Texts:
Ruth 4:13-22
Psalm 37: 1-17
Philemon 1:1-25
Luke 6:17-26

I must confess that, like most preachers, there are texts that I just don't like preaching on. Of course, many of us generally don't like those transfiguration texts, simply because we don't know what to make of them. After all, what preacher wants to admit that he/she doesn't really know what the text means? But perhaps even more troubling than the transfiguration texts are these Beatitudes. I confess before God and you, brothers and sisters, I really don't like preaching on these Beatitudes -- and especially Luke's version. It's not because they are difficult to exegete. Quite the opposite: their meaning is all too clear. Exploring my resistance to their message, I suspect, could be a sermon -- or a therapy session -- in and of itself. Yet, it's really not all that complicated. The truth is, the Beatitudes cut to the heart of the faith in such an incisive way that they are disturbingly confronting.

My resistance can easily be voiced on an intellectual level by raising serious questions about Jesus' words. Do these words not leave the door open for romanticizing poverty? Do they not leave the door open for a sort of idolizing of poverty and mourning: the poorer I am, the more sadness I bear, or the more abuse that I take for being a prophetic voice, the more God will bless me. Indeed these are nice intellectual ways to respond, but my resistance to these texts is deeper than cognitive thought -- for a person living in affluence, these are just plain difficult words to hear, especially Luke's version. There can be no getting around it, Jesus probably meant exactly what he said: Blessed are the poor…yes those who live in poverty as distinguished from those of us who don't! And blessed are the hungry….yes, those who will go to bed tonight without food and whose stomachs growl because there is nothing in them.

What could Jesus have meant? Is poverty something to which I should aspire for the sake of God's blessing? Is hunger something I should desire so that I will be blessed by God? And if it is that he was speaking directly to those who were sitting right out there on the margins of society -- the truly poor and hungry, the truly grief stricken, those who were excluded from the mainstream of society for the sake of the faith -- what in God's name can these words mean for me and for those of us who are not poor, those of us who will eat more than our fill tonight, or those of us who enjoy a place of privilege in society?

If there's any entrée that I have into this array of states of being for which God seems to have a deep and abiding affinity, it is grief! I do know something about that -- not that it is a constant state of being in my life as poverty and hunger are for some, but at least I've been there and I know something about it…and I suspect you do, too.

And there may be our connection.

Grief, at least when acknowledged and felt, has a ways of stripping us bare. Whatever pretences we have had about our life, our security, our well being, the pain of grief pierces them all and brings us to the stark awareness that we are as vulnerable to the ultimate powers of death as anyone else. Like poverty and hunger, albeit perhaps not with the same intensity, grief has a way of bringing us to our knees. It has a way of bringing us to life's hardest reality: life is not ours to possess, to control or manipulate. When in the depths of our mourning, we know that the next day can only come out of grace, for we have neither the strength nor the will to create it on your own.

And therein may be the key to this whole text.

Blessed are they who know in the depths of their souls the extent to which they are dependent on God for their next breath! Blessed are they who are not shrouded by pretense and false illusions of themselves or the world around them. Blessed are they who have the humility to know that they are creatures, not the creator.

Is this not what the story of Ruth is really about? As a matter of fact, could we not rename the whole book and call it the story of Naomi? For who is it that is really stripped bare? Who is it that really faces the threat of poverty and non-existence? Naomi not only loses her husband and sons, she faces the distinct possibility of the loss of life itself for no one is left to care for her. She is left to be a beggar on the street. Yet in this strange and helpless place, God creates life. Precisely in the face of extinction, Naomi -- and indeed the whole of Israel -- is given life. And it is a life not of their own making - it is all gift.

And so it is with you and me. Poverty, hunger and grief are not states of being to which we need to aspire. As a matter of fact if we were to aspire to them they would in and of themselves become idolatrous. The truth is that we are already there. Deep in our souls we know of our hunger, we know of our poverty and we definitely know our grief. The trick is that in our affluence it is difficult for us to name those places as blessing. Yet they are. For it is precisely in these places -- just as with Naomi -- that God comes in God's wonderful and creative way to give life.

So maybe when it's all said and done the Beatitudes aren't all that difficult. Maybe they are simply a sermon we need to hear every day. Indeed, blessed is the one who knows that he does not hold life as a possession. Blessed is the one who does not live under the illusion that life is hers to do with as she pleases. Blessed is the one who knows that he is held in the depths of his suffering. Blessed is she who lives in the humble awareness that all life is grace and gift.