Beatitudes Blog

A CONFESSION OF FAITH WITH PROMISE

PRESBYTERIAN WOMEN, CULPEPER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CULPEPER, VA

June 2012

Our study of the Beatitudes and the Acra Confession has given us, the women of the Culpeper Presbyterian Church, Culpeper, VA, a better understanding of how a confession of faith differs from the traditional confession for personal prayers of confession of sins and requests for forgiveness. A confession of faith assesses and acknowledges our faith position on issues we encounter in our daily lives.

Our confession of faith and commitment addresses the needs of the poor, hungry, physically and spiritually persecuted, and is our pledge to act in ways that will spread the gospel of Christ. We support the programs and missions of Presbyterian Women nationally, specifically those directed toward providing pure drinking water in the Sudan, fighting violence against women, and aiding women to become economically self sufficient. Our goals are to support actions to help women and families in the community, regionally, and globally.

Locally, our fundraising efforts contribute to the free medical and dental clinics, the Culpeper Pregnancy Center, Culpeper Young Life, and our own Manna Ministry which serves hot lunches three times a week for anyone in need who comes to the fellowship hall. This ministry has expanded beyond meals to offering such items as clothing, transportation, pastoral counseling, and spiritual support to help folks get through tough times. It has been our joy to offer our talents, time, and resources to programs and projects that stretch beyond our congregation and community. For example, we fund special needs identified by the Lynchburg, Virginia, Home for Children at Risk, and participate in Soles for Souls, the organization that collects shoes for disaster victims.

As we endeavored to produce our confession of faith, we examined ourselves in light of each Beatitude and what Christ was saying to the crowds and His disciples. We discussed how to activate our convictions and ignite our intentions to serve the physical and spiritual needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ, to spread the promise of salvation through God’s grace and love, and to fight persecution of believers, at home or abroad.

I. What are we doing for the poor? We sometimes find it difficult to grasp the hardships and struggles of our neighbors, near and far. We live in a society of above-average means; our needs are met. We don’t know what it is like to be truly hungry for even one day. We fail to notice how much food we waste because we don’t properly preserve it when it is not immediately consumed. We may confess to honor the destitute, but we are frequently too busy to stop what we are doing to assist those who need us, or rescue those who are left homeless by floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and even by bank foreclosures. We see our unworthiness of God’s love when we fail to put our energies into service for the poor of this world, especially those in our own community. It is time for a change in our thinking and our responses to the needs we see all around us.

II. How can we bless those who mourn? People mourn privately and publicly for many reasons. We confess we are often uncomfortable in the presence of those who weep, those who use rituals and traditional postures to vent their grief and pain. Jesus understood grief, sorrow, and loss; He wept for His people; He wept over His city, soon to be destroyed; He wept as He saved the man on the cross next to him while He struggled for one last breath Himself. Teach us, Lord, to open our hearts to those who mourn, for whatever reason. Show us how to offer comfort in practical ways to alleviate the pain in their bodies and spirits.

III. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful,” but our concept of mercy is dwarfed in His presence. We have experienced God’s mercy personally; we have begged for mercy in times of pain and distress. Yet, how vain and selfish of us to ask Christ to be merciful to us and yet not show mercy to others. Our demonstrations of mercy to those suffering from starvation, wars, and disasters of all kinds, are tempered by distance. We rarely observe such events first hand, so our mercy may be only words, without action. Lord, show us how to be merciful to others as You are merciful toward us.

IV. “Blessed are the pure in heart” convicts us of our sinful state. We do not always have pure thoughts, words, or deeds. It is easy to say that pure thoughts are the key to kind words, setting the stage for a pure heart, but we know hearts are unruly things. How can we control an unruly, impure heart? God’s word is the path to a pure heart and a right relationship with Him, and through it we will be able to form right and compassionate relationships with others.

V. Jesus said, “Blessed are the Peacemakers.” Do we qualify as peacemakers? We enjoy God’s peace in our closed circles and the comfortable places we find for ourselves, away from the tensions, mistreatment, and aggression imposed upon our brothers and sisters by hateful and greedy power mongers. It is pleasant to bask in wholeness, well being, and peace, passing a nodding shalom to our neighbors as we ignore the violence around us. In reality, we avoid the outrageous injustices all around us. We side-step situations where we should step in and offer a voice of reason and love. It is our responsibility and duty to demonstrate God’s peace, to speak out against injustice, and to offer help to those caught in the midst of it. How can we put our lives on the line for Christ? A place to start is by facing the guilt we carry for having kept quiet when our nation was torn with racial strife. That task is not finished. We can work to root out lingering acts of injustice and discrimination in our nation. Further, as a minimum, we can boycott businesses that exploit their employees and fail to provide fair wages and working conditions.

VI. The Beatitude that speaks to those who are persecuted for the sake of Christ’s name shows us how far removed we are from any form of persecution. We certainly did not consider we could be persecuted for our faith when we accepted Christ as our Savior. We pledged to follow His teachings and His will for our lives, while the joy of His promise of eternal life overshadowed all else at that moment. We must have overlooked this Beatitude about being blessed when “people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kind of evil against you because of Me.” Christ said “when,” not “if,” so we should arm ourselves with God’s word to be ready to respond to those who sling their hate at us for our belief in Jesus. We hear about Christians around the world facing dangers from non-believers who want to drive out Christ from their communities and countries. We may not be threatened with violence or death, but disdain for Christian principles is seeping into our daily lives and society in general. We routinely fail to respond to the insidious, but less obvious persecutions for our Christian beliefs, traditions, and teachings. Christianity is being diluted by opposition to its holy days, symbols, inscriptions, and its presence in official and public speech, all of which are foundational precepts of our culture and nation. Lord, we ask for the courage to speak out when non-believers oppose anything Christian in the public and educational spheres, and when weak officials give in to pressures from non-believers to diminish the voice of Christianity in our legal and social systems. Secondly, open our mouths in unfriendly crowds who criticize and ridicule You and Your Word. Strengthen our resolve to be an ever-present witness for Your Word in a world of hate. Keeping quiet is not an option.

