Supreme Blessedness

'Jesus came down with the twelve apostles and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets."

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets."'

--Luke 6: 17-26

Have you ever been to the grocery store, or a fast food place, and the person ringing you up finishes the transaction with something like, “Have a blessed day!”? Anyone else experience that. It’s a nice sentiment, isn’t it? Have a blessed day. But sometimes, if I’m really thinking about it in the moment, I feel this urge to ask them: What do you mean by blessed? Do you want me to be poor and hungry? To weep and be hated? I’m sure they don’t mean that. They’re just trying to be nice, after all. But that’s what happens when you wish blessedness on a priest.

Because it’s obvious that the biblical definition of blessedness differs from our contemporary culture, which is predominantly concerned with the safety and security of the self. This is achieved by way of upward mobility, namely the acquisition of possessions – money, housing, food, etc. To be blessed in our culture is to be among the haves, to pull oneself up by one’s own bootstraps, to rise above being poor, hungry, weeping, or hated. We’ve all seen interviews with famous folks who say they’re just so blessed to have so much. I ask you: is this what it means to be blessed, according to the teachings of Jesus? Or is blessedness something else?

Most of you blog readers, I suspect, are familiar with the term ‘beatitude.’ It comes from the Latin word beatus and first shows up in Middle English. It means supreme or divine blessedness.  I also suspect that most of you, when you hear that word, think immediately about Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. That sermon, which spans three chapters, starts out with a series of 10 pronouncements of supreme blessedness, which we have collectively given the title of The Beatitudes: blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted, those who are reviled, and those who are met with persecutions for Jesus’ sake.

Icon of Jesus pronouncing the Beatitudes

What if I told you, though, that these are not the only Beatitudes that Jesus pronounced? Whereas in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus gives these pronouncements of blessedness on a mountainside – mirroring Moses giving the Law to the people on Mt. Sinai – the Gospel of Luke, which is written to a Gentile audience, brings Jesus down into the plain, among the people. And rather than 10, Luke reduces the list of beatitudes to four. This Sermon on the Plain is more condensed and harder to spiritualize than the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew’s pronouncements are amorphous, generalized statements – blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the merciful – as if Jesus were talking about people who exist “out there” somewhere. Luke, meanwhile, makes the pronouncements much more direct: blessed are YOU who are poor, the very people in the crowd, the very people who have been listening to and following Jesus. This message is for them. Blessed are you who are poor; you who are hungry; you who weep; and you who are hated. Blessed are you if you fall into these categories. Really?

How many of us would say to a wheelchair-bound panhandler at the intersection, “You’re so blessed!”? Not many, I’d reckon. But why would we? We measure blessedness by the standards of our culture, which are the standards of privilege. Blessedness means having money, it means a full belly, it means laughing and dancing, and being admired. We would never tell the panhandler that they are blessed because, I suspect, we don’t truly believe it. That’s our cultural standards, not Jesus’ standards.

After the four beatitudes Luke adds something that Matthew doesn’t include: four pronouncements of woe, on the rich, the full, the laughing, and the well regarded. These are the very ones that our culture would call blessed. These are the qualities, I believe, that the kid ringing me up at the grocery store is thinking of when he says he hopes I have a blessed day. Taken to its logical conclusion, this line of thinking is made manifest in the heretical Prosperity Gospel, which says that God, actually, wants the poor to be rich, that your blessedness is measured in your material possessions, your prestige, your position of power. The Prosperity Gospel isn’t just preached among those of means, but also in poor communities, where the message is that upward mobility for the poor is, in fact, a sign of God’s favor. The goal, says the Prosperity Gospel, is for the poor to become rich. That’s supreme blessedness.

