Epiphany 6, Year C, 2001

Trinity Cathedral, Trenton, NJ

Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-10; Luke 6:17-26

They had been waiting
for a long time.
Some
had traveled for days,
and you could smell
the dust of the road
on their clothes.
Others
had got up before dawn,
and now propped themselves up against the hillside
snoozing
in the gentle morning sun.
Children in the crowd
played tag,
inevitably getting
in everyone's way
and coming back to their parents
with skinned knees
and empty stomachs.
They had been waiting
for a long time.

Some people
had already begun
to pack their picnic baskets
when a rumor
rustled
through the crowd.
"He's coming," they whispered, "he's coming!"
And dusty clothes and skinned knees and tired eyes were all forgotten
as they surged towards
the small group of men
picking their way carefully down the hillside.
And as he stopped on a patch of flat ground,
ears strained to hear the voice,
hands reached out to touch the clothes,
of the man
reputed
to be the Messiah.

They had all come
wanting something
needing something
and only this man
can do anything about it.
And then
he began
to speak.

"Blessed
are you poor," he said,
"for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you that hunger now...
Blessed are you that weep now...
Blessed are you..."

And the people began to mutter
because it doesn't feel so blessed to them
when their stomachs growl,
and their kids go without warm clothes,
when they watch the roof anxiously
at the first sound of rain,
and when their insides shrivel with grief and fear.
"Blessed are you..."

And then
cutting through
their muttering,
other words, just as disturbing.
"Woe to you that are rich," he said,
"for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you that are full now...
Woe to you that laugh now...
Woe to you..."

Blessings...
and curses...
*****

This week
I happened to be in Barnes and Noble
waiting for some friends.
They were running late.
And so, to try to distract myself from worrying about where they'd got to,
I started looking over one of the book displays - mostly things like
What it takes to be Number One: Vince Lombardi on Leadership or
The Future of Success.
But there was one in particular
which caught my attention.
It had a kind of grainy black and white picture on the front,
of a guy in his twenties
with a ring through his lip
and a thorn crowned Jesus
tattooed
on his arm.
On the back cover was a photo
of a smiling, well groomed
all-American family.
The book was called Son of a Preacher Man,
and it's the story
of Jay Bakker
son of Jim and Tammy Faye.

Jay's was a charmed life.
Until he was 11, he had everything
a kid could want:
A bodyguard
to make him Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast,
a tree house
with a fridge and air-conditioning,
a more or less unlimited account
at the toy store.

But when Jay was 11
the fairytale collapsed.
His mother succumbed
to prescription drug addiction,
the Christian media empire
his parents had built
collapsed,
and finally
his father
was sent to jail.

In the long years which followed, Jay's life
became marked with alcohol
and drugs
and failure.
It's a troubling
and all too familiar
story.

But there is a third act
to this story.
Jay
is the prodigal son
the one who repents of his ways
and comes back to his father.
Though not quite
in the way
you might expect -
there's no simple return
to the smiling
well groomed
religious family
of his childhood.
Things
are a whole lot more muddled
than that;
blessings
and curses
are all tangled
together.
I'm not going to tell you the whole story, in case you want
to read it for yourself,
but it's enough to say
that Jay discovers grace
in the shadows, forgiveness
in the middle of pain, God
in the darkness.

Blessings...
and curses...
*****
There are some people
who think that life
is very clear cut.
You do good,
you'll get your reward.
You do bad,
you'll get punished.
What you get
is what you deserve.

And in a world
where responsibility
is a rare commodity,
where promises
seem hardly worth the paper they're written on,
and a sworn vow
may carry no more weight
than a sworn expletive,
in a world that looks like that, the idea
that people get what they deserve,
has a whole lot
to commend it.
The punishment
fits the crime;
the reward
matches the virtue;
and all
is right
with the world.

And when you transfer this sort of thinking
to the world of the church
success
is a sign of God's blessing;
failure
a sign of God's curse.
Regional mega-churches
pack their parking lots
with suburbans and smiling families,
and assume
it is because of God's blessing;
struggling city churches
look around at the empty pews
and the needles
thrown behind the fence,
and fear
it is
God's curse.
It's a simple world
of success
and failure, reward
and punishment, blessing
and curse.

But you know
I'm not so sure
that that's the world
that I live in; I'm not even sure
that that's the world
of our God.

Things
are a lot more muddled
than that.

Because if we take Jesus' words seriously,
wealth
might look like a blessing,
and poverty
might look like a curse,
but its as likely
to be
the other way round.

"You rich," Jesus says,
"you've made it. You think you're safe
because you can afford to live in the better suburbs,
and secure
because you have a portfolio of shares
to fund
an independent retirement.
But that's all
you've got, and you won't be getting
any more.
You already have
your reward."

"And you poor. What about us, you say?
You know
you can't make it
on your own.
You come here
with your hands
stretched out to touch me
and your ears straining to hear me.
What I have
to give you,
is myself.
And I give it,
and I will keep giving it
until beyond the end of time."

It is to those
who are in need
that Jesus
offers blessing, the blessing
of his very presence.
It's the presence
of the one
who we celebrate
every Eucharist,
as we reach out our hands
for the gift
of life.
"This is my body,
broken for you.
This is my blood,
shed for you."

And it's the presence
of the one
whom we celebrated at Christmas
God come among us,
the one we celebrate throughout the season of Epiphany,
the light of the world
which no darkness
can overpower.

Christ
among us.

And so perhaps
it's not so surprising
that Jay Bakker
found grace
not in the charmed life
at the height
of his parents' success,
but in the shadows
of alcohol
and failure,
forgiveness
in pain,
God
in the darkness.
Because the God we worship, the God we have faith in
is a God
who offers forgiveness
out of his own deathly pain,
and from the darkness of death
brings the light of resurrection.

Our part
is to trust
in God.
And that in itself
is a risky venture.
Trust in God
to bring forgiveness to our lives, even when that means
having to leave behind
the hurts and pains
whose energy
has kept us alive.
Trust in God
to bring life, even when that means
doing something new, when our traditions
have been all that felt familiar
and safe.
Trust in God, when it comes down to it,
to be faithful to
God's promises.
Trust in God
to bless us.

And, in a world
where hopes
have been dashed
and dreams forsaken,
that blessing
is about the very presence
of God.

Jesus stands there,
on a patch of flat ground,
surrounded by people with hands
reaching out to touch him.
"Blessed
are you poor"
"for yours
is the kingdom of God."

There is no simple equation:
success
equals blessing
failure
equals curse.
Just the promise
of Christ among us,
who turn to God
in our need.

Blessed
are you.

Raewynne J. Whiteley
11 February 2001