Matthew 5:1-12
What do I do now?
How can I be a kind, loving, and authentic person in this moment?
Pertinent and difficult questions.
You see, I can only imagine what it was like for the more than half a million people who participated in the women’s march on Washington D.C. last Saturday, January, 21st, 2017. I can only imagine what it was like to have marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and 200,000 others on August 28, 1963, for the rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I can only imagine what it was like for people to give up their careers, religious practice, and in some cases, their families—to follow Jesus of Nazareth. I am not being overly dramatic. Sometimes we forget the privileges we have. I have never experienced war. No one has come to my house, telling me that I am now relocated and must leave at that very moment. I have never been told that my gender identification or expression is not acceptable at the workplace or that it is not “right” or not “of god.” And I have never been denied the right to marry a person I love, just because I’m gay. I have not been told that because I’m from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen or Mexico that I’m not welcome here, and that I may be a terrorist or a criminal or a “job stealer.” I have never been told what I can or cannot do with my body, as women are.
What do I do now?
How can I be a kind, loving, and authentic person in this moment?
This is what I am asking right now, today, in this very moment.
I’m not alone and nor are you. Others are asking these questions. So much of what we see, read, and hear is negative, heavy, and divisive. Some of it is even fake. How much is positive, uplifting, and bridge-building? As I reflected on the amazingly under-quoted beatitudes of Jesus of Nazareth in Matthew’s Gospel, I wondered:
What do I do now?
How can I be a kind, loving, and authentic person in this moment?
You see, author Kurt Vonnegut once wrote:
“For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. ‘Blessed are the merciful’ in a courtroom? ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ in the Pentagon? Give me a break!”
It’s true, you know. Where are these “attitudes” of “being” in our lives?
Let’s remove the spiritual veil from them. In Matthew’s story, Jesus goes up a mountain, just like Moses would when he spoke with Yahweh. So what is to follow is big. But it wasn’t really a mountain probably, but a plain–a raised hill, and there were not 200,000 or half a million people as at famous D.C. marches. Those gathered were Jesus’ closest disciples and they needed to hear Jesus’ urgent plea for how they would be in the world.
What were they to do now?
How could they be kind, loving, and authentic people in that moment?
You see, remember that this story in Matthew was written after the fact. Those who wrote this already knew what happened to Jesus of Nazareth. He was arrested, tortured, and killed. They wrote that with this in mind.
What were they to do now?
How could they be kind, loving, and authentic people in that moment?
What follows is beauty, at least I think so. Jesus says that there are certain people who are “blessed” or better yet, “risk-takers and well-traveled, and favored by Yahweh.” But notice that they are not the rich, or the religious, or successful, or the strong, or the full, or the powerful, or the loud voices or the war-seekers and makers. In the beatitudes according to Jesus, you don’t have to be famous, rich, or powerful to be blessed. In fact, no. You don’t have to be born in a prosperous country to be blessed. You don’t have to be considered “normal” or even “American” to be blessed. In God’s eyes, those who are blessed and favored are those who are on the margins.
And those who love those on the margins are following Jesus.
I know it is a critical time. I realize that for many this is a scary and uncertain time. But we cannot give into fear or apathy. Today we must ask:
What do I do now?
How can I be a kind, loving, and authentic person in this moment?
This matters to your family, your school, your church, your community, the world.
Those of us who identify as followers of this Jesus, we are called to BE people who love our neighbors even when our government says they are not welcome; we are called to be with the vulnerable and to welcome the stranger, regardless of which country they come from, what religion they practice, or what is the popular sentiment at the time. As my colleague and mentor, the founder and director of Interfaith Youth Core, Eboo Patel recently wrote:
“It’s the time for us. It’s the moment for us. How we respond to it is how this story turns out.”
What will we do now? How will be kind, loving, and authentic people in this moment?