Cost of Discipleship: Those That Mourn

Last week, Pastor Jill kicked off a series of sermons on the Gospel message of the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5 and those thoughts amplified by a German theologian, Dietrich Bonheoffer.  She reflected on the first “Blessed” – those who are poor in spirit and how those of us who deny ourselves of the comfort of this world will find comfort in the world to come.

Pastor Jill asked if I would share some of the preaching during Lent and today it’s my turn.  

The next Beatitude simply states, “Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted”.   Mourning – now there’s an upbeat subject for Sunday morning reflection.  I think I drew a short straw, but the Beatitudes are a hand-full of short straws when it comes to preaching, but I will try to find some of that comfort it promises for us.

So, just what is it that we as followers of Christ should mourn - our human condition, the condition of the world around us, the depravity of that world, or our own sin?  Perhaps all of the above.  We lament, sometimes justifiably so, when things don’t go our way.  We should mourn the poverty, hunger, and injustice around the world and not far from our doorsteps.

John the Baptist and Jesus, Himself, said that recognizing our sin and repenting were the keys to forgiveness of those sins. We should mourn the fact that we fall short of the expectations of God.  We should mourn the violence and evil that exists in the world around us, because world deals with its sin by simply ignoring it in the name of “progress”.

Yet the good news is that Jesus came to heal the broken hearted. Jesus quoted Isaiah 61:1 when he preached in the synagogue, saying

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted....."

In Psalm 30, King David declares, "You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness...." 

The psalmist also said, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."

We stand on those promises, but they do not release us from present circumstances, so we mourn.

It’s easy to see those circumstances negatively and suffer them, but where is the comfort the Beatitude promises?

The answer lies in the Good News that Jesus does not abandon us in our time of difficulty.  His spirit gives the believer the ability to see past the plight and we are comforted that an eternal reward is ours to ultimately claim.

Dietrich Bonheoffer said this:

“By “mourning” Jesus, of course, means doing without what the world calls peace and prosperity: He means refusing to be in tune with the world or to accommodate oneself to its standards. Such men mourn for the world, for its guilt, its fate and its fortune. While the world keeps holiday they stand aside, and while the world sings, “Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,” they mourn . They see that for all the jollity on board, the ship is beginning to sink. The world dreams of progress, of power and of the future. but the disciples meditate on the end, the last judgement, and the coming of the kingdom. To such heights the world cannot rise. And so the disciples are strangers in the world, unwelcome guests and disturbers of the peace. No wonder the world rejects them!”

Friends, no one ever said that when the church confirmed us we were inoculated with a vaccine that warded off evil, disease, and difficult times.  Quite the opposite – we live in a world that is becoming increasingly hostile to the Gospel – a world that persecutes Christians more today, in sheer numbers, than any other time in history.  

Why?  It’s because the work of Satan is still powerful in this world.

Today’s Gospel lesson talks about the wheat and the weeds growing together- to be separated in the final judgment when Jesus returns.  Later in that same chapter of Matthew, Jesus explains the parable to the Disciples, saying:

“The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; 38 the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears[g] listen! (Matthew 13:37:43)

Perhaps that means that there are two kingdoms competing for dominance on this earth – the kingdom of the world and the Kingdom of God.  They are both growing together.  It’s not hard to believe that the world is becoming increasingly evil – you need only to pick up a newspaper, watch the media or the internet.  Each day is filled with more death and more violence where it is as if someone or groups of people are competing to do something even more outrageous.  

But I believe that the Kingdom of God is also growing.  While we may think the spread of Christianity is reversing in Europe and slowing in North America, it is thriving in Africa and Eastern Asia.  For all the badthings increasing, good things are also increasing.

Jesus told the Disciples two more parables about the Kingdom of God – both about planting and growing from humble starts to achieve great things.  Listen further as I read from Matthew 13:

31 He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with[d] three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

Let’s bring that down to a modern day example of the Kingdom of God at work in the world:

It started with an idea.  

