When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and 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.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, 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.

There’s a Hindu parable that goes something like this…

Understanding the problems that might occur should humanity achieve or be given the power or wisdom or capabilities of the divine, Brahma was encouraged by his underlings to hide the power of the divine so that humanity might never be able to reach it. “Hide the divine power atop the highest mountain,” they suggested. “No,” replied Brahma, “for some day, humanity will likely reach the top of even the highest of mountains.” “Hide the divine power then at the bottom of the deepest sea,” they suggested next. “No,” Brahma replied again, “for some day, humanity will likely reach to the bottom of even the deepest of seas.”

Then Brahma had the answer, he had solved the problem. “I know just where to hide the power of the divine,” he told his underlings, “in a place where humanity will never find it. I’ll hide it deep inside the very heart of humanity itself. They’ll never find it, for they will never think to look for the divine power within themselves.”

And I think there’s something to this notion – not only that the power of God can be found somewhere deep within the very hearts of humanity – but that we don’t think or believe or work to find the power of God within ourselves often enough.

And even though we may not always think to see God’s power within ourselves – when we look in the mirror, say – we’re not quite so bad at seeing the power of God in others. So, I came up with a few examples of people who have shared something divine and holy and “like God” with the world these days.

There’s a new restaurant, which is really more like a movement, it seems to me, in Columbus, Ohio, that I just learned about. I heard about the food at a place called Hot Chicken Takeover, before I heard about something even cooler: the mission of the place to hire and care for employees who might otherwise not be able to find jobs, maybe because they’re homeless or just out of prison or for some other reason that most businesses wouldn’t think twice about looking at their resume.

And not only do they hire them, but they care for them with things like a “Matched Milestone Program” that matches money for things like housing, transportation, and education; this restaurant retains counselors for recovery support and short-term counseling; they offer 0% interest loans for emergencies to keep their people from going to predatory lenders; and they’re deliberate about professional development, flexible scheduling, and paying above minimum wage. All of this is part of their mission and business model and it’s about so much more than great fried chicken, which matters, too, of course. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…”

Pastor Aaron and I heard Rachel Held Evans Thursday talk about a whole congregation – a church in a denomination she wouldn’t name – that opted to disband and lose its affiliation with its larger church, rather than kick out a gay couple who had joined their ranks. It was a relatively new Christian church who welcomed a lesbian couple into their midst. And when their denomination caught wind of it, and asked them to remove the women and their children from their roster, this faithful gathering of Jesus freaks chose to lose their denominational funding and support, which forced them to have to pack it up and close their doors, rather than kick to the curb two of their beloved, faithful members and fellow children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake…

I suspect you’ve heard something about the White Helmets in Syria. (There’s a Netflix documentary about them, if you haven’t.) They are the Syrian Civil Defense crew – known mostly, and simply, as the White Helmets. They are this group of brave, unarmed volunteers, who wait for barrel bombs and other weapons of mass destruction to wreak havoc and destroy public places in their country so they can rush into the devastation and look for survivors to rescue, without regard for race, religion, or politics, knowing of course they’re own lives are at stake at every moment. One White Helmet, named Abed said, “When I want to save someone’s life, I don’t care if he is an enemy or a friend. What concerns me is the soul that might die.” Blessed are the peacemakers…

It’s a short list, I know, just some contemporary examples that came to mind and there are millions more who would fit the bill. But I think Jesus would have counted these folks – and maybe some of the saints on your heart this morning – among the “blessed.” And, again, I think the message of his sermon was not unlike the message of that Hindu proverb: that the very power of God really can be found within the hearts of humanity.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit… those who mourn… the merciful.” “Blessed are the peacemakers… the persecuted… the meek.” We just aren’t always looking in the right places or for all the right kinds of things. Because what blesses us most in this life is that which we’re able to use to become a blessing for others. And that happens best when we live out our lives – as much as we are able – in the likeness of our creator, and in the way of Jesus Christ: with the power of the divine, the heart of God beating within us.

