You may want to read Psalm 8 before you read this.
Audio of this post is also available.
When I’m at the grocery store I usually try to keep my thoughts to myself. Nobody wants to see a middle-aged white guy pushing a grocery cart down the aisle and mumbling to himself.
But when I walk through the valley of canned and bottled beverages, and my path leads me beside still waters, the beginnings of a psalm rise to my lips:
Lord God, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
When I look at these bottles and jugs, the work of our fingers –
what are human beings that you are mindful of them?
One that gets me every time is Smartwater. How much smarter do you think it is than dumb tap water?
According to estimates by the Beverage Marketing Corporation from 2006, Americans consume 8.3 billion gallons of bottled water – that’s about 26 gallons per person a year.
The Pacific Institute estimates that producing the bottles for American consumption in 2006 required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil – that’s enough to fuel more than 1 million cars for a year.
Overall, the average energy cost to make the plastic, fill the bottles, transport them to market and then deal with the waste would be like filling up a quarter of every bottle with oil. Consuming four bottles of water is like burning a bottle of oil. Smartwater?
Well, fortunately all that plastic can be recycled. Except that, unfortunately that’s not happening: In 2004, the last year for which data is available, 85 percent of all non-carbonated PET bottles ended up in landfills, or as litter in parks, along roadways, in rivers and oceans – that’s 24 billion empty water bottles – 66 million every day! Can you imagine the size of that pile?
When I look at that mountain –
Lord God, what are human beings that you put up with us?
I remember nights many years ago when I lay on my back in the field and gazed at the sky – I felt small and at the same time lifted up by the awesome beauty of the stars. The view of the universe was so vast, so deep and silent, all I could hear was my own heart beat. We feel small under the dark tent of the night sky. We are specks of stardust in a vast universe, specks of stardust that ask questions:
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
I know in my bones what the psalmist is talking about, and most of you know it too; we have looked at the heavens with awe and wonder. Most of our children, though, have never seen the Milky Way, and seeing it at the planetarium doesn’t even come close.
Friday night was clear and cold, the humidity was down in the teens, but the sky still didn’t have anywhere near the depth that I remember from nights in the 70’s. Astronomers tell us that two-thirds of Americans today cannot see the Milky Way from their backyards. The last time I saw it was several years ago, on a night hike in western Montana, far away from any city. Dark night skies, for the first time in history, are becoming an extinct phenomenon. Why? Because we leave the lights on, and many lights installed in homes, businesses, street lights and billboards are too bright and aimed upwards or sideways. All that light scatters through the atmosphere and brightens the night sky with an orange glow, reducing the universe, across most of the eastern United States, to a mere handful of stars. Researchers predict that at the current rate of increasing light pollution, by 2025 no dark skies will remain in the continental United States. We are robbing ourselves of one of the most ancient sources of awe.
If we want to show our children what the psalmist saw, we may have to take them all the way to Nevada, to the Great Basin National Park. The park service advertises,
On a clear, moonless night (…) thousands of stars, five of our solar system’s eight planets, star clusters, meteors, man-made satellites, and the Milky Way can be seen with the naked eye. The area boasts some of the darkest night skies left in the United States. Low humidity and light pollution combine with high elevation to create a unique window to the universe.
Sitting between piles of empty water bottles and under dimming stars, what we need is a window to ourselves: Who are we and what is our role in this marvelous world?
Our psalm can be that window. It is a prayer of praise, erupting with a shout and ending with the same exuberant phrase: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
With its very form the psalm tells us that who we are cannot be addressed outside of a framework of praise: we begin with the joyous acclamation of God; we praise God who has prevailed against the powers of chaos, the Creator who established a world in which life can thrive; and what lingers at the end is nothing but that same exuberant joy – the earth itself a witness not to the power of chaos but to the majesty of God’s name.
In the beginning and in the end, God’s will and faithfulness prevail, and between these reliable pillars, the meditation on what it means to be human takes place.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established –
Perhaps you think that it was so much easier in ancient times to view the heavens with such confidence. Perhaps you say to yourself, “Easy for them to speak of God’s fingers, they did not know what we know about galaxies and giant black holes and the age of the universe.” You are right, they didn’t.
But this statement nevertheless represents a remarkable testimony. For thousands of years, humankind had regarded sun, moon and stars as distant deities and their courses as the source of arbitrary powers that destined human existence. In that world, the people who wrote and prayed this psalm boldly looked at sun and moon and stars not as gods, but as creation of the one God; as objects of awesome wonder, not of fear; and they viewed themselves not as helpless chess pieces pushed around by cosmic forces, but as partners of the one God, maker of heaven and earth.
The psalm is their invitation to us to pray with them, to trust this God, and to find in our relationship with this God our purpose and meaning.
You have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
The sons and daughters of Adam and Eve look at the world, the work of God’s hands, and they marvel at their royal vocation: crowned with glory and honor, they have been given dominion over all living things. I often wonder if the planet wouldn’t be better off without us, kings and queens who trample all over the things put under our feet. But then I ask myself, if God has such great faith in humankind, shouldn’t I have at least a little?
Of all living things that inhabit the earth, we alone have the capacity to make this planet our planet, to create a world of culture with the things offered by nature. The trouble with our species is that we have a hard time remembering that dominion is a stewardship term, and not a license to do as we please with this piece of unclaimed property called earth. We have a hard time remembering that dominion has been given to all generations of humanity, and not just to us: our grandchildren and their grandchildren share our royal vocation, they are not our maids and valets who come to clean up after us.
Dominion is an awesome responsibility that easily deteriorates into destructive domination and abusive tyranny. The inconvenient truth about us is that we are royal stewards who fancy ourselves to be owners of the planet. Our psalm suggests a simple but powerful countermeasure: rather than tooting your own horn, sing to the Lord. Through the worship of God, we remain mindful of the relationship that saves us and all of creation from ourselves.