VII. Stewardship of God’s Creation is the responsibility of every disciple of Christ. God’s commandments to care for land, waters, and air, were instilled at Creation itself to human beings entrusted with their use. We have an intellectual knowledge about God’s creation—the universe, sky, earth, and all the things that inhabit the world. We know how to nurture plants, animals, soil, and water, and to preserve these life-giving components of the universe. Yet, we are careless, even malicious, in our use of His gifts. Shame on us for assuming that God entrusted His marvelous works to us to use as we choose, without giving thought to its damage, deterioration, and extinction. How dare we buy what we do not need, and hoard for ourselves what others lack to sustain their lives, homes, and communities. It is time for a change in our thinking and attitudes toward the universe and its contents. We can begin with efforts to cut our ties to the god of consumerism. We can be smarter consumers by not buying items we don’t need from companies who harm the environment. We can recycle and use recycled products, grow more, share what we have with people in need, and look for ways to live more simply in order to leave a much lighter footprint on God’s world.

Lord, we ask for the will to adopt a new way of living that preserves rather than destroys, that gives rather than takes from the earth, and become better stewards of Your gifts. Do not let us falter in our resolve to be good caretakers of Your world.

As believers in Christ, we commit ourselves, as a group and individually, to do what we can, when and wherever we can, to move Your kingdom forward on earth according to Your will. Talents, abilities, time, and resources vary from woman to woman. We each have demands and responsibilities placed upon us by our family, work, and community. Please guide us through Your word to meet those demands and the needs of your children according to Your will.

When

Dear friends,

It has been hard to write this last Beatitudes blog. I realize that, although I am grateful to regain some of the time that I have spent traveling and teaching this study, I will miss all of you, and your faithful, Christian, honest wrestling with faithful living. So, I start this blog by saying thank you to all of you for trusting and questioning, for pushing back and pushing forward, and for all of your support in emails and posts to this blog. I am particularly grateful for those of you who tried the "new-fangled" things that PW put into place with this study: the DVD and this blog. I hope you liked them and that you gave lots of love to the folks in the PW office at Louisville, without whom none of this would have been possible.

Special thanks again to Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty, Clifton Kirkpatrick and David Gambrell for their participation in the DVD and for Ashley Meyer, who was my editor until she left the office for new adventures. Special thanks also to all of the staff of PW who made it possible for Confessing the Beatitudes to win an ACP Award of Excellence for the best Bible resource of 2011.

As my last blog, I'm posting the sermon that I wrote for you and that I have preached to many of you all over the country. It is a sermon called "When." 

Greatly honored are all of you, and may God bless and strengthen Presbyterian Women.

“When”

-a sermon for PW on the Beatitudes-

Sisters, as we turn to the proclamation of the word, let us once again turn our hearts and minds to prayer. God of our mothers, of Hagar the desert wanderer and God namer, of Deborah the judge, and Miriam the prophet, speak to us now using the words of our Savior Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, that we might be guided to live our lives as Christ's disciples. Amen.



The Beatitudes, especially the version recorded in the gospel according to Matthew, is one of the great poems or hymns of the Christian church. We learn to recite it as children, print it on T-shirts and signs and coffee mugs, stitch it into samplers and banners for the church, and hold it up as a primary example of the life of discipleship. And yet, friends, there is a word we often overlook in this great poem, a word that turns the poem from a lovely vision of what it means to “be a good person” into a pointed reminder of the cost of discipleship. The word, my sisters, is When.

Listen again to the way that word is used in Matthew's gospel: "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.” Friends, the first thing we must notice is that in this passage, Jesus does not say “Blessed are you IF people revile you, persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” Jesus doesn't say IF. Jesus says “when.” There is an expectation in that word, an expectation that the path Jesus is calling us to is a path that comes with some risks, risks of being reviled, risks of being persecuted, risks of being slandered. It is tempting to wonder, after such beautiful words, if Jesus could just have been making a mistake; if when is just too strong for this call to discipleship called the beatitudes. However, if you keep reading Matthew's gospel, you'll find that Jesus is completely consistent. Later in the 5^th chapter, he commands us to pray for those who persecute us. In the 10^th chapter, he instructs disciples who are persecuted in one town to flee to another town, and in the 13^th chapter, he compares those who cannot handle persecution to seeds thrown on rocky soil that have no root. Friends, I'm afraid, it's quite certain that Jesus intended to use “when” in the Beatitudes.

Further, Jesus teaches that this “when” of persecution, revulsion and slander is going to take place on his account. Hear me. Jesus says, the “when” of persecution comes BECAUSE we are his faithful disciples. Too often, these days, I hear brothers and sisters of the faith preaching that discipleship of Jesus Christ will get you OUT of trouble, that it will take away your problems and your trials and will lead to a life of quiet prosperity. While I understand the wish for those things, particularly among those who come from families of poverty, I'm afraid that is not what Jesus teaches. Jesus doesn't teach that the gospel will get you OUT of trouble. Jesus teaches that living lives as his disciple will get you INTO trouble. For, the WHEN in the Beatitudes teaches us that WHEN we are followers of Jesus we will be reviled, not praised; persecuted, not protected; and slandered, not saluted. And these things will happened to us BECAUSE we are Christ's disciples, not in spite of that fact.

Hear what Jesus is saying, sisters and brothers. Jesus is saying that WHEN you live in a way that heaven honors, this world might cause you problems. For, this world holds up the richest and most famous among us as those we should honor, the Steve Jobs' and Bill Gates, the Oprah Winfreys and Suze Ormans, the Fortune 500 and those whom Donald Trump hires. These are the ones that we are called to honor in this world. When we, as disciples of Jesus Christ turn to these icons of our society and say, in the words that Jesus spoke in Luke 6:24, “Shame on you, for you already have your reward,”some will call us names. When we, in the name of Jesus Christ, honor the ptochoi – not the working poor but the destitute, those left to beg on our streets or wander through our deserts because they have no other way to make a living for themselves or their families, some will be revolted by us or seek to persecute us. And yet, this is the path of discipleship.

