The Neighborhood Podcast

"Sacred the Body: Temple of Spirit" (February 2, 2025 Sermon)

• Rev. Stephen M. Fearing

Share episode

The podcast episode delves into the transformative power of the Beatitudes, emphasizing their relevance in today's chaotic world. It encourages listeners to embrace vulnerability, extend compassion, and recognize the political implications of these teachings as vital for community and personal healing.

• Importance of the Beatitudes in spiritual and emotional health 
• The contrast between cultural narratives and the teachings of Jesus 
• Personal anecdotes highlighting struggles with mental health 
• The call to extend compassion to the marginalized 
• Urgency for political advocacy rooted in Beatitudes’ teachings 
• The significance of community and shared worship in healing

Follow us on Instagram @guilfordparkpresbyterianchurch
Follow us on Facebook @guilfordparkpc
Follow us on TikTok @guilfordparkpreschurch
Website: www.guilfordpark.org

Speaker 1:

Please pray with me the prayer for illumination. Holy God, your blessings are abundant and your wisdom exceeds our grasp. Fill us with your spirit as we hear your word this day that we may be justice seekers and peacemakers, sharing your life among those who are forgotten, weak or persecuted, and revealing to all your glory. Amen. Our scripture reading today comes from Matthew, chapter 5, verse 1 through 12. These are some familiar words as we've sang them already today, so I hope you find a way to add this to your worship this morning.

Speaker 1:

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak and taught them, saying blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessing of blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you? When people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely on my account? Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Holy wisdom, holy word.

Speaker 2:

So, friends, on the day after the election or the Sunday after the election, you and I gathered in this very space and we sang the following, inspired by the familiar words of 1 Corinthians 13. We sang grant me a love, a love that softens, softens my heavy hardened heart, growing a gentleness unbreaking. Oh love surround me, oh love surround me. Oh love surround me, soften my heavy hardened heart. So maybe four days later, you and I are gathered in the same space, perhaps again with a similar prayer, as we read and hear and sing the Beatitudes that God would soften our heavy hardened hearts. At a time when there seems to be so much jadedness and anger and anxiety, and in the midst of this uncertainty, scripture blesses our heavy hearts with the promise of the.

Speaker 2:

The beatitudes should not be controversial. They are the very heart of our faith. I find it difficult to reconcile the christian life with the blatant disregard for their teachings. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.

Speaker 1:

In today's context.

Speaker 2:

These holy statements carry with them a base, a basic posture of gentleness in a cultural moment that feels anything. But in fact, when our cynicism takes over, we might. We might hear to ourselves the very antithesis. One might not need to imagine much to envision the anti-beatitudes. Blessed are the billionaires, for they will get the front row seats. Blessed are the unapologetic, for they will get their way. Blessed are the cruel, for they will prevail. Blessed are the winners, for they get to dominate. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for power, for might is right.

Speaker 2:

You and I, as followers of Jesus, live in a messy, messy world. We live in the tension between those two versions of the Beatitudes, one written by Christ and one written by our very own cultural narrative. One gives life and the other takes it away. One invites the kingdom of God while the other scoffs at it. One calls mercy strength and the other weakness. During the sermon series the past four weeks, we've been talking a lot about caring for one another. We began our time with the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that reminds us that the body is sacred no less than our spirits and our hearts, or the spirits in the hearts of our neighbors. Then we dwelled in the radical, radical text of Deuteronomy 15, which compels us to disrupt cycles of medical debt. And last week we envisioned the perspective of a woman with a chronic illness and pondered how you and I might work together, serve together to usher in a world where she and all others like her have no barriers to full inclusion in the life of the church in the neighborhood. And we wrap up our sermon series today with the counter-cultural words of the Beatitudes. So, therefore, if we began our time together proclaiming the sacredness of our physical well-being and that of our neighbors, the Beatitudes remind us that we must also proclaim and protect the sacredness of our spiritual well-being. We must care for our hearts and the hearts of our neighbors in uncertain times, for if we hear the words of the beatitudes and ignore their call, we cannot be spiritually well. But the antithesis is true. Thankfully, when we heed the beatitudes and write them on our hearts, we will find spiritual wellness together, and I think that that is a crucial message for those of us with heavy hearts and burdened spirits these days.

Speaker 2:

Y'all have heard me talk at length from this pulpit about mental health the past two years that I've been so fortunate to be your pastor. You've heard me speak about the previous Surgeon General's declaration of our mental well-being to be your pastor. You've heard me speak about the previous Surgeon General's declaration of our mental well-being to be a national health crisis. You've heard me talk about boundaries and emotional intelligence and the Enneagram, and no less than a half a dozen sermons that have mentioned my favorite movie, inside Out. You're probably sick of it by now. You've heard your pastor talk about emotional health and mental health, and so I don't feel the need to revisit all of that ground at length today, but in this particular moment.

