"Living into Blessedness," Sermon for Sunday February 2nd, 2014 By Nicole Collins

This past week I read a really interesting book for my theology class all about Sin by Cornelius Plantinga.  What was really intense about this book to the point of near mental exhaustion… is that it was unrelenting, unforgiving, uncompromising and life-draining…  BUT then that’s the face of pure Law… Thank God for the Gospel!  Reading this book reminded me of a scene from one of the Indiana Jones flicks where this seriously annoying female in distress who was paired up with Indy was trapped in a cage dangling over a pit of fire… While it was lowering, she continued to scream and for a very unchristian moment you’d almost wished for the chains to snap! Yikes…. 

Just in the nick of time he manages to rescue her. That is what it is like, however, to really experience the tense relationship between Law and Gospel. Just in the nick of time, the Gospel of GRACE floods over us as a humbling tidal wave—refining and sanctifying our saint and sinner selves to KNOW the Love of God etched into our very being!

The lessons for this Sunday are beautiful new commandments speaking to our need to transform and live from a spiritual place of Blessedness.  This leads me to talk about my favorite film that comes around this time of year and these lessons—‘Ground Hog Day,’ featuring Bill Murray from now 21 years ago…  Over and over his character, Phil Connors, has to relive the same day like torture till he most literally has an Epiphany and transforms to see, feel, hear that he is Blessed and what he has to bring through his changed nature is being a Blessing to others.

The formation of the missional twelve statements by Jesus were not to be taken as merely beautiful statements of an attitude to adopt… but as a new Law upon the heart to be lived into as the reality of the Lifestyle of GRACE.  Unlike the Old Testament understanding of Blessings and Curses, Jesus call to us, through Blessedness, is both beautiful and painful for it requires us to intentionally be cross-bearing, freely responsible servants—fully accountable to the greatest commandment: Love God and Neighbor with all your heart, soul and strength.

The alarm clock that tortured poor Phil Connors day after day rang in an intentional call for obedience for him to at first greatly resist but eventually be enlightened by, adapt and incorporate into a renewed person!  A person, no one really knew within Phil needed to be painfully pried out for not only his sake but to realize just how truly Blessing was and still is a great aspect of his life! 

We’ve all been down that road ourselves, it’s human nature.  The passage from Micah has God seriously complaining about how much the Israelites chose to complain and not see past the ends of their noses: “⁸He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

The Israelites however in the verse before this one still think in terms of transaction: ⁶“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? ⁷Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

Phil Connors didn’t get it either in the beginning… he was forced to keep experiencing that day over and over whether at times it nearly broke his spirit or not… To finally KNOW what needed to be done.  He needed to change, he needed to allow the negativity, anxiety and pain which loves to hold us captive, to be forced out by transforming his very spiritual being…  Putting on an attitude of gratitude with a transformed heart is living into Blessedness.

Being Blessed to BE a Blessing is hard work—we want to do everything humanly possible to avoid it.  We think there are other means we can manufacture to transactionally address “happiness.”  Happiness has become a Pandora’s Box of Satan’s revisionist work!  Like pure LAW, it is death to think our lives are something we can solely correct or place a spiritual “bandaid” over…  Life doesn’t work that way. 

There was one quote from the beginning of the “harrowing” book of sin that speaks volumes to our NEED to struggle to transform for the better: “Self-deception about our sin is a narcotic, a tranquilizing and disorienting suppression of our spiritual central nervous system. What’s devastating about it is that when we lack an ear for wrong notes in our lives, we cannot play right ones or even recognize them in the performances of others. Eventually we make ourselves religiously so unmusical that we miss both the exposition and the recapitulation of the main themes God plays in human life.”

The main themes God plays in our human lives are not given in stone tablets by Jesus but by Words to live by—The Beatitudes.  They are radical, counter-cultural, anti-instinctive and seemingly illogical for us as we naturally choose to resist! We choose to remain indentured and Satan fuels the fire with temptation and mortar to sealing the foundation of the world of the self.  As disciples of Christ we are called to a daily process of reflection, confession, repentance and renewal—this is BEING and BECOMING the attitude of gratitude—Blessed to BE a Blessing—cross-bearing Discipleship journey!

Beginning the Epiphany of Phil Connor’s transformation he speaks to the struggle of the journey with a spirit of Blessedness: “When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.”

Speaking of the weather… this has been one of those winters trying very hard to “break” our spirits.  The unrelenting roller coaster of frigid temperatures, mountains of lovely snow… and dirty, clogged roads, mucked over shoes… Surviving the weather has been downright painful for some of us!  What if this was our state of mind?  Our lives bereft of Hope because we’re looking for everything BUT God in our lives! If we come to a community merely looking for everything BUT God how can we spiritually grow?

How can we even remotely come to claim understanding Jesus if we refuse to transform?  If we refuse to have our faces shoved into that Mirror of the LAW to look DEEP within ourselves to then experience that tidal wave of profound Light, Blessedness, GRACE shower over us—the refining fire—sanctification…?  The fullness of GRACE is the Kingdom of God revealed by Jesus Christ.  Our great redeemer and teacher gave us the keys… Whether or not we open the door is the difference between a true change of seasons or an endless winter spiritually lived.

St. Paul tries to once again enlighten his wayward Corinthians to see their daily discipleship challenge. “^20b Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. ²²For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. ²⁶Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.²⁷But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, ²⁹so that no one might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,³¹in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Phil Connors character had to grow through the process—he resisted, came into despair, tried to bargain and finally saw beyond the end of his nose… a new life, a new attitude and many new blessings!  All trial and error founded but that’s humanity… God always works with us that is GRACE.  The Commandment of GRACE is merely continuing with obedience, intentionality and humility to fight the Good Fight of faith! BE Blessed and a Blessing to others—bear the fruit of righteousness and freedom. Live and Love for God.

AMEN

February 2^nd, 2014; 4^th Sunday After Epiphany; SOLA Lectionary; Year A

Psalm 84; Micah 6:1–8; 1 Corinthians 1:18–31; & Matthew 5:1–12            Nicole Collins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt4JXKUv5MQ