The problem was that here, in the cities of America, there were people living in poverty who could not afford safe and reliable housing.  There also existed houses in really poor shape that needed a lot of work if they were to once again be homes.

Nearly forty years ago, a small group of church people in Georgia got together and came up with a plan to help solve that problem.  

Now imagine if these people were explaining what they wanted to do to the panel of investors on that popular TV show, “Shark Tank”.

They would state their business idea and the investors would listen, but I think their comments would go something like this:

Let’s see if we’ve got this right.   You want to do an international project.  You want to build houses for poor people.  You plan to raise money to buy building supplies, and build those houses.  Then you are going to sell those houses to poor people for the cost of the building supplies – long term mortgages, no down payment, at no interest, so poor people who thought they could never have houses, would have in fact houses.  OK, that’s a great humanitarian thing to do, but who’s going to pay for the workers that are going to build these things?  

The group said, “We’re going to get church people to volunteer.”  . . . . .(right)  There’s something about that word “volunteer” that upsets every economic model at work in the world – it simply doesn’t compute.  Sharks won’t bite if there’s nothing to chew on.

39 years later, Habitat for Humanity has globally completed over 800,000 houses! Nearly half of those were built in the last 5 years.  They built 100,000 last year and aim to do 200,000 this year.  And Jesus talked about a mustard seed.

And this is the good news – that amidst all the bad stuff going on in the world, God is at work in this world and through God’s people, incredible things are happening and we have to conclude that God is at work in this world.

In September, 1992, Hurricane Andrew blew through South Florida packing winds up to 165 MPH and practically leveled the city of Homestead, Florida, and the surrounding communities.   Habitat for Humanity had built 27 homes in that area prior to that storm.  The local Habitat regional administrator went to the area to see if anything could be done to help.  Hoping for the best, but bracing for the worst, he entered the ruined city and was astonished that all 27 of the Habitat houses were still standing.  Yes, there were windows blown out and carpets ruined, and even some were shifted on their foundations, but these houses were in far better shape than most of the homes in that community.  

Some reporters had tagged along and they asked him why the Habitat houses had survived.  He told them, “Because when Habitat builds houses, we build them on the Rock”.  And he snickered as he watched the reporters scribble their notes – “Habitat builds on rocks”.  They just didn’t get it. You know the parable about the two foundations – I read from Luke 6:46:

46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. 48 That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built.[j] 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.”

The same storm hit all those houses in Homestead.  The Habitat houses weren’t spared from the storm, but the hand of God – the good hands of those volunteers that built them with a prayer and lots of sweat – saw them through the storm.   As disciplesof Christ, when the storms of life hit us, we can depend on the strength of God to deliver us – not from the storm, but through the storm, to the better days beyond it.

Spiritual implications aside, another possible reason the buildings were still standing is because the Habitat volunteer workers didn’t know what they were doing.  They were just common church folks like us swinging hammers.   An experienced carpenter knows that when you install a beam, you put 5 nails here and 5 nails there.   But the Habitat workers didn’t know that - they would put 20 nails here and 20 nails there.  Sure, their houses are over-built, but it is Biblically correct that we should anchor our lives and our work securely to what the Good Book tells us. The Lord indeed uses the simple to confound the wise.

I believe the Kingdom of God is alive and well and growing in today’s world.  Jesus spoke of the devil sowing weeds in the field of wheat – that was long ago when the world was new.  Satan planted a few weeds in God’s perfect garden.  I believe that when Jesus came to be with us 2000 years ago, a new story began - He turned the tables on Satan and planted wheat (that’s you and me, folks).   Jesus planted wheat – His Church - in the garden of weeds the world had become.

And that’s the lessons for today.

Everyone mourns their losses – be it possessions, dreams, or people near us.  How we cope with them depends on our perspective.

If we mourn with the worldly view where things are measured in profit and loss, wins and defeats, and the gain of power … in the end we find out too late that it’s allmeaningless.  When you die, you’re just as dead as the next guy.

