summit fever

It really is only fitting that the last Sunday in the church year tells you how much you need the upcoming savior.

This is something you miss if you go from zero to Christmas, as the world normally does, but if you have the time and the occasion to think about it, you think about how dire the situation actually is.  I'll explain.

For most of us, we have the idea that Jesus came to earth, as a little baby, to take away the sins of the whole world.   That much is sure.  And when we think about sins, we do so pretty much by the list that St. Paul gives us, telling us that the works of the flesh are evident:  Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. Things like this, and the decalogue, have a way of working on us, in which we get the impression, the very reasonable impression, that the scriptures give us a near constant idea only of what we ought not to do.  It's easy to think that, since Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, that we ought perhaps to avoid these sins, to steer clear of them and forsake them. No problem there.  And this list of things almost always comes down on the side of working out what you did.  That will be the basis of judgment, right?  If you were bad, if you committed sins, if your sins were greivous and stank to high heaven, then you'll be damned to hell for all eternity.  So the thinking goes, at any rate.

But here's the snag with our thinking - That we don't exist in a vacuum.  We aren't individuals who exist and function in nothingness.  In other words, it isn't as though our only choices are evil or neutral.

This is going to be hard for good Lutherans to hear, because we have been, for a long time, dissuaded from talking about works, believing that discussion of works would lead to us assuming that

we could, in fact, earn our salvation, which we cannot.  And so we default to the position that it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you don't do anything wrong.


This is the fatal flaw with law preaching, I suppose, is that it can, in theory, terrify the flesh, but it does little beyond paralyze you as a human being, even as a Christian, into complete inactivity.  And if we were Lutheran Christians, we would expect the image (the only image) of the last judgment that Christ paints to be specific in its nature.  We would anticipate that it would be someting that would talk only about our faith, right?  As Jesus separates the sheep from the goats, as he divides the saved from the damned, he doesn't mention faith.  I know, I know, we're delving into this territory

again, aren't we?  The territory of Christian gymnastics, in which we know the conclusion already, and so the intermediary steps have to fit that.  And so this story of the last judgment, the story in which Jesus separates the sheep from the goats, it hs to be all about the justifying faith in Christ.  It has to.  By definition.  We have already decided the conclusion that faith in Christ saves, so therefore, by default, this story, even though it isn't about that, has to be about that.  It cannot, must not, be about anything else.

Now, this is something that we accuse other church bodies of doing.  We tell the Jehovah's Witnesses that they ought not do that, that they mustn't change scripture to fit their conclusions.  They can't alter the words of the Bible to fit what they want it to say, and they need to do what we as Lutherans do, which is to let the scriptures say what they plainly say.

Now you look at this passage, and tell me it has nothing to do with works.  I dare you.  I double dare you to look at this, and claim that it has nothing to do with works at all.  Are you sure?  And how much are you willing to wager on it?  How much are you willing to gamble on this topic?  Are you willing to risk eternity on this?

The big surprise lurking for us when we look clearly in this passage from Matthew 25 is that Jesus makes no bones about what is happening in his division of the sheep from the goats.  He tells the sheep that they were good to him.  When he was hungry, they gave Him food.  When he was sick, they took care of Him.  When he was in prison, they visited Him.  These things, when they were done to the least of all people, were done to Christ himself.

In the modern church, in the modern Lutheran church, these things are downplayed. They are downplayed to the point of not being discussed at all.  We don't want to talk about works, we don't want to talk about what you should do.  We're much better at talking about what you ought not do.

But Christ, in his painting of the picture of the last judgment, he makes it fairly clear that you have not been placed here on this earth for inactivity, for selfishness, or for squandering of his gifts.  This is what the parable of the prodigal son is all about.  If you remember it, the parable of the prodigal son is about using up what God has given unto you.  It's about taking the many and various gifts that God has supplied you with, and wasting them.  Running them into the ground.  The prodigal son took all his interitance, and blew it on wine, women and song.  He used it all up until it was gone, then he had to grovel back.  It's a disastrous story for us, because, unlike the majority of scripture, it's written for us.

Look at who this passage is spoken to - It is spoken directly to his disciples.  Privately.  It isn't delivered on a mountain, it isn't delivered to the crowds, it isn't spoken from the cross.  It is spoken to his disciples in private.  And that makes sense.