It is not the Gospel of Jesus. The goal is not for the poor to become rich but for the rich to become poor. Think of the rich young man whom Jesus tells to sell everything and redistribute the wealth, or the early Christian communities in Acts – also written by the author of Luke’s Gospel – in which the rich freely sold their land and possessions in order that everyone in the community had enough and no one could lord anything over anyone. The movement of the Gospel, of Jesus himself, is downward mobility, the emptying of oneself. The rich are to be sent away empty, as Mary sings in the Magnificat. Then they’ll know true blessedness

For those of us who know the privileges afforded by our station in life, the color of our skin, the money in our bank accounts, or the state of our health, this can feel downright insulting; or at best, we might feel guilty about it. Yet there is wisdom in Jesus’ words because those of us who are poor, hungry, weeping, and hated, know something that those who are rich, full, laughing, and admired do not. They know what it means to long, deeply, from their very soul for God. For the mercy, the peace, the love, and righteousness of God. There is no greater blessing, and most of us don’t know it. Saint Augustine of Hippo said that there is a hole in our very souls that we try to fill with all sorts of things, thinking that they will satisfy us, but that hole is shaped like God, and only God can fill it. When a person doesn’t have what the world would characterize as a blessing – money, food, health – there is nothing else left but God. This is a truth only the suffering know, which is why the privileged in our culture pity the suffering, rather than envy them. The suffering know real blessedness.

Father Gustavo Gutierrez, who died just this past October, coined the term liberation theology, the idea that God has a particular affinity for the poor. He and others like Dr, James Cone, preached that true justice and equality with God and one another does not come by convincing the poor that they are blessed when they have more, but by convincing the privileged that they are blessed when they have less. The aim is solidarity with the suffering by way of emptying oneself. It continues to be the work of organizations like the Poor Peoples Campaign, and truly, it is the call of Christians everywhere who seek to create authentic, equitable, and beloved community. 

Father Gustavo Gutierrez, pioneer of liberation theology.

How might we live into this call? It begins when all is stripped away and we know what it means to long for God on the deepest possible level, for there is no more supreme blessedness. 

Here We Are, Lord!

'In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"' 

--Isaiah 6: 1-8

'Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.'

--Luke 5: 1-11

I spent the summer of 2007 working at the Phoebe Needles Center in Callaway, VA.  Despite its name, Phoebe Needles is neither a hospital, nor a drug rehab clinic but the camp and conference center for the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia.  As part of my ordination process, I was encouraged to work at the camp as a counselor, and at the end of each week we would gather around a campfire for a closing liturgy, and almost every time we sang the song Here I Am, Lord.  I had never heard the song before, nor did I know at the time that it was paraphrasing Isaiah, but every time I’ve heard or sang it since, it takes me back to those campfires and to the newly kindled sense of call that I was processing that whole summer. Whom shall I send? Here I am Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart. I can’t tell you the number of people, clergy and lay folk alike, who’ve said that song encapsulates their sense of call, why they do what they do.

That sense of call permeates all three of our readings this week, but especially those from Isaiah and the Gospel. Both the prophet and Simon Peter are called into something that is so much bigger than themselves, something awesome. My great-grandfather Preston Epps, who was a Greek scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill, used to say that awesome was the most overused word in the English language. "That movie was awesome!" "That sandwich was awesome!" "Everything is awesome!" He hated that. But in the cases of these readings, each individual encounters the holy in such a way as to leave them truly in awe. And when caught up in such an awesome moment, their own feelings of inadequacy and fear come through.

View from the Phoebe Needles Center in Callaway, VA.

The book of the prophet Isaiah dates his call to the year King Uzziah died, roughly 742 BCE. Uzziah had died from leprosy, brought on because he arrogantly decided to burn incense to God, which was a task assigned only to the priests. Isaiah describes in great, almost terrifying detail what his call experience was like. This terror leads to recognition and confession, both individually and corporately: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Yet when a winged seraph flies to him in this vision and touches his mouth with the live coal from the incense fire – a callback to the actions that got Uzziah killed – Isaiah hears God’s call and with a quiet dignity says, “Here am I, send me.”

