Sermons

Feb 11 - The Rev. Tom Woodward - Blessed Are You Poor

Blessed Are You Poor
Thomas B. Woodward
February 11,2007

One of the things you want to avoid in the Episcopal Church or any other church is a priest who loves to preach, but hasn’t preached for about two years. Do you know what I mean? Yesterday, when I came to the breakfast table, my wife, Ann, asked about the bandage on my face. I told her that I was so excited about preaching at St. Michael’s and All Angels that while focusing on the sermon I had cut my face. “How about,” she replied, “tomorrow morning you focus on the shaving and cut the sermon?”

I want to focus on the Beatitudes – and on the earlier version of the Beatitudes, which we have in today’s gospel in Luke. However, to begin to focus on the Beatitudes, it is important for us to know just how comic – and how threatening they are. We can accomplish both tasks at once, if you will bear with me.

This side of the church seems to have more of the rich and influential people, so when you hear in the Magnificat and in the Beatitudes things that support and bless you, I want you to cheer and applaud; but when you hear yourselves criticized or deprecated, I want you to boo.

This other side of the church is, obviously, the poor and the outcast. When you hear support and blessing in these readings I want you to cheer and applaud – and when you hear yourselves criticized or dissed, boo for all you’re worth.

The Magnificat (abridged):

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant….

He has shown the strength of his arm
he has scattered the proud in their conceit. (applause from the poor)
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones (boos from the rich, some cheers from the poor)
and has lifted up the lowly. (cheers from the poor)
He has filled the hungry with good things (cheers from the poor)
and the rich he has sent empty away. (boos from the rich)
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy.”

So here are the Beatitudes:

“Jesus looked up at his disciples and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God. (applause from the poor)
“Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled. (applause from the poor)
“Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh. (applause from the poor). . .

“But woe to you who are rich (applause from poor, boos from rich)
for you have received your consolation (more boos)
“Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry. (boos from the rich)
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep. (boos from the rich)

It is easy to see that whether or not the Bible is comic depends on where you sit. If you read the Bible as a poor person, or as a dispossessed or depressed person or as anyone marginalized in your family, your church, your culture – you are going to have a lot of fun reading the Bible.

St. Francis of Assisi loved the poor, primarily because he saw them as totally dependent
upon the goodness grace of God. That’s what he understood about the animals. It was their poverty, their absolute dependence upon others which was the source of their blessing.

This morning I want to talk with you as poor people. I mean that in all seriousness. I want to talk with you as poor people. So, what does it mean for us to be poor? How can we think of ourselves as poor?

There is a way: let me tell you about being a successful fortune teller. To be a successful fortune teller, you do all the lines on the palm and maybe talk about birth dates and some astrological stuff and all the froo-for-all; then, when no one else is around to listen in, you hold your client’s hand . . look into his eyes . . .and you say something like “I see all the wonderful things in your life – your achievements, the respect others have for you, the good that is in your heart. But then, as I look into your eyes, I see that deep sadness or loneliness – more of the loneliness. It is that loneliness and sadness that is with you almost every day, even when you are not aware of it. This is such an important part of you and I can see how hard it is for you. . .. . .”

And we walk away, shaking our heads, saying “How did she know? How did she know?
How did she know about that stuff that nobody knows?”

Do you know what I am talking about? Jesus was right: “Blessed are you poor. . .blessed are you who mourn.” That is you and me. And insofar as that stuff is a part of us – visible or hidden -- how blessed are we.

Why blessed? One of the poets I read is Robert Bly. Speaking to men Bly says for all boys there is a necessary wounding of the boy by the father. It does not have to be intentional or physical: it can be abandonment, not appreciating or noticing, some kind of betrayal. Whatever it is, it is out that boy’s struggle for the rest of his life with that hurt, that wounding by his father, that his humanity emerges. Without that struggle, he will remain on the surface of life. I do not know what it is for women, but that is how it is with men.

Why blessed? I treasure the words of a parishioner of mine in California. I was first shocked by the words, but then I remembered how often I had heard them from others. “I thank God I am HIV positive. My life was unfocussed and going nowhere before I contracted the virus, but now I know what I want from life and I am beginning to get it. Life has never been richer or more intentional for me. I don’t look forward to the final stages of the disease, but I am grateful for the increasing depth of my life.”