It makes sense because passages like this are written to and for Christians.  It's spoken to the disciples, men who were of the inner circle, men who had been following Jesus for the duration, but more than that, men who had become comfortable, complacent, as regarded their position.  People who were, as we are in the church, comfy with the idea that Jesus has accomplished our salvation for us.

Ah yes.  But he has not done everything for us.  He has placed us within a unique position that we don't think much about for much of the time.  He has placed us in a space in which we have the opportunity to work in his service every minute of every day.  And the sad thing is how often we waste that chance.

Look around you.  All around you are the the people who make up this edict from Jesus.  The schlubs you pass at Wal-Mart, the beggars you find on the street, the scammers online, the telemarketers calling you during supper, your bigoted uncle Ted, the loudmouth in traffic, the teenagers who live down the street, all of them.  They're all an opportunity to serve Christ.  And what do we do with them?  We ignore them, we push them aside, we move past them always, and move towards something else.

When Jesus talks about the final judgment, his question to us is what did you do?  It isn't 'where did you go,' or 'what did you think?' as we would expect. Instead, it ends up being 'what did you do?'  And that's a harder question for us, as it exposes us, nakedly, as being bad stewards.  And none of us like that discussion.  When Jesus talks about the final judgment, he does so by saying to us that we have not done what we ought to have done.  This is, and always should be, unsettling to us.  We ought to be bothered by it. We ought to be perturbed. We, in the church, rarely have cause to be unsettled.  If I were to read through that list of sins earlier, then you'd likely hear me read them, and shrug your shoulders, and assume that it had nothing to do with you.  And odds are you'd be right, up to a point.

But if you were to hear the words of Christ from Matthew 25, if you were to hear Jesus speak to you directly, calling you out for your sloth, for you laziness, for your lax attitude about the poorest and most vulnerable of all people.  Do you feel uneasy?  You ought to.  In amost every way, when we look into the scriptures, we end up as

comfortable as the elder son from the prarable of the prodigal son, or like the rich young ruler, who sincerely believes that he has done all that is necessary to inherit eternal life.  And what is he reminded of by Jesus?  Not about what he has done, but about what he has left undone.

It's at this point that I end up thinking about summit fever.  Summit fever is the desire of climbers to reach the top of the mountain no matter what.  You must know by now that 1 in 6 people who sets out to climb Mount Everest will die on the mountain.  They will be swept away in avalanches, suffer from high altitude edema, fall from great height, or simply freeze to death in the heights of the world.  Now you would expect people to die in an area that dangerous, but what you might not expect is how frequently people will walk right past disasters.  People will step over the dying to get David Sharp, who froze to death most of the way up the mountain, in green boots' cave, who was passed over by 40 people on their way both up and down the mountain.  They walked right by him, almost stepping over him, and left him to die up there on the mountain.  And die he did.  David Sharp did not survive to walk down that mountain.

to the top of that mountain.  The most gripping of these stories was that of

Now, as shocked as you may be at that story, think of all the times you have walked right by someone who needed your hlep, someone who was in a bad state, someone who wanted money, or food, or heck, even your time, and you brushed them off.  You stared at the ground and kept walking, you breezed right on by, you switched your radio off, or changed the channel on the tv, you ignored the whole thing, and kept on going.  You weren't even climbing Everest, you were just trying to grab some groceries, or go shopping for Christmas presents, or whatever.  And even in that situation, you couldn't be bothered to help.  In your life, you have your own summit fever. You have your own goals, you have your own desires, your own things you want to do, and you're fine stepping over people, stepping past them, leaving them to die, as long as you get what you watned to get.  As long as you crest what you want to do, no matter how insignificant, then you're happy to step over whoever you need to.  You don't mind stomping all over the workers in the textile factories who work for basically nothing to provide us with cheap clothes, or the workers in electronics factories who live and die so that our ipads are cheaper.  We are happy to pass by those who get gobbled up by the machinery of this modern world, those who don't know how to cook, who don't have jobs, who don't have clean clothes or kitchens, any of that.  And we pass right by them on our way to our own personal summits.

As the church year draws to a close, as we enter into the last few days before Advent, we are reminded of just how much we have not done.  We are reminded of how far we have to go, how much we habitually leave undone.  As Christians, at this time of the year, we are reminded of how much we have had placed before us, and how much of it we have ignored.  And this is why we need Christmas.

