501 Duncan Road, Wilmington, Delaware 19809
Gather with us at 10 a.m. Sunday as we join our neighbors at Presbyterian Church of the Covenant for a joint Service of Lessons and Carols.
Savor the readings, the special music and the fellowship we have in Christ.
PCOC is at 503 Duncan Road, Wilmington 19809.
Editors note: This is the fourth in an Adult Forum series on the Beatitudes, a class with Pastor David E. Mueller. We have been meeting at 10 a.m. on Sundays (between the 9 a.m. service and the 11 a.m. service). The series resumes on Sunday, January 12. Join us in the Great Room for the class!
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6)
Our “holy hike” with Jesus Christ thus far has taken us through some fairly deep forest as well as steep incline. We have remained below the tree line, so to speak, but the going hardly has been easy. We were stripped of our typical concerns and attitudes about the world, especially the spiritual ones, and became “poor in spirit.” We attempted to mourn the loss of what and who we may have left behind. We have hopefully gained new insight as we learned the quiet strength of meekness. Obviously most if not all of what we are experiencing on this trip up the mountain is different from and at times in direct conflict with what we have been used to. Yet each step along the way we have been assured by Jesus Christ regarding the “blessedness/happiness” of it all.
We are not quite out of the woods yet and the climbing gets particularly tough today. The incline is steep, even cliff-like. Increasingly we need to hang together, as physical mountain climbers must. Here again we realize that we cannot make this climb alone. Jesus puts us in developing community. We have become poor TOGETHER; faced mourning TOGETHER; realized the power of meekness TOGETHER. Today, therefore, we hear Jesus share, “Blessed ARE THOSE who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
The direction here is clearly onward and upward. “Righteousness” is something to be reached for. There remains a strong temptation to look back and go back down. Righteousness, however, is ahead and not behind. The image is a very natural one. People making a long hard climb become naturally hungry and thirsty, for nourishment, sustenance, a continued filling of hearts left empty at the journey’s beginning.
As is often the case within the Kingdom of God, asking the right questions is far more important than having simple, and often false, answers. A difference between those making this holy hike and those not, may be in our willingness to ask appropriate questions. Please risk looking back down where we had been just this once.
In your past what have been passions for you? To hunger and thirst for something is being driven to it; finding it difficult to deny and live without it.
Many people bounce from pleasure to pleasure, position to position, success to success, cause to cause, etc. to etc. At a distance, it may seem challenging, exciting, satisfying. Up close another story often surfaces. It can be a horror story about people on the run. The running is not so much to the next thing, whatever it may be, as away from the last, having looked for, hungered and thirsted for, perhaps coming close to but never quite having that place or space to call home. It is a tale about those who desperately wish to but cannot stop and genuinely say: “This is it! This is where the running stops. I have found my satisfaction and fulfillment. I am really where I want to be.”
In some ways and to some degree this is about all of us. Granted, age and life-stage may have much to do with this. Chances are, the older one is, the more settled one is. Is settled, however, mere capitulation to reality? The main question remains: Are you settled where you want, need and desire to be? Have you hungered and thirsted for what matters to you and finally gotten satisfied?
We all have our dreams, notions, and images and also fears about the future. It may be in the right lane and not the fast lane that we have been traveling, but it is still an interstate. It is not a relaxing and pretty country drive for most of us. There are those who for various reasons gave up their Eastern or Midwestern roots and moved South or West to find their dream. Some are still in transit! Others have driven off into the sunset and experienced not their dream fulfilled but their worst nightmare revealed.
To walk and climb with Jesus is NOT merely an escape from what was, however enjoyed or detested, but an opportunity to discover something genuinely new and different. It is a chance to experiment with a life style many might think of as strange, but one which can be exciting, challenging, fulfilling, satisfying, even passionate, a chance to be home?
Another way of asking an appropriate question here is: Does what you have committed yourself to satisfy and fulfill you? Honestly? Do those places, people, positions in which you have invested time, energy and money produced the anticipated outcomes?