The world expects us to honor those who frequent Food Network, surrounded by a bounty of food and drink; and those who, because of who they are, receive help when they face trouble and leniency when they face hard times. When we, instead, as disciples of Jesus Christ, honor those who are starving and dying from thirst, calling for food and water justice both locally and globally, some will slander us, and revile us and persecute us. And yet, this is the path of discipleship.

And whenever we honor those who live their lives in covenant loyalty to their sisters and brothers and to God, showing them compassion and feeling for them in our hearts, those whom our world calls weak and soft.... Whenever we honor those whose inner lives and outer actions match, and who don't play the game of saying what everyone wants to hear, even if it is not true, those whom our world calls strange and foolish... Whenever we honor those who live their lives seeking the fullness of shalom, peace as well as wholeness and healing, for all God's children, those whom the world calls peaceniks and idealists... Whenever we honor those who allow themselves to be arrested and put on watch lists and maligned in the press because they refuse to be silenced in the face of injustice, those whom the world calls troublemakers... Whenever we, as disciples of Jesus Christ honor these people, these children of God who are trying to live out their lives in response to the gospel of Jesus Christ, some people will revile us, some people will slander us, and some people will persecute us. Not if. When.

For you see, the old fable they used to tell us is not true. Being Christian is not at all the same as being a respectable person from a decent family. Ask the martyr Perpetua who was thrown to the lions, relinquishing both her respectability and her decent family because she refused to deny Christ Jesus as her Lord and Savior. Or, if you do not want to go back that far, ask Dorothy Day and Cesar Chavez, Mary McLeod Bethune and Martin Luther King Jr., Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. Being a Christian, a disciple of the one who first appeared to Mary of Magdala and whom Martha of Bethany called “the Christ, the son of God who has come into the world,” being a Christian means being standing where Jesus stood, with the outcasts and the voiceless, and with those who are already standing with them. It means standing with the migrants, with or without papers, as children of the living God remembering that our ancestors were once wanderers through desert places. It means standing with the working class that are taught to blame “those people” for the injustices that irresponsible, unresponsive corporations are perpetrating on them. It means standing with those for whom this great recession has been and continues to be a great depression. It means standing with those nations that are at war over the minerals we need for our cell phones and our motor cars. It means standing with those women and men who are still in refugee camps months and years after earthquake or fire or war or flood. Being a Christian means lifting up your voice with prophets and peacemakers, truthtellers and troublemakers of every generation, putting all on the line for the sake of the God whom Hagar called El-roi, the God who sees. Being a Christian means today just exactly what it meant so many years ago, when Jesus said if anyone would come after me, let her deny herself, take up her cross and follow me. Being a Christian means acknowledging that the crux of the Beatitudes, for us as Christ's disciples is that troubling adverb, “When.”

And yet, “when” comes with a command to rejoice, not to weep. When comes with a command to celebrate not to shrink in fear. When comes with a command to leap and dance, not to lie awake worrying about the consequences of discipleship. For, as disciples, we are called to remember that our hope is not in the expectations of this world. Our hope is not in the honor of this world or the respect of this world. Our hope is not in the admiration of this world, but in a greater reality, a greater source of authority even than them empires of this world.

For all who live as disciples of Christ in this world are the concern of heaven, greatly beloved and rewarded. And the same God who honors the destitute and the mourners, the humbled and the famished, also honors those who stand with them in Jesus name. And, even as we are called to covenant loyalty, our God is faithful beyond our human understanding.

This is the promise of the prophets, the promise that even if we are sent into a world that will not hear and might even attack, nevertheless we are doing the work of God and will in no way lose our heavenly reward. Like so many of the promises of the beatitudes, this promise points to another age, an age when God’s will is done on earth as in heaven. It is a promise that, in the end, God is ultimately in charge and that God’s reign will ultimately prevail. However, this is not just a promise about the hereafter, a trust in the God of the not yet, of the unseen future. For, the promise is that, even in the midst of persecution, the Triune God is concerned with and is, in ways seen and unseen, standing with Christ’s faithful disciples. God is with us, and since God is with us we can dare to take the step of discipleship, even in the face of persecution. For truly, if we live as disciples, in life, in death, and in life after death, we belong to God.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, the word “when” in the Beatitudes is not a warning. It is a call to fearless Christianity, Christianity lived knowing that when we honor those whom heaven honors, and when we live as disciples of the Christ, we will be charged with meddling. Let it be so, and let us rejoice in it. For going before us is the one who calls us to be overjoyed, to leap and dance, the one who calls himself the Lord of the Dance, the one who has promised to be with us even until the end of the age.

And when we lose heart or our resolve weakens, we come again to the font and the table and the gathering of the people of God. For the font calls us to remember that we belong not to the world but to the Lord, and we have been given his Spirit that we might live as disciples. The table reminds us that we are fed not because of what we deserve but out of the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the gathering reminds us of who we follow, retelling together the story of our Savior who was reviled for challenging the wealthy scoffers, stuffed with food and swollen with the world's praise while honoring the destitute, the mourners, the humbled and those famished and parched for bread, water and justice. The gathering reminds us that our Savior was persecuted for calling for mercy and integrity among all of God's people. The gathering reminds us that our Savior was slandered for standing with the peacemakers and with those persecuted on behalf of justice. The gathering reminds us that he whom the world struck down, God raised up, and he lives among us, present when even two or three of us are gathered in his name. Then let us celebrate, PW, not because of the when but because of the call to discipleship. For WHEN we dare to live as disciples of the one we call Savior and Lord, heaven itself echoes with Christ's words: “Blessed are they.”





Make Peace

 

Photo by bitzi ☂ ion-bogdan dumitrescu, June 20, 2006, Creative Commons License 

As I sit to write this month's blog on the peacemakers, Syria's army has been unleashed against its own people in massacre after massacred. The global drumbeat of war against Iran is beginning to beat more loudly -- from Democrats and Republicans. The anger in Afghanistan over the burning of the Qu'ran --and the US military occupation-- has led to danger for military and civilian persons. And the constant, untreated wound of Palestine and the state of Israel festers still. 