We need Christmas because of the promise of that baby in Bethlehem.  We need Christmas because of our lack of activity, for our sloth, for our dereliction of duty. We need Christmas because of what we have not done, for all the times we have hardened our hearts like Pharaoh, for all the times we have passed by the needy like the Pharisees in the parable of the Good Samaritan, for all the times we have squandered our inheritance like the prodigal son, or buried our talents in the field.  We need Christmas as Christians not just for what we have done, but perhaps even more, because of what we have not done.  We knew what we should do, and we refused to do it.

The baby in the manger, the promised savior, the child being born held all that promise.  To save us from our sins, sins of omission, sins of commission.  If you read through Matthew 25 and it makes you uneasy, if you read through it and it bothers you, if it frightens and upsets you, if you read through Matthew 25 and you want to change the words in there to make it say something different, you need to stop.  Because for maybe the first time in your Christian life, you know what you have to repent of.  You know why you need Christ.  It could be that you've been going to church, listening to sermons for decades, heard the pastors denouncing this sin or that sin, and you thought to yourself, as the rich young ruler did, how great it was that you didn't have these problems.  Well now you know what problems you have.  And now you know how much you need the mercy and merits of Christ.  If someone was toe go down the list of people you have mistreated, have ignored, have passed by, you could not stand.  So if you cannot stand, you must kneel.  And seek forgiveness.  When the final judgment comes, you need to understand and to remember that none of us can stand on our own.  We all depend on the merits of Christ, and not our own.  What do you need forgiveness from?  Your sloth and apathy.  How do you get it? Through Christ's death for you.

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus.

He's so talented!

Sometimes things aren't about what we want them to be about.  Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.  Sometimes Jesus just says what he says.

There's a term I've coined, called 'Christian Gymnastics,' in which we, as Christians, will go through insane logical loops, take great leaps of faith, to make sure that the faith fits our preconcieved notions of what we want it to be.  I know, we in the Lutheran church have 'sola scriptura' as our byline, letting the scriptures say what they plainly say, but we're as bad for it as anyone else.

Case in point, the reading that we had from Sunday.  This reading, from Matthew 25, is right smack dab in the middle of the most difficult, hardest to hear, chapter from the New Testament.  Or, at least, the most difficult one for Christians to hear.

For you see, these passages are exactly what non-Christians want to hear, both about

themselves, and about the Christian faith.  They're quite law-heavy, telling you that you have some stuff to do.  And we don't like that, especially as Lutherans.

For you see, as Lutherans, we have a built in fear of works as far as righteousness goes.  We have a fear, a trepidation of works as anything that justifies us before God.  And part of this fear is to not talk about works, really, at all.  We talk about it only just barely in passing, but we talk only about the work of Jesus, his grace, his work on our behalf, and us bringing nothing to the table.

And that's fine, I suppose.  It's good as far as preaching the gospel goes, but unfortunately for us, Jesus doesn't avoid talking about works.  He actually talks about them quite a bit.  He's quite keen on discussing works, on bringing the topic forwards, and he does this for a very good reason - he's aware of what our tendencies are.

We have a natural inclination, as Christians, to understand the severity of sin, and we know that none of our good deeds can possibly counterbalance the sins that we commit.  So knowing that we can't counterbalance the sins we've committed, we tend to concede the point, and instead of concentrating on doing good deeds, we default to just avoiding bad deeds as much as we can.  If it's all 'thou shalt not' all the time, then what are you actually supposed to do?  And all this is, to reference the reading that we had from Sunday, is burying the talent.  For fear that we might misuse the talent, for fear that we might waste it, use it improperly, for fear that we might get it wrong, or feel as though we might place our salvation in our own hands, we take the talents, and we bury them.  That way, we avoid evil, right?  It's like those three monkeys, the ones who hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil.  Sure, you can stay away from doing anything specifically evil, but that's not the same as doing anything worthwhile.

The illustration that Jesus uses isn't idle, or someting to be tossed aside.  When he talks about burying our talents, it's something we do literally, and in this case, I don't use the word literally as an intensifier.  If you'd rather your talents were physically buried in the ground, if you're seriously thinking about burying your talents deep underground where they can be returned to God in a pristine form, then don't worry about it, for they will be bruied soon enough.  You will spend far more time dead than alive.  Your talents, your skills and abilities, your likes and dislikes, your passions and joys, they'll all be buried soon enough.  No trouble there.  But the big question is what do you do with them while you still can?