Is righteousness your primary passion? Do you enjoy the company of righteous people? Clearly at this point in the holy climb, righteousness is up ahead and not yet. It is to be seen but not yet sensed otherwise. But has it become the driving force to go on? Are you weary and famished but aware of the banquet feast soon to be realized? Can you grasp, in deepening as well as heightening faith, that righteousness is well worth having given up all else, that righteousness is the prime thing sought? But what is righteousness in the mind of Jesus?
There are those who define righteousness in moralistic or pietistic terms: good behavior; the avoidance of the nasty, naughty, sometimes truly nauseating behavior all too characteristic of our world. It is deeper than that, however. It is never just personal.
I bow to Martin Luther here:
“That man is righteous and blessed who continually works and strives with all his might to promote the general welfare and the proper behavior of everyone and who helps to maintain and support this by word and deed, by precept and example.” (LW, AE, Vol. 21, Page 26)
He wrote further: “It is not by accident that He (Jesus) uses the term ‘hunger and thirst’ for righteousness. By it, He intends to point out that this requires great earnestness, longing, eagerness and unceasing diligence and that where this hunger and thirst is lacking, everything will fail.” (Page 27)
Finally, he wrote: “The command to you is not to crawl into a corner or into the desert, but to run out … and to offer your hands and your feet and your whole body, and to wager everything you have and can do. You should be the kind of man who is firm in the face of firmness, who will not let himself be frightened off or dumbfounded or overcome by the world’s ingratitude or malice … one that looks for nothing and cares for nothing except the accomplishment and maintenance of the right, despising everything that hinders this end.” (also, Page 27)
Happiness/blessedness eludes most folk because they are looking in all the wrong places, not just morally wrong, but incomplete, unsatisfying. Righteousness is what is lacking and needed most in our world, seasoned obviously with justice. This is what Christians are to long for in the deepest regions of their hearts. We need to talk about love as Christians. Love, without what is right and just, is just another four-letter word and a vulgar one at that. We must speak of peace. Making peace is what the children of God do, but if peace does not come from joy over what is right and just, then it is spiritual hype and not hope.
We need to talk about love as Christians. Love, without what is right and just, is just another four-letter word and a vulgar one at that. We must speak of peace. Making peace is what the children of God do, but if peace does not come from joy over what is right and just, then it is spiritual hype and not hope.
Look at the movement of things here again. Before Jesus spoke of righteousness, we had to shed ourselves of our self-righteous, self-serving, self-satisfying spirits, grieve their loss, accept with meekness the promises of Christ. Then and only then could we open the door to what is truly right.
How about this statement of Jesus not long after the Beatitudes: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of God.” (Matthew 5:20) One of the revealing observations Jesus made about Pharisees is that they were like “white-washed tombs.” (Matthew 23:27). At least this means that they looked good on the outside but stank on the inside. The righteousness we are to hunger and thirst for is inside/out, where the hunger and thirst exist. How about this one: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
Jesus Christ has put together this journey and has personally invited us to take it with him. Along the way everything is grounded in him and makes utterly no sense without him. We are speaking today of his righteousness. It is not just good behavior but commitment to what God has established as right. It is getting in touch with God and becoming rich in His Spirit and knowing comfort in Him. It is discovering true strength in meekness and not in physical, financial, national, or any other muscle. It is willingness to die for what is right and good and just.
It is willingness to die with fellow righteous seekers within the community of climbers/believers. We are coming to taste righteousness, goodness, love, joy and peace and have plenty left for the rest of the world. We hear the cries from the valley below: “Where is justice? Where is love? Where is righteousness?”
“Here it is!” we call back, “with Jesus and his people. Here is where it is hungered and thirsted for, practiced, fulfilled and satisfied.” Is this what we are saying to our world?
