SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the First Love Church podcast.
SPEAKER_03: This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the Revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, Florida.
SPEAKER_02: One thing that I felt like I would like to share with you guys today is that I went to the oldest uh temple in Japan.
SPEAKER_02: Um it's in Tokyo.
SPEAKER_02: Um it was constructed in 616, and it was built by two brothers who had a similar dream, and they decided to build this massive temple.
SPEAKER_02: And they took them twenty years for them and the community to construct it, and it's still there today.
SPEAKER_02: It is huge.
SPEAKER_02: It is outstandingly big.
SPEAKER_02: The shared dream that they experienced, and they felt that God had communicated to them, is that God will fill the space that you make for him.
SPEAKER_02: And so they chose to make a gigantic space for God.
SPEAKER_02: So in that, that was something that I really was resonating.
SPEAKER_02: How big of a space am I making for God?
SPEAKER_02: How big of a space am I creating for God to be in my life?
SPEAKER_02: How big of a space am I making for God to be present with me and my family?
SPEAKER_02: How big of a space am I making for God to be able to move within my life?
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02: So what we can do in traditional Christian stuff is go, I don't want to participate in something that looks different, or we can choose to step into something, go, what wisdom is present here.
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02: Because there is a idea of this is the space that I'll make the familiarity.
SPEAKER_02: Or I'll step into something unfamiliar and really get something amazing.
SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02: So that's it.
SPEAKER_02: That's all I got.
SPEAKER_02: But would you guys like to read with me this morning?
SPEAKER_02: There's only one verse, so we'll read slowly, okay.
SPEAKER_02: He has no he has told you, O mortal, what is good and what does the Lord require of you to do justice and to love loving kindness and to walk humbly with your God.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Today we have a blessing in a time of violence by Jan Richardson.
SPEAKER_01: Which is to say this blessing is always which is to say there is no place this blessing does not long to cry out and lament, to weep its words in sorrow, to scream its lines in sacred rage.
SPEAKER_01: Which is to say there is no day this blessing ceases to whisper into the ear of the dying, the despairing, the terrified.
SPEAKER_01: Which is to say there is no moment this blessing refuses to sing itself into the heart of the hated and the hateful, the victim and the victimizer.
SPEAKER_01: With every last ounce of hope it has.
SPEAKER_01: Which is to say there is none that can stop it, none that can halt its course, none that will still its cadence, none that will delay its rising, none that can keep it from springing forth from the mouths of us who hope, from the hands of us who act, from the hearts of us who love, from the feet of us who will not cease our stubborn, aching, marching, marching, until this blessing has spoken its final word, until this blessing has breathed its benediction in every place, in every tongue.
SPEAKER_01: Peace.
SPEAKER_01: Peace, peace.
SPEAKER_03: It is with a lot of love that we greet you this morning, and we do choose that to be our benediction, that to be our hope, that to be our life's work.
SPEAKER_03: Peace.
SPEAKER_03: Peace, peace, peace.
SPEAKER_03: The peace of Christ greets you this morning, and we thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for the light that you brought, the warmth that you brought.
SPEAKER_03: But the Christ in us greets the Christ in you today.
SPEAKER_03: We see Christ in you, and we remind you that, beloved, you are the light of the world.
SPEAKER_03: You are the light of the world.
SPEAKER_03: And so when there is darkness, beloved, turn up your light.
SPEAKER_03: And so there is an invitation for us to join with what the angels are singing, to join with what the earth is telling us this morning, to join with brothers and sisters all over this world that peace is available, peace through Jesus Christ, peace through our hands, peace through our work, peace through our giving.
SPEAKER_03: And it is our job as peacemakers.
SPEAKER_03: This morning we get to read from Matthew's gospel, and this is the fourth Sunday of Epiphany.
SPEAKER_03: And if you don't feel like you have an epiphany yet, good news, beloved, there's more time.
SPEAKER_03: And I want to remind you that we are not responsible for our own epiphanies.
SPEAKER_03: We are just responsible to open to the God who is the light and who is the epiphany.
SPEAKER_03: And so we just open ourselves welcome, give consent to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: But we're gonna read this morning, and I'm really excited to read the scripture with you this morning in Matthew chapter five.
SPEAKER_03: And some of you will know this as what has been called the Beatitudes.
SPEAKER_03: And some of you have heard this so many times that you may check out.
SPEAKER_03: But I am asking already that the Holy Spirit would re-enchant this text, that you would be able to see this with fresh eyes, that you would be able to hear this.
SPEAKER_03: And I want to remind us when we go to the scripture, the sacred text is for our formation.
SPEAKER_03: It is to us a witness of who Jesus is and what Jesus did and how we are invited to follow, but it is for our own soul's formation.
SPEAKER_03: And so we go to the text today with the Holy Spirit, with the lens to be able to see hope and truth.
SPEAKER_03: When Jesus saw the crowds, the crowds, I want to remind you, were there because Jesus was already doing good and healing all those who were oppressed.
SPEAKER_03: And so the crowds were there because they were already experiencing the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_03: These crowds aren't there.
SPEAKER_03: This is not somebody else's crowds.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus went about doing good and healing all that was oppressed by the devil.
SPEAKER_03: And when he saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain.
SPEAKER_03: And after he sat down, his disciples came to him.
