Highly Esteemed Are You

by Bishop Marty Shanahan

Wow! I can’t tell you how much good it does my heart and soul to be with you all tonight!

I would like to invite you to open your hymnal to 636 – many of us know this hymn – but I am going to invite us to use the refrain in our reflection tonight.

Thank you for the profundity of your faith and the blessing it brings, not only to me, but to everyone who is gathered here tonight.

We are living in very interesting, and in some ways challenging, times.

And as Christians who are walking the road of holiness, I can think of no greater gift, or even a more necessary gift, than to walk that road with others who are willing to ask the questions, struggle with the understandings, and be willing to talk about the meanings we discover.

To know we are not alone, is an extremely powerful reminder that God is made manifest, right here, right now, in each and every one of us. Thank you for being the feet, face, heart, and hands of Christ.

Because, as the Gospel reminds us today…
you are blest,
you are holy,
yours is the kindom of God,
REJOICE!

You see my friends, I believe that we can find it very challenging to actually absorb the words of our Gospel at times.

And it makes no difference if it is Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, or if it is Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.

One of the underlying truths that I believe Jesus was sharing with his disciples, in this collection of wisdom sayings, was the fact that holiness, the journey of the Spiritual Life, is not something that lays beyond the human experience, but rather, that the goal of the Spiritual life is right here in our midst.

Remember just a few weeks ago…

You shall name him Emmanuel – God with us.
Not God beyond us,
or God out there,
or God over there,
or in that Church,
or that Temple,
or that Mosque.

Emmanuel – God with us – right here.

So much so, is God with us, that Jesus can say…

You, oh highly esteemed one, you, who understand, you, who knows in your heart, at the depth of your soul, that God is the source and sustainer of your being, the poor in Spirit.

You, who know that God is spelled GOD, not Marty, or Kathy, or Sam, or Lisa. but clearly that our life is a gift from God – every moment, every breath – yours is the Kindom of God!

Can you, with me, REJOICE!

Did you know, that not one of these Beatitudes, as they have now become affectionately known, not one of them was new! Every one of them can be found in the Psalms or Proverbs – both books that Jesus, as a Jewish man of the first century, would have most likely been painfully familiar with.

So the next time we ask ourselves why we sing the Psalms between our first and second readings, you might come to understand it is because within those Psalms lie some very deep and fundamental truths of living the Spiritual life, and sometimes the best way that those truths can touch our heart is through music – David’s songs – the Psalms.

We have another challenge when we encounter this Gospel, translated into English from Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek. We have developed an entirely new literary understanding. It’s called the Theological or Scriptural Passive Voice, and we hear things like “Blessed”, and we think it means, “you will be when…”, or “you are when you…” But that one word, most likely spoken by Jesus in Aramaic, would have been pronounced – Berakati – which is not passive whatsoever. It is the ACTIVE voice: I love you…not I will love you when… It is the voice used to make something, or to speak something into existance.

The disciples would have understood Jesus as saying, “Your brokenness is Holy, so in your mourning I am there. Your dedication and commitment to truth is holy, so in your meekness I am there. Your unending search for holiness is holiness itself, and in that search I am here, now, because yours is the Kindom.” When we look in the mirror – we need to rejoice – REJOICE!

So how do we walk out of here tonight? What difference does our prayer make in ourselves and in our world? Those are good questions – And it is we who live the answers.

Every time we stand on what we believe is truth and the Gospel values, and the imperative to love our neighbor as ourselves, we make the Kindom of God present.

Every time we stand in meek solidarity, not weak but meekness, standing firm with and in the commitment to speak love into the world, we make the Kindom of God present.

Every time we turn on our blinker to let someone know we want to change lanes, rather than just changing lanes because we want to, we make the Kindom of God present.

Every time someone says faith makes no difference, or that Churches and faith communities are a dying thing, and we respond that community makes a difference in my life, we make the Kindom of God present.

Every time the rethoric of exclusion, isolationism, radical individualism, or sexism is spoken, and we stand and say that is not how we believe God is inviting us to live, we make the Kindom of God present.

Every prayer we utter for another,
every please,
every thank you,
every jesture of gratitude, of hope, of hospitality,
they make the Kindom of God present.

So what difference does it make? Look in the mirror. It makes all the difference in the world.

And let’s – REJOICE!
– by Bishop Marty