I cannot resist in closing wondering out loud: Do Lutheran Christian people hunger and thirst for a new future which will be “right,” based not on what you want, think, feel, but on what God in Christ knows is right and what is righteous for you? I hope each and all of you are nearly parched and famished for Christ and the future even before you know what it is.
Editors note: This is the third in an Adult Forum series on the Beatitudes, a class with Pastor David E. Mueller. We meet at 10 a.m. on Sunday (between the 9 a.m. service and the 11 a.m. service) through mid-December and then again after the holidays. Join us in the Great Room for the class and check out the text on our website if you miss any sessions.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)
A series allows us to dig deeper and look closer at a section of Scripture than is otherwise possible. I have taught on the Beatitudes as a whole, but eight lessons are more instructive and inspirational if the listeners and (or) readers keep up. Each Beatitude leads into the next one. We need to grasp grace in each and all of them.
We started out “poor in spirit” that we might become enriched. We then mourned the loss of whatever spiritual baggage we had left behind. While the mood was somber, we heard Jesus say: “Happy/blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.”
Today the mood is restful, relatively relaxed, tranquil. This is what often follows mourning. Once grief and loss are adequately attended to, there is a sense of calm. The wind and rain come and batter our spirits and then the sun shines again. If you appreciate the calm, then hear Jesus: “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.”
We climb higher today. When we reach the top in a few weeks, we will be higher than Mount Everest. Yet we need no ropes, pulleys, hammers and spikes. Those of all ages and physical capacities can make this exciting climb as we are all God-led and lifted, God fed and filled. Today, those who truly desire spiritual wholeness and are willing to trust will be separated from those who are playing spiritual games and cannot last.
I readily admit to having my own difficulties being genuinely meek while trying to preach and teach about being meek.
Meekness is presented by Jesus as a blessing against the background of all its opposites in the world at any given time: wars, skirmishes, conflicts, tensions, sin.
MEEKNESS, PLEASE NOTE RIGHT NOW, IS NOT WEAKNESS.
Weak and not meek men harm their wives. Meek men die for their wives, while weak men kill. (See Ephesians 5:21ff.) The weak and not meek harm children. The tranquility of meekness is contrasted with the tension of weakness. The militancy of the moment, horror of the hour, however constituted, is contrasted with genuine meekness. Why? Because the earth belongs to the meek. Their names are on the deed. We simply do not have to fight and scrap, cheat and steal, for that which is already ours. That changes everything!
The world context in which Jesus speaks is a context of war and human passion for fighting where strength is thought to be in iron: spears, arrows, chariots. Humanity, by our time, has advanced within the realm of iron to tanks and missiles but not beyond it. Iron is still used far too often to destroy.
Meekness in Matthew and Paul (Mark and Luke do not use the word) is to be viewed as gentleness. Paul asked the Corinthians: “What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?” (1 Corinthians 4:21) Here “gentleness and meekness” is the same word. Weakness is not implied in either case. We might think of meekness as “quiet strength.” It is active and not passive, deliberate and not reluctant, acceptance even of seeming injustice or harsh reality. Again, why? Because the earth is the Lord’s (Psalm 24) and He has promised it to the meek.
Decades ago, one commentator, whose name escapes me, thought of meekness as descriptive of the frontal of a war chariot, which, even if decorated, needed to pass the 25 mph crash test, withstand battering of all sorts and protect the rider. It was not a moving but strong and stable part of the chariot. It was neither fancy nor noisy. Meekness is quiet and gentle strength. Weakness is the squeaky wheel or the noisy or broken part.
People not on this holy hike with us may think of us as tetched, just as those who are perishing see the Cross of Christ as foolishness (2 Corinthians 4:1-5). In his letter, the Apostle James (1:21) wrote: “Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word which has the power to save your souls.” To keep the wickedness is to welcome the weakness.
Faith is seasoned here with redeemed intelligence. Why participate in the craziness of the world’s way of doing things, warring, wickedness, wantonness, worry, and the like, when it is all going to be ours in the end anyway? We are far enough up the mountain to be able to notice below the fruitlessness or utter failure of so much back down there. Isaiah (29:19) reminded his hearers: “The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord and the neediest of people shall exalt in the Holy One of Israel.”