SPEAKER_03: Now, some of us might miss this story setup because this for the reader is understood.
SPEAKER_03: This is Moses went up the mountain and then came down with laws that said, this is what it looks like to be a community, to be a people who have Yahweh as their God.
SPEAKER_03: There are other gods, there are other things that people can follow, but Moses came down from the mountain with rules that said, if Yahweh is your God, then murder is not going to be part of you.
SPEAKER_03: And he began, you know those rules.
SPEAKER_03: But Jesus does the same thing.
SPEAKER_03: This is what it looks like.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Heather and I were talking about how uh for many people uh we could quote uh more of the Ten Commandments off the top of our head than we could the the points that Jesus makes here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh in the in this, what we're talking about here is going to be the central teaching of Jesus or the really core of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh we're gonna do a contest here.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh but but within yourself, I would ask that you would um challenge yourself to consider like do could I uh you know express these eight points?
SPEAKER_00: Do I know them?
SPEAKER_00: You know, and not that that's like uh shame on you that you don't know them, uh, but maybe it's uh it's a challenge to get those things in your spirit so that they would naturally come out.
SPEAKER_00: Because getting the Ten Commandments is getting the law uh, you know, with our understanding.
SPEAKER_00: But the law for our understanding is only to under uh for us to understand that we need liberty and we need freedom from it, and that's what Christ provides.
SPEAKER_00: So this message is very crucial to us today.
SPEAKER_00: So I would hope that you would uh uh do better uh than I did this week when I did this practice.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but uh but ask yourself how can I um you know absorb these things and get them just within in my spirit, right?
SPEAKER_03: I remind us that these are not just ten suggestions, eight suggestions, little bits and points that Jesus offers.
SPEAKER_03: There is a way to live, to, and this is what Jesus offers us for us to embrace our humanity, for us to really thrive as humans, and Jesus said this is the way.
SPEAKER_03: So Jesus begins to speak, and he taught them saying, Blessed.
SPEAKER_03: So we're not that far from Advent.
SPEAKER_03: This is such a fun time to actually talk about this.
SPEAKER_03: If you remember, an angel shows up to Mary, and an angel says, Blessed are you among women.
SPEAKER_03: And then Mary goes to her cousin Elizabeth's house, and Elizabeth cries out and said, Blessed are you, blessed are you?
SPEAKER_03: And then Mary hears Elizabeth's greeting, and she said, I will be called blessed from now on.
SPEAKER_03: And so Jesus comes into this world.
SPEAKER_03: Well, even in a utero, his mother and his aunt are calling out, blessed, blessed, in situations that we cannot figure out, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed.
SPEAKER_03: Silas was calling to my attention the other day some things that I do.
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you've ever had a child mirror back to you some of the things that you do.
SPEAKER_03: I bless you if you do.
SPEAKER_03: But he reminded me that he goes, This is what I see you do.
SPEAKER_03: And you're always kind of gonna, I want to know what you see me do all the time.
SPEAKER_03: And he said, When you feel overwhelmed and you don't know what to do, you just start blessing it.
SPEAKER_03: And beloved, that's the call for all of us.
SPEAKER_03: We can either bless or we can curse.
SPEAKER_03: And God told us to bless it.
SPEAKER_03: And when I don't know how to do something or what to do with it, I start calling in a blessing.
SPEAKER_03: And I think it's in the lineage of like Mary and Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_03: Elizabeth finds herself pregnant as an old woman, blessed.
SPEAKER_03: Mary finds herself pregnant and not being wed, blessed.
SPEAKER_03: You know, like, and Jesus looks at things that people do not call blessed, and he starts blessing it.
SPEAKER_03: And he starts calling us to live in the kingdom now, not after you die.
SPEAKER_03: Rome was an oppressive government.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus is talking to people in Galilee, and Galilee is a really unique bunch of people, people from all over, big cultural center, and even the Jews there are considered misfits because they're not Jewish enough.
SPEAKER_03: Like everybody was an outcast, and Jesus starts there and says, This is what the kingdom looks like.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I want to I want to say that you really st stir me when you share this because the uh angel calls Mary uh blessed, and then uh her cousin calls her blessed because the Christ is in her.
SPEAKER_00: And it just it stirred in me because the Christ is in all these people that we're talking to today, and in us.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh Jesus is calling you blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Mary began to realize it, and as a result, change happened.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to realize, and I think that's what's the importance of this message, is that God is calling out to you who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Because we feel like because we're poor, because we're struggling, because we don't fully understand, because we sometimes don't fully believe that we're somehow a disappointment.
SPEAKER_00: But God sees it differently and calls you something different.
SPEAKER_00: So would you maybe uh begin to see that that the that the seed that's inside of you is destined to produce something so God can see that and call you blessed even before you see the fruit of any uh manifestation of that blessing?
SPEAKER_03: There's an invitation for us to value even what we don't see as valued.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus asks us to do that in this blessing.
SPEAKER_03: And and so I want to read to you and remind you the kind of faith or Christianity that Christ blesses is the one that's in harmony with the Beatitudes.
SPEAKER_03: It's essential that we know what Jesus says matter and how to view the world, how to look at things, maybe the way that the world doesn't teach us to look at things.