Unworthiness in the face of the holy is a common theme in Scripture. Simon Peter beholds the might and majesty of Jesus in a miraculous moment in which he and the other fishermen haul in so much that their nets start to burst. Unlike the other Gospels and their stories of the calling of Simon Peter, James, and John, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is already well known, and Simon Peter has already hosted him for dinner and asked Jesus to heal his mother-in-law. It isn’t until after the catch, having had a relationship and knowledge on which to base this life-changing decision, that Simon Peter gets it – there seems to be a misconception at times that the disciples just picked up and immediately followed Jesus with no knowledge of him. 

An icon of Jesus, Simon Peter, and the boatloads of fish.

And what is his first reaction upon realizing who Jesus is? It’s to fall down and declare himself a sinful man, not unlike Isaiah. Simon Peter never confesses a specific sin, but like the calling of Isaiah, his confession is met with Jesus first telling him not to be afraid and then issuing his call: you will be catching people, or as the older translations render it, “You will be fishers of men.”

Historically, the Church has sort of fumbled that charge. As theologian Ched Myers points out in his Binding of the Strong Man, there may be no expression more traditionally misunderstood that this call to be "fishers of men.” This metaphor, despite the grand old tradition of missionary interpretation, does not refer to the saving of souls, as if Jesus were conferring upon these fisherfolk some sort of instant evangelist status. Rather, the image is carefully chosen from Jeremiah, chapter 16, where it is used as a symbol of God’s censure of the kingdom of Israel. And elsewhere, the hooking of fish is used as a euphemism for judgment upon the rich and powerful, especially in Amos, chapter 4 and Ezekiel, chapter 29. In light of the historic meaning of his chosen imagery within the lineage of the prophets, Jesus is therefore inviting these common folk to join him in his own mission to overturn the existing order of power and privilege, to turn the world rightside-up.

Whom shall he send? If there is one thing we know from the stories of the prophets, Jesus, and the disciples, it’s that God calls people, whether they like it or not, whether they want it or not. Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing. Optimus Prime said that. When corruption amongst the rich has reached its zenith and hope amongst the poor has reached its nadir, God calls. God calls in the midst of fear, impending invasions and hostile takeovers, in the dying of kings and regimes, and in moments of unfaithfulness and uncertainty, God calls because God is still there, in the midst of it all. A truly awesome wonder to behold.

Saint Theresa of Avila said that Christ has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no heart but ours. As God called Isaiah and lit his tongue with the coal to speak truth to power, and as Jesus beckoned a small group of people to undo oppressive systems by creating community that honored the inherent goodness in all people, we too are being called. Right now, in this moment, in this place. To what exactly, that is for each of us to discern. The call may be to bold action, to public witness by those privileged enough to do so, to the seemingly mundane task of calling elected officials, or even to prayerful solitude on the part of those for whom personal safety is a high priority. God is still in the midst of the fear and uncertainty, asking us even now: whom shall I send?

Saint Theresa of Avila

Our own imposter syndromes may feel like they get in the way, our imperfections too great, sinful people of unclean lips that we are. But as Dr. Brene Brown says in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, “imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we are all in this together.”  Broken and fearful, vulnerable, and imperfect, sinful yet forgiven, loved, and called.  Together.  We do not walk the way of love alone.  We do not face the powers and principalities of this world by ourselves.  We go together, and now, perhaps more than ever, we need to be reminded of that. Dorothy Day said not to worry being effective, but rather to concentrate on being faithful to the truth. That Truth, with a capital T, is Jesus Christ, who has called us to love and to serve, to pray and break bread in here, that we may do so out there. Whom shall he send? Here we are, Lord, send us. 

Have Mercy!

'Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."'

--Luke 4: 14-21

A few days ago I saw a social media post that has gone somewhat viral, which said: “I’m doing this challenge called January, where I try to just get through every day in the month of January.” In a normal year January can feel strangely long, but the final fortnight of the month has felt like an entire month by itself.  

