Blessed are Those Who Mourn

Debbie: Hey, one of the things I want to do before I get started is just welcome our new co-lead pastor, his first Sunday here. Please welcome Justin Bell. Justin, stand up. [applause] Justin started officially last Monday and came to us all the way from North Carolina. So we're going to count on you all to welcome him and guide him on how to stay warm throughout the winter.

We are starting our 12-week series on the Sermon on the Mount, one of Jesus's most famous, well-known sermons delivered 2,000 years ago, emphasizing humility and forgiveness. And being generous neighbors. And the implications of this message, we've heard it all. Many of us are familiar with the Sermon on the Mount, but the implications of this message are as relevant today as they were 2,000 years ago, and I can't even think of a more important time for this message for all of us. It's a call. It is a call to choose God's way of love, to restore God's kingdom, the flourishing of all people.

The Sermon on the Mount is in the Gospel of Matthew, we’ll be in chapters 5-7. The first four chapters tell us about where Jesus came from, who he is. It prepares us for this moment, this Sermon on the Mount. Post-Sermon on the Mount is all about the Sermon in action. But Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with the nine statements, statements that we know as the Beatitudes, Latin for blessed.

And here's the hard part, everybody. Those are the details, but I am going to be honest with you that I struggled with this message today, because this message would have looked a lot different if I would have given it a week and a half ago. Because I'm preaching the Beatitudes to a community that is grieving a school shooting. And so together we stand here holding both pain with reverence while lifting up Jesus's words of comfort and calling.

And what's hard and why this was hard for me, it is a welcome back Sunday. I want to be all filled up with joy and we're going back to school and we're starting a new year and falls here and all these things and we will hold that too. But as a community of faith, as followers of Jesus, we cannot turn a blind eye to what happened two miles down the street in our own community. Because a week and a half ago our community, our children, our families, our neighbors were torn apart by deadly gun violence at Annunciation Church and school.

So we acknowledge on this day while we're glad to be back and welcome a new pastor and start a new season that we're also holding broken hearts and heavy questions and deep pain. And here's the thing that's funny, not funny, really sad. This has been going on for decades in other communities across this country, but you know what, this time it's too close to home. And I'm guessing that most of you in this room are connected in some way, somehow to people in that community.

It's one of those moments that Wednesday, August 27th, that I think we'll all remember where we were when we heard. My family and I, we have a tradition of going to the state fair every year and we happen to be at the state fair. My husband and I, our kids, our grandkids and our news feeds started blowing up. And right away our hearts and our minds went to all the people that we knew, our neighbors whose kids go there. My daughters, one of her best friends, just started her kindergartner there. Our son and daughter-in-law whose dear, dear friend was the doctor that was working at HCMC in the emergency room, a dad of young children himself.

It was terrifying and it was surreal and as the dust settled, reality set in. That afternoon at the shooting, Steve and I, my husband, we walked two doors down and as we hugged our 10-year-old neighbor, she recounted to us what it felt like to sit in that church and she said as the bullet started, I thought, "Am I in a dream?" And then I realized that that was gunshots and then my heart raced and I panicked and I was trying to remember what we're supposed to do and a bunch of us raced out. And thankfully she was sitting on the right side of the church and she got out but then she told us and then my very best friend, Harper, was sitting across the aisle and she died.

That evening we gathered here with about 40 people and held a prayer vigil as we in the faith community went, "What do we do? "How do we step into this?" And then as a mom, I listened as my adult children tried to explain to their little kids they were preparing them to go to grade school about the shooting that happened down the road and the two of the children were dead. And as a grandma, I got to walk our eight-year-old to school last Tuesday here in Minneapolis and our two granddaughters, Steve and I walked Nellie and Sammy to their perspective South Minneapolis schools and I watched as the parents said goodbye just a little bit differently. They hugged a little bit more tightly because the reality of reality actually hit us. And it was hard and it was painful.

And as people of faith and followers of Jesus and as a pastor who's part of leading this community, what we know is that we can't stay silent in the face of such suffering. The question becomes, what do we do now? How do we move forward? What I know is that there needs to be more than what's been happening. Here's the beauty of how this all works.

So our text today, it actually speaks to us in this moment. Because what the Beatitudes do is they show us how to live. How to live as a community of belonging and belovedness, even in the face of unimaginable loss. When Jesus went up the mountain and he spoke the Beatitudes, he was speaking to ordinary people who were experiencing oppression and fear and violence. And his words weren't abstract, his words were a lifeline and maybe it's the same lifeline that we need in this moment.

Jesus sees the crowds of the oppressed, the sick, the hurting, the afflicted and he goes up the mountain and he starts to deliver a message to his disciples. His inner circle, those who had already left their homes and the families to follow him. But the disciples aren't the only ones listening. The crowd is listening too. He's teaching, he's preaching, he's advising and he's consoling. Matthew 5:1-12:

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain and after he sat down, his disciples came to him and he began to speak and he taught them saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy and blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God and blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 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."