SPEAKER_03: I want to, we're gonna read these things, but I want to read uh in a paraphrase the Beatitudes to you this morning.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the depleted in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is great rest for the weary.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the broken who mourn and who grieve, for they create space to receive comfort from one another.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the gentle and the content, who are not grasping and clutching and scheming, for in the end they will inherit what the greedy try to steal.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are those who ache for the world to be made right.
SPEAKER_03: For them, the governing of God is a dream come true.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are those who give mercy, for they will get it back when they need it most.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are those who have a clean window in their soul, for they will perceive God when and where others don't.
SPEAKER_03: And blessed are the bridge builders in a war-torn world, for they are God's children working in the family business.
SPEAKER_03: And blessed are those who are mocked and mistreated for all the right reasons, for the kingdom of heaven comes to them through such persecutions.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus was turning everything upside down when he looked at this group of people, this group of people who had come to him because they had no agency, no power of their own.
SPEAKER_03: These are the broken and the disenfranchised.
SPEAKER_03: These are the ones who are weary of trying to do good and it not making any difference.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus is turning things upside down because people here, I mean, in this particular culture, extend your imagination with me, you could be wealthy but still be poor.
SPEAKER_03: For instance, in this particular culture, you could be a wealthy widow, but if you didn't have a son, you were considered a poor widow.
SPEAKER_03: There are stigmas that cultures put on people.
SPEAKER_03: There are things that are used to divide people and separate, and Jesus is coming and saying, Oh no, no, no.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the poor in spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are those who are overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
SPEAKER_03: There was an idea, I don't know if you can imagine it either, but that if someone had trouble that God had left them.
SPEAKER_03: If someone experienced any kind of grief, then surely God was not there.
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus is reminding us just the opposite.
SPEAKER_03: No matter what we go through, that we will always have the presence of love with us, that God will be with us.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
SPEAKER_03: From the very beginning of this Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount announces that God's kingdom doesn't mirror the logic of empire.
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't mirror the logic of how we build governments and systems.
SPEAKER_03: It emerges from the margins and it tells us that God's kingdom refuses to worship domination and insists on living in self-sacrificial love.
SPEAKER_03: Beloved, Jesus is telling us that God is not cruel, that there is no cruelty in God, that love does not coerce, that love does not exert dominion.
SPEAKER_03: Love is all powerful, beloved, but love is an invitation.
SPEAKER_03: Love is consent.
SPEAKER_03: Love is drawing us into a more beautiful way of living.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you you have to kind of frame verse six in that in the idea that uh were to hunger and thirst for righteousness in that, it would indicate that you're hungry.
SPEAKER_00: I can't hunger when I'm already full.
SPEAKER_00: So there is a place of lacking that that righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: There is a place of being poor in spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And God's calling that blessed, and that is counterintuitive to how we live and how we perceive success.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, when uh when successful people over and over are asked questions like uh, you know, what is what is the greatest lesson, and or what are some of the lessons, and they always go to, you know, failure.
SPEAKER_00: They always go to pain.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, when when this happened, you know, and and we so we always, you know, would would uh look at that as something to stay far from.
SPEAKER_00: But in in that place of where you are suffering, where you are lacking right now, is that place where God shows up and brings you the great lesson.
SPEAKER_00: So if I could reframe that, then I wouldn't be so mad at myself or disappointed and angry at God because he put me here.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I can look for the thing that I can take away from it that brings great uh success to me and to others, that I can share this path is the way out.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I have to be lost before I can find the path out and celebrate it.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm okay to be lost if I know that that path that I find will help somebody else out.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh you can be okay with where you are right now if you reframe it from I'm being punished to I have yet not seen where my blessing is.
SPEAKER_00: But God is calling me blessed, so I must be.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel it, I'm not experiencing it yet, but the God who promised is able and uh more importantly, faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: When Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit, he's not romanticizing poverty, he is not romanticizing things that are difficult, he is reminding us that God's reign is already moving toward these people.
SPEAKER_03: God is already coming in ways to heal us.
SPEAKER_03: He's stating that the kingdom of God, in God's kingdom, the poor are blessed, they are not exploited, they are not crushed.
SPEAKER_03: He's showing us an opposite.
SPEAKER_03: In our kingdoms, in the empires of the world, the poor are exploited, the poor are crushed, and God says, no, no, no, in the kingdom, the poor are the ones that are blessed, the poor are the ones that understand things.
SPEAKER_03: And in the same way, when he's saying meekness, he's not celebrating a weakness or giving over, but he's echoing Psalm 37 when it says that the landless, the poor, the people who are disposed by violence and by greed, Jesus said the earth is going to belong to those, those who have tried, but those who have been robbed from.
SPEAKER_03: And in this breathtaking reversal, Jesus is calling us to look at what God said God is doing in the world.
SPEAKER_03: God is moving to overturn systems that impoverish, that heal those that are broken by systems in the world.
SPEAKER_03: And so we're gonna come into the second half of the Beatitudes, and then God is really talking about the human practice.
SPEAKER_03: And so I I invite you, we read Micah chapter 6, verse 8.
SPEAKER_03: And I hope that you remembered in the verse, he said, I'm gonna tell you, oh mortal.
SPEAKER_03: Let that just hover for a minute.
SPEAKER_03: Remember your mortality.
SPEAKER_03: As much as we are ones made in the image of God, we look like God who made us.
