SPECIAL DAYS: Communion Sunday, Epiphany

January 6, 2002 - LESSON: Matthew 5.1-2, 4

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Brian Kiley writes: AI went to a bookstore today. I asked the woman behind the counter where the self-help section was. She said, >If I told you, that would defeat the whole purpose.=@

1. Have you recently been to the self-help section of a book store.
1. It is crowed with books.
2. Books on every subject for every need.
3. However there are no guarantees.
2. We have the greatest self-help book in the world.
1. The authors are reliable.
2. The counsel is excellent.
3. The results are guaranteed.

1. Jesus sat down, opened his mouth and taught.
1. Blessed, Happy, are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
2. Blessed are those who mourn?

2. How many Christians have taken these words at face value.
1. People who sincerely believe that Christianity is so important that they ought to be very serious about their faith and practices.
1. They sit with sober faces. They do not laugh. They do not smile. There is no applause.
2. You should enter the sanctuary with a solemn spirit and spend the time you are there in meditation and prayer.
3. There is some truth to this image but it is not all that there is.
2. Perhaps we need Luke=s version of this beatitude

21bABlessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Luke 6:21 (NRSVA)

1. When do we get to the laughter?
2. Do we have to wait for the Kingdom?
1. I want some laughter with my tears.
2. I want some pleasure with my pain.
3. The promise is that with God we do not have to wait.
3. Jesus desires to teach us how to find laughter amidst the tears and pleasure in spite of pain.
1. This is why he says, ABlessed are those who mourn.
2. For they shall be comforted.
3. Mourning is so much more than bereavement.
1. We all now intimately the mourning that is created by death.
2. The intensity of loss may differ from one person to another, but it is still intense.
3. We know that bereavement is not the only mourning of which Jesus would teach us.
1. We know this because this beatitude is part of the whole sermon.
2. It is teaching us about life and relationships.
3. Jesus is speaking about a kingdom which is in the here and now, but that is also there and then.
4. Mourning takes on a deeper significance when you realize that it includes a delicate sensitivity to all of life, all who live.

4. What circumstances elicit mourning.
1. In addition to bereavement, we can add:
2. Mourning of sympathy.
1. Don=t ever tell me that you know what I am feeling.
2. Don=t use platitudes or trite sayings.

Jane E. Brody, wrote a column in the New York Times Mourning, a time when words often fail

She writes: AWhen asked to avoid idle conversation and say only what is useful, we are often at a loss, particularly in moments of crisis. Consider the following examples:@

ATo a 60-year-old recent widow: Don't worry. You're young and attractive; you'll find someone else.

ATo a woman whose husband died of lung cancer: You have to meet this man. His wife also died of lung cancer.

ATo a man whose 26-year-old daughter died of AIDS: If she hadn't been that way, God wouldn't have struck her dead with AIDS, and It was just a purification thing.

ATo a woman who suffered a miscarriage: It is probably for the best.

ATo a woman whose 25-year-old son was killed by a drunken driver: At least you have four other children.

ATo a man whose elderly mother died: Oh, well, 79.

ATo a young man whose 19-year-old brother died of cancer: I know how you must feel losing a brother.

AAnd to the boy's mother: I know it's not the same, but I really empathize because I lost my dog.

ATo a woman whose husband committed suicide: Are you going to get a dog now?@

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3. You can tell me that you share some of my feelings.

11Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. ¹²As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother=s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. ¹³When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, ADo not weep.@ ¹⁴Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, AYoung man, I say to you, rise!@ ¹⁵The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. ¹⁶Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, AA great prophet has risen among us!@ and AGod has looked favorably on his people!@ (Luke 7:11-16, NRSVA)

33Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. ³⁴As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:33-34, NRSVA)

3. Mourning of pain.
1. The physical pain.
2. The mental pain.

29As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. ³⁰There were two blind men sitting by the roadside. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they shouted, ALord, have mercy on us, Son of David!@ ³¹The crowd sternly ordered them to be quiet; but they shouted even more loudly, AHave mercy on us, Lord, Son of David!@ ³²Jesus stood still and called them, saying, AWhat do you want me to do for you?@ ³³They said to him, ALord, let our eyes be opened.@ ³⁴Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. Immediately they regained their sight and followed him. (Matthew 20:29-34, NRSVA)

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4. Mourning of a full heart.
1. Think of Mary in the Garden.