Jesus begins his most famous sermon by naming those who are blessed. Not the powerful, not the wealthy or the popular, but the overlooked, the humble, the suffering. These aren't the people the world would usually call blessed. Even at first glance you go, is that being blessed? In our culture, being blessed might look more like this:

Blessed are the rich in things and self-assurance. Blessed are those who are untouched by loss. Blessed are the powerful. Blessed are those who are realistic about righteousness, compromising at every turn. Blessed are those who demand an eye for an eye. Blessed are the crafty and the opportunistic. Blessed are those bold enough to make war. Blessed are those who in doing good things receive many accolades. Blessed are those who following Jesus are widely praised and adored.

When you put it that way, those blessings might actually look like blessings. Because isn't God's intent for us the flourishing of all people? Isn't God's intent for us the beloved community? Our world tells us something very different about who's blessed, but Jesus flips those expectations. Because God's kingdom welcomes those who know their need, those who grieve, those overlooked by power, those that are longing for justice.

So today I think our question is, what would it look like if we actually immersed our lives in the Beatitudes? What if we took it as a path to be followed? Principles that would guide our lives. Because what the Beatitudes do is they describe the divine life, the life of Jesus. And in the Beatitudes, there's both an offer of comfort and call. We are called to be poor in spirit. What does that mean? I think what it means is that we're not just all about ourselves, that we don't make ourselves great or number one, but instead we make room for God and others. And in that we recognize our dependence on one another, our need for each other, that God does not intend for us to do this life alone, and there's a humility in that. And that our worth is not measured in our possessions, the power that we have, the positions that we hold.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. May we never be people who outgrow our tears or become indifferent to the tears of others or so indifferent that we can't cry for others. Because the way to live our lives is with tender and compassionate hearts. Hearts that let us feel the hurt and the pain and the suffering of our neighbors. And here's the thing, friends, for whom we grieve, and for what we grieve, I think it reflects who we are and what we value.

Blessed are those who mourn. And let's not be afraid to be meek, because meek does not equal weak. The meek are people that don't have to take up all the space in the room. The meek are people that are humble, neither making more of themselves or less of themselves, people that are filled with goodwill for other people. And when we do that, we become a channel for God's strength and presence.

Blessed are the meek. That's what servant leadership is about. And let our hunger and our thirst for doing what's right, for deep and meaningful relationships, for the well-being of other people, for justice everywhere and for everyone. Let that be the mark of who we are. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. We're called to be merciful. And being merciful is about tenderness and graciousness and kindness and self-restraint and unconditional love. And the world needs mercy now more than ever, and so do you and so do I.

Blessed are the merciful. Let's together cleanse over our hearts of thoughts, thoughts of fear and jealousy and comparison and competitiveness and judgments. Let's be wholehearted with who we are and what we have to offer. Let's be all in.

Blessed are the pure in heart, because the pure in heart are a lover's heart. And let's not add to the pain of the world. Let there be no violence in our thoughts, in our own words, in our actions, and let us be people that step up and stand in, because we are called to active peace-making. After all, we follow the Prince of Peace. Make peace. Start with yourself.

Blessed are the peacemakers. There will be times when we are called to step up and speak out, to rock the boat, to challenge the status quo. And we need people to speak God's words, to dream God's dreams, when people have forgotten or denied those. And that's uncomfortable, and it can feel a little scary and even lonely, but we're never alone. We are never alone.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. We are people committed to practicing the ways of Jesus, and these blessings, these beatitudes are a very way of life. And I think they're a way of being. And during this past week and a half, the hope, the love that I've seen, that I know you have stories of seeing, as we've navigated this tragedy at Annunciation, we've all got to witness these beatitudes being lived out by people in our own community. I've seen the comfort and the call in Jesus' sermon lived out.

The poor in spirit, those who've recognized their need for one another, the reality that we cannot go this alone, all those that in a moment's knownness gathered for prayer vigils and prayer services and gatherings where people held each other, stood together, brought their voices and their presence together to let the families and children at Annunciation know you are not alone. The day of that shooting I mentioned earlier I was at the State Fair, and my team rallied in a moment's notice. Maggie and Marta and Justin and the folks at Fabric quickly put together a service because we felt this need to create a space where people could just be. It was a beautiful thing.

Those who mourn. There's so many stories of those, but one that is near and dear to my heart is my neighbors whose daughter was in the church that I mentioned earlier. The day after the shooting, they opened up their home to all the other fifth grade children and their parents. The day after, and all the parents stood on the porch and in the backyard and they held each other and they wept and all the kids stood in the front yard and they just told the story over and over again about what happened, what they witnessed, what they experienced, and they gathered together and they mourned.