SPEAKER_03: We did not make us.
SPEAKER_03: God did.
SPEAKER_03: There is for us this invitation, mortal, you mortal people, do you know what God requires of you?
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
SPEAKER_03: That we would be merciful, that we would do justice.
SPEAKER_03: What does it mean to do justice?
SPEAKER_03: It's this same verse here in six where it says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
SPEAKER_03: Beloved, if you are not thirsty and hungry for righteousness, you are too full of your privilege.
SPEAKER_03: And you need to be mindful of the fact that righteousness, that justice needs to be given to people that have been taken from.
SPEAKER_03: And it is our responsibility to hunger and thirst, to look at something, to stand in solidarity.
SPEAKER_03: And you know what?
SPEAKER_03: We have a lot of privilege.
SPEAKER_03: We can fast from things.
SPEAKER_03: It is one of the things that Jesus called us to do when you pray, when you fast, when you give.
SPEAKER_03: So sometimes we need to take our privilege and use it on behalf of someone else.
SPEAKER_03: Not just say that doesn't affect me, but to say, what do I have that can bring the righteousness, the rightness, the goodness?
SPEAKER_03: And beloved, before you say you don't know what righteousness is, you do.
SPEAKER_03: We all do.
SPEAKER_03: We have the spirit of God in us.
SPEAKER_03: We know when things are not right.
SPEAKER_03: We know this is not how Jesus would have done this.
SPEAKER_03: We know this is not what spirit would have for people.
SPEAKER_03: And so this constant fighting in ourselves of this is what I feel or I know, and this is how I'm supposed to do mental gymnastics around it.
SPEAKER_03: This verse is telling us there's a way to live differently.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
SPEAKER_03: In the second half here of the Beatitudes, it's telling us that mercy needs to be our community language.
SPEAKER_03: That we need to be people of great mercy, not just what Micah said to us, although that should be enough.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus is echoing this verse.
SPEAKER_03: He's echoing the same thing, saying that this is a part of who we are called to do.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to a pastor friend of mine, and he would say that in his church he was tackling the question of, you know, if God is good, why do bad things happen to good people, you know?
SPEAKER_00: And and I said, Well, what'd you come up with?
SPEAKER_00: I want to hear this.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, you know, he goes, it boils down to free will.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, that not that I I disagree with you, but I said, I believe the answer is because we allow it.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I I think that you could really uh get mad at that statement, but um but I I think it's within us to go, you know, Bill Gates has all this money, he could stamp out poverty.
SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't he do something?
SPEAKER_00: And so we kind of stand around and go, God, you could do anything, why don't you do it?
SPEAKER_00: But then we drive by the guy this afternoon who's gonna have a sign out hungry, could take anything, and we go, get a job, sucker.
SPEAKER_03: I hope we don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: There's there's something that you could do for someone, but we sat down and say, Yeah, well, I can't I can't do everything.
SPEAKER_00: And when I look at, you know, when I look in the wallet of Elon Musk, I think, well, he should do it.
SPEAKER_00: So it's true, it's here because you and I allow it.
SPEAKER_00: There is something that we can do.
SPEAKER_00: And if we all do everything we can do, and it's still there, then ask the question, God, why did didn't you equip us?
SPEAKER_00: But there's plenty of wealth in this world, there's plenty of provision.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and so we we so sometimes it costs you when your friend says, hey, something that he has is broken, or something that she has is is not working, and you know deep down I have the thing that can fix that, but then I won't have two of them.
SPEAKER_00: And I love having my backup.
SPEAKER_00: Or my third, my three backups.
SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh, that gets the car warmed up.
SPEAKER_00: We better get out of here.
SPEAKER_03: Lord Irwin, who is the leader of the British Raj in India, once asked Bhatma Gandhi, Man to man, tell me what you consider to be the solution of the problems of your country and of mine.
SPEAKER_03: Gandhi picked up a Bible and opened to the fifth chapter of Matthew and said, When your country and my country get together on the teachings laid down here on the Sermon on the Mount, we will have solved the problems not only in our countries, but that of the entire world.
SPEAKER_03: When we become people who are so formed by the Beatitudes, by the teachings of Jesus, that we will not allow someone to suffer alone.
SPEAKER_03: That we will not exact vengeance, that we will instead be people who are merciful, that we will be peacemakers, that we will allow these things to absolutely transform us.
SPEAKER_03: This is how the world changes.
SPEAKER_03: We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_03: If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend?
SPEAKER_03: This podcast is made possible thanks to the generosity of people just like you.
SPEAKER_03: If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast, visit us online at firstlovebchurch.org, reminding you to like, follow, and subscribe.
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes when we are aware, uh I grew up in the early 70s when a newspaper was brought into the house for the news.
SPEAKER_03: Now we didn't have televisions, we had not because there wasn't invented, that wasn't that old, but we didn't have them.
SPEAKER_03: But we had a newspaper, the Chicago Tribune or the Chicago Sometimes, and that told you the news.
SPEAKER_03: And that was the extent of all the news you had until the next day.
SPEAKER_03: And so our adrenal systems, I think, were a little more regulated.
SPEAKER_03: The news bombards us.
SPEAKER_03: We get to see things that we can't, our bodies can't even handle the amount of information that is coming to us.