As I set to write this month's blog on the peacemakers, Ohio's children have been shot and killed by a lone teenaged boy with a gun. The local drumbeat of gang warfare in our cities and towns from Tempe to Seattle to Chicago continues  like a mad, racing heartbeat. The danger on the streets of Mexico from guns made in and trafficked from the United States continues. And the constant, untreated wound of US racism, US classism, and US sexism and heterosexism festers still -- even in the church.

Friends, it is hard to write a blog on peacemaking in the year 2012, if this is where we must start. It is hard because the dominant mode of the whole world, even of our own nation, is not peacemaking but war-mongering and even I can get caught up in it far too easily. It is easy to forget that, "enemy" or "friend", victims of violence are all human, all made in the image of God.

And perhaps, this is exactly why, in March 2012, we need to hear Jesus' insistent instruction that only those who make peace are truly God's "sons," God's children born of God's own will, adopted into God's own family, co-heirs of the covenant with Christ.

Photo by yeowatzup, September 23, 2010, Creative Commons License

In Jesus' mother language --Aramaic-- the word for peace would  not be the Pax Romana designed to keep Roman-occupied territories quiet. Peace, in this case, was a broader word, a word about wholeness, about everyone having what they need and no one being in want, a word about a world without oppression and violence, but also without hunger and poverty.

James, who some scholars now think may well have been Jesus' brother, says it this way,

"If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." James 2:15-17, NRSV

The good news is that the church, imperfect and often torn apart by schims itself, still stands up for peace, sometimes even taking the call for peace to the streets!

In the PCUSA, we stand with non-governmental organizations bringing peace to war-torn nations. We pray and bear witness with sisters and brothers who have been tortured and killed that their families may know a just peace. Through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, our One Great Hour of Sharing offering and other mission giving goes to help in the very heart of war, bringing food and aid the most vulnerable. We gather to work and to pray for our own nation too. At the end of this month, we with Christians from around the country will gather in Washington D C to learn, to pray, and to advocate for a just peace in Ecumenical Advocacy Days.

Peacemaking isn't easy. It calls for action, and contemplation; sacrifice and sorrow. Peacemaking includes prayer and providing food; standing with the victims and standing against violence. And peacemaking, the kind of peacemaking that Jesus did, can lead one to a cross.  David LaMotte  reminds us of this in his prophetic song Peter, a song set in Golgotha -- and in every other place of conflict:

"It sounds so simple, but it's so complicated, not gentle, not just a warm feeling. Many will die in the name of peace, but war will not lead us to healing. And I meant what I said, Peter, put down your sword. Did you forget, or did you think I was joking?"

As we walk the path of discipleship this Lent, and try to live into the second half of these beatitudes: showing mercy, walking with integrity, making peace let us pray

• For those whose actions bring war and violence, that their hands may be stilled and their wars cease
• For those who seek peace in their own lives, in their communities, and in their world, that their peacemaking may be fruitful
• For those who need peace, that what we say, what we do, and how we pray may bring them closer to that peace they so desperately need
• That we might be makers of God's peace for this God-beloved world.

 

Normally, in March we might pray St. Patrick's Breastplate, put perhaps this March, as we honor those who make peace, we should pray with our brother Frances of Assisi instead:

Photo by kevin dooley, November 22, 2009, Creative Commons License

 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

 

Photo by James Emery (hoyasmeg), May 5, 2007, Creative Commons license

Heart Matters and New Names: the sixth beatitude

Happy February, Presbyterian women! Here we go on another of the beatitudes. This month, it's the sixth beatitude: the pure in heart who will see God. Of course, in our culture, February is usually less about "pure" hearts and more about these hearts:

 

Photo by Dave Parker, cc license, http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveparker/2264374058/

But this is not what Jesus means in this month's beatitude. In this month's beatitude Jesus calls us to honor those whose pure. In Jesus' day, someone with a pure heart waled with integrity before God and the community. This is not an easy thing to do, is it? Even when we know that things are unjust -- that the poor don't have what they need for food, or shelter, or heat or medicine -- it is hard for us to know what to do about it. It is hard to live a Christian life of integrity in a society that pushes our hearts away from purity to selfishness, greed, or apathy.

For those of us who do strive for that kind of integrity, the promise of the beatitude is that we will see God. But what a promise that is! For one who sees God may end  up wrestling, like Jacob. One who sees God may be sent out with an unpopular message, like Isaiah. One who sees God might end up bearing the Christ, like Mary. One who sees God might end up being an evangelist, like Magdala. And often, one who sees God ends up with a new name. So Jacob becomes Israel and Simon becomes Peter.

 

Rembrandt [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Are we ready to think about hearts this month: not candy hearts but our hearts? What might that mean for us? Might that mean taking a decision at work that might call to task our way of doing business? Might that mean choosing where we shop, or making it known to those from whom we buy that we expect them to do justice? Might that mean standing up against bullies who would silence those without power and status? Might it mean preaching the good news of Jesus Christ to a community that hears nothing but bad news-- bigotry and abuse and condemnation-- from the body of Christ?

As we think of the implications of having pure hearts this month, a month that is also black history month, perhaps we might consider the example of Isabella Baumfree, the slave of John Dumont of New York. Isabella was a slave in upstate New York, a woman of the late 18th and early 19th century. Like so many slaves before her, she was abused by her master and her mistress. Like so many slaves before her, Isabella went in search of the living God. And she began a relationship with the living God that, after she became a free woman, would forever change her.

Somewhere along the way, she had a vision of the living God, this woman who tried to walk with integrity of heart. And as she grew closer to the Christ who loved her, Isabella heard the call of God on her life, a call to live out the rule of love -- Love your neighbor as yourself. And she heard the God of her understanding give her a new name: Sojourner Truth.

By Battle Creek CVB (Sojourner Truth_detailUploaded by pixeltoo) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Sojourner Truth spent the rest of her life speaking truth to power through her Christian faith. In a time when women were rarely ordained, she preached the gospel to all who would listen, sometimes sleeping outside. At a time before war seemed inevitable, she stood against despair and the yearning for war in her compatriot Frederick Douglass, asking him if his God was dead. At a time when women were not really citizens at all, she stood up to those stereotypes that separated poor and rich woman, black and white women in her famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech. And she continued to stand for the rights of those that Jesus calls us to honor until her life's end.