This psalm is unique in addressing God throughout in the second person; the focus remains on God:
How majestic is your name!
You have set, you have founded, you have established, you are mindful, you care, you have made, you have crowned, you have given dominion, you have put all things under their feet.
How majestic is your name!
The only time a human is the subject of a verb is in verse 3, "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers..." Humans do not rule autonomously like spoiled, absolute monarchs. The calling of the human being is to behold what God has made, to pray and sing in wonder to the Maker, and to remember that our dominion derives its authority entirely from God’s sovereignty. Humanity’s royal status and dominion are part of God’s reign, not its replacement, and once we take God out of the picture, we invite disaster. Our psalm locates us between God and animals: responsible to God and responsible for the creatures placed under our care. We are to be partners in caring for a creation that is always threatened by chaos.
Where can we turn to see our royal vocation embodied in a way we can observe and imitate? As always, we look to Jesus. Jesus who did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, humbled himself, and became obedient (Philippians 2:5-11). In Jesus Christ, dominion takes the form of self-emptying service.
Sitting between piles of empty water bottles and under dimming stars, we need a window to our true selves. We look to Jesus. In him we see the fulfillment of what it means to be human, as well as the reign of God in person. Following him we live our royal vocation in joyful obedience to God and with caring attention to God’s creation.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Invest or Inter?
click on blog title for audio file
To all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
Hearing these words makes me shiver. These are times when many have lost what little they had, and those who had much lost as well, depending on where they had invested their wealth. In a global economy where poverty in many places still is deadly, and equal opportunity for all remains a challenge, hearing these words makes me shiver.
To all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
These are words with authority, words printed in red, straight from the gospel – only Jesus is not making market predictions, he is not in the economic advice business. The words sound like a proverb, a morsel of insight distilled from decades of life experience, but that is not what they are.
Proverbs for investors come from people like Warren Buffett, who follows and recommends a simple rule: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.
Jesus, however, is talking about discipleship, and we know that he recommends neither fear nor greed as motivating factors for his followers.
Jesus tells us a story that involves enormous amounts of money, and he turns trading and investing into a parable about faithful living. A talent is a lot of money, about as much as a worker makes in a lifetime.
So this man, going on a journey, entrusts his entire property, everything he owns to his servants, to each according to his abilities. Two of them go off at once and start trading, while the third goes off, digs a hole in the ground, and hides his master’s money. Two of them double the entrusted funds – not a bad return on investment, and they both receive their master’s praise.
The spot light is on the third one, though, the one-talent servant. He admits that he was afraid and says, “Here you have what is yours.” The one-talent servant, out of fear, treated what was an investment as a safety deposit – he didn’t lose any of what he had been given, but he didn’t use it either.
Now let’s pretend for a moment a different kind of plot development; let’s say the other two invested everything in real estate, mortgage-backed securities, and U.S. automobile stocks.
Upon the master’s return one said, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; the markets were really doing great until August when the bottom fell out. Now there are only three talents left.” The second said, “Master, you handed over to me two talents, and I’m glad I lost only half of it.”
What did the master say to them? Your answer will depend on what kind of master you think he is. Is this someone who is looking for maximum return on his investment? Or can you imagine the master praising the two for taking risks and using what had been entrusted to them? Your answer will depend on what you think this investment parable is really about.
This is a story Jesus told his disciples after teaching them everything about discipleship and the kingdom. This is a story Jesus told his disciples just days before he was crucified. This is a story about us, what we have been given by our master, and what we do with it.
Our master is quite a risk-taker: he has entrusted to us all that he has. Together, we have been given everything that is the master’s, everything we need to proclaim God’s reign and live faithfully as servants of God. We have his teachings and his spirit, we have the power to forgive, and the promise of his presence. He has entrusted to us all that he has, and every servant has received a portion.
Not many of us will think of ourselves as five-talent or two-talent servants; we’re humble people, aren’t we? There’s a danger in being too humble, though: You think of yourself as just an ordinary one-talent disciple, and chances are that whenever God’s mission in the world calls for courageous and generous action, you’ll defer to what you consider the better-endowed disciples.
What you forget is that one talent is an enormous gift. It’s not your talent for cooking, or playing the piano, or remembering the names of everybody you’ve ever met – these are all gifts and abilities God has blessed you with. The talents in our story are everything Jesus gives us so we can participate in his mission in the world, and just one talent is a treasure that needs to be invested, not buried.
Jesus says, “It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master” (Mt 10:25). It is enough for us to imitate him, to invest ourselves the way he did: words like generous, kind, and fearless come to mind, merciful and faithful. It is enough for us to recognize what we have been given and to make it our daily joy and work to invest it. The third servant in the parable did not recognize what he had been given, and he did not know his master:
“I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.”
You have to wonder where on earth he got that impression – or could it be that he made it all up to justify his own inaction?
The master we know has scattered the seed of the kingdom with lavish extravagance. The teacher we follow in no way resembles this servant’s description. If there is one thing we know, it is that he is not harsh. He only reaps what has sprung up from the seeds he scattered throughout his life, seeds of grace and compassion, of truth and hope. He is the grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies, and he only gathers the abundance of fruit that gift has born (John 12:24).
Our master encourages us not to hold back when it comes to investing what we have been given, but to be generous and daring. He has entrusted the good news of the kingdom to us, not as a temporary responsibility that he will take back one day, but as a gift that is ours now and forever. His words, “Enter into the joy of your master” are his invitation to take that gift and to invest it without any fear of losing it – we cannot lose it by investing it.
I wonder if the one-talent servant in our story ever understood the economy of the kingdom, an economy that isn’t ruled by scarcity but by abundance. I wonder if he could think of giving only as losing, and consequently he nurtured only fear, rather than joy. He buried the gift in order to protect it, and ironically that was the only way to lose it.
