, word of life.
Thanks be to God.
SECOND READING: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
A reading from 1 Corinthians.
18The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
26Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Word of God, word of life.
Thanks be to God