The parable of the talents seems pretty clear that you were supposed to do things while you had the chance.  You were supposed to act on possibilities.  You were supposed to move on it.  You were given time and space and abilities and skills by God himself, to be used in his service, and for your fellow human beings.  The parable of the talents tells us as Christians, that it's not enough for us to be blessed by God with time, resources, space, abilities, passions, and to just let them languish.  They were given to you by God for a reason.  To be used.

The final judgment of God entails him returning, as he does in the parable of the talents, to ask what we've been doing while he has been gone.  What have you done with what God has entrusted you with.  What have you done with who you are?  Is it anything?  Or did you bury it all out of fear of you losing it, out of fear of you squandering it, out of fear of your works.  Did you take who God has made you into

and bury that, or did you use it for what he had made you for.  The scriptures tell you what that is, for they tell us, in a verse that will end up being important for these last few weeks in the church year, that you are God's workmanship, created by him to do good works, which he has created in advance for you to do.  He's extremely serious about that, and he's awfully serious about the massive sins of omission you have. The thing is, that not only do you not live up to God's standards in the Bible, but you don't live up to your own standards of how people should behave either!  You know that.  When placed next to even your own standards, your own rules, you don't meet up to what you know people should do.  And it's not just the junk you do that you ought not to do, but it's the stuff you don't do that you know you should.

As Christians, we need to wrest our minds from the idea that the perfect Christian life is akin to a coma, to a living dream. Divorce yourself from the notion that the best life for you to live is the one in which you do nothing for fear of doing something wrong.  God made you into a special, unique human being, placed you into this time and space for something.  He meant for you to be doing what he put you here for.  Not to earn your salvation, but avoiding it doesn't earn your salvation either.  You don't get holier by avoiding works, you know.  Christ died to take away your sins, your anger, your resentment, your guilt, your shame, your lust, your pride, and, if you're already a Christian, more than anything else, your horrible complacency and apathy.  His death on a cross was for your complacency and sloth, and he died to set you free from its burden.  Through his death, you have not been freed from works, but for them, not liberated for sloth, but for dynamism.

If your next question is going to be 'what then ought we to do?'  Stick around.  Next week.

PJ.

Armageddon

There was a movie that came out not too terribly long ago called 'waiting for armageddon.'  It was all about the expectation that 20 million Americans have that they are living in the end times.  They are living in the last days of the earth, and it is winding to a close.  Now, this is an interesting concept on its own, the idea of us living in the end times, but it gets further intensified by the fact that these are people who not only believe that they are living in the end

times, but that they want this to happen.  In their lifetimes.  They believe that the final battle, the end of all things, the end of history as we know it, is going to happen, and they want it to happen.  They are interested as much as they possibly can in getting this event to happen.

Why, you may ask.  Well, it's a complicated question, that isn't as complicated as we would make it out to be.  It's a simple enough question to look into things and work out why people would be wanting to live in the end times.  Part of the reason we want the end of the world to happen during in our lifetimes, is so that we can be part of the scriptures, part of the plan of God, so we can see these events, the second coming, as part of our lifetimes, ratifying our choices and making abundantly clear that we were making the right choice, and backing the right pony all along.

But the readings today divide the people of the world into two camps, and they're both off.  They're both a little off from where they should be.  You have Amos speaking out against those who want the end of the world to happen.  You have Amos asking why anyone would want the day of the Lord to come.  It would be a terrifying day, a horrible day, a day of shaking and fear.  It would be a day of trepidation, a day of terror, nothing would be safe, nothing would be nice or good.  And when God speaks about people, he does so by saying that he hates their feasts, and takes no delight in their solemn assemblies, all the things that people had used for a long time to convince themselves that God wanted, all that stuff is useless to God.  He is not interested in that.  He is interested in repentance and fear, in righteousness and justice.  Tht's what he's interested in.  And if we haven't accopmlished that, if we haven't done all those things, you'd best hope that he's not coming back any day now.  It's terrifying.  If God comes, if Jesus comes back, and we haven't done what he wants us to do, if we haven't done what we should, then his return would be a horrible thing to behold.