I believe this is what Jesus has in mind when he teaches us, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:25). He is not just talking about the rare circumstances where his followers will have to face violent persecution; he addresses the daily challenge of investing ourselves without fear in God’s mission: by forgiving someone when it seems much safer to bury that impulse; by beginning a difficult conversation when it seems so much safer to be quiet; by recognizing ourselves as Jesus’ trusted and talented friends rather than hiding behind timid humility.
Jesus encourages us to go off and trade as if each of us had been given at least five talents. We are free to invest with abandon because the kingdom treasury has unlimited resources.
I believe it was Nelson Mandela who said that our greatest fear is not that we might fail, but that we might be successful beyond imagining. Could it be that we’re afraid to use what we have been given out of fear that it might actually work? Could it be that we’re afraid the world around us might change in ways we cannot imagine, and our investment, Christ’s investment in us might actually double?
Jesus has given us everything we need to live with faith and courage, but there is a real possibility that we are ignoring his investment in us and keeping it safely underground.
Who knows, you may be a five-talent servant living and investing on a one-talent budget.
With this story Jesus encourages us to unearth the gift – but how do you that when you don’t remember where you’ve buried it?
You dig in promising places. At a recent workshop we identified three areas of spiritual attention for Elders, and I believe they provide a map of the promising places:
One: You turn outward with perhaps small but intentional gestures of hospitality and service – Room in the Inn offers many opportunities for that.
Two: You nurture your inner life with perhaps small but intentional and regular times of prayer, Bible study, and spiritual reading – just ten minutes a day can move a lot of dirt.
And three: You connect with others – you worship and work with others, you study and learn and play with fellow servants; you find the friends who will see what you overlook, and who will find in you a five-talent servant who is still unearthing the treasure of the kingdom.
Outward. Inward. Communal. It’s a map that covers the world. Now you all go and start digging – there’s a lot of hidden treasure.
Welcome to the wondrous economy of God’s reign.
To all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
Hearing these words makes me shiver. These are times when many have lost what little they had, and those who had much lost as well, depending on where they had invested their wealth. In a global economy where poverty in many places still is deadly, and equal opportunity for all remains a challenge, hearing these words makes me shiver.
To all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
These are words with authority, words printed in red, straight from the gospel – only Jesus is not making market predictions, he is not in the economic advice business. The words sound like a proverb, a morsel of insight distilled from decades of life experience, but that is not what they are.
Proverbs for investors come from people like Warren Buffett, who follows and recommends a simple rule: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.
Jesus, however, is talking about discipleship, and we know that he recommends neither fear nor greed as motivating factors for his followers.
Jesus tells us a story that involves enormous amounts of money, and he turns trading and investing into a parable about faithful living. A talent is a lot of money, about as much as a worker makes in a lifetime.
So this man, going on a journey, entrusts his entire property, everything he owns to his servants, to each according to his abilities. Two of them go off at once and start trading, while the third goes off, digs a hole in the ground, and hides his master’s money. Two of them double the entrusted funds – not a bad return on investment, and they both receive their master’s praise.
The spot light is on the third one, though, the one-talent servant. He admits that he was afraid and says, “Here you have what is yours.” The one-talent servant, out of fear, treated what was an investment as a safety deposit – he didn’t lose any of what he had been given, but he didn’t use it either.
Now let’s pretend for a moment a different kind of plot development; let’s say the other two invested everything in real estate, mortgage-backed securities, and U.S. automobile stocks.
Upon the master’s return one said, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; the markets were really doing great until August when the bottom fell out. Now there are only three talents left.” The second said, “Master, you handed over to me two talents, and I’m glad I lost only half of it.”
What did the master say to them? Your answer will depend on what kind of master you think he is. Is this someone who is looking for maximum return on his investment? Or can you imagine the master praising the two for taking risks and using what had been entrusted to them? Your answer will depend on what you think this investment parable is really about.
This is a story Jesus told his disciples after teaching them everything about discipleship and the kingdom. This is a story Jesus told his disciples just days before he was crucified. This is a story about us, what we have been given by our master, and what we do with it.
Our master is quite a risk-taker: he has entrusted to us all that he has. Together, we have been given everything that is the master’s, everything we need to proclaim God’s reign and live faithfully as servants of God. We have his teachings and his spirit, we have the power to forgive, and the promise of his presence. He has entrusted to us all that he has, and every servant has received a portion.
Not many of us will think of ourselves as five-talent or two-talent servants; we’re humble people, aren’t we? There’s a danger in being too humble, though: You think of yourself as just an ordinary one-talent disciple, and chances are that whenever God’s mission in the world calls for courageous and generous action, you’ll defer to what you consider the better-endowed disciples.
What you forget is that one talent is an enormous gift. It’s not your talent for cooking, or playing the piano, or remembering the names of everybody you’ve ever met – these are all gifts and abilities God has blessed you with. The talents in our story are everything Jesus gives us so we can participate in his mission in the world, and just one talent is a treasure that needs to be invested, not buried.
Jesus says, “It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master” (Mt 10:25). It is enough for us to imitate him, to invest ourselves the way he did: words like generous, kind, and fearless come to mind, merciful and faithful. It is enough for us to recognize what we have been given and to make it our daily joy and work to invest it. The third servant in the parable did not recognize what he had been given, and he did not know his master:
“I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.”
You have to wonder where on earth he got that impression – or could it be that he made it all up to justify his own inaction?
The master we know has scattered the seed of the kingdom with lavish extravagance. The teacher we follow in no way resembles this servant’s description. If there is one thing we know, it is that he is not harsh. He only reaps what has sprung up from the seeds he scattered throughout his life, seeds of grace and compassion, of truth and hope. He is the grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies, and he only gathers the abundance of fruit that gift has born (John 12:24).
Our master encourages us not to hold back when it comes to investing what we have been given, but to be generous and daring. He has entrusted the good news of the kingdom to us, not as a temporary responsibility that he will take back one day, but as a gift that is ours now and forever. His words, “Enter into the joy of your master” are his invitation to take that gift and to invest it without any fear of losing it – we cannot lose it by investing it.
