Sermon OTM – 11/10/2024

Welcome and Prayer: Jim Calhoun

Come Lord join us today.
Our lives are are sometimes volatile
Fluctuating between our joys and sorrows
Our celebrations and our heartbreaks
Between victory and defeat
This week’s election has brought as much fear to some as elation to others
And that in itself can give each of us pause
Knowing that many, who are our neighbors,
Understand the world in ways distant from our own thinking
And believing their needs will be best met by attitudes, policy and actions we hold as destructive.
Help those who celebrate to do so with grace and generosity
And help those who are heartbroken find hope again in you
And for all of us fill us with your spirit to do as you call us
To love our neighbor
Even our neighbor who is our enemy
And to put flesh on the bone of that prayer teaching us,
leading us,
directing us to better love
And to remember this day and each day to love the least among us:
Our neighbors who are ill
Our neighbors who are hungry
Our neighbors who are alone
Our neighbors from other cultures
and who speak other languages
Our neighbors in jail
Come Lord and join us
And lead us into another day
Eager to do good
Amen

Morning Talk: chuck smith, jr.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth Matthew 5:4-5

Intro: Welcome back to Jesus’ Sermon On the Mount

He begins with the Beatitudes – not to be confused with “benedictions”
– they are more like a series of riddles
• he describes conditions in which people are already blessed
◦ already acceptable to God and discovering the abundant life
◦ but what he says sounds like the opposite of abundant life
• we would never tell a friend who is grieving, “You’re so blessed”
◦ and even in Jesus’ time and culture meekness was a deficit
– for this reason, we must pat attention to both lines of each Beatitude
• the first line is an incomplete picture
◦ something else comes after the situation Jesus identifies
◦ his “Blessed are” lines are explained in the “for they shall be” lines
• Jesus surprises us in order to enlighten us
◦ he reveals the contrast between worldly values and heavenly
◦ I admit, the most difficult place to practice the Beatitudes is in real life

“Blessed are those who mourn”

I’m going to combine grieving and mourning because both involve sorrow but they are not same
– grieving is a response to suffering a specific loss
• usually, the death of someone close to us – or even a dog or cat
• when we experience grief, we mourn our loss
– mourning, however, doesn’t require a death or loss
• many things can break the human heart
◦ like the way Hannah mourned her inability to have children (1 Sam. 1:5-7)
• we can mourn human suffering, here or anywhere,
◦ or the corruption of industry and politics,
◦ or the damage we’ve done to our planet,
◦ or the lives of friends or loved ones ruined by addiction or alcoholism

Whatever the cause, mourning can last a lifetime
– that doesn’t mean it’s always as intense as the first shock wave
• in many instances, the pain never goes away,
◦ but slips into the background,
◦ like all the other pains and noises we learn to live with it
• but in quiet moments, it can sneak up on us
◦ a sudden, unexpected memory brings a deep sigh or tears
◦ and we say, “I sure miss my old friend,” or a parent, or mentor
– we witness such moments in the Scriptures
Then Jacob tore his garments . . . and mourned for many days. All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said, “No, I shall go down to [the grave] to my son, mourning.” Thus his father wept for him (Gen. 37:34-35–in LXX, has same Greek word for mourning that Jesus used here)
Many years after the love of his life died, Jacob told his son Joseph, “As for me, when I came from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan . . . .” (Gen. 48:7)

I’ve officiated a lot of funerals (we don’t like that word, so we host “memorials” or “celebrations of life”
– I want to share with you something from my experience
• we have to stop putting emotional band aids on grief
◦ we need to avoid empty clichés: “I know how you feel,” “It must be God’s will,” “They’re in a better place”
Amy-Jill Levine says that phrase “does not comfort the mourner who may be thinking, The better place is here, with me. . . . If I hear again at a funeral that ‘heaven needed another angel,’ I may actually throw something. Let’s not dismiss mourning, which is what such platitudes try to do. The New Testament takes death seriously . . . Death is real. Death is painful.”
– to me, nothing sounds less sincere than, “I’m sorry for your loss”
◦ I assure you that silence is often the better response to another person’s mourning,
◦ perhaps with a gentle touch on the shoulder or hand
• it’s not our place to try to cheer up a broken heart
Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart,
is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day,
and like vinegar on soda (Pr. 25:20).
◦ instead of that, Paul says,
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep (Ro. 12:15)