If we view the world through the eyes of Jesus, to whom possessions, power, and winning meant nothing and only people counted – the very people He created and placed on this earth, if you mourn for them and do what Jesus would do to lift them up, then when you die, you will find those treasures you have laid up in heaven.  That cloud of witnesses will be there to testify for you because the only currency of the Kingdom is people.

We can mourn our circumstances or we can seek the community of Christians to help change those circumstances..

We can mourn our sins, or we can confess and repent of them, and move forward in our lives secure in the knowledge that they are forgiven.

We can mourn the sin of the world and sit on the sidelines wringing our hands, or we can put those hands to work for Jesus to expand the Kingdom of God in this world.

Do those things and you find moments of joy along your life’s journey when you have made a difference in the lives of others and you will find comfort when, on that Last Day,you hear God say those beautiful words, “Well done, good and faithful servant”   Amen

Cost of Discipleship: Poor in Spirit

 Lent is a time that is set aside for Christians to consider the journey Jesus took to the cross, and also to journey with him, by taking on new disciplines that help us to become better disciples, to deepen our lifelong walk with Christ, to bring us closer to Christ.

Over the past several months, the Thursday night small group book study, the Renovare group, has been reading together a book by the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called "The Cost of Discipleship". In that book, Bonhoeffer makes a link between the Beatitudes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and what a life of discipleship means.

Over the next five weeks of Lent, we will explore together how the Beatitudes form the basis for a deeper life of discipleship. We will focus on one particular Beatitude each week.

Since Kerry Border has been leading that class, he and I will be sharing the preaching over the weeks in Lent: we will each preach several sermons, and we will also do several dialogue sermons, where he and I ask each other questions about the scripture text and about the Bonhoeffer book's handling of this scripture.

So as we hear this familiar scripture text this morning, let us listen for the Word of God and what it has to say to us.

Matthew 5: 1-12

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

This is the Word of the LORD; Thanks be to God.

When Jesus sits down to begin this famous sermon, he is teaching his disciples about life as a disciple.  He only has called four disciples to follow him at this point, and when he sits down with them to teach them, as this story begins, he teaches them many things – in Matthew’s gospel his teaching continues for the next three chapters – but he starts with this, the foundation of his teaching.

Blessed are they….. for theirs is, for they will. 

The word blessed does not mean happy in the way we typically think of happiness; its meaning is closer to “fortunate”.

The Greek word for blessed is markorios. In a recent Bible study developed by the Rev. Dr. Margaret Aymer and published by Presbyterian Women, the term markorios is defined as “greatly honored”.

It’s the first of many times that Jesus makes the Kingdom of God sound like it’s upside down and backwards –- from what we would normally consider to be  “the good life”.

You are blessed – you are greatly honored – when you are poor in spirit, when you mourn, when you hunger and thirst for righteousness, when you are persecuted.  It seems to me like you don’t get much more upside down than that….

But Jesus says these as statements of fact, as truisms.

When you are poor or mourning or hungry or thirsty for fairness and justice, then you are greatly honored by God; you are blessed. Jesus isn’t saying “go out and try to become” one of these things; Jesus says, essentially, “This is reality; this is the way things are. And so if you are in these situations, you can take heart – because being in these situations brings you blessing and honor in the sight of God. You’ll be ok. Don’t be afraid.”

And he needs to say that to his disciples, because they will find themselves in these situations often, as followers of Jesus, both when he is with them, and when he is gone from their sight. They need to have the strength and courage to continue on. 

And so, of course, do we.  

It’s what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “the Cost of Discipleship”. The overall theme in his book is that Jesus is not ever talking about cheap grace, even though grace is freely given. The reality is that free grace enters us into a life of discipleship that involves giving everything up for Jesus. It’s not an entry fee or an expectation for membership. But it changes us into people of faith, people of the Word, people of the Way. We are changed, as obedient disciples of Christ, into people who see the world differently, and who respond to it differently, because we have received grace.  