I witnessed over and over again the meek. Those who quietly behind the scenes dropped off meals, mowed lawns, cleaned houses, brought flowers. I think about those that quietly and beautifully set up that space and enunciation where people could go and grieve and remember. And the merciful and the pure of heart who stepped up with their tender hearts, who asked themselves, "What could I possibly do? What could we do in this moment of tragedy?"

And I think about my neighbor three doors down on the other side of our enunciation family who thought, "I'm just going to gather a few folks down at Lake Harriet Bandshell, maybe 20, 30 of my friends will show up Monday, Labor Day at noon, and we're going to march. We're going to hold signs saying, "Enough! Our kids deserve safety. We need to ban assault weapons. We need to gather together and change this broken system." And this young man who created this and put the word on an Instagram, as many of us joined them down at the Banchill, there were a couple thousand people that showed up and marched. They marched from the Bandshell to Lynnhurst, and it was families and children and adults and people of all ages. And people stood together because someone said, "What can I do?"

And I think about the group of kids that gathered on the corner of 41st and Grand at a little coffee shop a couple days after the shooting, and they put together a lemonade stand. Those little kids raised $350 for the Annunciation family. Blessed, blessed are the merciful and pure heart. In times where words fail, we are called to be a space where tears are honored, grief is carried together, and that no one suffers alone. The peacemakers, those that step up and step out at a cost, that was happening all over too.

On Friday, there was a press conference of clergy and moms demand action, asking, demanding that the leadership in our government, politicians actually call a special session and ban assault weapons. And it was an amazing place to be. It was meaningful. It was powerful to hear people from all faiths, people who weren't there out of faith but out of a moral obligation, out of a love and care for our children who stood up and spoke out. And one of the most powerful moments as we gathered in that rotunda at the State Capitol was all of a sudden in the middle of the speaking, hundreds of students who had boycotted their school, walked in those doors and held up their signs. Demanding, demanding for gun regulation, demanding that we start to value people over profits, demanding that we as a community care for the safety of our children. It was powerful. It was meaningful. It mattered, and it's our calling.

In this world that we live in that is beautiful and joy-filled, but also uncertain and scary and scarred by violence, the way of Jesus is to respond with mercy and works of peace. Because that's what it's about. It is about following Jesus' way of nonviolence and mercy and love. And it's always costly. It might even feel impossible to change things, to step into things. But here's the one thing we do have. We have God's promise of His presence.

You know, I was thinking a lot, as we all have been over the last week and a half, about all the stories. They're so hard, and they're so beautiful, and the courage that people have had and the compassion and the heart, it's overwhelming. But I've been thinking a lot about all those teachers, the priests, the principal, running toward the gunshots, running toward the children, throwing themselves over those kids. And then I was thinking about all the people in this community that have actually run toward the pain. People in this community have run toward the pain, and they've run toward the pain with love and with presence and with hope. That's the Beatitudes.

When we live the Beatitudes, we don't only become a source of God's comfort for one another, but we become a courageous witness. And what we show is that love is stronger than hate, that belonging is stronger than fear. And so maybe today, maybe in this moment, we recommit ourselves to living the Beatitudes, to being a community where every child, every parent, every person, every teacher, every neighbor knows that they belong and that they're beloved, even in the shadow of violence.

We will wrestle, we will struggle with the Beatitudes every day of our lives, not just to do them, but actually to become them, because there are demands and difficulties of living the Beatitudes. But what I'd say is any other kind of life is a counterfeit life, that at the end of the day, what matters is living the divine life that the Beatitudes describe for us, the life of Jesus. And here's the biggest thing, whether or not that life exists in this world, it depends on each and every one of us, because that's how God works. He's going to work through us.

Please pray with me. God of comfort, we come to you as people poor in spirit, broken by your grief, weighed down by sorrow. You said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." So we gather today, holding tightly to your promise. We remember before you the children and the teachers and the staff whose lives were taken. We hold our hearts, we hold in our hearts the families who carry unbearable loss. We pray for classmates and friends, for first responders and medical teams, for our whole community shaking and aching.

Lord, bless those who mourn, wrap them in your comfort.

Bless the meek, the ones without power or answers, surround them with your strength.

Bless those who hunger and thirst for justice, give us courage to seek peace and a world of violence.

Bless the merciful. Make us gentle with one another as we carry the grief together.

Bless the pure in heart, guard our children, our schools, our families, and your love.

Bless the peacemakers, raise up to build a future that every child is safe, where fear has no home.

God, you call us to be a community practicing the ways of Jesus, creating space for all to belong and all to be loved. Help us to embody this calling now and forever. To be a refuge for the hurting, a voice for the silence, a people who love without measure and hope without end, and through Jesus Christ who blesses the broken and walks with the weary, we pray. And all God's people said, "Amen."