SPEAKER_03: So peace to you, beloved.
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes in the middle of all of that that we see, it feels like a paralysis.
SPEAKER_03: I cannot fix everything.
SPEAKER_03: Beloved, we are not called to fix everything.
SPEAKER_03: We are called to fix what is in front of us.
SPEAKER_03: I was introduced to somebody, and somebody said to me, I would love for you to meet this woman.
SPEAKER_03: She's just like you.
SPEAKER_03: And I always get a little nervous about that because what does someone else see in me?
SPEAKER_03: And then what are they comparing this person to?
SPEAKER_03: And so I was like, Oh, this, okay, excellent, excellent.
SPEAKER_03: And so a little trepidation, and they introduced her to me, and she's brilliant.
SPEAKER_03: And I was so excited because I was like, oh, this is awesome.
SPEAKER_03: She is a neonatal surgeon, and she is a specialist.
SPEAKER_03: Most of the surgeries that she does are in utero to help these babies, and she's an incredible, incredible doctor, and she is a Muslim person who follows explicitly her faith.
SPEAKER_03: And we sat for hours and talked about people and how we can serve and how we can make the world a better place.
SPEAKER_03: And about three hours in, she leaned over and she said, I am tormented.
SPEAKER_03: And I said, How can I help?
SPEAKER_03: And she said, There is so much need.
SPEAKER_03: And she said, Every night I lay down and I say to myself, Have I done enough?
SPEAKER_03: Have I done enough?
SPEAKER_03: So I reached across the table and I held her hand and I said, When is the last time you turned away someone who came to you?
SPEAKER_03: And she said, Never, not even one time.
SPEAKER_03: And I said, You've done enough.
SPEAKER_03: What comes to us, beloved, is for us.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, there is suffering all over the world.
SPEAKER_03: We may not be able to change all of it, but we can change those right in front of us.
SPEAKER_03: We can allow the Spirit to change our hearts and be transformed and to the people around us, that we would begin to open our circles and our spheres and say, This is what the kingdom looks like.
SPEAKER_03: This is what the invitation is from the Beatitudes.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
SPEAKER_03: This particular surgeon does not work for profit.
SPEAKER_03: Everything that she does, every single surgery she does, it is a giveaway because people cannot afford her, and the people that need her cannot afford her.
SPEAKER_03: And so everything is a gift.
SPEAKER_03: But if we are not mindful, we will miss the invitation that Jesus has for us into inviting us into what the kingdom is already doing.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the merciful, for they themselves will receive mercy.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and the problem is the breaks kind of go on there because everyone gets afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if I gave away all my surgeries, how would I be taken care of?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because we stop making fear our God and allow our ourselves to trust in his path, and in doing, I'm going to be taken care of.
SPEAKER_00: There's a singer in a band called U2 named Bono, and it's been per a track that his involvement in world hunger has started a trajectory that within another 10 years it's possible to wipe out world hunger on the planet.
SPEAKER_00: And so he used his influence, and he's used all of you know the resources of, not all of, but but he'll just give away just just millions of dollars.
SPEAKER_00: He meets world leaders, he he goes into other countries, he stands up on behalf and and just and he speaks so powerfully and he's just got this gift.
SPEAKER_00: But the the if you trace his genesis and his trajectory, he's sitting in a in a place with a uh with a bunch of people, and and a lowly pastor's wife walked up to him and began to ask him, what's your passion?
SPEAKER_00: What do you love?
SPEAKER_00: What do you care about?
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't have a clear answer.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, you know what I care about?
SPEAKER_00: I care about the hungry.
SPEAKER_00: And she began to share her passion.
SPEAKER_00: This pastor's wife who began to share with Bono the tiny difference that she's able to make in what it's doing in her life and the purpose that it's given.
SPEAKER_00: And he tracks the very transformation of his life and the very shift of the problem of world hunger being changed because that woman cared.
SPEAKER_00: Now, could she have ever dreamed that she would be the catalyst or even be on the radar a blip of somehow being involved in the removing of world hunger on the planet Earth?
SPEAKER_00: But she allowed herself to be surrendered to the passion and to the call of God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you could argue what difference you could make, and I could argue what difference you could make.
SPEAKER_00: But will we all surrender and then just really do our part?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you to solve world hunger.
SPEAKER_00: God's not asking you to do that.
SPEAKER_00: But God is asking you to affect that one person that you'll come in contact with in the next few hours or a few days.
SPEAKER_03: Or 20 people.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it starts with one.
SPEAKER_03: It does start with two.
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully it goes past 20.
SPEAKER_00: But it's just our perspective on the idea that we have been sold the bill of goods that we can do nothing.
SPEAKER_03: Beloved, we are so powerful.
SPEAKER_03: We are more powerful than we could ever imagine.
SPEAKER_03: We are eternal beings made in the very image of God.
SPEAKER_03: We are light.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus said this: we are the light of the world.
SPEAKER_03: We have the love of Christ in us.
SPEAKER_03: We have swallowed a lie if we believe that we are not powerful.
SPEAKER_03: There is a power in us, not of domination, not of control, but the power that said, light be and light was.
SPEAKER_03: We are made by the creative force of God, and we are invited into the same creativity.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.
SPEAKER_03: I remind you that peacemaking is not maintaining status quo.
