I once served at a church that decided to support a ministry for women exiting prison.  We decided to prepare ourselves for our engagement in the ministry by reading the book The Prison Angel, about a wealthy divorcee in California who has an epiphany about her call, and eventually becomes a nun that lives in the notorious prisons of Tiajuana, Mexico, serving the men and their families.  We spent weeks reading the book, reflecting on Mother Antonia’s stories, slowly grasping the realities of prison life and those who serve them.  I was feeling energized by how well prepared our book study group would be when we finally began serving our local ministry.  But on the last day of our study, one of our participants shared, “I don’t know.  I don’t think I could ever be as self-sacrificial as Mother Antonia.  She’s sort of superhuman and I just cannot imagine living that kind of life.”  I remember feeling completely deflated – here I was trying to inspire servanthood and instead, I had made servanthood feel unattainable.

Sometimes I fear All Saints Sunday does the same thing.  Certainly, that can happen as we think of those significant saints of the church, like St. Peter, St. Francis, or Mother Teresa.  But our feelings of inadequacy can happen with the personal saints of our lives – the souls of beloved parents, lovers, children, and friends.  We remember the faithful ways they lived and only see our own failings.  And then we go and read the Beatitudes from Matthew’s gospel, we can become downright despondent.  Maybe I have mourned or felt poor in spirit.   But do I hunger and thirst for righteousness?  Am I pure in heart?  As we grieve the violence in the Middle East, have I done anything tangible to be considered peacemaking?  Has anyone ever reviled or persecuted me for the sake of Jesus?  Instead of inspiring and uplifting us today, this feast day with Matthew’s gospel has the potential to leave us feeling unworthy and unmotivated in our journey to live faithfully.

I can assure you that is not the lectionary’s intent.  In fact, after weeks of stories about discipleship in Matthew, the lectionary takes us back to the fifth chapter of Matthew for a purpose.  Perhaps we should look at what the Beatitudes are not doing today before we look at what they are doing.  The Beatitudes are not “to do” items.  As scholar Debie Thomas explains, these are not suggestions, instructions, or commandments.  There is no sense of “should,” “must,” or “ought” in these words.  We are not to walk away from these words thinking we should “try very hard to be poorer, sadder, meeker, hungrier, thirstier, purer, more peaceable, and more persecuted…”[i]  Likewise, the Beatitudes are not meant to shame us.  Jesus is not attempting to make us feel like overprivileged wretches worthy of self-condemnation.  Likewise, Jesus is not telling us to grit our teeth through whatever suffering we are living through, knowing that relief comes after death.[ii]

Instead, the Beatitudes are redefining what our modern culture might define as “#blessed.”  When we talk about being blessed, we are usually referring to our bounty or at the very least, the goodness we see in an otherwise hard world.  Instead, theologian Stanley Hauerwas explains that by declaring the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, the merciful, and the peacemakers as blessed, Jesus is indicating the transformed world of the kingdom of God has begun.  “Each of the Beatitudes names a gift, but it is not presumed that everyone who is a follower of Jesus will possess each beatitude.  Rather, the gifts named in the Beatitudes suggest that the diversity of these gifts will be present in the community of those who have heard Jesus’s call to discipleship.  Indeed, to learn to be a disciple is to learn why we are dependent on those who mourn or who are meek, though we may not possess that gift ourselves.”[iii]

What is particularly helpful as we read these familiar words, then, is to clarify what we me by the literal word “blessed.”  Going back to the Hebrew scriptures here will help.  There are two words for “blessing” in Hebrew:  ’ashar and barak.  Barak means to “bow or stoop.”  For example, in Psalm 103, when we say “Bless the Lord my soul,” we mean “Bow to the Lord.”  But ’ashar literally means, “to find the right road.”  So, if we go back to Beatitudes, we instead hear “You are on the right road when you are poor in spirit; You are on the right road when you hunger and thirst for righteousness; you are on the right road when you are persecuted.”  Jesus is calling his disciples to hear and walk in the way of his will for our lives.[iv]

As we remember those saints who inspire us, as we recall those loved ones who taught us about how to live faithfully, as we hear Jesus’ beautiful blessings of all kinds of experiences in life, we are reminded today not to feel guilted into a more holy life.  We simply remember that the people sitting next to you today are all different points of the faith journey, with different blessings or things that feel like curses.  Because we choose to walk together, we will learn to be faithful people that, someday, someone else will remember – that someone else will tie a ribbon onto this altar rail to remember the ways you taught them what being “#blessed” really means.  Our invitation today is to celebrate the right road, knowing the fullness of that road is only visible through the communion of saints who walk the right road together.  Amen.

---

[i] Debie Thomas, Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books, 2022),120.

[ii] Thomas, 120-121.

[iii] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 63

[iv] Earl F. Palmer, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 238