Speaker 2:

Over the past several weeks and months, I've held space with so many of you who are concerned and anxious and fearful. I've listened to some of our youth talk about their fear of gun violence in our communities. Just a few days ago, our church hosted a forum by the Greensboro Police Department where many in our literal neighborhood expressed their fears of violence and crime. I've spoken with parents who are anxious for their teenagers and their children's mental health and their own as it regards to social media and bullying and just the general state of the world. I've spoken with some of you about the anxieties that you carry about balancing your own needs, with those of aging parents. I've prayed with many of you who are worried about your friends, your families, your neighbors, who are struggling with mental health, addiction, medical emergencies and financial burdens. I've had tough conversations with those of you holding holy space together.

Speaker 2:

As we might feel dread at just the general state of things. And in the midst of that messiness, when our hearts might feel heavy and perhaps even hardened, we hear those words Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted. And when we receive those words, those promises, scripture tells us to rejoice and be glad. That can seem like a bit of a tall order these days. Take it from someone who struggles with depression and anxiety himself. But this day, this day at least, I'm finding joy in this simple fact.

Speaker 2:

The Beatitudes are what keep us human. The Beatitudes are what keep us human in a cruel and callous culture. The Beatitudes are what keep us human when pleas for mercy are ridiculed. The Beatitudes are what keep us human when we're taught me first and everyone else second. The Beatitudes are what keep you and I human when everything feels so heavy, so lost, so mean. The Beatitudes are what keep you and I human when everything feels so heavy, so lost, so mean.

Speaker 2:

We need the song of the Beatitudes more than ever. The song of the Beatitudes is what compelled the Samaritan to put his neighbor's needs above his own. The song of the Beatitudes is what envisioned the year of Jubilee, freeing the impoverished from endless cycles of debt. The song of the Beatitudes is what led Jesus to prioritize the well-being of the woman with the hemorrhage no less than anyone else. The song of the Beatitudes is what I kept hearing over and over again last week during our health care panel, when we heard the experiences from some among us in our congregation who are health care workers, who expressed over and over again their passion for the holistic care, body, mind and spirit of those under their care body, mind and spirit of those under their care.

Speaker 2:

The song of the Beatitudes is what keeps us human and there will always be those who hear that song as weakness. There will always be those among us who scoff at our insistence that God's heart is with those who have been shoved to the side, our insistence that God's heart is with those who have been shoved to the side. There will always be those among us who don't quite know what to do with the God who cares so very much for the refugee, the outcast, the uninsured, the undocumented, the poor, the forgotten. There will always be those who claim that, when the church speaks of such things, that we're getting too political. But the Beatitudes are indeed a political statement. They are not partisan, but they are political.

Speaker 2:

Jesus gave us the Beatitudes long before our own constructed categories of left or right, liberal or conservative. In fact, one could say that following the Beatitudes is the most conservative thing you can do if you want to conserve the heart of what Christianity has always been about. Each of us is a temple of spirit, and many of those spirits are feeling worn and weathered, anxious and afraid. And so when we're worn and we're weathered, we sing as Christians. When we're anxious and afraid, we sing as followers of Jesus. When the way forward seems unclear, what do we do? We sing as a church family seeking to remain united in faith during divisive times. What do we do? We sing.

Speaker 2:

And so we conclude our time together in this sermon series by singing this final homegrown hymn you'll find in your bulletin, and I hope that it will be a balm for whatever heaviness it is that maybe you carry into this space heaviness. It is that maybe you carry into this space, whether you struggle with your own mental health these days or worry for a loved one with their struggles, whether you're at peace with the way things are or whether you're not, whether you find yourself suffering or anxious or afraid, or anxious or afraid. May you be at peace, knowing that God calls you blessed. Ultimately, the Beatitudes are about where God's heart is, and therefore, that is where our hearts should be also. So, friends, let us sing together.

Speaker 2:

This is a tune that I trust will be familiar to many of us. It's the tune that we often use to sing blessed assurance. And blessed is one of these words that hymn writers love, because it can either be one syllable blessed or two syllables blessed. Just so you all know, for the purpose of this hymn, it is a one-syllable word. So I invite us to rise in body or in spirit, and, as one faith family, let us sing together.

Speaker 3:

Bless the ones whose spirits are born. Bless the persons whose minds are at war. Bless the anxious and the afraid. Bless those who wait for that which they pray and the afraid. The rest was to wait for that which they prayed. Peace be upon us. Peace be with him. Peace be with him. Peace be with him. Peace be upon us. Peace be with you. Please be upon us, please do and through. Please be with me now. Please be with me. Bless the ones who tread on the loose. Bless the children who utter the words. Bless all the nations living in fear. Bless our God. Give us strength and hope here. Peace be upon us. Peace be with him. Peace be with neighbor. Peace be with friend. Peace be upon us. Peace be with you. Peace be with him now. Peace be with you now he's with you.

Speaker 3:

Let's start from seven. Let's go to three. Let's go to suffering. Let's go to grief. Let's go to gentle. Let's gole me. Bless the hungry. Bless the weak. Peace be upon us. Peace be with him. Peace be with neighbor. Peace be with friend. Peace be upon us. Peace be with prayer. Please be upon us, please, through and through. Please be with me now. Please be with me.

Speaker 2:

In the name of God, the creator, redeemer and sustainer, may all of us, god's beloved children, say amen. Friends, you may be seated.