Blessing

Day 2

Blessing

 

The message Jesus was communicating to His first hearers on that hillside under spreading skies that day (and to all of us here today, wherever we are in this world) is this: This world will have it’s challenges and we will have battles in it… but the Kingdom of God is here. Now. 

Blessed are we when we navigate life with God’s compass and live like we belong to a different Kingdom. Because we do.

His may not be a popular Kingdom among the powerful elite, and it may not always appear to be on the winning side. It will often be misunderstood or overlooked. This is not new.

God incarnate walked the dirty roads of ancient Israel, but those holding onto religious or political power simply could not see Him for who He was: The Lord of Heaven and Earth. They were so blinded by their notions of God and religion, they missed seeing God’s own face, hearing His own voice, calling them to a different way of seeing, being and living.

‘Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.’

Matthew 5:8

Blessed are those who are clear sighted, whose ways of seeing don’t cloud out God’s face or their awareness of God’s presence with them. Blessed are those whose eyes are clear, not blinkered by selfish ambition, religious pride, mixed motivations or a mind that thinks it already sees all there is to see.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.’

Matthew 5:9

Blessed are those who stand in the hard places and advocate against retaliation and vengeance for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who put down weapons and take up love, who refuse revenge and offer forgiveness, for they are clearly part of God’s own family on earth.

Much of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount expounds what ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ looks like in practice: Love your enemy, turn the other cheek, forgive, be reconciled with others. Jesus insists that God’s family looks different. Peace making is our family business. It’s how we roll in the Kingdom of God. God’s family works hard at the business of peacemaking. And it is hard work. Peace must be made before it can be kept and this has never been simple for the human race. Or popular.

‘Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:10-12

God is with those who, despite the personal cost, live the path of His Kingdom anyway.

Following Jesus and living His Kingdom path will never bring the popularity, praise or admiration of the world. It didn’t for Jesus, so we shouldn’t expect that it might for we, His followers. It brought Jesus a cross. And will for us also, in a thousand different ways.

But this has always been how this Kingdom breaks in here today, a people daily picking up their cross and following Jesus by living His way, navigating life by the compass of His love.

Most of the blessings in the Beatitudes are written as future tense “for theirs wIll be” but the one phrase that is present tense (appearing at the beginning and end of the beatitudes) is “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”. Life will have challenges, disappointments and struggle, and one day we will be comforted, inherit the earth, be filled, be shown mercy, see God and be called children of God. All these things are part of the now and not-yet life of the Kingdom.

But in our desperate need, our poverty of spirit and persecution, the Kingdom of Heaven is present with us here and now today, in this very moment, for ours is the Kingdom of Heaven.

His may not be a popular Kingdom, or the one that appears to be winning. But it has been and will continue to be the only Kingdom that will last. Forever. And every day we live by the compass of this Kingdom we participate with Jesus in the advancing of it on earth as it is in Heaven.

The message Jesus was communicating to His first hearers on that hillside under spreading skies that day (and to all of us here today, wherever we are in this world) is this: This world will have it’s challenges and we will have battles in it… but the Kingdom of God is here. Now.

Blessed are you when you navigate life with God’s compass and live like you belong to a different Kingdom.

Because you do.

 

Journaling Journey

What does it mean to you that the Kingdom of heaven is a present reality now for the poor in spirit and the persecuted, while the other circumstances mentioned are future tense?

In what ways do these beatitudes reframe your attitudes about blessing, about your life, about the way the world works?

If you were to live life in the light of these scriptures how would your perspective change?

 

Todays hillside photograph is taken from the Malvern Hills, Worcestershire, UK.

 

References:

*Richard Rohr, ‘Jesus Plan For A New World: The Sermon on the Mount’ 1996, St Anthony Messenger Press, Ohio

** ‘Good Friday, The Long Walk’ Liz Campbell