SPEAKER_03: It is courageous and it is creative reconciliation that absolutely refuses violence and complacency, and it pursues justice in a way that expects resistance.
SPEAKER_03: But the invitation is to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: And when we follow Jesus, beloved, Jesus said to Peter, he said many things, but in one particular time he said, Put down your sword.
SPEAKER_03: We're not doing it that way.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus comes to bring peace.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus comes to forgive sin, not to extract judgment and vengeance and wrath.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus shows us how God is coming to us.
SPEAKER_03: And it is through this self-sacrificial love that we would be people so formed by the love that Jesus showed us that we would also learn how to love that way.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's strategies, and there's strategies of war, and there's strategies of this world.
SPEAKER_00: And we can uh learn those strategies and then think, oh, we could really help God by applying those strategies to the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: But there is a whole other plan.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And I need to give myself and I recommend you surrender to that plan.
SPEAKER_00: I like in verse 9 how it says uh uh peacemakers, and and I I I don't I think that it's important that we think about that word.
SPEAKER_00: Heather preaches a very a whole sermon on it, but but the difference between uh peacekeepers and peacemakers.
SPEAKER_03: Let the Holy Spirit inspire you on how you could make peace in a situation.
SPEAKER_03: Not just keep we're called to be creative in our making.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.
SPEAKER_03: I remind you, the violence and war are not the ways of God.
SPEAKER_03: And in our peacemaking, I am just wondering, I was thinking about this for the last couple of days, how often we give space.
SPEAKER_03: Thomas was talking about this this morning.
SPEAKER_03: How much space do you make for God?
SPEAKER_03: But how much space do you make for the Holy Spirit to help you reimagine how you could be a peacemaker?
SPEAKER_03: The prophet Amos said this one day we will no longer train our sons for war.
SPEAKER_03: One day we will take our swords and we will beat them into pruning forks, we will beat them into plows, we will beat them into ways that we can farm for the flourishing of all people.
SPEAKER_03: How much time do you spend imagining what the world will be like when there is no war?
SPEAKER_03: What will it look like when brother is not killing brother?
SPEAKER_03: Beloved, we need to spend more time in the Holy Spirit imagining.
SPEAKER_03: What will it look like?
SPEAKER_03: What will it look like for us to be able to say, we stand with all people because God is calling us into oneness?
SPEAKER_03: Jesus prayed for us, and Jesus said, Father, I'm asking you to make them one the same way that you and I are one.
SPEAKER_03: And will you tell them, will you let them know that you love them the same way that you love me?
SPEAKER_03: We are asked to stand in our belovedness, to imagine in our belovedness, to make ways to say, what would it look like for us to forgive sins?
SPEAKER_03: What would it look like for us to make changes and for us to be people so transformed by the teachings of Jesus that our world would be transformed?
SPEAKER_00: And for us, it means that we must be transformed first because you know there's a way to keep peace.
SPEAKER_00: We can get weapons bigger than the other person and stand and lord over them with threatening.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the that is the blueprint that's given to us in the world for peacekeeping.
SPEAKER_00: But peacemaking means I have to be so transformed by spirit that I bring that in to the place.
SPEAKER_00: And do you do you see the big difference?
SPEAKER_00: I was years ago, don't judge me, because I'm growing, but years ago, Heather and I were in Chicago on vacation, and I saw this handicapped guy walking across the, there's like 50 people coming, you know, this the light just turned green for us to walk across the street.
SPEAKER_00: And this uh handicapped guy was had a bag of groceries, and the guy was on a bike riding by, and the handicapped guy, just because he was you walked with a certain limp, his groceries hit the guy, and the guy jumped off his bike, threw his bike down, and started swinging on this handicapped guy.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he was a little bike guy in his little bike shorts, you know, or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And here I am.
SPEAKER_00: And I went, hey! Don't touch him or I'm gonna get you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I just right in the middle of Chicago, you know, and all of a sudden everybody in the whole, like all this thing, they they turned on me.
SPEAKER_00: They go, leave him alone.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, he's what and uh and then I was so distraught because I'm like, I saw this injustice of this guy, and I I rose up and protector, but what I did was I just became a bigger bully to the bully.
SPEAKER_00: And and I and I and I walked away and and it was and I was and I was so embarrassed and so ashamed.
SPEAKER_00: And Heather hugged me and she says, I love you, and I love you because you tried.
SPEAKER_00: You saw that and you did something.
SPEAKER_00: And and even if we do the wrong thing, let God, you know, show us on the path.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I you know what I know?
SPEAKER_00: I know what not to do to protect the guy.
SPEAKER_00: And next time I can do something else, hey, we're gonna pray or something.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna bring God's spirit in there in some other way.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a way, but it's not to bully the bullies, it's not to copy what they're doing a little bit better than them or have a bigger gun.
SPEAKER_00: It's for us to really understand and imagine.
SPEAKER_00: And I, and with that imagination, I begin to see what is different when I take those weapons and I plow them uh into uh harvesting tools, and that we begin to feed and provide instead of take away in order for us to protect.
SPEAKER_00: We need to get your money because why?
SPEAKER_00: We need to build a bigger force so that we can do more.
SPEAKER_00: No, what we need to do is be the kind of people that are so followed by led by God and following God that we can that we can trust that when we give, we win, we can give away those surgeries.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that we'll not be left without.