Why blessed? I remember my friend in Chicago who had been a noted alcoholic. He once told me, “Tom, I used to be happy, really happy. I would go to the bar every night and get drunk and tell stories and sing songs, fall off my barstool and go home, happy. I no longer drink and I am not so happy. . .not so happy; but for the first time in my life, I have the possibility, the capacity for joy.” Blessed are you poor, you who mourn. For that is the pearl of great price.

I do not know the character of your poverty: I just know we each need to spend of our lives opening that part of ourselves to Jesus, to God, to the Holy Spirit – it’s more than our Higher Power.

We could talk for the rest of the month about this, but let me give you three starting places for this part of your spiritual journey -- three body prayers. The first has to do with putting your feet on the ground. When you get out of bed and your feet hit the ground, feel that ground as though you are rooted to the center of the earth. Let that be your grounding in God. It is there. God is there. The one who created you sustains you – as the great Lutheran theologian, Paul Tillich, would say, “God is the Ground of our Existence.”

Do it now. You are not going to be embarrassed because your feet are already there. Before everything else is this truth: your life is rooted in God.

Here is the second prayer: open your hands. You don’t have to do that now, but when you receive communion, open your hands simply to receive – vulnerable, open to receive. There is nothing you’ve earned, nothing to repay – just receive. . . out of your poverty.

Let me tell you something about Holy Communion. Do you know what happens to that consecrated wine and bread once the digestive juices hit them? They become absorbed into our DNA, our genetic structure. The Risen Christ. . .becomes us! Isn’t that amazing? There are no molds into which we are to be forced. . .no Steve Sanctity or Harriet Holy. It is us. . . with our histories, with our disabilities, our whatever. . .where the being of God is incarnated.

We’re often tricked into believing that we have to be good/really good before we can mirror the presence of God. That’s wrong. I prefer the perspective of Gert Behanna, who used to spend her life talking to teenagers. She said, “Don’t be a goody-goody. God doesn’t need any more goody-goodies. God has more goody-goodies than he knows what to do with. What God needs are people who can care, who can feel, who can get down into the dirt and the mud and love. But no more goody-goodies.”

God, who is above all and beyond all and beyond time and space becomes incarnate in each one of us. . .in our DNA, our genetic structure. Mind boggling . . and true.

The third thing: this first occurred to me when I was dealing with some people who were dying, people who did not have the energy to articulate or to speak. When you are dying (or when you are aware of your own poverty), let your bed be your prayer. As you lie there in your bed, you don’t need words. Let your body, let the bed, the mattress the quilt, do the praying:
“Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” Feel those hands, give yourself into them.

Feet on the floor, open hands, enfolded by the mattress and the blankets. In reverse order: “Hold me, feed me, give me strength.”

I still remember a New Yorker cartoon from about 35 or 40 years ago. A man and woman are in bed together and the man is staring at the ceiling. He says, “Now that I have discovered the meaning of life, I can’t sleep.” Well, if he really shares that with his wife, his partner – and if he is really heard and his fear is honored. . ..how blessed is he. Sleep will come.

I think the most prevalent three word phrase in the Bible is this: “Don’t be afraid.” Don’t be afraid. “Blessed are you poor,” Jesus says. “Blessed are you who weep, who mourn,” because that presence of the Risen Christ will find root.

But what about our strengths, our accomplishments, all those wonderful things in our lives? Give thanks for them – rejoice in them. Pray that God will bless your strengths and your goodness. But remember: they are gifts. We don’t own them. We deceive ourselves when we believe that we own our houses, our skills, our husbands/wives/partners. When we believe that we own our houses, our skills and successes our lives become one dimensional. For instance, I do not own my wife, Ann. She is not “my wife.” She does not belong to me: she is a gift to me from God. . .in good times and in bad. . .particularly in the bad (if you know what I mean).

God has given us what we have been given – skills and abilities and hearts to know and to love and to serve – and underneath it all, a yearning for only what God can give,
a yearning for only what God will give over and over again.

Feet on the floor,
Hands open to receive,
the loving arms of God to enfold us.
Amen.