On Tuesday, January 20, the 47th President of the United States – who had also served as the 45th – was sworn into office, and immediately, through a slew of executive orders, set at least half the country on a razor’s edge. Everything from the hilariously dumb, yet brazenly arrogant, move of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gufl of America, to the outright cruelty of denying the very existence of transpeople – particularly those serving in our armed forces – ratcheted up the anxiety and fear of millions of people. For some, the only answer to this was prayer.

The day after the inauguration, the Cathedral Church of St. Peter & St. Paul, commonly called the National Cathedral, invited the new President and others to an interfaith service of prayer for unity in our country. I should mention here that the National Cathedral, despite its name, receives no funding whatsoever from the federal government. It is the cathedral for the Diocese of Washington, and since the administration of FDR has extended its hand as a house of prayer for all people, a unifying force for good and a symbol of God’s glory and love at critical times in the life of the nation, including events related to the office of the President. It is, in a manner of speaking, their chief outreach. 

Because it was coordinated by the Cathedral – not the President or Vice President – the Cathedral staff put the liturgy together and the Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, preached. By now, I suspect, everyone has had a chance to see, hear, or read her sermon on that day. If you haven’t, please watch the video below before you continue reading:

Bishop Budde’s sermon was a plea for unity through the divine act of mercy; a preacher in her own pulpit asking the most powerful person in the world to have compassion on those who are living in a state of panic and fear. Her witness was no different from the prophets of the Hebrew Bible or Jesus himself. Yet the response to her sermon did not just go viral, it went full-on nuclear! Right-wing politicians accused her of using her time to bully the President, and one member of the House of Representatives put forth a resolution for Congress to denounce her entirely, saying that hers was a "distorted message" that did not represent Christianity. The President, who himself is a member of and married in (the third time) an Episcopal congregation, responded to the Bishop’s calm, yet firm plea by calling her a “so-called bishop” and saying she was “not very good at her job.” If I’m being honest, I don’t think I would’ve pegged the Episcopal Church as the denomination to which this administration and its sycophants directed all of their rage and mockery, but in a way it makes sense. Because of its history, the Episcopal Church is the denomination tied closest to the presidency, with more Presidents claiming Episcopalian as their religious affiliation than any other. The Episcopal Church has the power and prestige shared by the country’s elites, yet over the last 50 years has gradually shifted its public image to line more with social justice movements and liberation theology. It wears the same clothes as the elites but speaks a different message. Fitting, if not a bit ironic, that it would be an Episcopal Bishop who heroically lit such a candle under the seat of a would-be tyrant and those who kiss his ring. 

Someone online made a post saying that Bishop Budde, while admirable in her conviction, was no hero. She was merely a Christian, doing what all Christians should do: speaking up for the voiceless, giving hope to those who have little, and speaking truth to power. In the days after, I wondered how clergy of all denominations and traditions would respond in their pulpits to both Bishop Budde’s sermon and the fallout from it. Fortunately, our Revised Common Lectionary gave us a Gospel text that is perfect for such an occasion.

An icon of Jesus reading from the Scriptures in the synagogue at Nazareth.

We find Jesus shortly after his baptism, returning to his hometown of Nazareth. There he goes into the synagogue and interprets a piece of Scripture from the prophet Isaiah. This act of interpretation is not bold in and of itself; in fact, the synagogue had always been the place where Scripture was read and interpreted amongst the rabbis gathered. “How is the prophet speaking to us right now?” was something every rabbi was asked, including Jesus. So, what piece of Scripture was he given to interpret?