11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹²and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³They said to her, AWoman, why are you weeping?@ She said to them, AThey have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.@ ¹⁴When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵Jesus said to her, AWoman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?@ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ASir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.@ ¹⁶Jesus said to her, AMary!@ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ARabbouni!@ (which means Teacher). ¹⁷Jesus said to her, ADo not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, >I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.=@ ¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, AI have seen the Lord@; and she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20:11-18, NRSVA)

2. Her full heart of mourning was turned into a full heart of joy.

Alexander Irvine wrote a novel called My Lady of the Chimney Corner.

The heroine of the novel goes to a mourning neighbor, and comforting her, puts her hand on her head and says:

God takes a hand whenever he can find it and just does what he likes with it. Sometimes he takes a bishop's hand and lays it on a child's head in benediction. And then he takes the hand of a doctor to relieve the pain, the hand of a mother to guide a child. And sometimes he takes the hand of a poor old creature like me to give comfort to a neighbor. But they're all hands touched by his Spirit, and his Spirit's everywhere lookin' for hands to use.

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A writer recently witnessed a moment of deep soulfulness between two strangers. He was at a bus stop, sitting next to a woman reading a newspaper, but he was totally engrossed in the performance of a 14-year-old boy on a skateboard. He had his baseball cap turned around with the bill in the back, and he was skating beautifully and very fast. He buzzed by us once, then twice. When he came by a third time, he accidentally knocked the woman's newspaper out of her hands. She said, Oh, why don't you grow up!

The writer watched him glide down to the corner of the block, where he stood talking with his buddy. The two of them kept looking back over their shoulders at the woman. She hesitated for a moment, then rolled up her paper, tucked it under her arm and walked into the street, motioning to him. Won't you come here? she called. I want to talk to you.

Very reluctantly, he skated over to her, turned his cap around with the bill in front, and said, Yeah?

She said, What I meant to say was that I was afraid that I might get hurt. I apologize for what I did say.

His face lit up, and he said, How cool!

In that moment, he witnessed what is called in Spanish a milagro pequeno--a small miracle. This small miracle was a holy, healing moment between generations, between two human beings who had just become important strangers to each other. The woman chose to shift the shape of her experience by moving out of reactivity into creativity. This kind of shape shifting is possible when we allow ourselves to speak directly from our souls.

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3. Directly from the sensitivity developed through compassionate understanding and relationship.
5. Mourning of penitence
1. David=s mourning because of his sin.
2. My sin is ever before me.
3. There is forgiveness and release into the joy of salvation.

Angeles Arrien, in Walking the Mystical Path With Practical Feet, writes about the experience of a rather impudent young man.

One day a young man came to his priest to offer his confession. Smart-alecky about sin as only youth can be, he began mocking the ritual by singing a hymn he had heard some of his friends sing: I was sinking deep in sin...Weeeeeee!

The priest looked at the youth and said, Young man, look at the cross over there. Just keep looking at it.

It was not long until the face of this young man changed. Father, he soon said, I am ready to make my confession.

9If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9 (NRSVA)

1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, ²looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. ³Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart, (Hebrews 12:1-3, NRSVA).

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6. Mourning because of sin.
1. The world is a wicked, dangerous, conflicted, controversial place in which to live.
2. We are in a war in Afghanastan
3. We invoke the presence of God as if God were on our side.
4. Seventeen hundred years ago a Palestinian sage pondered the amazing miracle of the Hebrews' deliverance from the Egyptian army by passing through the Red Sea.

With remarkable sensitivity this rabbi added:

When the Egyptian armies were drowning in the sea, the angels in heaven broke out in a song of jubilation.

But God silenced them, saying, My creatures are perishing, and you sing praises?

Today, we might also add the following question: When God mourns that my creatures are perishing, and you are singing praises does this refer to the Egyptian horses as well as the soldiers?

Doesn't God's compassion extend to all animals and plants, all creation, not just to human beings?

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5. We shall be comforted.
1. Comfort for the bereaved.
2. Comfort for those in need of sympathy.
3. Comfort for those in need of relief from pain.
4. Comfort for those in need a joyous heart.
5. Comfort for those who mourn because of sin.

CONCLUSION:

6. J. Walter Cross, The Magnetism of the Unseen, Bradenton, Fla.

In Sholem Asch's novel The Nazarene, a blind man mocks the miracles and teachings of Jesus, even though he could have been healed if he would have asked.

Jesus remarks, in response to his blindness, AWhat shall it avail one to be made seeing with the eyes and have the heart remain blind?@

1. We are not blind.
2. We have eyes to see and ears to hear and minds to comprehend.
3. Jesus has taught us what it is that we ought to do.
4. He empowers us to do it.
5. Amen.