This also means that the meek are free to be generous of themselves and their resources. If we are not expending energy and effort to keep what we have or to gain even more, we are free to give all the more. Giving is living; taking is fooling, forsaking and killing self.
When it comes to banks, Wall Street and other institutions economic, where is the meekness? There is none! Should there be? Or is that which masks and presents itself as success weakness or worse? “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” (Luke 6:24). “At the end of the day” (I hate this overused expression), it all belongs to the meek.
It is an extremely unfortunate reality in our day that there is so much non-meekness, to put it kindly, utter weakness, to put it honestly, masked as righteousness. Those who, for instance, are either for or against war or corruption or greed can both be utterly secular even if they employ religious language to state their case. Look for meekness.
We will be speaking to genuine peace-making in a Beatitude on our way back down the other side of the Mountain. In the meantime, when it comes to meekness as blessed/happy, we are called upon by the Son of God, whose word, way and will neither I nor you can discount, to refuse to let temporal circumstances define us or tempt us away from our walk/climb. One of the great and grave dangers for Christians these days is falling into the trap of becoming like those who hate us. Hate militant Muslims, even if they hate us, and we lose!
None of this, for holy hikers, precludes the support of their Nation, when for just reasons, it goes to war. Nor does war for us, dilute our meekness. The more significant war we must wage is a spiritual one. It is with spiritual and not iron weaponry that we fight it.
I sensed last week a breeze, a holy breeze, holy wind, Holy Spirit. It is fascinating that the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) is: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness (MEEKNESS), self-control.” This is to be contrasted with the “works of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19-21), which include such things as: “… enmities, strifes … quarrels, dissensions, factions….”
Is a Holy or unholy wind directing us? Meekness is fruit of the former; may the latter not be happening among us! The Earth belongs to those who preserve it, not those who destroy it! It belongs to those who live for each other and not to those who kill each other. It belongs to those who believe in Jesus, yet those who believe in Jesus will be patient and meek with those who do not.
A few years back, Bill Moyer, commentator and ordained Christian minister, offered the baccalaureate address at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He shared the Jewish tale of Shalom Aleichem, who lived the “Jobian” life of misfortune and tragedy, but who always went about returning good for evil. He died and even the angels of heaven rejoiced to see him. The Lord told him he could have any special favor he wished. He asked only that each day could begin with a hot buttered roll. Then, even the Lord wept! (The Christian Century, June 13, 2006). I am humbled profoundly that this was published on the 35th anniversary of my ordination. I have not become that meek. I, like you, have a long way to yet climb.
In Luke’s Sermon (6:17-49), we are reminded (commanded?) to “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also….” (6:27-29a) Tough stuff? For the weak, yes; for the meek, no! For, indeed, we have a Holy Wind directing and empowering us and the love of Jesus forgiving us.
“Blessed/happy are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
Editors note: This is the second in an Adult Forum series on the Beatitudes, a class with Pastor David E. Mueller. We meet at 10 a.m. on Sunday (between the 9 a.m. service and the 11 a.m. service) through mid-December. Join us in the Great Room for the class and check out the text on our website if you miss any sessions.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)
We began last Sunday at the foot of a mountain. I truly believe that thinking of the Beatitudes as a hike up and back down a mountain is the best way to experience and understand them. We started out naked, bared not so much in body as in soul, as Jesus invited: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there is the kingdom of heaven.” We must shed ourselves of all our spiritual baggage for no one can ascend a mountain so encumbered. We began spiritually impoverished in order to become spiritually enriched.
We are now at the first plateau. We have not come very far yet. The steepest part is still ahead. One might expect a minimum of wear and tear and some remnant of the excitement and challenge that accompanied having made the decision to come along.