And we are forgiven when we don’t get it right; given another chance, again and again. We are changed in our baptism, our dying with Christ so that we can be born again into new and transformed life.

And Jesus, of course, is uniquely positioned to say these things, because he speaks “with authority, not as one of the scribes”. He speaks with the authority of God, with the authority of love.

But do we really see the world in this way? Do we want to accept that being poor, whether in spirit or in reality, brings the kingdom of God to us? Does that sound like a decent tradeoff?

In a commentary he wrote on this passage, Lance Pape, a professor at Brite Divinity School, makes this observation:

“We prefer to live by those other beatitudes:
“Blessed are the well-educated, for they will get the good jobs. 
Blessed are the well-connected, for their aspirations will not go unnoticed.
Blessed are you when you know what you want, and go after it with everything you’ve got, for God helps those who help themselves.
If we are honest, (he says), we must admit that the world Jesus asserts as fact, is not the world we have made for ourselves.”

And that was also the world that the disciples found themselves part of when Jesus appeared on their scene. It was no great honor to be poor, or hungry, or thirsty, whether in spirit or righteousness or physical condition.  But they would soon see and understand that in the kingdom of God, in that day, it would be the One who was forsaken by everyone, the One who knew poverty of spirit as well as body, probably more than anyone else before or since, it would be the One who was hung on a tree until he died, despite having deserved none of it, that One man would be their Lord and Savior.

So when we look at this first Beatitude, what does Jesus mean by “poor in spirit”? Who really is poor in spirit?

Well, the disciples, for one. They have left everything. They will gain nothing that looks like success to any of us. They will follow Jesus, who has no home, no money, no family, nobody who even ‘gets’ what he’s all about. There really seems to be no honor in following Jesus.

But that is exactly Jesus’ point.

He is telling them that those who exist in a poverty of spirit, themselves just as much as the people they will meet along the way, both during the time that Jesus is with them and certainly after they go on as disciples without him, those are looked on with special favor by God.

In “The Cost of Discipleship”, Bonhoeffer says this about the disciples:

“They have no security, no possessions to call their own, not even a foot of earth to call their home, no earthly society to claim their absolute allegiance. Even more, they have no spiritual power, experience or knowledge to afford them consolation or security. For his sake they have lost all. In following him they lost even their own selves, and everything that could make them rich. Now they are poor—so inexperienced, so stupid, that they have no other hope but him who called them.”
[You see, Bonhoeffer is talking about himself and his fellow Christians at the same time that he is describing the disciples in Jesus’ time. And then he goes on to describe the Pharisees of his time as well. He says….]
“Jesus knows all about the others too, the representatives and preachers of the national religion, who enjoy greatness and renown, whose feet are firmly planted on the earth, who are deeply rooted in the culture and piety of the people and molded by the spirit of the age. Yet it is not they, but the disciples who are called blessed— theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That kingdom dawns on them, the little band who for the sake of Jesus live a life of absolute renunciation and poverty. And in that very poverty they are heirs of the kingdom. They have their treasure in secret, they find it on the cross. And they have the promise that they will one day visibly enjoy the glory of the kingdom, which in principle is already realized in the utter poverty of the cross.”

God blesses them. God blesses us – even those of us for whom life is pretty awful right now. And by “us”, I’m talking certainly talking about us here in this sanctuary, but I’m also talking about all the other “us’s” outside this building, and around the world. Especially those of us for whom life is awful – because when life is awful, we especially need God’s blessing. And life sends curve balls to us, whether we consider ourselves prosperous or not, privileged or not. Life has a way of doing that, of completely surprising us and knocking our legs out from under us, knocking the wind out of us. It may come in the form of physical illness, and certainly those are the sorts of things we are more willing to ask for prayer about, but it probably comes more often when one of our children or grandchildren or siblings is in trouble, or won’t talk to us, or we don’t even know where they are, or who they are, anymore.
Or when work is just insane, or when we wish we had work to complain about.
Sometimes it comes when we can’t remember the last time we sensed God’s presence.
Stop and think for a minute about one way you, or someone you love, or someone you know who is really hard to love,

is experiencing poverty of spirit.