- An investment the size of a mustard seed grows into a tree, and the birds come and make nests in its branches (Mt 13:31).
- A small investment of five loaves and two fish results in a feast for thousands (Mt 14:17).
I wonder if the one-talent servant in our story ever understood the economy of the kingdom, an economy that isn’t ruled by scarcity but by abundance. I wonder if he could think of giving only as losing, and consequently he nurtured only fear, rather than joy. He buried the gift in order to protect it, and ironically that was the only way to lose it.
I believe this is what Jesus has in mind when he teaches us, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:25). He is not just talking about the rare circumstances where his followers will have to face violent persecution; he addresses the daily challenge of investing ourselves without fear in God’s mission: by forgiving someone when it seems much safer to bury that impulse; by beginning a difficult conversation when it seems so much safer to be quiet; by recognizing ourselves as Jesus’ trusted and talented friends rather than hiding behind timid humility.
Jesus encourages us to go off and trade as if each of us had been given at least five talents. We are free to invest with abandon because the kingdom treasury has unlimited resources.
I believe it was Nelson Mandela who said that our greatest fear is not that we might fail, but that we might be successful beyond imagining. Could it be that we’re afraid to use what we have been given out of fear that it might actually work? Could it be that we’re afraid the world around us might change in ways we cannot imagine, and our investment, Christ’s investment in us might actually double?
Jesus has given us everything we need to live with faith and courage, but there is a real possibility that we are ignoring his investment in us and keeping it safely underground.
Who knows, you may be a five-talent servant living and investing on a one-talent budget.
With this story Jesus encourages us to unearth the gift – but how do you that when you don’t remember where you’ve buried it?
You dig in promising places. At a recent workshop we identified three areas of spiritual attention for Elders, and I believe they provide a map of the promising places:
One: You turn outward with perhaps small but intentional gestures of hospitality and service – Room in the Inn offers many opportunities for that.
Two: You nurture your inner life with perhaps small but intentional and regular times of prayer, Bible study, and spiritual reading – just ten minutes a day can move a lot of dirt.
And three: You connect with others – you worship and work with others, you study and learn and play with fellow servants; you find the friends who will see what you overlook, and who will find in you a five-talent servant who is still unearthing the treasure of the kingdom.
Outward. Inward. Communal. It’s a map that covers the world. Now you all go and start digging – there’s a lot of hidden treasure.
Welcome to the wondrous economy of God’s reign.
Monday, November 10, 2008
A Door Has Been Opened
click on blog title for audio file
A door has been opened on Tuesday. In a time of economic uncertainty and overall concern about America’s place and role in the world, the people of this nation have opened a door with this election. The shame and lingering injustice of slavery are like walls that restrict the imagination and the actual participation of all people in public life—but the same people opened a door. Even if you didn’t vote for the Senator from Illinois, surely you will celebrate that a man whose father came from Africa will be the next president of the United States.
A text message sent from phone to phone across the nation spelled out the significance of this election that goes far beyond partisan politics: Rosa sat so Martin could walk. Martin walked so Barack could run. Barack ran so our children can fly.
A door has been opened, and we have the privilege of following our children as they cross the threshold into a future where the walls that separate us no longer exist.
Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Mt 7:7-8).
In this passage from the sermon on the mount Jesus teaches us about prayer and perseverance in prayer. For generations we have prayed, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” first suspecting and then knowing that human dignity and freedom are not determined by skin color or ethnic background. We know that it is God’s will that we live in ways that reflect that truth of one humanity. For generations we have searched for ways to move from the guilt and shame of slavery and Jim Crow toward reconciliation and restored community. For generations we have been knocking, and a door has been opened.
I’ve been thinking about closed doors a lot this past week. I replayed a scene from my childhood in my mind, again and again. My brother and I shared a bedroom for many years—two beds, two desks, a dresser with two sets of drawers, and a wardrobe with two doors. We shared a room, but it often felt more like the Berlin Wall ran right through it. There was a seam in the carpet, just between our beds, and at times that line was as heavily guarded as the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. We could be very territorial.
I don’t remember what exactly happened one day, but my brother was in our room and he had locked the door while I was gone. I asked him to please let me in, but he didn’t. I knocked, gently first, then harder, but his response didn’t change. I pleaded with him, and he laughed – he thought it was hilarious.
Eventually I went to the kitchen and came back with a sturdy stool, solid beech wood. “Let me in.” – He just laughed. I was furious. I grabbed the stool, swung it over my shoulder, and – wham! – hit that door as hard as I could.
Too bad there weren’t any baseball recruiters around to see my swing – they would have been impressed by the hole I put in that door. My brother and I looked at it and suddenly agreed, “Man, that was stupid.”
His ugly pleasure in shutting me out was gone, and so was my angry frustration. We finally found common purpose in mending the damage we had caused, and in working together we learned to live together in a shared room.
The story of the bridesmaids doesn’t end with a vision of togetherness, but rather with harsh separation. Five of them stand outside. They knock and they plead, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” And the voice from behind the closed door declares, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Is he pretending? Is he playing some cruel game? Is he telling us that parts of his sermon on the mount need to be rewritten?
Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you—unless of course you ran out of oil and show up late for the banquet, in which case you might as well forget about the party.
Do we need to rewrite his earlier teachings?
Do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ (Mt 6:31). But worry about your oil and how big a bottle you will have to fill to let your light shine when the bridegroom arrives. Worry about your oil and let others worry about theirs, so you don’t end up sitting outside in the darkness.
Is Matthew telling us that worries about oil not only determine the economic and foreign policy of nations but our life in the kingdom as well? Is everything Jesus said earlier suddenly up for revision?
“Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” the story ends—well, nothing beats worries in keeping you awake; so is sleeplessness suddenly a Christian virtue? Are we to stay awake, worried about our personal oil supply while anxiously scanning the horizon for the Son of Man coming with power and great glory (Mt 24:30)?
No, not at all.
When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid:
yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.
Proverbs 3:24, we have to hear it in beautiful King James English to grasp that this is both a promise and a command. It is the Lord who neither slumbers nor sleeps so that God’s people can lie down and sleep in peace (Ps 4:8; Ps 121:4-5). The reign of God is like a baby, sound asleep in her mother’s lap, not like a bunch of frantic bridesmaids running through the night in search of fuel for their lamps.
To live in joyful anticipation of the reign of God to be fulfilled in all things is like waiting for a wedding feast to begin. Ten bridesmaids, each wearing a dress cut from the same fabric and carrying a lamp—and nothing in their appearance would tell you which ones are foolish or wise. Ten bridesmaids waiting to meet the bridegroom, waiting for the procession to begin. All ten become drowsy and go to sleep, taking a little nap before the big party, lamps in their laps, and no one can tell which ones are wise or foolish. But then they wake up. And suddenly there’s a line running right down the middle, wise ones on the right, foolish ones on the left, separated like sheep from goats.
This isn’t the first time Jesus talks about lamps. In the sermon on the mount, he teaches us about the life of discipleship, and he says,
You are the light of the world. […] No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven (Mt 5:14-16).
Let your light shine. Give light to all in the house. Let the world see your good works. The oil in our lamps isn’t some hard-to-find commodity for which we must compete; it isn’t even something we have; it is who we are. Waiting for the fullness of God’s reign is not about hoarding oil or anything else – it’s about burning with expectation.
This isn’t the first time Jesus talks about being foolish or wise. In the sermon on the mount, he says,
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall (Mt 7:24-27)!
The oil that makes our lives shine like lamps on a stand are the teachings of Jesus, teachings that light us up and transform us and our actions. This kind of oil cannot be commodified, bottled, sold or borrowed.
What you and I and everyone who hears the words of Jesus can do, though, is act on them with courage and passion. What we can do is greet the bridegroom who comes to us in the hungry and the thirsty, in the stranger and the homeless and the imprisoned. What we can do is open doors we have the power to open, and step through doors that have been opened for us. What we can do and must do is stay alert during those daily kingdom moments when simple acts of mercy and compassion extend the boundaries of God’s reign and include the excluded.
Five of the bridesmaids stand outside. They knock and they plead, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” And the voice from behind the closed door declares, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” This isn’t a cruel game of playing stranger, nor does it mean that parts of the sermon on the mount need to be rewritten. In that sermon Jesus says,
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Mt 7:21).
The bridegroom’s glorious arrival may be delayed, but the moment for the life of discipleship to begin is now – and the door is open. The coming of God’s reign in fullness may be delayed, but the time for us to live a kingdom life is now – and the door is open. Our watchfulness is needed not for scanning the horizons of history for the return of Christ—but for recognizing him in the faces of the hungry and the thirsty, the stranger, the refugee, the homeless, and those locked behind prison doors.
The wise man hears the words of Jesus and acts on them. The wise bridesmaid hears the words of Jesus and lets her life be a lamp for his light.
A door has been opened on Tuesday. In a time of economic uncertainty and overall concern about America’s place and role in the world, the people of this nation have opened a door with this election. The shame and lingering injustice of slavery are like walls that restrict the imagination and the actual participation of all people in public life—but the same people opened a door. Even if you didn’t vote for the Senator from Illinois, surely you will celebrate that a man whose father came from Africa will be the next president of the United States.
A text message sent from phone to phone across the nation spelled out the significance of this election that goes far beyond partisan politics: Rosa sat so Martin could walk. Martin walked so Barack could run. Barack ran so our children can fly.
A door has been opened, and we have the privilege of following our children as they cross the threshold into a future where the walls that separate us no longer exist.
Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Mt 7:7-8).
In this passage from the sermon on the mount Jesus teaches us about prayer and perseverance in prayer. For generations we have prayed, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” first suspecting and then knowing that human dignity and freedom are not determined by skin color or ethnic background. We know that it is God’s will that we live in ways that reflect that truth of one humanity. For generations we have searched for ways to move from the guilt and shame of slavery and Jim Crow toward reconciliation and restored community. For generations we have been knocking, and a door has been opened.
I’ve been thinking about closed doors a lot this past week. I replayed a scene from my childhood in my mind, again and again. My brother and I shared a bedroom for many years—two beds, two desks, a dresser with two sets of drawers, and a wardrobe with two doors. We shared a room, but it often felt more like the Berlin Wall ran right through it. There was a seam in the carpet, just between our beds, and at times that line was as heavily guarded as the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. We could be very territorial.
I don’t remember what exactly happened one day, but my brother was in our room and he had locked the door while I was gone. I asked him to please let me in, but he didn’t. I knocked, gently first, then harder, but his response didn’t change. I pleaded with him, and he laughed – he thought it was hilarious.
Eventually I went to the kitchen and came back with a sturdy stool, solid beech wood. “Let me in.” – He just laughed. I was furious. I grabbed the stool, swung it over my shoulder, and – wham! – hit that door as hard as I could.
Too bad there weren’t any baseball recruiters around to see my swing – they would have been impressed by the hole I put in that door. My brother and I looked at it and suddenly agreed, “Man, that was stupid.”
His ugly pleasure in shutting me out was gone, and so was my angry frustration. We finally found common purpose in mending the damage we had caused, and in working together we learned to live together in a shared room.
The story of the bridesmaids doesn’t end with a vision of togetherness, but rather with harsh separation. Five of them stand outside. They knock and they plead, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” And the voice from behind the closed door declares, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Is he pretending? Is he playing some cruel game? Is he telling us that parts of his sermon on the mount need to be rewritten?
Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you—unless of course you ran out of oil and show up late for the banquet, in which case you might as well forget about the party.
