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Blessed are the Poor?
The Reverend Canon Elizabeth Knowlton
All Saints Sunday 2007
Mikell Chapel: 7:45 & 9:00
Luke 6:20-31
I’ve always been a little nervous about the beatitudes. It’s not the kind of lecture I think I would have hoped for from Jesus if I was one of the disciples. Blessings and woes seem pretty black and white. Loving your enemies and doing well to those who hate you is a pretty tall order. And then there are the flat out action items.... “Give to EVERYONE who begs from you.” Does he really mean everyone?
Yes this is the kind of sermon that makes us pretty uncomfortable. It leaves us with answers we are afraid to take seriously. They are quite radical if we listen carefully. I mean, you’d have to be a saint to even come close to meeting these standards.
Yes, as a matter of fact you do have to be a saint. And today we celebrate the fact that we already are---saints that is. Now don’t squirm. It isn’t that we are all going to rise up and perfectly implement what we are being charged with in the Sermon on the Plain. Sainthood is not about the perfection of our actions. Sainthood is about our identity. When Paul talks about the people of Ephesus loving the saints, he is referring to the way they enact their identity with one another.
We certainly know that these early communities were not without their struggles and persecutions. Paul penned this letter from prison. But he is still able to rejoice in this community that has a new identity and inheritance in Christ. It gives that community new eyes to experience the difficulties they are encountering.
Today is a day in the church that we baptize new members. We’ll add some new saints to our ranks. Our community will change by these additions. Just the same way we have been shaped by all the saints that have come before them. And as they join us, we as the community promise to support this new identity. We are to help them and they us, fulfill the charge of Christian love.
In some ways baptism is an entry into dual citizenship. We are still of this world, but at the same time we proclaim a hope that is beyond this world. We state our hope in the Kingdom of God.
We may not see it in fullness here and now, but our work as the Body of Christ is to seek its signs and contribute to its up-building while we are here. We are meant to enact the call of discipleship that Jesus has put before us. Challenging or not, we are meant to see the world with new eyes. What we assumed were blessings before, may now be impediments. Those who seem to bear unfair burdens will not always struggle under their weight.
But this is not just about a future reversal of fortunes. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Because this is claiming something for the here and now, it actually seems harder to apprehend.
It caught my attention in a new way this year. Particularly, as it was read at the Homeless Requiem last Thursday. The Cathedral was packed. The attendance was 890, and the vast majority of those were the poor. There were men, women, and children, all without permanent shelter. But they all came from different places. There were those that made the sign of the cross when they received communion, and there were those that looked puzzled as I offered the wafer. It was impossible to know their individual circumstances. But each one of them had a unique story. Each one of them now finds themselves without shelter. And each name we commemorated who died in the street this year, was surely meeting an end that their mother would never have hoped for.
As I greeted people getting off the bus, the children particularly caught my attention. I asked one girl her age, and was struck that she was the same age as my daughter. I could only begin to imagine how her life in a shelter could compare to my daughter’s decked out room. How did she do her homework? Did she even have a desk? How often had she moved in her life?
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
Yes, these words sounded different in the Cathedral when the poor were in our midst. There was no way to imagine that these saints were not part of our body. But, the words also made me nervous.
I was afraid it would sound trite or offensive to our guests. Did they think we were patronizing their struggles and poverty by claiming a kingdom they could not touch or feel? I was not sure how it sounded to me. Surely Jesus wouldn’t celebrate or glorify the suffering of these gathered people. I certainly can’t believe in a God who would be happy to see so many of his beloved without shelter.
So what on earth could this mean? It defies a purely intellectual answer. But there was something that happened in the space of the Cathedral. I experienced a blessing from the gathered community that was different. The hymns echoed in the high ceilings in a new way. I strained to hear the sermon with different ears. And I found myself near tears as I handed out the Body of Christ, The Bread of Heaven to those who filed by. The Kingdom of God was near. And I felt grateful to be reminded that we are all part of that kingdom, whether we realize it our not.
The Body of Christ. The communion of the saints. Past, present, and those to come.
Rich, poor, hungry, and well-fed. We are all called to make up this body. We are saints in Christ. And the more we live into this, the more we are transformed. As our hearts expand, so do our boundaries of community. The Cathedral is a different space today than it was on Wednesday. The prayers that took place there have changed it. Each time one of us comes forward for communion, the space is changed. Each time we baptize a new member into our body, the communion of saints is altered.
The Kingdom is present anew. But do we have the eyes to see it? Are we willing to relinquish our measuring stick of this world? The possessions? The security? If the poor have the kingdom now, it is because they see with different eyes than you and I do. They have no choice but to live for the Kingdom and in the Kingdom, because that is the only stand that is not hopeless.
And if we are called to be saints, much of that identity invites us to Christian hope. And hopeful people can do amazing things. They can sing their heart out when they don’t know where their bed will be that night. They can have the courage to make changes so that their fellow saints have a place to sleep.
It is not a call to perfection. We will not always love those that hate us. We will sometimes turn away those we should serve. But if we imagine the Body of Christ assembled within the Kingdom, our hearts will change. As Paul says, “with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.”
We have received a call to hope. May we have the grace to answer.
Amen
Comments? Contact Beth Knowlton at: BKnowlton@stphilipscathedral.org