(pause)

Now, I’m going to ask you to disciple one another. I ask that you turn to one another, and offer a blessing to each other.
Just say “God bless you” or “May the Lord bless and keep you”, or “Receive God’s blessing”, or whatever stumbling words happen to come out of you. Bless the people whose names and lives you know, and especially bless those who you don’t really know yet. We’re not responding to sneezes here – instead, it’s about all of us recognizing that all are blessed, all are beloved children of God, no matter what.
Go ahead. Bless the people around you, in the name of God.
And accept blessings from people as well.

Now think for a minute about what it would be like to honestly bless those you meet this week who are clearly suffering from poverty of spirit. Who would that be? Where would you encounter them? On a bus? In a grocery store?  Someone whose kids are clearly out of control, and they’re about to lose it? Someone who’s in a doctor’s waiting room, waiting to go in and be seen, or helping their family member who they’ve come there to be with? and what might you say? would you say it out loud to them, or just to yourself as you encounter them? how would you behave toward them,  to reflect a spirit of blessing? How would it change the way you thought and felt about them?

I get an occasional email from Rev. Stan Ott, who developed the Acts 16:5 program I know your congregations have used either before or after you merged. He just sent this story out by email:
He said “I was waiting in the hospital for a routine blood test when I became aware of a strained mumbling voice nearby. Looking up I saw a good-looking man in his early 40's in a wheelchair having difficulty speaking and clearly sitting uncomfortably. An older gentleman, almost certainly his dad, was trying to arrange a supportive pillow behind his head. Then I saw the sign on the wall next to them, "Speech Therapy."
 
Something about it was unspeakably sad. I do not know if he is an injured veteran or suffering from some terrible affliction but this young man in the prime of life is in a deep hole and his father is in there with him.
 
As I was heading out of the hospital I was immensely aware of the gift of health and then of the thought, “Go back and say something.” I wondered what that would be and if it would be invasive. I paused, puzzling, and then headed for the exit except I found my legs taking me back the way I had come.
 
I knew somehow my mind was not directing my steps and I wondered what I would say. I walked right up to the old gentleman and his son looked them in the eye and said, "I feel impelled to tell you I am praying for you. May God bless you." The gentleman immediately and sincerely replied, “Thank you,” as he continued to adjust the pillow for his uncomfortable son.
 

This episode had nothing to do with me. My gesture of concern may have taken five seconds. That father is offering care 24 hours a day every day. The true paraclete, the one who comes alongside to help, comes alongside for the long haul.
 

God did want me to see something and to say something. I left overwhelmed with the feeling of sadness for this family and the deep awareness of those close to me and others who are in similar places of suffering.  
 
It may be a cliché to say it, but when our Lord said these words, he actually meant them, " “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” Matthew 11:28* "...weep with those who weep,” Romans 12:15 and “Comfort, O comfort my people” Isaiah 40:1.
This is a story of people who are living with the poverty of spirit. As disciples of Christ, we are called to offer blessings to them, in word and in deed.

Bonhoeffer reminds us that for Jesus’ sake, we are prepared to lose everything. We surrender everything. We don’t hang onto anything. This, my friends, results in poverty of spirit.
We let go of the so-called good things in life, because we realize we don’t own them, and we are prepared to give them up when others have need of them, and when generosity and kindness toward others is more important than our own comfort or our need to be right.

It’s not about whether we can prove someone needs or deserves something sufficiently or not. It’s about what spirit we live in, the extent to which we open our hearts to Christ, how we show with every ounce of our being that Jesus is our Lord and Savior.
It’s the Cost of Discipleship.
It’s costly grace, and it was bought for us with nothing less than Christ’s life.
Amen.