What is Blessed - Matthew 5 - Epiphany 4A

Do you feel blessed?

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Sermon based upon Matthew 5:1-12. Micah 6: 1-8, Psalm 15

Opening prayer

What gems we have in this week’s lectionary from Matthew and Micah! Micah 6:8 is prominently engraved in the halls of Chicago Theological Seminary. I wanted to ask why.  When we pair this with Matthew’s sermon on the mount, we can see how this text is a question and a statement at the same time. 

I will get to this in a moment. First, let’s look at Matthew. 

This is a well known scripture from Matthew and among my favorite pieces of scripture. We begin to hear how Jesus will turn everything upside down. For the parts of the Gospel that are difficult, this text is nice and has good vibes to it. This is one you put in your back pocket and lean into during difficult times. 

Yet today, I am reading something different this time.

Jesus leans heavily on blessings. The question then for us today is, What does it mean to be blessed?

In our everyday, people like to think of blessing as being somehow fortunate or gifted something. For those, we should pause and be thankful for those gifts. We should also be reminded as well to follow up these gifts with what are we doing with them…

For I am glad to have good health until I don’t, whether I get sick or injured. For youth, and especially for athletes, we have health, but it can be fleeting to think we will always be in good health. Watching Patrick Mahomes limp around the football field with sprained ankle is a reminder to all of us that bad things do happen to good people at inopportune times.  

Even when we have something bad happen or fall sick, we are reminded that we can be blessed at the same time. Be thankful for the gifts because things happen. We are only a random shot, a health bill, a car accident, a layoff away from disaster. I bet, in those moments, many of don’t feel very “blessed.”

Why do people, who are poor in spirit, are those who get a slice of heaven doled out, (as Jesus says)?

What does Jesus mean "blessed are those who mourn?"  What part of mourning is a blessing when we are trying to make our way through emotion after emotion.

Think for moment. If blessing is supposed to be some sort of “comfort of heart,” how does mourning bring us comfort. This is where a verse can help during difficult times. Listening to commentators talk about this reminded me; I wish I would have landed on this for my own mourning of my dad. 

When we are swimming in oceans of emotion or walk through a desert of feeling because we attempt not to feel, blessings will comfort us. It is in the trials that we learn to persevere and learn to find divine love within us - That we are not alone.

That we, the meek, have as much claim to love and the good of life as the boastful.  Think about that the next time you see someone on the corner holding up a sign for food. That I and my family are cozy in a warm car while winter blows all around us and those who have no heat or home. How blessed/comforted do they feel? 

Maybe the question is: How can we be a blessing to them? (Hold onto that.)

When someone reviles you, how can you feel blessed? 

Personally, I might feel angry or bewildered asking “why?” Yet, there are people in the world that want to pick a fight  and pick on my queerness, my privilege, or someone’s skin color, someone’s religion or culture. Pick something, anything and there’s excuses.  How justified! Still, people honor traditions by wearing face coverings and that makes some angry. Why?  It does nothing to them personally, but still, they lean into anger instead of understanding.

That, Beloved, moves us away from God rather than closer. I think that is a point of these blessings because Jesus tells us to start from nothing to gain something. Jesus gives to those who have none and gives whatever is missing, to find purpose, to find a path, to find God.

We could ignore the homeless, we could find another excuse, we could enjoy the privilege of status, but God wants something else from us. God wants us to find the kingdom of heaven, the realm of divine love, here on earth. 

That begs, what does that realm look like and who belongs there? 

At UBFM, we ask the question to volunteers where and how we might see “God moments” when out in the routes. I flipped the question back to the group because we were forgetting something when asking the question, that we could see an answer right with us.

God’s kingdom (realm) looks like people doing God’s work here on earth.  It looks like volunteers who meet every week to make food and deliver to homeless with radical hospitality. It looks like people who visit the elderly In the nursing homes or the children in the hospitals waiting for treatment.  It is the neighbor who lifts up the vet  and the police to thank them and to listen to their stories. It is us who march to seek justice. 

Because when we do these things, we open space for God to fill our hearts through God’s community, and God will meet every want with what truly can fill us.  

Who belongs in this realm? Funny - you should ask because the answer is You (and everyone around you who believes that blessings are not just for those with privilege and social status.) 