Do we need to rewrite his earlier teachings?
Do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ (Mt 6:31). But worry about your oil and how big a bottle you will have to fill to let your light shine when the bridegroom arrives. Worry about your oil and let others worry about theirs, so you don’t end up sitting outside in the darkness.
Is Matthew telling us that worries about oil not only determine the economic and foreign policy of nations but our life in the kingdom as well? Is everything Jesus said earlier suddenly up for revision?
“Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” the story ends—well, nothing beats worries in keeping you awake; so is sleeplessness suddenly a Christian virtue? Are we to stay awake, worried about our personal oil supply while anxiously scanning the horizon for the Son of Man coming with power and great glory (Mt 24:30)?
No, not at all.
When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid:
yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.
Proverbs 3:24, we have to hear it in beautiful King James English to grasp that this is both a promise and a command. It is the Lord who neither slumbers nor sleeps so that God’s people can lie down and sleep in peace (Ps 4:8; Ps 121:4-5). The reign of God is like a baby, sound asleep in her mother’s lap, not like a bunch of frantic bridesmaids running through the night in search of fuel for their lamps.
To live in joyful anticipation of the reign of God to be fulfilled in all things is like waiting for a wedding feast to begin. Ten bridesmaids, each wearing a dress cut from the same fabric and carrying a lamp—and nothing in their appearance would tell you which ones are foolish or wise. Ten bridesmaids waiting to meet the bridegroom, waiting for the procession to begin. All ten become drowsy and go to sleep, taking a little nap before the big party, lamps in their laps, and no one can tell which ones are wise or foolish. But then they wake up. And suddenly there’s a line running right down the middle, wise ones on the right, foolish ones on the left, separated like sheep from goats.
This isn’t the first time Jesus talks about lamps. In the sermon on the mount, he teaches us about the life of discipleship, and he says,
You are the light of the world. […] No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven (Mt 5:14-16).
Let your light shine. Give light to all in the house. Let the world see your good works. The oil in our lamps isn’t some hard-to-find commodity for which we must compete; it isn’t even something we have; it is who we are. Waiting for the fullness of God’s reign is not about hoarding oil or anything else – it’s about burning with expectation.
This isn’t the first time Jesus talks about being foolish or wise. In the sermon on the mount, he says,
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall (Mt 7:24-27)!
The oil that makes our lives shine like lamps on a stand are the teachings of Jesus, teachings that light us up and transform us and our actions. This kind of oil cannot be commodified, bottled, sold or borrowed.
- I can look at Rosa Parks and the courage and beauty of her witness, but I can’t ask her, “Could you give me some of that?”
- I can look at Martin Luther King and his prophetic passion for justice, but I can’t turn to him, “Let me borrow some of that.”
What you and I and everyone who hears the words of Jesus can do, though, is act on them with courage and passion. What we can do is greet the bridegroom who comes to us in the hungry and the thirsty, in the stranger and the homeless and the imprisoned. What we can do is open doors we have the power to open, and step through doors that have been opened for us. What we can do and must do is stay alert during those daily kingdom moments when simple acts of mercy and compassion extend the boundaries of God’s reign and include the excluded.
Five of the bridesmaids stand outside. They knock and they plead, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” And the voice from behind the closed door declares, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” This isn’t a cruel game of playing stranger, nor does it mean that parts of the sermon on the mount need to be rewritten. In that sermon Jesus says,
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Mt 7:21).
The bridegroom’s glorious arrival may be delayed, but the moment for the life of discipleship to begin is now – and the door is open. The coming of God’s reign in fullness may be delayed, but the time for us to live a kingdom life is now – and the door is open. Our watchfulness is needed not for scanning the horizons of history for the return of Christ—but for recognizing him in the faces of the hungry and the thirsty, the stranger, the refugee, the homeless, and those locked behind prison doors.
The wise man hears the words of Jesus and acts on them. The wise bridesmaid hears the words of Jesus and lets her life be a lamp for his light.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Ordinary Saints
Growing up I knew only one of my grandfathers, and he died when I was a teenager. It was then that I began developing a wise habit—I started adopting grandpas. Whenever I met an old man who impressed me in some way, I made him my adoptive grandpa.
One of the most recent ones was Studs Terkel, who taught me a lot about the people of the United States after I arrived here in the mid-90’s. Studs Terkel died on Friday, he was 96 years old.
Terkel was a radio man and a master interviewer; he knew how to listen so people would talk. He once recalled a moment that was typical:
There was this black woman one time, I saw her standing in the street with two or three of her kids round her and she was looking in a shopwindow. And as I’m walking by, I look to see what it is she’s looking at—and you know what? There’s nothing in the window, she’s looking in an empty shopwindow—looking at nothing. So naturally I’m curious—naturally I’m curious—so I say “Excuse me ma’am—but what are you looking at?” She doesn’t seem to mind being spoken to by a stranger, and she doesn’t turn her head around to see who’s asking her or anything, and after a moment or so she says “Oh” she says, “Oh, dreams, I’m just looking at dreams.” So I’ve got my tape recorder and I switch it on and I say “Good dreams, bad dreams . . . .?” And she starts to talk. Then she talks a little bit more, and a little bit more. And her kids are playing around her, and they can see I’m tape-recording what their mom is saying, and when she stops talking after eight, maybe ten minutes or so, one of them says “Heh mom, can we listen to what you said?” And I ask her if it’s OK with her and she says yes, so I play it back and she listens to it too. And when it’s over, she gives a little shake of her head and she looks at me, and she says “Well until I heard that, I never knew I felt that way.”
After a brief moment Terkel added,
“I never knew I felt that way.” Isn’t that incredible? The way I look at it, it’s like being a gold prospector. You find this precious metal in people when you least expect it [see Tony Parker, Studs Terkel: A Life in Words (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), pp. 167-168].