But contrast that with the reading from the Gospel that we have, and see that we don't just have people who are trying to force the issue, but we have five foolish virgins, who assume that it's never going to happen. They are woefully unprepared for the return of the bridegroom, whom they all knew was going to come back, but they got used to feeling that perhaps he was never going to come back.  He was never going to return, and so they got very complacent.  Very complacent, laid back, not too concerned about when that might be, and so they were unprepared for when the bridegroom came back.  And when he did come back, when the bridegroom returned, they had urn out of oil, much like the united states, and so they had to run and get more.  And by that time, it was far too late for them to get into the party, so they were shut out.

These two things are held in tension.  People who want God to come back, and people who assume that nothing is ever going to happen.  And yet, and yet, there is a middle ground, a middle ground occupied by the wise virgins, those who are prepared for the coming of the bridegroom, those who packed extra oil, those who were carrying what they needed so that no matter when Jesus showed up, they would be ready.  And this point is so unbelievably key, it's so important for us to know as far as end times prophecies go.

You see, there are a lot of end times prophecies.  There are tons of people who are speaking about the end of history, the end times, the conclusion of history and the wrapping up of everything.  The looking for signs and signals from the scriptures , to see where God is at work in the world, and will always tell you that you are living in the end times,

and that things are wrapping up.  But you were never told in the scriptures to want to hasten this day forward.  It was never supposed to be the case that we would rush to a conclusion, focused on what we will see in the hereafter.  Instead, there is a crazy thing that happens in the scriptures.

For you see, the wise virgins are the ones who are prepared, no matter when the bridegroom may come back.  He could be back in five minutes, or five years, and they would be ready.  And that is what we are called to do.  We are called to be prepared, not to be living in the pie in the sky country, but to be at work in the kingdom always.

When God speaks in the words of Amos, he tells us that he despises feasts, that he takes no delight in burnt offerings, that he does not want burnt offerings or grain offerngs, songs or melodies.  All the things that those who seek the end times, that's what they have, that's what they bring.  And to seek the destruction of all things, to seek the fulfillment of revelation, to seek the end of all things is to turn your back on what you have been presented with for now.

Something strange about Jesus was that although he was divine, although he was focused on the work that he had to do to bring about the end of death and sin, he didn't ignore people.  Because he knew that people were what it was all about.  The justice and righteousness that are spoken to Amos, who do you think they apply to.  What do you think they're about.  Justice and righteousness don't exist in a vacuum, applied to nobody.  They are applied to real people, in real times and places.  They are applied to the poor, to the marginalized, to the people who can't help themselves.

And this comes to the heart of the end of all things.  Obviously the world is still here.  It hasn't ended since I started writing this sermon, so we're still in good shape.  And why did Jesus decide not to end the world two thousand years ago.  He did so for you.  And for everyone else on earth, all the people who are here waiting for us.  God relented in his return, and we ought to hope that he will continue to relent.  We ought to hope that he will continue to tarry, in order that we might continue to be useful, that we might continue to encourage one another, build one another up, to do something worthwhile in the here and now while we may.  Jesus tells us that we need to work while it is still day, for the night is coming when no one can work.  It will be night eventually.  There will be no more chance for work.  But that time is not today.  Not this day, not just yet.  We ought to be working in the here and now, not rushing armageddon, and not pretending that it will never happen, but being cognizant of the fact that the end of all things will happen, when God is ready.  In the meantime, we are called to that work that Amos asks us to do, to bring justice and righteousness, to be working on behalf of the people of God who are ground into the dust, to not be working for their eternal salvation while neglecting them in there here and now.  James tells us that it does nobody any good to say to them that we wish them well while they are starving.  God's desire is not for us to look for the return of Jesus while ignoring his body.

The greatest way to be prepared for the return of Jesus, honestly, is to be involved with his body now.  How do you do that, well you do it by being here.  The body of Christ is present in two ways in the here and now, firstly here in holy communion, where his body and blood literally are.  Also, he has promised to be wherever two or three are gathered.  That makes sense, and yet it seems to be almost too simple, yet here we are.  This is where the body and blood of Christ are, and his presence in the worship service is a major part of that.  Your savior is literally present here, at work in this place.  And those who want and expect the return of Jesus would do well to be not just present for his second coming at the mount in armageddon, but instead to be around where he may be in the here and now, and that place is right here.  This is where forgiveness of sins is given, life is preached, the scriptures are explored, and God is found.

