Before
Jesus’ Birth, Mary sings her famous song, the Magnificat,
about God scattering the proud and bringing down the powerful,
about uplifting the lowly and filling the empty stomachs of the hungry.
Before
Jesus’ baptism, John describes repentance as,
the unjust playing fair and everyone sharing.
Jesus’
parables are peppered with stories of reversals,
and his teaching warns against trusting in religious purity, piety, or societal
pecking orders.
His whole
ministry really, is a series of reversals:
a virgin giving birth,
the Messiah crucified,
the dead arising.
Jesus will turn your world upside-down
Prayer
Jesus will turn your world upside-down
-Who doesn’t want to be spoken well of?
-Who doesn’t like mirth and laughter?
-Aren’t good and filling meals magnificent!
-Haven’t we built a society around acquisition and gain?
But Jesus
looks those disciples right in the eye,
and says, “That’s not why you follow me. That’s not the meaning of
blessing.”
He gives these
Beatitudes and his “Sermon the Plain” right after a horde of hurt and sick
people surrounded him, and he heals the lot of them.
A miraculous
thing that he has done, one that goes completely unnoticed by the well and
unwounded.
They, believing themselves invulnerable,
trusting in their own devices and the many ways the dice of fate has landed
well for them…
they miss that the savior of the whole world is in their neighborhood.
They miss Christ, because they don’t need him.
They don’t desire what he freely offers,
a life turned upside-down.
But for
those who know themselves as vulnerable,
the excluded and abandoned,
the impoverished and broken down,
the folks worried about their SNAP benefits going away,
the people searching for and preparing their dead after the hurricane
—holding back tears,
so they can do the unimaginable.
Yes, Jesus, turn my life upside-down.
Yes,
blessing is most keenly experienced amid need!
Disciples of Jesus Christ
—we his followers who he casts his eyes upon before preaching this message
—are called there,
to those needs,
called to be little Christs.
It’s been
interesting to watch people following Jesus,
as government food assistance is nudged to the brink of disappearance
—brigades of do-gooders swing into action,
packing and
purchasing
and preparing
And people of good will asking, “how can we help?”
I’m emptying our outdoor donation bin daily.
(None of these things are forever solutions, but maybe we can hold
the line until the cavalry arrives)
Simiarly, Lutheran World Relief,
and all these other similar organizations,
are on the ball, and on the ground
—and as we know they are last out kind of people,
so they won’t leave until the work is done in Jamaica and beyond!
But you might rightly say,
those are moments of emergency,
is there any beatitudes for the rest of us?
Can we be called,
when things are calm?
Well, Luther famously wrote:
“How is it possible that you are not called?
You are always in some sort of position.
You have always been a husband or a wife
or a son or a daughter or a servant.
Imagine the lowest position—as a husband
do you not have enough to do to watch over your spouse, children, workers and
property so that all might be obedient to God and no harm comes to any of them?
Indeed, even if you had four heads and ten hands you would scarcely have the
energy for such a task.
And I guarantee you would not be thinking about making a pilgrimage or doing
some so-called ‘saintly’ works.”
Our callings
come in the meantime,
in the day-in day-out faithfulness
that keeps the least from the worst
and maintains the best for the most,
caring for those closest to us
while not forgetting those far off.
I suppose it’s an upside-down sort of logic,
but, Jesus, turn our life upside-down.
Now, All
Saints can emphasize Saint or All…
or both…
that there are folks who, with the clarity of hindsight,
we can point to as clearly
loving,
blessing,
praying,
offering and not withholding,
giving,
and doing good…
truly there are saints of blessed memory…
models of faithfulness that can inspire us on…
(but most likely they were too busy with the day to day to fixate on “saintly
work” as Luther calls it…)
And also, there is the reality that we’re all
beggars
—sanctified, made right, redeemed,
by Christ…
we’re saints on account of Jesus Christ our Lord…
those things people will see in us one day,
“Wow, remember ol’ so and so, how she loved like Jesus!”
“Remember that fella from back in the day, he cared when no one else would.”
Those are works of the Spirit, that
will likely surprise even us.
And little M,
we wish these blessings
—these Beatitudes
— upon you too.
We pray that you’ll be sensitive to vulnerability,
your own and that of those around you.
That you’ll be inclined toward the beatitudes,
that you’ll have saints to look up to
and yourself be sanctified by the ongoing love of God,
the Spirit that you will be sealed with,
the life of Christ that you are clothed with,
the goodness of this baptism,
this Christian life.
I pray, and I promise, that in your baptism,
Jesus will turn your life upside-down.
Amen.