Terkel found plenty of gold; for nearly half a century, he crisscrossed the country interviewing people, both the prominent and the uncelebrated. Many of his conversations were published in books such as Working, Hard Times and The Good War for which he received the Pulitzer Prize—the stories of ordinary people about their daily work, their memories of the Depression and of World War II.
Terkel often referred to the United States as the United States of Alzheimer’s, and he recorded these conversations to help jog the nation’s memory. He wrote a dozen or so of these interview collections, chronicling much of the history of the 20th century—always interested in the lives of ordinary people, always asking “What is it like to be a certain kind of person, at a certain circumstance, at a certain time?” He could also see the irony in becoming celebrated for celebrating the uncelebrated people of the world, building himself a world reputation for giving voice to the voices of those we never hear.
Studs Terkel died on All Hollows’ Eve, the day before the church honors the saints. I wonder if he knew that the church had two days to celebrate the memory of the dead, first All Saints, when we remember those who have gone before us and who already see God face to face, and a day later, All Souls, when we remember all who have died. Without a doubt, he would have found it telling that the church saw a need to imagine heaven like boarding an airplane: early boarding for the saints who enjoy the comforts of wider seats, extra leg room, and free cocktails, while the rest are still sitting on their luggage, waiting for their rows to be called.
Some of the earliest books written and published in the church, were the lives of martyrs and saints, short biographies of men and women who lived what many considered exemplary lives of faith. But no one ever sat down to collect the stories of ordinary Christians, stories about what it was like to be a follower of Jesus at a certain circumstance, at a certain time.
Do you remember asking your parents or grandparents “What was it like when you were little?” Do you remember their stories about one-room schools, or the first family car, and watching baseball on the radio? Do you remember how wonderful it was to hear and suddenly realize that your parents—these all-powerful, all-knowing giants—once were little too? Nobody does better interviews than little girls taking a walk with their grandpa or little boys spending the night with grandma.
I have long hoped that the church would make interviews part of our discipleship training. First I imagined 12-year-olds armed with tape recorders invading homes and nursing homes and asking our oldest members “What was it like when you were baptized?” Then the prices for digital cameras began to drop – can you imagine the interview Clare would do with Risley , or Thompson with Mary Helen , and you could watch it on DVD?
And there’s no reason to limit this to just two generations. Every new Deacon should grab a camera, meet with a seasoned Elder, and ask “Can you tell me about a time when you failed as a leader and what you learned from it?” The Deacons would have a year’s worth of conversation starters about Christian leadership, and believe me, some of these interviews would become classics.
Studs Terkel mastered the journalistic art of interviewing ordinary people, and we can learn from him how to look for gold in the gravel of their daily life and sometimes daily struggle.
All Saints is not the church equivalent to the Oscars or the CMA Awards where superior performance is recognized and honored, nor is it the heavenly reflection of human societies where some always travel first class and the rest sit in coach or handle the luggage. All Saints is a day to remember that heaven is not a Discipleship Hall of Fame for the top athletes of the game; heaven is full of ordinary people. All Saints is a reminder that in the kingdom, every story, every life matters and no one is ever forgotten.
At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sets the tone for all his teachings with nine beatitudes. Before a single instruction is given, before there has been time for obedience or disobedience, success or failure, Jesus declares God’s favor for the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek and the hungry, the merciful and the peacemakers, the pure in heart and those persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
He doesn’t list conditions those who would enter would have to fulfill, making poverty of spirit a requirement and meekness a precondition. Instead he assures us that God’s favor precedes all our efforts of doing God’s will, and that his path of meekness and mercy is indeed God’s path of peace. We walk in this path under the blessing of God and we struggle to remain true to this path under the blessing of God.
What Jesus declares here are not nine basic observations about life that others had simply overlooked. You know that meekness is not a recipe for worldly success, and that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness often go to bed hungry. Jesus reminds his followers that those who live in anticipation of God’s kingdom and who struggle daily with embodying that reign in their work and their relationships, are indeed God’s own people. Like their king, they are gentle and humble in heart (Matthew 11:19), and the powers that be will not always deal gently with them. They may look like fools in a world that plays by its own rules, but Jesus declares them blessed because the path they are on leads to God’s future. And on that day it will be the meek who inherit the earth, not the ruthless.
Blessed are those who mourn, who do not resign themselves to the present condition of the world as final, but lament the fact that God’s kingdom has not yet come and God’s will is not yet done—they will be comforted.
Blessed are ordinary people who get up in the morning and go to work in a dog-eat-dog world looking for opportunities to disrupt bad patterns with random acts of mercy, for they are God’s own people.
Blessed are ordinary people who do what they can to make peace at home, in the hallways of their school, and in the break room at work, for they will be called sons and daughters of God.
Blessed are ordinary people for whom faith is not one more thing to do, but the one thing that helps them put everything else in perspective, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ordinary people who refuse to be defined by how much they earn or how little, how much they have accumulated or accomplished or how little, or how much power they wield or how little, ordinary people who are solely defined by how much they are loved by God—they will see God face to face.
Heaven is full of ordinary people with extraordinary stories.
One of the most recent ones was Studs Terkel, who taught me a lot about the people of the United States after I arrived here in the mid-90’s. Studs Terkel died on Friday, he was 96 years old.
Terkel was a radio man and a master interviewer; he knew how to listen so people would talk. He once recalled a moment that was typical:
There was this black woman one time, I saw her standing in the street with two or three of her kids round her and she was looking in a shopwindow. And as I’m walking by, I look to see what it is she’s looking at—and you know what? There’s nothing in the window, she’s looking in an empty shopwindow—looking at nothing. So naturally I’m curious—naturally I’m curious—so I say “Excuse me ma’am—but what are you looking at?” She doesn’t seem to mind being spoken to by a stranger, and she doesn’t turn her head around to see who’s asking her or anything, and after a moment or so she says “Oh” she says, “Oh, dreams, I’m just looking at dreams.” So I’ve got my tape recorder and I switch it on and I say “Good dreams, bad dreams . . . .?” And she starts to talk. Then she talks a little bit more, and a little bit more. And her kids are playing around her, and they can see I’m tape-recording what their mom is saying, and when she stops talking after eight, maybe ten minutes or so, one of them says “Heh mom, can we listen to what you said?” And I ask her if it’s OK with her and she says yes, so I play it back and she listens to it too. And when it’s over, she gives a little shake of her head and she looks at me, and she says “Well until I heard that, I never knew I felt that way.”