God’s love and peace belongs to anyone who is truly seeking, wanting to learn and truly wanting to be with God. For those who seek comfort will find some in the manifestation of God’s love through Jesus. Blessings are not just for those who speak the perfect words and wear perfect dress, but those who search from the heart and soul. The blessing is for those who leave spaces for God to fill rather than clutter all the nooks and crannies of our souls with our egos. 

Thus, being merciful and having hunger for God’s everlasting and welcoming love can fill you this day in many ways

The question “what is blessed?” can be answered, I am more than “me,” the ego and own wants. We leave space for God to work. We demonstrate God’s work here on earth. Then we can plead our case to God.

In Micah 6, we plead our case to God, and we question. We question how we might please God. Look at that question find the answer is also given. God tells to remember what God has already said and promised. The blessings we seek are manifest in our own hearts when we look deep enough and when we let God lift us and be with us.

That, Beloved, is… 

Thanks be to God.

Bad News Motivation - Matthew 4 - Epiphany 3A

Bad News Motivation

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Reflection based upon Matthew 4:12-23, Psalm 27, Isaiah 9

Opening prayer.

Happy Lunar New (Rabbit) Year!

There are a few themes that can be lifted out of Mathew’s text as it references Isaiah, Jesus calls upon disciples to follow and the arrest of John. In the midst of all that, Jesus does something very human.  Following bad news about John, Jesus withdraws.

Why does Jesus do this? Anxiety, fear, sadness, or reflection? Could be all of this, but this gives us a notion of Jesus as human in a real sense because withdrawing at news like this is a perfectly human response. Am I next? What about my family and friends? What happens now?

In this moment, Jesus calls upon the words of Isaiah, “for those who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” We often read this during Advent and Christmas times, but read it with new eyes in the season of Epiphany.  

Through this text, Jesus observes the world around and finds motivation. It is time to do something.  Woe it is to have a good friend arrested and jailed. Woe is it to have modern saints (like MLK, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, or great volunteers of UBFM) face adversity.

Speaking of MLK, we just celebrated the late doctor’s birthday and it is fitting perhaps that we read this lesson today.  People, like MLK, were thrown in prison for doing nothing more than speaking truth to power. Yes “Now is the time” for it still happens today. Shame on you oppressive manipulators (Putin).

Yet, with God we have life and we have voice. This life however is not always bright sunshine and easy paths, but this life pushes people to see beyond their misery. To see beyond the terrible and to see what is possible instead. This can be frightening, but even more, ever so exciting! 

Yes that is the crux of Isaiah’s message because we need to see, we need to observe that life with God is more than fanciful speeches and colorful robes - but life with truth, with love, with the peace and light of Christ. 

People may disagree on the ways we see God and how we come to God, but there is truth in God and there is possible. That life is real and ready for us to observe as well and for us to find sorely needed motivation.

Beloved, this is the lesson that those great people (who we mentioned moments ago) learned and taught. It can be too easy for us turn away from the truth and light - to discount all that could be -because we get complacent in our living, in our complaints, and comfortable in our misery.

Experiencing bad things like watching a friend, colleague, a real life person get CPR on the field makes us think. Suddenly, we realize that life is precious and living it needs something more than complacency. That experience motivated people all over the country to give generously to charity and to pray for the well-being of Damar Hamlin. Even though the Bills are not my favorite team, I am however a fan of good people and good works.

Still this begs the question: Why is it that we have to see or hear bad things before we are motivated ?  Why not provide sandwiches and burritos for homeless folks every week with us at UBFM?  We don’t need to wait for the next protest over injustice or wrongful deaths. We do not need to wait for an excuse to help people or to participate in  non-violent protest of those injustices. For people can always find another lame excuse to do nothing. 

Beloved, we do not need to wait for the next event to help people because being a part of God’s community, God’s church, we should be out there helping people find God through us and through our work. There are plenty of ways we can do this.

Loving God and following God may not be easy, but there is so much good that we get from it. That Beloved, needs no excuses because God gives us so much, and God is there - even when we turn away. 

Don’t just go home and close the scriptures until next week.  Don’t just leave God in the pews.  Take God and the light of Christ with you. Get up off the couch and let us together witness and live with God in this world! Find friends to help along side you, just like Jesus did with James and John -because friends can help keep you honest.

Let’s get to living in God’s kingdom here on Earth today! 

Offer the sandwich, the blanket, the coat. Walk with the widow, the parent, the brother; those who lost someone because we know what it is to lose someone too. Help and be with the child recovering from sickness or suffering adversity. Help the injured vet find purpose. Be with your neighbor in whatever way is needed. It can start with a smile because that can go a long way. Be the good that God knows you can be. 

