BLESSING
The most common version of the Bible we use in this church is the Good News
Bible.
I believe the GNB is a good general Bible for churches. It uses language that is
down to earth, straightforward, and easy to understand. It’s also a pretty
accurate translation.
However, no book is perfect - even if it is a Bible translation.
The GNB was aimed at people for whom English may be a second language and
so sometimes it avoids words that might be less familiar and well known.
And this means that just occasionally, its translation is not quite accurate.
An example of this comes from our reading today. The Sermon on the Mount
begins with a series of sayings called the Beatitudes.
And the GNB translates these words by having Jesus say “Happy are those…”
Happy is the wrong word!
Happy are those who know they are poor?
Happy are those who mourn?
Happy!!!!?
Happy is the wrong word.
The word Jesus used was in Greek manuscripts “makarios.”
It can be translated in different ways. It can mean happy, fortunate, well off or
blessed.
And that last meaning is what all Bible scholars now believe Jesus meant.
The GNB says:
“Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor.
Happy are those who mourn,
Happy are those who are humble” etc,
when what Jesus was really saying was:
“Blessed are those who know they are spiritually poor.
Blessed are those who mourn,
Blessed are those who are humble,” and so on.
What Jesus was talking about was blessing – not happiness.
Happiness is something we all crave. We all want to be happy. But happiness can
be elusive and as an emotion it will come and go.
For the last two Saturdays, Finn’s Place has run a Mental Health First Aid Course.
I signed up for this myself and it was very interesting.
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One of the first things to realise when we think about our mental health is that if
we imagine it is all about being happy 100% of every minute of every day we are
setting ourselves up for disappointment.
Nobody’s life is like that. Nobody’s real life...
Good mental health doesn’t mean we are always in a state of glee – but that we
are able to cope despite the troubles we face and that we have a sense of
meaning and purpose to our lives.
And so it is only right that we should then consider the question.
What does the word blessing actually mean?
What is Jesus saying here?
What does it feel like to blessed by God?
Well it’s easy to say what blessing seems to be about.
Good luck and fortune, getting it together, the good life, fine health,
a long life, a contented family, a trouble-free existence…
This is the common understanding. “I’ve been blessed….”
And that view is also found in the Bible – parts of the Old Testament tend to view
God’s blessing in terms of the outward and the material.
If God is blessing you then good things will happen to you.
If things are going badly then you are out of God’s favour.
And even today you get some Christians and TV preachers who try to pedal that
simplistic idea.
But Jesus did not buy into that nonsense.
In today’s reading, Jesus comes away with something totally at odds with that
idea. He is expressing a new and radically different view.
Instead of saying all the lucky and fortunate people are blessed by God, he’s
suggesting the people who get blessed are those who would appear to be in a
very unfortunate situation.
Jesus’ words also show us that God’s blessings aren’t primarily about outward
material things – wealth and power and stuff, but are often found when we
concentrate on the things and the people that matter to God.
Now the word ‘blessing’ can mean different things - special favour, unique
standing, permission, empowerment, and more. But maybe the best question
isn’t what it means, but rather what it feels like. What does it feel like when
you’re blessed?
Let me give an example of what I think it means to be blessed and which shows
the difference between feeling blessed and being happy (or in a fortunate
situation).
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It happened to me some years ago when I was arrested for being at a
demonstration against nuclear weapons.
It’s never seemed to me that threatening the rest of the word with indiscriminate
carnage is a great way to promote peace, so I had gone along to this event at
Faslane. I was then arrested - charged with a crime I did not commit and because
of that a whole saga ensued through different courts – a saga that lasted literally
for years. But that’s another story.
This particular day was the first time I had ever been arrested.
We were driven back to Glasgow and in our case Maryhill police station where
we sat out in the van in the yard waiting for our turn to be formally booked and
locked away. We weren’t in a police van - there were so many arrests that day
that the police had run out of vans and we were in an Arnold Clark Rental
minibus the police had hired to help them cope with the numbers!
Now from speaking to other veteran peace campaigners I had an idea of what lay
in store. I knew the holding cells in police stations weren’t like prison cells that
were reasonably comfortable. The cell was a concrete cube with no furniture
except for a toilet - with no actual seat. There would be no bed in there. Our
shoes would be taken away and everything we carried with us, including what
was in our pockets. There would be no window. The light in the cell would be
permanently on, and our watches would be taken off us so we couldn’t tell (until
we were released) how long we had been in there.
And as we sat there waiting to be taken in to the station, I suddenly felt a wave of
panic. I got hit by a sense of dread.
How would I cope in the cell? How long would I be in there? And now that I was
arrested I was in the power of other people. That felt scary too.
And then, just as I was thinking this for literally only a few seconds, there was
another wave coming over me and it was one of comfort.
I became suddenly aware of God with me. I remembered again why I was there
and the peace I was trying to witness to. I remembered that it was my faith that
brought me to this situation.
And suddenly - just as suddenly, I wasn’t scared at all.
This was blessing.
This was God’s blessing on me at that moment.
As it turned out, the experience was very rough. Some blankets got pushed into
the cell I was in and there were insects I have never seen jumping all over them.
I ended up in there for over 14 hours before being released.
So it wasn’t exactly fun.
It wasn’t a happy time. It wasn’t pleasant. I wasn’t grinning from ear to ear.
But I was totally, completely at peace.
Because I was aware that God was with me.
And that, I think, is what blessing is.
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Believing despite outward trouble (and even fear) that we are in the right place
at the right time – that we are doing what God wants and that God is close to us.
My feeling of being blessed by God came about at a time when things didn’t seem
too good and when I was feeling uncomfortable and worried.
And maybe that’s the wonderful thing about God’s blessing – it often shows up in
our lives when we most need it.
It’s not about being rich, or lucky, or beautiful, or clever, or popular, or healthy.
We may be all, or some, or none of these things.
These are not the blessings that Jesus is speaking of.
It is often in the least likely situations that we can be most aware of God’s
protection and guidance and presence with us –
at the times when we stop thinking how brilliant we are,
at the times when we simply hand things over to Christ,
at the times when we put ourselves out for our neighbours,
at the times when we refuse to plan our revenge,
at the times when we stand up for justice and peace,
at the times when we work hard to make this world better,
at the times when we are even being criticised and slagged off by others for
holding to our faith.
At the times when we are doing the things that matter to God and struggling to
live the best lives we can with God’s help – these are the times we may know
Gods blessing on us.
It’s a wee bit strange and upside down that these should be times of blessing, but
this is what Paul was getting at in our reading from Corinthians.
The wisdom of God is different from the wisdom of this world. God’s values and
priorities are different from this world’s.
Jesus is offering us a new set of ideas
- a new way to look at life
- a new way to live and to love and to care.
If we choose to follow him, to seek God’s kingdom first,
to help build a better world, to make Christ’s ideals our own,
then our lives will be open to the blessing of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12
February 2 2014