Friends, February truly is heart month, purity of heart month. We begin it by studying this beatitude. In its midst, we celebrate love. And, we end it on Ash Wednesday by praying David's famous prayer: "Create in me a clean heart, O God." So may it be with us. May we, like Sojourner Truth, walk in integrity before the God of our understanding, the God who created us, saved us and calls us to be sojourners, speaking truth. And when we see our God, may we be forever changed.

Grace and peace to all of you,
Margaret

New Year's Resolution -- be merciful

Happy New Year, Presbyterian Women!

Christmastide, the New Year, and the season of Epiphany all call us to renewed commitment of our walk of faith, as we live into this year of the Beatitudes. What better time than to let the fifth Beatitude lead us to making a New Year's Resolution. In the fifth beatitude, Jesus teaches his disciples to honor those who show mercy, for they will receive mercy.

To get a sense of what Jesus may have meant by "showing mercy," we need look no further than the parable of the Good Samaritan. In it, Jesus demonstrates the three-fold work of mercy: feeling compassion, taking action, and establishing covenantal relationship. The first two of these are easy to identify--the Samaritan man feels pity and takes matters into his own hands, caring for the wounded man.  However, we miss the power of the action of the Samaritan if we stop there. He also takes his own wealth -- two days wages -- gives it to the innkeeper and promises to pay for any more care the wounded man may need. This is not a one-time fix. The Samaritan is in it for the long haul.

As we consider this season of new beginnings -- the turning of the year to 2012, and the turning of our church year from Christmastide to the glory of Epiphany -- what might it mean for us to confess and to live into the fifth beatitude?

Perhaps, for us, it means that our New Year's Resolutions should be about something more than weight loss or getting more sleep. Perhaps, as Christians, we could dedicate this time of introspection to a recommitment to discipleship. This is the practice of many Methodist Christians around the world, for whom the first Sunday of January is Covenant Sunday, the Sunday in which they renew their commitment to Christ and dedicate the entire year to God.

Specifically, as guided by this teaching of Jesus, what might it mean for us to resolve that in 2012 we will be merciful? Let me make some suggestions.

Resolution 1: Pay attention

First, if we would be merciful, we must resolve to pay attention to those things we might rather not see. In the parable that Jesus tells, two other people see the man who has fallen among the robbers. But they, seeing, pass by. The one who shows mercy sees and stops. He sees  and pays attention.

To what do you  need to pay attention in your city or town? What do you not see, or see and pass by? In 2012, what would happen if you resolved to pay attention it, to see it and stop, to let its presence in your midst change your life? Presbyterian Women, let us resolve that in 2012, we will pay attention.

Resolution 2: Take action

Second, if we would be more merciful, then we must resolve that we will take action on behalf of those whom we see. The action we take should be concrete, immediate, and specifically helpful to the one in need. Think of what the Samaritan does. He sees someone who has been wounded and tends to his wounds out of his own resources.

Note also what the Samaritan does not do. He does not stop to ask why the person has been wounded or whose fault it is. After all, one could easily blame the solo traveler for not traveling within the safety of a caravan. If he won't take precautions, we might reason, he deserves what he gets. He isn't our concern. 

Whether or not the Samaritan thinks this to be true, he sees his responsibility not to judge or to criticize but to take direct action on behalf of the one in trouble.

What would happen if you or your circle, seeing a need, decided to take action on behalf of that need? What might that look like? For some of you, it may look like volunteering at a food pantry or taking a homeless person into the coffee shop with you for a cup of coffee. For others, it will mean knitting caps and blankets, or filling bags of protein-rich food for the hungry.

Presbyterian Women, as we consider our walk of faith in 2012, let us resolve not just to see people in hurt and pain, but to take action on their behalf.

Resolution 3: Practice Covenant Loyalty

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the Good Samaritan story is that he puts two days wages into another man's hand for the care of a perfect stranger. And he promises to give more as necessary. Here, the Samaritan goes beyond taking care of immediate needs; he enters into a long-term relationship with a perfect stranger. Perhaps, over time, he and the stranger even became friends. Who knows? What is clear is that the Samaritan is not just going to disappear now that the stranger is out of immediate danger.

What about us? What does it mean for us not just to care in the immediate term, but to enter into a relationship, a relationship of covenant loyalty, with those whom God puts into our path? What if our resolution included that we would enter into deeper relationship with those for whom we are called to care, long-term covenant relationship?

The Call to Confession

Over the course of this PW study, I have invited you to write confessions of faith. I invite you to do so still. Perhaps this January, instead of writing out your resolutions, you might consider this question:

What do I believe is revealed about God -- Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit -- in Jesus' teaching about being merciful?

Who do I believe I am called to be in light of this teaching? How is that the same as or different from who I am now?

What is it, therefore, that I resolve to do? How do I resolve to honor the merciful? How do I resolve to be more merciful?

What is one tangible thing I can do to start?

As you pray and think about these things, let me leave you with the charge from the Methodist hymnwriter Charles Wesley, as a call to discipleship for us all in 2012.

Come, let us anew our journey pursue

Roll round with the year

And never stand still till the Master appear.

Happy New Year!

Those who are Famished for Food and Justice

November 1, 2011

Today, Presbyterian Women is All Saints Day. It is time to remember the saints who went before us, women like Dr. Wangari Maathai who planted trees to respond to deforestation and won a Nobel Peace Prize.

 

Planting trees may seem to have little to do with those who hunger and thirst either for food or for justice, but for the rural people of Kenya, the repairing of the ecosystem of the forest meant food, fuel and other resources on which they depended for life, resources that were being cut down and not replaced by rich companies and the governement. At the risk of her life and at the cost of her marriage, Dr. Maathai started a movement to plant trees that began to rebuild the forests and restore the livelihoods, particularly for the women of rural Kenya.

The late Dr. Maathai reminds us that there is a connection in the Beatitudes of Matthew and Luke between those who hunger and thirst, and those who hunger and thirst for δικαιοσυνη (dikaiosyne) that word that we usually translate as "righteousness" but in Greek means "justice."