And the second way to find the body of Christ is in his people.  The people of the world, the scattered, the poor, the weak, the frustrated, the crippled, the sick, the weak, the body of Christ.  How could you say that you have wanted the return of the body of Christ, if you have not cared for it at all while it was here all around you.  And this is, as Christians, a generous part of what we have to repent of, and what we have to be forgiven from, from burning though our lamps, for not being mindful of the body of Christ here present.  Jesus tells us that we will always have the poor with us, so there will always be an opportunity to work, how there will always be a chance to do things, his body will always need care.  We, as his forgiven, redeemed children, we have a role, we have a part to play.  It is incumbent on us to live our lives in a state of readiness, to be prepared to have Christ come back any day now, but to plan as though his return was thousands of years away.  To be ready for whenever he may return, but to build programs, to construct opportunities for the poor and the weak.

In other words, we have been blessed by the Lord our God with opportunity, to work in his kingdom here on earth.  We ought never to get complacent, thinking he'll never come back, nor ought we get too desirous for his return, seeking the great and terrible day of the Lord.  Rather, we need to be alert, attentive, waiting for his arrival, and more than anything else, doing the work that he has set before us to do.  The work of justice, of compassion, of repentence and of faith in him.

Beatitude Balderdash

Hi there, happy Monday, and welcome to the blog.  The blog which will have a certain Latin flair to it today.

Now, Latin, as you all know, is the basis and backbone for our language, our mother tongue.  We are entwined with Latin and it is inseprable from us.  We can't get away from the very deep Latin roots that run through everything.  A great number of english words have their roots in Latin words, which makes it rotten to play Balderdash with someone who knows Latin, which means that they can sort of cheat.

But a Latin word that you all know, if you're in church, if you have read your Bible ever, is Beatitude.  Beatitude is a Latin word for blessing, did you know that?  When Jesus begins each section of the Beatitudes, he starts out, in the Latin Vulgate by saying 'Beatis.' That's the way you say blessed in Latin.  You may have heard it in the sense of the beatification, which is the last stop on the railroad before sainthood.  If you've been beatified, then you are well on your way to becoming a saint, and you will be referred to as 'blessed Garth Huber,' or what have you.

But there's another Latin term that you're going to need to know, or rather one that you already no doubt are well aware of.  And that Latin term is quid pro quo.  That is, if you do something for me, I will do something for you, and vice versa.  And that's the basis for most of our interactions with each other.  This is what we're sort of all about, and this is what we do as humans for the most part.  Most of our relationships with other human beings are based on this principle, in which we do things for each other, and that's how it goes. And some primatologists have framed morality in this sense, that we can observe the apes as creatures who can practice this same kind of exchange with each other.  They can do this, they can scratch each other's backs, both literally and figuratively.

And we, human beings, because we operate with quid pro quo, we translate that over to everything else, as well.  Including to our relationship with God. We treat our realtionship with God in the same way, feeling as though if we do the right things for God, if we treat him well, then he will treat us well as well.  We feel as though if we do the right thing, we will be rewarded.  If we keep God's laws, if we do that for him, then he will bless us.  Blessed are we if we do what God wants us to do.  And certainly, reading through this passage from the Gospels, you can get the idea of how you ought to interact with God in the same way.  Quid Pro Quo, right?  If we are in these camps, if we are sorrowful, or if we hunger for justice, or if we are meek, then we will be rewarded by God for our efforts.  And that's how it works because that's how it has to work.  That's how all the other relationships we have work, so that's how this one has to work.

But wait a moment.  If you had a system with God worked out in which you were to do good things so that you might be blessed, well, then you'd be in a bit of a fix, wouldn't you?  Because, my friends, you are involved in yet more latin phrases.  You are involved in more latin phrases than you want to be.  You're involved with a latin phrase that affects you more than you'd want.  You're affected by a phrase in Latin that Martin Luther brought forward to describe the human condition, where he

called us 'simul justus et peccator,' at the same time sinner and saint.  And this is what drives all the misery of the earth, this is why the exchange that we would expect to get us a better place with God doesn't happen.  This is why we don't have the life we feel like we deserve, because we are simultaneously saint and sinner.  We know what we ought to do, we are well aware of what we need to do, and yet that ends up being the hardest thing to do.  We are in every way like Saint Paul, who knows what he wants to do, and yet doesn't do it.  We are people who know what the right thing to do is, we have it in our hearts and in our minds, we know how people should act, we know how we should act, and yet we don't live up to our own standards.