There’s no way to suppress the physical agony of mourning
– it is not pure emotion — mourning is physical, neurological, and visceral
• our bodies can release into bloodstream an excess of specific peptides that prevent the nervous system from self-regulating
◦ we feel that agony in our stomach, and heart, and lungs (grief can be suffocating),
• there’s no way to control the deep pain of grief
– I have a theory–it’s mine, and I have no science to back it up, but here goes–
• until I experienced my most significant loss,
◦ I didn’t know how deeply it was possible to feel emotional pain, or how bad it could get
◦ my insides felt like a bottomless well, and I was in free fall
◦ with every degree I descended it felt like death was closing in on me
• but from that pain, I discovered, how deep my soul went
◦ if our souls can feel pain to that depth
◦ they can also feel love to that depth; and comfort to that depth

Which brings us to second line: “for they shall be comforted”

Jesus did not intend for this to be a consolation
– he is telling us that God won’t let our sorrow go to waste
• for me, every loss increases my longing for heaven
• one of the richest lines in the book of Revelation is,
He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore . . . (Rev. 21:4)
– when Isaiah prophesied the time when God’s takes over world
Your sun shall no more go down,
nor your moon withdraw itself;
for the LORD will be your everlasting light,
and your days of mourning shall be ended (Isa. 60:20)
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of prison to those who are bound,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant those who mourn in Zion–
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of [the spirit of heaviness] (Isa. 61:1-3)

Isaiah also described Jesus as
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3)
– he knows grief, and he gives us a new perspective on our sorrows
• they are just one type of life’s experiences that prepare us for realm of God
• that is not a consolation, it is a benefit, because we can begin to experience that realm now
Amy-Jill Levine, “In part those who mourn are blessed because not everyone can mourn. . . . a heart that knows how to grieve is a heart that knows how to love.”

The next Beatitude is “Blessed are the meek”

If you’ve read commentaries or heard teaching on the Beatitudes, you’ll see how many of those who write and preach try to avoid the word “meek”
• it’s perceived as a weakness, so they opt for humble, gentle, or mild
◦ meek can be a weakness when you refuse to defend yourself or fight back
◦ if you let others go first and if you give up trying to control everything and everyone
• Jesus used this word to describe himself
Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am [meek] and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Mt. 11:28-29)
◦ he is saying that he is approachable and not overbearing
◦ he is inviting us to be with him and to be like him
– we must be humble to be a true disciple of Jesus
• we must admit that we don’t know all we need to know
• we cannot come to Jesus self-assertive and aggressive, and smug in what we think we know,
◦ and expect him to take us on as disciples
◦ we must come as children

Jesus isn’t advocating low self-esteem
– I don’t think his concern here has anything to do with psychology
• meekness isn’t a fault or disorder that needs fixing or correcting
• it’s a way of being in the world, without being like the world
◦ it is kindness rather than rudeness, empathy rather than indifference, humility rather than egoism

The outcome here is, “for they shall inherit the earth”

Jesus is quoting Psalm 37, where we read, “The meek shall inherit the land” (v. 11)
– in the Old Testament, the land represents more than the territory within Israel’s borders
• it is attached to God’s covenant relationship with Israel
◦ it fulfills God’s promise to his people
• enter my rest is synonymous with entering the land (Ps. 95:11)
◦ enjoying being with God in a space that he occupies
– it is the fullness of all that God has prepared for his people

Conclusion: We’re beginning to pick up the rhythm of the Beatitudes

A disturbing or difficult challenge in first line, becomes a benefit in the second line
Again, the second line is not “compensation” but the reward of something better
Every tear we shed becomes a seed of a harvest that is yet to come
Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy! (Ps. 126:5)
Like everything else worthwhile, we live now for the best possible future