On this plentiful planet, hunger and thirst can often be a matter of injustice, governmental or corporate or both. Hunger and thirst in populations from Appalachia to Somalia can point to the reality that God's gifts of the earth are not distributed to all who have need, or are being taken from some for the benefit of others. This was not the way of the very first church, the church in the Acts of the Apostles. According to Acts 2:44-45:

All who believed were together and had all things in common;they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. (NRSV)

It is tempting to think of "hunger and thirst" in Matthew's gospel as metaphors for deep longing. But if we do so, we have to ignore two things. First, the witness of Luke 6 is that Jesus' other teaching of the beatitudes was specifically good news to the hungry and chastisement of the stuffed. (Luke 6:20, 25)

Second, we have to ignore the context in which Jesus was speaking. Hunger and thirst were well known problems in Jesus' day. Scholars estimate that 50% of the calories of the ancient world were consumed by about 2% of the population. For the vast majority, their food was that "daily bread" for which Jesus taught his disciples to pray.

Indeed, it is no accident that the Lord's supper many of us will celebrate on November 6 is not a symposium feast, but a poor laborer's daily meal: bread and wine. Clearly, Jesus and his disciples would have eaten well on Passover night. But the simple elements that Jesus commanded we should use to remember him, bread and wine, would have been the daily food for which people of his day would hunger and would thirst.

November is an important month to think about hunger and thirst, both for food and for justice. As we celebrate the great reformers of the church and our call to be always reforming, we are called again to stand for those who yearn not only for grace but also for justice. As we remember the saints who have died, we are called to remember those who will hear from Jesus, "I was hungry and you gave me food." As we move toward the winter, here in the north, our food banks and our shelters will feel the need for our help as they care for those who hunger and thirst. As our nation continues to be embroiled in conversations about wealth and poverty, about hunger and thirst for food and for justice, our voice, the voice of the church, will need to be lifted up.

Perhaps learning more about this new initiative from the General Assembly Committee on Social Witness Policy is one response we might take. They have put online a new version of what used to be Church and Society. It is now called Unbound: A Christian Journal of Social Witness.

 

Or, maybe taking a cue from our sisters and brothers around the world, we might consider what it means to be part of a global family of Reformed Christians who also hunger and thirst for justice, by following the links on the World Communion of Reformed Churches website.

 

Of course many of you will not become Nobel laureates or change the discourse of the church. And giving to the Least Coin Offering or making just choices like Fair Trade coffee can seem to be just a small action given the huge challenges of hunger and thirst for food and for justice in our world today.

And it is when we despair that the saints are there to remind us of what we need to do. Listen to Dr. Maathai talk about a hummingbird.

 

 

 

Then let us be like the hummingbird, like the cloud of witneses. Let us do what we can, even if it seems. And, as we remember the Advent of our Lord at the end of this month, let us look forward to the day when Jesus will come and say to us, "I was hungry, and you gave me food."

Grace and peace.

 

 

 

Those who are Humbled -- a Report from CANAAC

Happy October, Presbyterian Women. I hope your fall is going well. I'll be seeing some of you in Arizona later this year! Today is World Communion Sunday, October 2. What better day for us to think together about the third beatitude!

In the third beatitude, Jesus says that "the meek shall inherit the earth." (Mat 5:5). As you now know from the study, Jesus is quoting Psalm 37, a psalm that challenges those who oppress the "meek" or the "humbled" as I have translated it. According to the Psalmist, these oppressors are wicked and wrongdoers (37:1 ff.) What makes them wicked? They plot and scorn, draw the sword and bend the bow, borrow and do not pay back, kill and oppress. By contrast, the meek are connected with those who are poor, who are oppressed, who are the target of those the Psalmist calls "wicked." It is for this reason, I have called them "humbled" and not "humble." Their humility-- or rather their humiliation -- is not a function of their piety but of what others have done and continue to do to them. 

Psalm 37, like many of the Psalms, invokes a day when injustice shall cease and when those who have been the victims of injustice shall be vindicated.  It holds up the hope that oppression will not be the ultimate victor, but that justice and just relationships between people will be the reality in God's holy reign.

Questions of justice are particularly poignant to me right now. Between Saturday September 24th and Thursday September 29th, I was part of a PCUSA delegation to the Caribbean and North American Area Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches. There we gathered with congregational and Reformed churches from all over the region including Canada, the US, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Cuba. We met in the Dominican Republic to pray and talk together about our ministry together as a region. The basis for our justice work was the Accra Confession that starts on page 79 of your Bible studies.

There are many issues of justice for the economy and the earth in the Caribbean and North American context, but we paid special attention to those in the Dominican Republic. One of the most poignant cases was that of the Haitian migrant workers in the Dominican Republic. Many of these women and men cross the border in the island of Hispaniola to work in the sugar-cane fields that supply much of the sugar in North America. These Haitian workers, who come from the western side of the island of Hispaniola, are treated as undocumented farmworkers on the eastern side of the island of Hispaniola; Haiti and the Dominican Republic are on one island. As a result, these farmworkers, who do the backbreaking work of harvesting sugar cane for our western sweet tooth, are not citizens of the Dominican Republic and are not protected by its laws. Even more poignant are their children who are born in the Dominincan Republic. Since 2010, the constitution of the Dominican Republic doesn't allow these native-born children the status of citizenship. As a result, they don't have access to education or other government benefits.

Churches like the Iglesia Evangelica Dominicana and community organizations like MUDHA, El Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico-Haitienne  (the movement of Dominican/Haitian Mothers), try to address these humilations by providing basic elementary education.

I did not take many pictures of the children, but here is a video of them singing . The chorus means "I was born here."

 

The questions that we faced as an area council were: what does it mean to be the church together in this region? How can we support one another? What does the call to do justice look like and how do we read it? What does economic justice look like, not only in the Dominican Republic but in the whole Caribbean and North American region? What does ecological justice look like? What does justice look like for the most vulnerable in the society, the women and the children? What is our call as the church in this world at this time?

There are no easy answers to these questions. However, if we are disciples of Christ Jesus, then he calls us to think, to pray and to act in ways that honor those who are humbled: those who face oppression, injustice or death from others who are more powerful than they. For, says Jesus, they will inherit the earth.