Look, I know how tempting it is to look at these beatitudes, and to try to see ourselves in it.  We look at these beatitudes and want to see ourselves as the meek ones, as the ones who are hungering for justice, as the ones who are long suffering and attempting to make the world a better place. We want to look at the beatitudes and say 'how long, O Lord, until I receive my reward? How long until I am given my release from this time of effort and struggle?  How long, O Lord, until you recognize how great of a job I'm doing, and bless me with your goodness?  How long indeed.  The trouble with the beatitudes is that we all see ourselves in them, we all see ourselves in the beatitudes, we all see ourselves as the meek, as the sorrowful, but we don't see ourselves as sinners.  

And this is why we're in the state we're in.  We all think we're part of the solution, and none of us believe that we're part of the problem.  We see ourselves in the beatitudes, but not as the sinners that we are.  It's always someone else's problem, and we never really figure out that the problem is most likely ours to begin with.  We have memorized the beatitudes, but we have forgotten that we are simul justus et peaccator.  And that's why the quid pro quo doesn't work.

But the Bible was never about quid pro quo to begin with.  Never was.  Sure, we thought it was.  Sure, we assumed that it was all about that, but it never really was.  The work that God did, it was never quid pro quo.  If you look at his arrangements with the people, if you look at how he does things with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, and so on, giving them blessing with nothing expected in return.  He offers them a space, a land, descendents, security and a future, and doesn't ask for anything in return.  None of God's deals require us to do the right thing to get in. The greatest of these is salvation, where we are given the forgiveness of sins and the life everlasting. And what is required of us?  Only trust in the promise.  Only belief in what Jesus says.  Only faith and trust in the words of Christ who tells us that he goes to prepare a place for us.  And we all have someone in our lives who has gone to be with God.  We all have someone in our lives who has departed this life, who has gone to be with God, and who has entered paradise.  And they did so because they had faith in God, because they clung fast to that promise.  Not because they did anything amazing, not because they stuck to God's laws so well, but because they were redeemed by God, bought by his blood, and given his grace.  They were blessed by God because he loved them, not because they had done the right thing.  They are justified sinners, which is how they have earned their place at God's side.

So, then, how do the beatitudes work? How do they work as things that seem to carry blessings alongside them?  Well, they do have blessings attached to them.  They mean what they say, when they say that the meek are blessed.  It means what it says when those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed.  Because they are.  This will seem strange, I know, because I just spent this time telling you that God doesn't bless you more because you do better things, which is true.  So how are you blessed?  You are blessed because God has told you how he wants to bless you.  He has instructed you through this book, through this misunderstood, unread book, what you should be doing.  And if you skip it, you miss the blessings that are there.

Think of it in dental terms, yes?  The dentist will tell you to floss.  The dentist will tell you that flossing is the best way to go about things, that if you don't floss, then you will have a bad time in the future with your teeth.  The dentist will still clean your teeth, will still fill holes, whether you floss or not, but the flossing isn't there for the dentist's benefit, it's for yours. That's so that you might have a more solid mouth, better health, and fewer problems.  Seems so simple, and is so rapidly conflated with other things, but here, in the beatitudes, God isn't telling you how to earn salvation, but he is instead telling you that this is how you can see his blessings. For most of our lives, we spend all our time with our hands full, with our time crammed full, and too occupied with ourselves to see God at all.  We lose sight of him, and of his blessings, because we are so occupied with ourselves, our achievements, our stuff, everything, that we can't see that God is trying to bless us all the time.  We just can't see it.

Think of those who have fallen asleep in the faith, those who have passed away, those who have died.  Think about how they are right now, which is fully and completely blessed by God, living in a space without tears, without suffering or sadness.  They

are blessed by God, have been given the grace and peace and rest that only God can give.  We find it easy to see that God blesses our loved ones who have fallen asleep in the faith with rich and abundant blessings, even in their hour of greatest weakness, but we find it hard to believe that he could bless us in our hours of weakness here on earth.  But it is no different.  Only different in your mind.  Our weakness is an opportunity for God's strength to be known to us.  We see him most clearly when we have nothing cluttering up our lives, getting in the way.  When we are meek, when we are humble, then we see God's majesty.  When we are worn down, we are picked up by God.  When we are reviled by others, we feel God's love.  In our weakness, God's strength is made known.

PJ.