SPEAKER_00: Because isn't that the biggest fear?
SPEAKER_00: Then where will we be?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll be in the hands of God, where we always should have been, instead of relying on our resources and our plans and our schemes.
SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm really starting to meddle.
SPEAKER_03: I know that no one in here judges because we've been told not to, so I know we don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we do it.
SPEAKER_03: Well, no, we don't.
SPEAKER_03: I'm believing for us that that is not, we are not lining things up.
SPEAKER_03: But I remind you of a man by the name of Moses who knew, who his insides burned with the injustice that he saw.
SPEAKER_03: And when he saw the Egyptian being cruel to the people who were his family, his brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_03: He saw that cruelty and then he killed the Egyptian.
SPEAKER_03: They were not delivered by Moses' cruelty.
SPEAKER_03: No one's life changed for the better because Moses took things in his own hands.
SPEAKER_03: In fact, it may have put them back a little bit, but we don't know that for sure.
SPEAKER_03: God takes care of things and says, You're gonna have to go back into retraining, go to the back.
SPEAKER_03: Of the mountain and learn how to follow.
SPEAKER_03: God had a plan for deliverance for everyone, that everyone gets out without us killing Egyptians.
SPEAKER_03: And very often, beloved, we are not peacemakers, we are people who will who just try to dominate a force that we see as injustice, and Jesus is saying there's something else.
SPEAKER_00: There's another way for us.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
SPEAKER_03: Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.
SPEAKER_03: For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
SPEAKER_03: This cannot be the final time that you think about the Beatitudes, but we are inviting you, beloved, as beautiful community, to begin to put in priority these teachings of Jesus, to make them something that you rehearse, to remind yourself this is the reset button for us.
SPEAKER_03: This is the update.
SPEAKER_03: This is whatever else that's coming that reminds us of the truth, that the beautiful kingdom that God has planned for us is not just in the sweet by and by.
SPEAKER_03: It's not just after we all die.
SPEAKER_03: It's now, beloved.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus said the kingdom is so close, it's here with us.
SPEAKER_03: This is a message of hope.
SPEAKER_03: Are you tired?
SPEAKER_03: Are you worn out on religion?
SPEAKER_03: Jesus said, then come to me and I will show you the unforced rhythms of grace.
SPEAKER_03: I will show you how to live freely and lightly.
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus said, Come and walk and follow me, and I will show you the way to life.
SPEAKER_03: It is in our walking, it is in our following that we find the way to life.
SPEAKER_03: In Micah chapter 6, verse 8, we read that this morning.
SPEAKER_03: We are called to walk humbly with our God.
SPEAKER_03: We are called to walk in humility.
SPEAKER_03: We are called to walk.
SPEAKER_03: We are called to move.
SPEAKER_03: I like prayer.
SPEAKER_03: I have always since I was tiny, uh, probably because of my desperation and my feelings of inadequacy.
SPEAKER_03: I like to be able to be able to talk with God, but to commune with God.
SPEAKER_03: But one of my favorite ways of praying, the civil rights actions have given it to us, and they said you have to pray with your feet.
SPEAKER_03: Get up and do something.
SPEAKER_03: Do something about what you see being a problem.
SPEAKER_03: And so this invitation is not that you would do it alone, but that you would do it with God's own spirit, that you would do it empowered by love, that you would do it empowered by community who also say there's another way to live.
SPEAKER_03: And it is in the presence of divine love, it is in the presence of hope.
SPEAKER_03: We are invited to witness another world by faithful love.
SPEAKER_03: And the witness often begins with lament, but it continues with this nonviolent resistance, and then it's sustained by the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_03: It is for us that we would be a light, that we would be advocates without hatred or cruelty or violence, but that we would be a people going.
SPEAKER_03: Every person has value because it is made, they are made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_03: And what do we do to bring the kingdom here?
SPEAKER_03: We pray the prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_03: And how are we offering our hands and feet to Christ so that his body can be seen in the world?
SPEAKER_00: I was listening to a study this week of a minister uh talking about, you know, sometimes we don't fully understand what you know God's trying to sh reveal to us in scripture, you know, and and Moses coming from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, or Jesus coming back, you know, from this time of prayer and sharing the Beatitudes, uh, we think like that maybe they were talking about a location.
SPEAKER_00: But up in that mountain is really not necessarily a place, but you know, that portal between heaven and earth, that place where heaven reaches earth and God gives that message, you know?
SPEAKER_00: And so don't be lost in the idea that you you have to find that location on the mountain, but that God connects with you.
SPEAKER_00: And so I I want to remind you that just as for Moses, God gave him the commandments, and Jesus is giving us the Beatitudes, that for you and I, there's that place uh on the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: There's that place where God changes the way that you see things, and so many of us don't even realize that we need a heart change or that we need a mindset change.
SPEAKER_00: And I think mindset's really the place where, and that's the greatest thing I think about being a human, is that you can change your mind.
SPEAKER_00: And we've thought a certain way, and so God help us see that different way, and I think that's what breaks that those patterns, and we can begin to surrender to God and have that moment for you.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just challenge you, like as we enter into communion now, that it's an opportunity for you to have that go-to-the-mountain experience with God, that Jesus wants to give you your daily bread, that there can be a spiritual encounter.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be ordinary uh an experience, that you can have a supernatural, extraordinary experience.
