Blessed are...

Yesterday's Gospel reading was Matthew 5:1-12 -- the passage commonly called "The Beatitudes". The "attitudes" Jesus names as "blessed" at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount have been the launching pad for many-a-sermon through the last 20+ centuries of Christian preaching -- the poor in spirit, the mourners, those who starve (and thirst!) for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, the reviled and the falsely accused. The blessings Jesus pronounces upon these ways of being in the world have, for so long, been a part of the common parlance of "Christian speak", they mostly fail to inspire, challenge or even mildly offend us.

When confronted with the words from Matthew again, maybe our internal dialogue can sound something like this, "Thanks Jesus for the good words, but right now, my attention must be focused on the 'real world'. After all, I've got a life to live, a family to raise, work to do and bills to pay. Time is really in short supply. I don't really have lots of time to develop these characteristics you seem to be so interested in blessing. I already feel guilty about my station in life, and now you're telling me about all this other stuff I need to do! When will I fit it all in? Besides, becoming a poor, grief-stricken, starving, thirsting, merciful person (either literally or metaphorically) sounds VERY difficult...next to impossible actually! Purity and peacemaking have never really been my strong suits either. Sorry about that. Oh, and living a life that ends up being reviled, persecuted and falsely accused doesn't sound very promising, let alone blessed! To be honest, I'm exhausted (and fairly guilt ridden!) after reading your list!"

But what if?

What if Jesus isn't giving us another "to do" list? Or even a "to be" list?

What if this is a list about recognizing the "blessed" who are already among us (maybe even sometimes, ourselves!)?

As I have read these verses again and again over the past few days, I have became increasingly aware of the ways we church folk can take a descriptive passage and morph it into a prescriptive one. And the result? We get to feel guilty about all of the things we aren't. Or at the very least we get to reassure ourselves that the life of faith is so difficult, regular folks like us should simply quit while we're behind.

But what if?

What if we are enough?

Already. Without additions or subtractions?

Could we live with that?

What if the Beatitudes are already among us?

Within us?

If we only began to recognize them?

And live like who we already are?

That would be a blessing in and of itself, wouldn't it?

Of course, a community of blessed people is inherently suspect...

Particularly by religious sorts...

Undoubtedly revulsion, persecution and false accusations would ensue...

But none of those things could

Remove the blessing already bestowed...

Because Jesus doesn't take blessings back.