Enjoy the fall weather that is even cooling down hot Atlanta!

Grace and peace,
M. Aymer 

Those who Mourn — Listening to the Global Church

Greatly honored are the mourners, for they will be comforted. --Mt. 5:4

Greatly honored are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

But shame on you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. --Lk. 6:21b, 25b

 

Much is said today about listening to the voices of the global church. And yet, when our sisters and brothers from the rest of the church speak, it can often leave us uncomfortable. We are often unprepared to hear their grief, their anger, and their calls for justice because it makes demands on us and our way of life.

So it is with the Accra Confession, the confession that the World Alliance of Reformed Churches passed back in 2004 and the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) affirmed in 2010. All told, the WCRC represents 80 million Reformed Christians, most of whom live in the global south.

Listen to what they say:

The annual income of the richest 1 per cent is equal to that of the poorest 57 per cent.

24,000 people die each day from poverty and malnutrition.

The HIV and AIDS global pandemic afflicts life in all parts of the world, affecting the poorest where generic drugs are not available.

The majority of those in poverty are women and children.

The number of people living in absolute poverty on less than one US dollar per day continues to increase.

As Christians, what should be our response to these realities? How do we hear Christ's beatitudes when this is the state of our world?

When we read Jesus' teaching to the disciples—“Greatly honored are the weepers and mourners”—it is easy to envision Jesus speaking to those in our own communities who have lost loved ones, jobs, homes, pensions.We see those recently affected by the floods and winds of Hurricane Irene and the earthquake in Virginia. Surely we see those in our own churches who have difficult times and can find no comfort.

And, in two weeks, on September 11, 2011, we will remember a time of great mourning in our nation, a time in which thousands of people died in New York and Washington DC and Pennsylvania; a time when Muslim sisters were afraid to walk in public in head coverings; a time when we went to war.

I honor our need to mourn all of these sorrows. None of them is unimportant. None of them is insignificant to our Triune God who sees our sorrows and knows our cries.

But if we seek to honor only those mourners we see, we may be missing a call to live as the whole body of Christ in the world. After all, as Paul says, "the eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'" (1 Corinthians 12:21).

Perhaps the call to us from the second beatitude is not a call to choose which mourners we will honor, but to listen, to be challenged by, and to honor all those who mourn: families of dead men, women and children on both sides of conflicts; the hungry here and in Somalia; women, men and children who die from HIV and AIDS, regardless of whether they contracted it from heterosexual sex, homosexual sex, drug addiction or blood-infusion; those who are losing their livelihood in this country, and those who, because of our policies and the policies of the richest nations of the world, have never had a real livelihood in nations all over the world.

For Jesus does calls us to take sides, but not in the right/left, conservative/progressive categories of our current debates. Rather, Jesus teaches his disciples on the mountain that the way of Christ is to take sides with the victims—those who mourn, who refuse to stop mourning, who find no comfort in this world and no hope for comfort in the future. Jesus calls us to side with the professional mourners and the weepers, those who raise their voices in sorrow and protest, not because they are sinless but because we are Christ's disciples.

Not to do so is to risk becoming those who laugh—those who laugh because they do not see any pain in the world or any need for tears; and those who laugh mocking those who weep as somehow deserving of their pain. It is against these laughers that Jesus pointedly issues his charge: "Woe to you", or as KC Hanson has argued, "Shame on you who are laughing now."

In 1966, reformed theologian Karl Barth said:

"The Pastor and the Faithful should not deceive themselves into thinking that they are a religious society, which has to do with certain themes; they live in the world. We still need - according to my old formulation - the Bible and the Newspaper."

Perhaps that is one way we may honor those who mourn. Perhaps, as people of faith, this month we should read every newspaper article, watch every television program, listen to every radio program with this verse of the Bible in mind. And as we read, or listen, or watch, perhaps we should pray, "Lord Jesus, show me those who mourn and teach me how to honor them."

For the world of mourners is bigger, and the sound of mourning is greater, than anything we can hear even in the world around us. But God hears this sound, and God calls the church, as the body of Christ guided by the Holy Spirit, to pay attention.

In the Accra Confession, Reformed Christians from around the world are trying to do just that. Will we listen? Will we honor those who mourn, as Christ commanded us?

 

We believe that God calls us to hear the cries of the poor and the groaning of creation and to follow the public mission of Jesus Christ who came so that all may have life and have it in fullness (Jn 10.10). Jesus brings justice to the oppressed and gives bread to the hungry; he frees the prisoner and restores sight to the blind (Lk 4.18); he supports and protects the downtrodden, the stranger, the orphans and the widows. —Accra Confession, 28.

(PS: One of the best resources for understanding this beatitude is the excellent skit by Gusti Newquist on the Horizons website. Look for it as the second of the Role-Playing skits, titled "The Faces of the Beatitudes: Skits from the Time of Jesus".)

Taking Jesus Seriously -- The First Beatitude

When you Presbyterian women asked me to write this study, one of your instructions was that I should tackle Jesus' beatitudes both in the gospel according to Matthew (Mt. 5:3-12) and in the gospel according to Luke (Lk. 6:20-26). [You can find all of your “marching orders” to me on the inside front cover of your study book.] That's not as easy as it sounds as there are some significant differences between the two.

Take, for instance, the first beatitude. The author of Luke records Jesus saying, “Greatly honored are you who are ptochoi (destitute).” The author of Matthew records Jesus saying “Greatly honored are the ptochoi (destitute) in spirit.” These seem to be saying quite different things.

It is tempting to ignore the rendering of the first beatitude in Luke, and insist that the first beatitude in Matthew has to do with humility and piety. While that is certainly a valid way to interpret these ancient teachings, perhaps it doesn't take Jesus seriously enough. Let's consider what Jesus actually says in Greek:

First of all, both in Matthew and in Luke, Jesus uses the word ptochoi. This is the masculine, plural form of the Greek adjective ptochos. (Masculine plural, in the ancient world, was often used to include women and men, just as mankind was used in the 1950s in the USA). What does ptochos mean?

