NOV. 6, 2005 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
REV 7:9-17; PS 34:1-10; I JOHN 3:1-3; MT 5:1-12
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we believe and in believing we obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
In a perfect world, there would be no war.
In a perfect world, we would have no struggles.
In a perfect world, people would know no pain, no fear, no suffering, no death. In a perfect world…
What are some images, ideas, or symbols of a perfect world?
-Heaven, Garden of Eden, ivory tower, Nirvana, Disneyworld, love, the good ol’ days, happily ever after, romance novels, commercials, peace, peace and quiet, freedom, wedding day, 50th Anniversary…
And the Beatitudes? Blessed are the poor, the meek, the suffering, the weak.
They all sound wonderful, but what’s wrong with these images of perfection? They don’t exist in reality. They can only be accessed through smoke and mirrors, day dreams, pipe dreams, fantasies or delusions.
In the real world (not “reality” t.v.), nations are at war.
In the real world, people are caught in struggles.
In the real world, there is pain and fear and suffering and death.
In the real world, a perfect world can’t exist and sacrifices must be made.
Sacrifice. Now, there’s an outdated, antiquated, barely tolerated idea. It’s a notion that hasn’t been widely popular, frankly, since WWII. Today, the prevailing concern in our society seems to be at the opposite end of the scale. If movies, t.v. shows and commercials are any indication, our culture calls us not to sacrifice, but to self-preservation, self-satisfaction… self-delusion.
But always the real world intrudes, just like it did last summer when three of our families found themselves foundering in a gut-wrenching grief. The loved ones of Carol Camps, Mike Shibe and Ron Bitzer, were forced to experience the challenge of sacrifice at their deaths.
The survivors continue to keep their families going, even though to do so is itself a living sacrifice. They continue to put one foot in front of the other, do their jobs, love their families and deal with their pain day after day as a sacrifice of love to those who died. Still they grieve, yet still they’re surrounded by a family of faith with love, prayer and support.
Then there are others like the young man I spent an hour with on the phone this last week. He, too, is wandering in that valley of the shadow of death – although his grief comes from a more predictable source: the time he spent in the fierce and fatal fighting in Iraq. We talked about the battle that he’s continuing to fight - in his heart, soul, spirit and mind.
Though I’m no expert on sacrifice, as a person and parent I’m familiar with the notions of delayed gratification and abstinence, as well as the habits of giving up or taking on something for Lent. Plus, as a pastor I’m fairly well-versed with the concept theologically, generally because of its central role in Judaism and Christianity and particularly with Jesus’ assertion that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Yet none of those things bothered the young man on the phone. As a member of the military, he accepted all those expectations. His struggle is not with the threats to his life, but with the threat to his peace of mind. As he put it, he’s been asked to sacrifice his right to live with a clear conscience so the rest of us can live in hope. This young man, ordered to kill other human beings, cannot erase those images, those people from his memory. And because of the constant presence of those grim and grisly ghosts, he’s also sure that he’s sacrificed his ability to be forgiven by God.
You shall not kill – he memorized the 5th commandment as a child. Blessed are the peacemakers – he knows these beatitudes well. What would you say to him if you had the chance? In living color, in black and white, in every shade of gray, he is, in ways that I will never know, poor in spirit, one who mourns, meek, hungering-and-thirsting-for-righteousness, even merciful, pure in heart and persecuted, too; all the beatitudes wrapped up in one big mass of pain.
Folks like these that I’ve mentioned, and for all whose beatitude behavior has left us broken and bleeding, says theologian Mark Powell are people who have no reason for hope in this world!?!? If that’s true, if such pain-filled people are mere moments, increments of inches away from giving up on hope, what does it mean to say that they are blessed in their grief, and pain and fear?
Here’s what I think: at a foundational level of life, at a point of human pain where life can’t get any more real and any less perfect, Jesus, is saying that such people are blessed because they stand first on the list of God’s care and concern. People whose hearts have been hurt by life’s challenges and emptied by life’s pain, are also empty of pretense, but full of integrity, are passionately waiting to be filled by God’s good and gracious Spirit because, Lord knows, they are empty of their own.
That is a word of good news, for them, for you and for me. That is, I think, what it means to be blessed. In an imperfect world, we have been given a perfect Word: God’s never-ending love for us in Jesus Christ. Amen.