After a brief moment Terkel added,
“I never knew I felt that way.” Isn’t that incredible? The way I look at it, it’s like being a gold prospector. You find this precious metal in people when you least expect it [see Tony Parker, Studs Terkel: A Life in Words (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), pp. 167-168].
Terkel found plenty of gold; for nearly half a century, he crisscrossed the country interviewing people, both the prominent and the uncelebrated. Many of his conversations were published in books such as Working, Hard Times and The Good War for which he received the Pulitzer Prize—the stories of ordinary people about their daily work, their memories of the Depression and of World War II.
Terkel often referred to the United States as the United States of Alzheimer’s, and he recorded these conversations to help jog the nation’s memory. He wrote a dozen or so of these interview collections, chronicling much of the history of the 20th century—always interested in the lives of ordinary people, always asking “What is it like to be a certain kind of person, at a certain circumstance, at a certain time?” He could also see the irony in becoming celebrated for celebrating the uncelebrated people of the world, building himself a world reputation for giving voice to the voices of those we never hear.
Studs Terkel died on All Hollows’ Eve, the day before the church honors the saints. I wonder if he knew that the church had two days to celebrate the memory of the dead, first All Saints, when we remember those who have gone before us and who already see God face to face, and a day later, All Souls, when we remember all who have died. Without a doubt, he would have found it telling that the church saw a need to imagine heaven like boarding an airplane: early boarding for the saints who enjoy the comforts of wider seats, extra leg room, and free cocktails, while the rest are still sitting on their luggage, waiting for their rows to be called.
Some of the earliest books written and published in the church, were the lives of martyrs and saints, short biographies of men and women who lived what many considered exemplary lives of faith. But no one ever sat down to collect the stories of ordinary Christians, stories about what it was like to be a follower of Jesus at a certain circumstance, at a certain time.
Do you remember asking your parents or grandparents “What was it like when you were little?” Do you remember their stories about one-room schools, or the first family car, and watching baseball on the radio? Do you remember how wonderful it was to hear and suddenly realize that your parents—these all-powerful, all-knowing giants—once were little too? Nobody does better interviews than little girls taking a walk with their grandpa or little boys spending the night with grandma.
I have long hoped that the church would make interviews part of our discipleship training. First I imagined 12-year-olds armed with tape recorders invading homes and nursing homes and asking our oldest members “What was it like when you were baptized?” Then the prices for digital cameras began to drop – can you imagine the interview Clare would do with Risley , or Thompson with Mary Helen , and you could watch it on DVD?
And there’s no reason to limit this to just two generations. Every new Deacon should grab a camera, meet with a seasoned Elder, and ask “Can you tell me about a time when you failed as a leader and what you learned from it?” The Deacons would have a year’s worth of conversation starters about Christian leadership, and believe me, some of these interviews would become classics.
Studs Terkel mastered the journalistic art of interviewing ordinary people, and we can learn from him how to look for gold in the gravel of their daily life and sometimes daily struggle.
All Saints is not the church equivalent to the Oscars or the CMA Awards where superior performance is recognized and honored, nor is it the heavenly reflection of human societies where some always travel first class and the rest sit in coach or handle the luggage. All Saints is a day to remember that heaven is not a Discipleship Hall of Fame for the top athletes of the game; heaven is full of ordinary people. All Saints is a reminder that in the kingdom, every story, every life matters and no one is ever forgotten.
At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sets the tone for all his teachings with nine beatitudes. Before a single instruction is given, before there has been time for obedience or disobedience, success or failure, Jesus declares God’s favor for the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek and the hungry, the merciful and the peacemakers, the pure in heart and those persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
He doesn’t list conditions those who would enter would have to fulfill, making poverty of spirit a requirement and meekness a precondition. Instead he assures us that God’s favor precedes all our efforts of doing God’s will, and that his path of meekness and mercy is indeed God’s path of peace. We walk in this path under the blessing of God and we struggle to remain true to this path under the blessing of God.
What Jesus declares here are not nine basic observations about life that others had simply overlooked. You know that meekness is not a recipe for worldly success, and that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness often go to bed hungry. Jesus reminds his followers that those who live in anticipation of God’s kingdom and who struggle daily with embodying that reign in their work and their relationships, are indeed God’s own people. Like their king, they are gentle and humble in heart (Matthew 11:19), and the powers that be will not always deal gently with them. They may look like fools in a world that plays by its own rules, but Jesus declares them blessed because the path they are on leads to God’s future. And on that day it will be the meek who inherit the earth, not the ruthless.
Blessed are those who mourn, who do not resign themselves to the present condition of the world as final, but lament the fact that God’s kingdom has not yet come and God’s will is not yet done—they will be comforted.
Blessed are ordinary people who get up in the morning and go to work in a dog-eat-dog world looking for opportunities to disrupt bad patterns with random acts of mercy, for they are God’s own people.
Blessed are ordinary people who do what they can to make peace at home, in the hallways of their school, and in the break room at work, for they will be called sons and daughters of God.
Blessed are ordinary people for whom faith is not one more thing to do, but the one thing that helps them put everything else in perspective, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ordinary people who refuse to be defined by how much they earn or how little, how much they have accumulated or accomplished or how little, or how much power they wield or how little, ordinary people who are solely defined by how much they are loved by God—they will see God face to face.
Heaven is full of ordinary people with extraordinary stories.
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