The scene, however, is quietly ominous. The hikers are depressed, despairing, dulled in mind and spirit. The tears from much weeping form a waterfall rolling down the mountain. If we are typically human, you and I are not looking up and ahead, but down and back. Already there is a sense of “Hey Jesus, what have you gotten us into?” And Jesus says: “Blessed are those who mourn….” Everywhere up and back WE WILL NOT be dealing with life as we normally would. Jesus is calling us to faith.
We need to discover what the mourning is all about, how the premise and the promise of Jesus differ so dramatically from what we are used to.
In Matthew 7:24-27, a little later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reminds us to build our house on a rock and not sand. He suggests that there will be wind and rain threatening us, but shares how to withstand those forces. Jesus is Himself the rock. On Jesus we build our relationships with family, friends, job, career, economics, politics, and all else. If any of those things comes tumbling down, the house stands because it was built on THE ROCK. If lives have been built on family, fun, or finance, then a bad cardiogram, a shift in the stock or job market could bring down the whole life. This is why I mentioned last Sunday that if you believe yourself to be spiritually adequate or abundant, you would not make it to this week. Today’s Beatitude could pull the rug out from under a false sense of spiritual security really quickly.
The scene is sad with a profound sense of loss looming over everyone and everything. Mourning is the natural response to death or loss. The people with you on this journey are mourning and in their mourning are blessed/happy? Hard to believe? Absolutely!
For some years now, our world has been referring to death simply as a part of life. Human beings have developed practices, especially in recent times, to soften the blow: Funeral parlors with posh appointments and subtle lights. The old pine box has given way to shiny metal or expensive woods with crushed velour upholstery. Embalmers became cosmetologists and bodies get to look like someone out of Esquire or Cosmopolitan magazines so that family can feel better and friends can observe how well so-and-so looks. This all has gotten terribly expensive even if cremation lowers the financial blow for some. In either case, ashes to ashes….
Jesus’ message is different on the matter. On the one hand, death is NOT a part of human life, but the “wages of sin,” (Romans 6:23). It is a painful disruption, an unnatural end. We, too, play the cultural game, however, and preserve some fluff to go with the faith.
On the other hand, the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures makes some odd claims. I re-read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes this past week because so much of the Sermon on the Mount is rooted there. “A good name is better than precious ointment.” (Ecclesiastes 7:1a). We can agree with that one. “And the day of death than the day of birth.” (7:1b) That’s tougher! “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting….” (7:2a) Tougher still! “Sorrow is better than laughter” (7:3a) Ah, come on now! “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” (7:4) “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning” (7:8a). Now that is totally absurd! “Blessed are those who mourn!” There would seem to be in all this a celebration of death, a morbid festivity. Not quite!
Much of the world, though verbally referring to death as a natural end, in practice seeks to cover it up. Experts believe when done appropriately grieving will take six months. During that time friends will tell you to keep your mind off things (wrong!); keep busy; (“wronger!”); take the trip you always wanted to take (“wrongest!”) The doctor will prescribe whatever it takes to keep you calm and the insurance agent will assure you that you were prudent in increasing the life insurance policy a few years back.
In Jesus’ day, everything came to a grinding halt and for six to 30 days people took to the streets, whined, wailed, threw dust on their heads, ripped off their sackcloth not because of discomfort but disgust, defeat, and despair. That is blessed! It neither runs from nor covers up the truth of it, but neither is that truth the last word. The blessing is in facing the terrors head on!
By implication, Jesus is speaking of all losses: job, dignity, freedom, our dream of what we thought life was supposed to have been. If this hike is going to be holy, then we are bound to grieve the loss of the less than holy we left behind at the foot of the mountain: the nice soft bed; economic security, if there is such a thing anymore; family life even if it was dreadfully imperfect or possibly dysfunctional; availability of various forms of entertainment; the challenge of the more typical human responsibilities. When we look up at the trip ahead, we are tempted to look back and to go back, back to the way it was, imperfect, wrong, even unhappy but predictable, comfortable, typical. Enough!