SPEAKER_00: And and for us, it's not to try to generate that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh I was talking to somebody recently and they need a miracle uh because of the health things they're going through.
SPEAKER_00: And I can really sense they're trying real hard to talk God into it.
SPEAKER_00: And it made me sad because God wants to do good for us.
SPEAKER_00: But it's our mindset that we think we maybe don't deserve it, or or why would God do the We're children of God, we're entitled to miracles.
SPEAKER_03: We are entitled to the presence of God coming and changing things.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's just that's the fruit of and the byproduct of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: And so and so that's what what we we need to maybe shift in our mindset to to look for it, expect it.
SPEAKER_00: And that and that doesn't mean that somehow you gotta generate it.
SPEAKER_00: I think that Heather and I were talking about that uh, I think yesterday, that that idea that um God's gonna do it, right?
SPEAKER_00: But we just really need to kind of position ourselves with the expectancy that God is gonna do it and that we don't have to, we don't have to generate this change.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there needs to be a change.
SPEAKER_03: But we do follow the way of Mary and offer a prayer of consent.
SPEAKER_03: When God says, I want to change things, Mary said, Be it unto me according to your word.
SPEAKER_03: I don't know how this is gonna work out, but I'm in.
SPEAKER_03: Whatever you in the Spirit are up to, I'm in.
SPEAKER_03: I am in.
SPEAKER_03: Make that be.
SPEAKER_03: And our prayer of consent.
SPEAKER_03: I want us to pray before we go to the communion table, and I want to remind you that this is the most sacred thing that we will do today is celebrate holy communion together.
SPEAKER_03: I read a prayer last week written in the 600s by Saint Hilda Whitby.
SPEAKER_03: And she started the prayer and she named God Architect of Community.
SPEAKER_03: I've been using those that particular name all week.
SPEAKER_03: When I see things that are broken, when I'm praying for Philadelphia, when I'm praying for uh Minnesota, when I'm praying for all the things every architect of community, you who know how to bring people together.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_03: So this morning in God's house, architect of community, you spoke your kingdom into a world ruled by empire.
SPEAKER_03: We come to you this morning, weary, grieving, and sometimes afraid.
SPEAKER_03: We see cruelty rewarded and compassion punished, and our hearts ache within us.
SPEAKER_03: Bless the poor in spirit among us.
SPEAKER_03: Those who are crushed by injustice, those emptied by loss, those overwhelmed by fear, let them know that your kingdom and your reign is near.
SPEAKER_03: Make us gentle in power, but fierce in mercy.
SPEAKER_03: Give us a hunger for the justice of God that will not fade.
SPEAKER_03: Keep our hearts undivided, our hands open, and our courage steady.
SPEAKER_03: Teach us to make peace without making peace with evil.
SPEAKER_03: Form us into a people who tell the truth in love and act with love in truth.
SPEAKER_03: When we are mocked or opposed, remind us that we walk with the crucified one, whose victory came not through the sword, but through self-giving love.
SPEAKER_03: Guard us from despair.
SPEAKER_03: Keep hope alive in our very bones.
SPEAKER_03: And through us, let justice roll like waters.
SPEAKER_03: Let your righteousness be an ever-flowing stream in the name of Jesus who blesses the broken and who stands with the least.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: In Second Corinthians, you much each decide in your heart how much to give.
SPEAKER_03: And don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure, for God loves a person who gives cheerfully.
SPEAKER_03: And God will generously provide all that you need, and you will have always everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.
SPEAKER_03: Would you make a worship confession with us this morning?
SPEAKER_03: All together, O Radiant One.
SPEAKER_03: Stop and think about that just for a minute.
SPEAKER_03: The sun felt very far away this morning.
SPEAKER_03: I know it wasn't so, but it felt that way.
SPEAKER_03: Oh Radiant One.
SPEAKER_03: You created everything in the heavens above and in the earth below.
SPEAKER_03: You survey all your creation and you savor its beauty and appreciate its goodness.
SPEAKER_03: To you, we lift up the best we have to offer from our time, our talents, and our resources.
SPEAKER_03: We give freely from what we have received from your hand.
SPEAKER_03: We give joyfully with the gratitude of a rescued people.
SPEAKER_03: We give generously with the excitement of practicing the very way you gave to us.
SPEAKER_03: We join with your mission and with your kingdom.
SPEAKER_03: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: We are about to celebrate Holy Communion, and we are about to practice what it is like to receive Holy Communion, what it is like to receive from God.
SPEAKER_03: And then we will take that, and then the invitation is to take it into the world, to open your tables in your homes, to open your table metaphorically, and for you to be able to say, there is a seat for you at the table of God.
SPEAKER_03: But what we do here, what we do in practice, what we do in ritual, what we do in sacrament, what we do in embodied living is we bring our whole selves together to the communion table, and we come without masks.
SPEAKER_03: We come because hunger brings us to the table.
SPEAKER_03: Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
SPEAKER_03: And at the table we find our sins are forgiven.
SPEAKER_03: And at the table we find that God and love have already heaped up a feast and that there is room for everyone.
SPEAKER_03: We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon.
SPEAKER_03: If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurch.org.