According to the most recent Bauer, Danker, Ardt and Gingrich (BDAG) lexicon, (what scholars call the “gold standard” of biblical Greek lexica), ptochos primarily means “dependent upon others for support.” This is distinguished from those who are the working poor, or the penes. BDAG says the penes are “obliged to work for a living but not reduced to begging.” To take Jesus seriously, we must reflect upon Jesus' use of the word for the destitute in the first beatitude.

In Luke, Jesus is clearly speaking economically. After he calls the beggars in the crowd “greatly honored,” he turns his scorn on those who have, as BDAG puts it “an abundance of earthly possessions that exceeds normal experience.” To these, Jesus says “Woe to you” or “Shame on you” who are affluent (plousioi) now, for you already have your reward."

Why does this matter?

Even before we tackle the last two words in the beatitudes of Matthew ("in spirit"), we who live and work in the rich, global north are confronted with an uncomfortable truth. In Luke, Jesus is distinguishing between those who have an abundance of possessions and those who are destitute and dependent on others. Jesus is intentionally reversing their order of importance in the kingdom of God. To take Jesus seriously, we must realize that poverty and wealth mattered to Jesus. And as Jesus' disciples, if poverty and wealth mattered to Jesus, both should matter to us.

Now that we have a little bit more insight into the beatitudes in Luke, let's consider: what do we do with the last two words of Matthew? What might it mean to be destitute in spirit?

Many have suggested that destitution in spirit is a sense of spiritual mourning—a recognition of one's state of sinfulness and dependence upon God for grace. And, it is true that one act of the grace we are given by the sovereign God is the gift of self-recognition, of acknowledging our own sinfulness and our own need for the grace and goodness of God.

But what if we hold Luke and Matthew together, rather than reading them as two radically different sermons by Jesus? What if we read Jesus' first beatitude in Matthew as a call to honor those for whom physical destitution has started to eat away even at their spirits—for whom the reality of life at the mercy of others has begun to destroy their very souls, and their sense of hope?

This is going on today in India, the nation to which some of you will be traveling for the Global Exchange this October. For the last few years, India has been facing a massive economic crisis in its farm belt—a crisis brought on by environmental change, the depletion of the water table, industrially-produced seeds and pesticides that wreak further damage on the environment and insurmountable debt. This economic crisis has left working farmers penniless, losing everything including their family land.

The result of this destitution has been despair—a ripping at the souls of these farmers to the point that thousands of them have been committing suicide every year. According to a May 11, 2011 report Every Thirty Minutes from the NYU Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide for these reasons in the last 16 years.

I learned about this crisis one summer day in 2008, as I sat in worship at the United Theological College of Bangalore. And as I listened to the sermon preached that day in chapel, I wondered whether this too was what Jesus might have meant by the “destitute in spirit.” What might it mean to be so impoverished that your very spirit is shattered, and you feel that life itself is not worth living? What might it mean to be in so far over your head that the only reasonable escape you can find is to drink poison?

And what might it mean to us today, as Jesus' disciples, to honor those who are both destitute and destitute in spirit: to honor them not because they are sinless or in any way perfect, but because we are the disciples of Jesus Christ, he who proclaimed good news to the poor (Lk. 4), and who taught that what we do to “the least of these” we do to Christ himself (Mt. 25)?

So what do you think? How do you read the first beatitude? Feel free to respond with a comment below.

I will leave you with a confession of faith from one of the workshops from the 2011 Alabama/Mississippi Women's Conference.

We believe God is a compassionate God who cares about creation. God is loving and just. God calls us to be hands working to honor the destitute. Our loving, just, gracious God includes the poor in the kingdom. Hidden survivors of discrimination by material society, government and the church are destitute and are in the kingdom of God. If we honor the destitute, it would open our churches to include everyone, and connect us to our sisters and brothers in Christ. Presbyterian Women are called to build an inclusive, caring society that opens its heart and arms to all of God's children and bears witness to the steadfast love of Christ. Presbyterian Women are called by God in Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to find ways and means of feeding, clothing, housing and nurturing the poor and the destitute, the affluent and wealthy, and all created in God's image so all may glorify God and sing praises to God forever. “Forgiven and freed by God in Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit we commit ourselves to nurture our faith through prayer and Bible study to support the mission of the church worldwide, to work for justice and peace; to build an inclusive, caring community of women that strengthens the Presbyterian Church (USA) and witnesses to the promise of God's Kingdom.” (Montgomery, AL, 21 July 2011)

Introduction - Greatly Honored?

I know, I know. You miss your "Blessed ares." Where are those words we have come to love, we have memorized all our lives? Where are those great, poetic words of Tyndale and the King James Bible that we have loved all our lives?

And I agree with you. The King James version of the Beatitudes is beautiful and it makes my soul sing too. I just think that, if we don't take a step back and consider what these words mean, we could make a mistake. We could mistake destitution, mourning and weeping, oppression and humiliation, hunger, thirst and the yearning for justice as blessings of God. After all, isn't that what "blessed are" means?

Well, not really. You see, the word for "blessing" of God is "eulogeo" or "eulogia." It's exactly where the word "eulogy" comes from. When the New Testament writers want to indicate that God is blessing someone else, they usually use a form of one of these two words.

But in the Beatitudes, Jesus uses the word "makarios," a word that designates not "blessing" but "honor." Here, Jesus is calling us to do something -- to honor those about whom he teaches. What might it mean to honor another person?

I know what it has meant for me in PW gatherings around the U.S. It means that I have been welcomed, no matter how rumpled or road weary I might appear. It means that I have been housed and fed. Little chocolates have appeared in welcome bags in my room. I have been invited to sit at table, and my thoughts have been taken seriously. I have been made to feel a part of a wonderful, woman-led Christian movement that seeks to partner with sisters and brothers from around the world to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.

I wonder what it might mean for us to treat those who are destitute -- in body or in spirit -- with this kind of honor? I wonder what it might mean for us to welcome our sisters and brothers who cannot earn a living for themselves? What might it mean for us to work together so that they might be housed and fed? How might we bend over backwards to make them feel welcome?

What do you think?

Blog the Beatitudes with Margaret Aymer beginning in July! We'll be testing the site for the next few weeks. Stay tuned for more information!