It is actually a combination of Isaiah 58: 6 and Isaiah 61: 1-2. Both of these are from the post-exilic period, meaning that the prophet wrote them after the empire of Babylon had been defeated by the Persians and the Jews in exile were permitted to return home. The first bit (Isaiah 58: 6) is the prophet’s charge: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” The second part (Isaiah 61: 1-2) names exactly what that good news is: release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and the year of the Lord’s favor. The bold thing Jesus did was to declare to the people in that synagogue that this Scripture was being fulfilled in their very presence. Spoiler alert: this does not go over well, and the people of Nazareth, his own friends and neighbors, try to kill him afterwards.

Why would such an interpretation be so threatening to people? I suspect it is because the Scripture is speaking of a key element of the Jewish Levitical law: the Jubilee. According to Leviticus 25: 8-13, every 49 years – “unto seven times seven” – all debts were to be forgiven, all property, including land, given back to the original owner, and all prisoners set free. The people would return to the wilderness where they first met God, and the means and cares of the world were to be let go. The Jubilee was inexplicably tied to the Sabbath, to rest and return. It wasn’t just about observing the fourth Commandment. Sabbath formed the theological core of what it meant to be in relationship with this God. It’s about rest, restoration, and a return to God. 

Was the Jubilee ever actually enacted in the kingdoms of Israel or Judah? We can’t say for sure, though David Graeber in his text The First 5000 Years does mention that ancient Near Eastern societies regularly declared noncommercial debts void, typically at the coronation of a new king. Nevertheless, it seems clear to me that this is what Jesus means by saying that the Scripture from Isaiah was being fulfilled at that moment. Jesus, the physical embodiment of God, was declaring a Jubilee, that debts were to be forgiven, that property was to be returned, and that mercy was to be shown, especially to the so-called “least of these.” Then, as now, not many folks were eager to embrace such a message, especially if they were not among the “least of these.” Bishop Budde’s plea to the 47th President was nothing short of a cry for Jubilee, for release, for forgiveness, for mercy. The people of Nazareth tried to kill Jesus after he made such a proclamation. Should we really be surprised that the religious and political right so strongly besmirched Bishop Budde? This is the cost of discipleship. 

In addition to Bishop Budde’s call for mercy, Pope Francis declared 2025 a Jubilee year of hope for Roman Catholics. It’s not the same as the biblical Jubilee, but the Pope’s declaration – though mostly symbolic – does invite all followers of Jesus to ponder exactly what it is that we are called to do in this moment. Our capitalist system is not going to eagerly embrace returning land, forgiving debts, or releasing all the prisoners, regardless of  how much we wish that it would.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t keep praying, working, and preaching toward that goal.

What Bishop Budde did was model for each of us what our Christian responsibility really is. I have grown weary to the point of righteous anger at so-called Christians who suggest that Jesus’ words were not commandments for all of us to follow but instead self-righteous statements reminding others that he is the only one who could ever do these things, so we must simply trust him and stop trying. Some of our evangelical brethren would say that we are performing “works” or trying to earn our way into heaven by daring to live into Jesus’ own words, namely his commands to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive our enemies, and declare the ever-present reality of the Kingdom of God. They go so far as to say that asking for mercy is “woke” (a word they cannot even define). To be kind to others, to work toward justice for all people, has gone from being benchmarks of the Christian faith to radical leftist talking points. How horrifyingly sad! 

Bishop Budde named people who are frightened and scared, namely LGBTQ young people and immigrants. These are but a fraction of the people being systematically denied the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, on which our nation is allegedly founded. Make no mistake, every person has skin in this game, even those of us who believe our privilege will save us. We dare not give up on one another. As Benjamin Franklin is said to have quipped: “We shall either hang together or hang separately.”

The prayers of the Church are the very prayers of Jesus’ own Body to God the Father, as Paul reminds us in I Corinthians. It is the solemn duty of the Church to proclaim the very Good News that Jesus proclaimed, to call for mercy, to restore all people to God in Christ, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. If this is to be a Jubilee, then may the Church be the Church, the only institution in this country capable of speaking truth to power and establishing effective, radical change. If not us, who? If not now, when?