Blessed
We apologize that our livestreaming and recording equipment were not able to capture the entirety of the service. Pastor Brooke’s written sermon is available in full below, along with the partial video recording.
What kinds of social media posts use #blessed, or how do you hear the word being used? Blessed is sometimes a spiritualized version of luck or fortune, more accurately privilege.
Our Gospel reading kind of turns that on its head, right? Blessed are the poor, those who are hungry, those who weep. We don’t think of those realities as states of blessedness! If you’re thinking about the beatitudes you learned, and wondering what happened to them, most of us are more familiar with Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes, part of the sermon on the Mount. Luke’s version is the lectionary Gospel passage for today.
One of the commentaries I consulted this week suggested that Luke is not saying that God is happy when anyone is poor or hungry or weeping, and God is not willing those things on anyone. These blessings and the woes that follow them (that we did not read together this morning) are more like a description of the Kingdom of God—God holds close and desire to meets the needs of those who are struggling. And in the Kingdom of God, those who have been rich and well fed will adjust their former expectations and be “hungry” by comparison when they share what they have.
Our current series focuses on the Psalm of the week, and the whole book of Psalms begins with the word blessed. It is a good word!
What can we learn about it from this Psalm, Psalm 1?
In this Psalm, blessing comes from something we invest in. We do not create our own blessing, for blessing comes from God. But in this Psalm there is no mystery about how God works it out for us to be blessed: blessing comes from delight in the law of the Lord and meditation on it.
Western Sunday: is it the law with a big ole badge and a holster on the hip? You gotta pretend like you follow it when the big fella is around but everyone knows it’s more fun to be an outlaw?
Could be something like that. One possibility for what law means here is specific commandments: God’s expectations for behavior—the shalls and shall nots. We talked about laws, rules, commandments, precepts, statutes, a few weeks ago. For our own good, to create the conditions for our thriving.
Another possibility is that the law of the Lord simply means the way our createdness works. Different sense of “laws.” Some are prescriptive behaviors—the thou shall and shalt nots. And some are descriptive of the way things work—laws of physics.
I take “law” in this psalm to be both. When we embrace the latter—the ways the world works as God’s creation, and our role in it as children of God, then we begin to understand the draw of the former—we see the value of the commandments when we embrace the ways the world works.
That’s often true of human rules and laws, right? When we understand the bigger picture and the reason behind the rule, we are more likely to comply.
God has created us for important work, lasting legacies, a fulfilled life—in other words, to be part of what God is doing in and for the world! Delight in the law of the Lord generally means living our best lives, being our best selves, as God intends. Loving God and loving our neighbors, loving ourselves appropriately, caring for creation. The specific law of the Lord helps us know how to do this. And this life is a blessing to all—not just those who live it, but others around them and even creation as well.
What is this full life of partnership with God and others and creation like? The Psalm suggests someone who embraces it will be like a tree planted by streams of water. Even that sounds good, but it goes on: which yields its fruit in season. And continues on: whose leaf does not wither. And there’s more! “whatever they do prospers.” Wow! Presumably prospers the big picture—the goodness of creation, not necessarily lines my own pockets.
When we invest in what God has for us, rather than walking in the counsel of the wicked or standing in the path of sinners or sitting in the company of mockers, that’s the way blessing works! God bestows blessing on those who embrace createdness alongside others, those neighbors we are to love, and in creation, which we are to care for. Fairly simple. But not always easy. We need reminders and community to support us in living this out.
Groups might make their own “laws” or “rules” that are not about policing but encapsulate the values the group strives to live by. The Rule of St. Benedict, for instance, shapes life around prayer, work, study, hospitality, and renewal. It’s Girl Scout cookie season, and the Scout Laws do not offer guidance how many cookies to consume, but GSs do repeat the GS Law at their meetings:
I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong,
and responsible for what I say and do,
and to respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place,
and be a sister to every Girl Scout.
Then there’s another possibility with a different end in this Psalm: the wicked are like chaff that the wind blows away. I take that to mean those who put themselves at the center, forget to live as created beings in partnership with God, others and the rest of creation, for them there’s nothing of lasting value or importance, no legacy of roots or fruits to continue and grow. Their efforts just fade away. Theirs is a path of destruction, of at least themselves, and maybe of others, which is the truly wicked part—contributing to the destruction of other beloved children of God or parts of creation.
Friends, let us open ourselves to the blessings God has for us. Let us remember the way the world works—that we are created, God has made us to live in community and care for the earth, to be part of God’s good work in the world. That will be its own life of blessing, and its own witness and invitation to others seeking a life of meaning and lasting value.
While you certainly don’t have to be a cowboy or cowgirl to live well and in a way that will be characterized by blessing, there are some exemplary traits or habits that those on the ranch or the open range demonstrate. Y’all remember or know of Gene Autry—cowboy of the silver screen in the 30s, 40s, and 50s? His Cowboy Code reflected the characters he portrayed: high moral character, standing for what is good, trustworthy, and fair. There was also Roy Rogers, of whom was written in 2011 upon the Roy Rogers Centennial: “he was as good as they come. He was a straight shooter and could sit a horse as if he were born in the saddle…he walked the straight and narrow in his hand tooled boots and lived by a code worthy of his white Stetson.
More contemporary for today, James P. Owen has established the Center for Cowboy Ethics and Leadership, where he uses values from our American Western heritage to teach a seminar for professional success.
What does it mean to you to be blessed? And to be a blessing? Are you clear on the values you want to live by, not because you fear a wrathful God or judgmental community, but because they will help you live your best life? Do you have a community that supports you in this? That is what we try to do here at Desert Skies: support each other in loving God and our neighbors, with opportunities for worship and service. We’d love to have you join us. We are rooted in a tradition and communion of saints that goes all the way back to the psalms.
Maybe the book of Psalms opens this way, even opens with this word Blessed, as an invitation to the rest of the Psalms. They are to be tools in embracing this life God has for us.