Jesus knows well that it would be silly to go on if all we did was wish we hadn’t. There is blessing/happiness in attending honestly with our grief over losses taken in following Him. Mourn that stuff, miss it and then dismiss it, get it out of your system and bury it. If you are not grieving and mourning, you have probably not given up much yet, still committed to and saturated with what was and not actually open to what is and what will be. There are risks on the mountain too, by the way. People die along the way, fall by the wayside, fall into the precipice. Listen to Jesus in Luke for a moment: “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn.” (6:25b) We need to mourn what was left behind, all of it, and move on. What is to be is far better, if not yet!
You may remember Lot’s wife! What did she do? She looked back and became a pillar of salt. She was rendered paralyzed, useless. Are you in the paralysis of analysis, wanting to go on but wishing to go back, wanting to have your cake and eat it too, and really getting neither?
Remember at this point that you are not alone! “Blessed ARE THOSE who mourn….” This holy hike, an image of the Christian walk, is communal. We clearly need Jesus, as personal Savior, an utterly essential matter about which we will deal more intensively later in the series. We need Jesus, also as Lord, our collective leader, whose purpose, especially in this Sermon on the Mount, is to draw us together with Him and each other. This is also what makes this holy hike so very important for Christian people right now… You need to mourn the past, righteous though it truly was in large part, and move on into your future, together with Jesus and each other.
In almost every cultural and religious context, death or some other loss tends to draw the support of one’s family, friends, and neighbors, like nothing else can or does. That is a blessing to be sure. Here, however, the blessing is assured because of ultimate comfort. “They shall be comforted.” The blessing is in the mutual circumstance shared and the mutual promise heard. God, in God’s time, will offer ultimate hope fulfilled to the group. In the meantime, we cry together, embrace together, and share together what God will do.
In the first, eighth and ninth Beatitudes, which offer the “kingdom of heaven,” the tense is present: “for theirs IS the kingdom of heaven.” Beginning with the second Beatitude today, including the next five, the tense changes to future: “for they will….” Some of the promises of God are experienced immediately; many are future. Just wait and see!
I sense a slight breeze blowing up here already, a holy breeze, holy wind, the Holy Spirit. My hunch is that we can anticipate more of the Holy Wind, not wind which batters us but Wind who blows to make faith happen in us.
In faith, push on, live on and do so together. We will experience, if we have not already, how a truly festive spirit develops among those making this holy hike. Looking up and on becomes not an escape from the present painful grieving moment, but a moving beyond and through it. Blessings to all of you as you mourn! As Jesus, in Luke, puts it in effect, “The last laugh will be yours.” In the name of Jesus.
Come and celebrate with us as we gather for worship on Christmas Eve, Tuesday, December 24.
Enjoy the music, the candles and especially the Good News that comes wrapped in the Christ!
We have two services planned:
We hope to see you!
Be still! Hark! Pay close attention! Listen!
Quiet us, Lord, that we might be able to hear over the noise of our busy lives, beyond the frenzy and the clutter of our Christmas preparations. Help us to pause and become still, even for a moment, that we might hear the herald of angel voices: “Glory.” “Peace on Earth.” “Mercy.” “Reconciliation.” “Joy.” “Christ is Born.”
Join us for our Advent Prayer Vigil, an opportunity to enter our beautiful sanctuary and sit in silence; to quiet the self; to be still and know that God is God; to prayerfully meditate on Advent, the coming of the Christ, and to know him as Emmanuel, “God with us,” with the power to transform our hearts, our lives, even this broken world in which we live.
Meditative music and an Advent Prayer Guide will be provided.
The ELCA has put together a fantastic Good Gifts catalog, chock full of unique ideas that can make a real difference in people’s lives and support almost 80 ELCA ministries around the world. And none requires fighting with mall traffic!
To learn more, watch the ELCA video.
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Lutheran Community Services: LCS of Delaware helps individuals and families address food, housing and other essential needs with dignity and respect.