Leave fear aside for a moment and go with confidence of God’s guidance before you.

What is your witness; how does God motivate you? Share with us so that we might learn.

God reveals to us, in these seasons, a path and light through darkness. God came to be with us so that we might be motivated to (as we say) “do church.” These are just a few of the many ways, and you know of even more.  

Let God reveal to you and move your heart this day, this hour. Like the Psalmist says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is my stronghold…” 

and that Beloved is…

Thanks Be to God.

What is your path - Matthew 2 - Epiphany A

What is your path?

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Reflection based upon Matthew 2:1-12, Isaiah 42: 1-9, Isaiah 60:1-6

Opening prayer

Why is it that people in power are the ones that get frightened by good news?

Why is it that people feel so insecure about what they have and what they can do, especially when someone new shows up? (or perhaps someone that we may have forgotten)? 

Doesn’t it seem like that with God?  Out of the blue, God shows up. God interrupts - no matter what we are doing or where we are. God shows up!

Today, we mark the beginning of the season of Epiphany.- This is the divine manifestation - the revelation - of Jesus to (not only Heard and wise astrologists of old), but to the world.  

God shows up and reveals life and light even amidst corrupt social systems and corrupt politicians. God reveals the true wisdom that is worthy of gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to pay homage, but maybe we could ask, what gifts do you bring? 

They bring these gifts to the infant by following a star - a light in the heavens that points to life on earth, hope on earth, and more. They follow a divine path revealed to them to witness the divine presence. 

They followed a path that led them to this child - the manifestation of God in our lives, in our world.  Maybe the question for us is, what is our path? Are we listening to God revealing to us our path or something else? 

We can turn to fear or we could turn to adoration and witness of God’s love. How do you witness God’s revelations in your life?  

When you do,  when you truly witness God in your life, what is our response to God’s spirit in our life? Do you walk away and dismiss what you witness, or do you turn to the light that God has revealed to you.

What is your path?

(If you were to be in the audience with the wise people, what homage would you  bring? Remember our gifts don’t have to be material things, but what do we bring to honor and pay homage to all that has been given to us.) 

This piece of Matthew is a bit of interfaith cultures coming together to witness the love of God in a child - a child that causes some to quiver in fear and anxiety due to the “good news” that he didn’t want to hear. They bring gifts to pay homage while a certain politician connives and makes sinister plans. 

Still we have a true interfaith meeting where people of different cultures, different perspectives, and different traditions come together to witness. They somehow figure out that there is someone here that is worth a long voyage, that is worth faith, while people in the same country reject this prophecy.

Beloved, that is because this is true power that can be trusted, and worthy of that faith. That, Beloved, is because this is not the corrupt and fallible politicians like Herod because trust in God should be our response rather than fear and trepidation. 

That should be your path - the one that God lays out for you.!

Thankfully, the wise peoples trust God; they listen to spirit  and opt to take another path home - a different path.  For us the question is thus begged, Is it time for us consider our path, our journey in this life? Is God asking of us to take a path and are we listening?

For all the good that we have seen and heard on our current path, are we listening to the spirit in our lives? What is that spirit telling you? Are you on the correct path or maybe there is a new direction for you in this new year, new season - this season of revelation and manifestation? 

Yes! God has done and is doing marvelous things for us. God is speaking to us as we say in this church, but what is our response? Fear and trepidation, or homage and thanks?

So lean into what God is saying to you this new year and new season. Listen to what god has revealed to you and is revealing to you now. 

Each year we come to this time after Christmas time and in our part of the world, it is winter, and cold January. It is a time to refocus, and to turn away from what we have held onto that we don’t need and instead turn to God and follow the path that God has set before us. 

Yes, this time of the year where we hear about light piercing darkness, yet the question for us is how does one arise and shine in that light - in the light of God? Ask God. 

Take amount and listen to what god is saying to you right now in this space and time.  What is God revealing to you?

Beloved, let God shine upon your heart and soul.  

When you do that , when you let God shine upon you and reveal to you, find your heart tickled and soul lifted. Find the possibilities and the true power and wisdom is inside your heart waiting for you. 

In that moment, In this moment, let go of fear, insecurities, and social status and let God show you all that is possible for you!

Beloved, listen to the words of Isaiah, “arise, shine, for your light has come!”

And we all say…

Thanks Be to God.