Meekness, purity, peace; humility, mercy, righteousness; gratitude, grace and generosity, don’t all come as naturally or as easily for us as we’d like. They are too often the nature of God that gets buried more deeply within us than we’d like to admit or are able to find or even always willing to admit.

But blessed are those of you who've prayed over and sacrificed for the sake of your commitment to this ministry – financial and otherwise – and who gather here to offer it with thanksgiving and generosity; and blessed are all those who benefit from it and those who've yet to enter into our midst…

Blessed are you who've stocked our food pantry or helped to deliver food and friendship through the Agape ministry; and blessed are those who've receive all of that grace and good news and nourishment…

Blessed are you who teach our children, and each other, about God's Word for our lives; and blessed are those who've learned from you…

Blessed are those who will travel to Haiti to build and paint some houses next week; and blessed are those who will call those houses “home” …

Blessed are those who add music to our worship; who work in the office; who clean the building; who pray for each other; who serve on ministry teams; who share communion out there in the world; you get the idea…

In Jesus, God invites us to more than we could ever muster on our own - meekness, mercy, purity; humility, gratitude, generosity and so on down the list - because when we live that way we see ourselves - and one another - more clearly as children of God. We see God more often in the world around us. And we experience more fully the kingdom of heaven that is alive and well within and among us.

When we live that way we see our blessedness in a new light – as fuel and fodder for blessing the world. And we see ourselves as harboring in our hearts – not hiding there – the very power of the divine… the power of God’s love and grace and hope for the sake of the world.

Amen

John 11:17-27

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

Our theme for today is about “dying and grieving.” And remember, with this series we’ve been preaching on, we’re supposed to be looking for common ground between Christians of different stripes, as we make our way to Reformation Sunday, next weekend. Specifically, we’ve been looking for common ground around themes like communion and prayer and forgiveness and reconciliation between Catholics and Lutherans in the world these days.

So, outside of the trappings and traditions of church practices, you can’t deny that every person of every theological, denominational, geographic, political, cultural, sociological, economic demographic, share common ground when it comes to death and dying. I mean, we will all do it someday. Every one of us will die and we all know someone else who will, too. So far, humanity hasn’t found a way out of it. Our lives are finite… limited… they will come to an end. We will die and we hope someone will miss us and grieve our going. And as hard as it is, I hope we all have someone to miss and to grieve, along the way.

According to the book that has been informing our sermons the last few weeks, if given the choice, most Americans say they want to die quickly. They wouldn’t mind dying in their sleep, without any warning that death is coming. And most of us don’t want our dying to be a burden to anyone. And I believe it.

When my wife, Christa, and I try to talk to her mother about preparing a will or making plans for elder care and nursing home insurance, she jokes about not wanting to think about that; that when the time comes, she just wants to put on a big red hat and walk off into a field of flowers at sunset, or something like that. It’s kind of a joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a red hat hidden somewhere, should the opportunity arise.

My own father has pact with at least one of his pastor friends where they’ve agreed to mistakenly step on the oxygen tube or pull the plug for the ventilator from the wall, should either of them find themselves in such a predicament down the line.

My point is, as much as we’d like to avoid or deny or make as easy as possible the dying we encounter in our lives – either our own or that of the people we love the most – things don’t always work out that way. And as Christian people on the planet we live in a strange way when it comes to death and dying. So much of our faith is wrapped up in the hope that this isn’t all there is; that there is something more on the other side of God’s heaven; that life after this life is something we’re promised and something to look forward to somehow, even if none of us knows exactly what that looks like.

If nothing else, this bit from John’s Gospel, about Lazarus, his sisters, and his good friend Jesus, remind us that not a lot has changed when it comes to faithful people dealing with death, like we do. There’s much more to this story of course…

Jesus hears about his friend Lazarus being sick, but he doesn’t rush to rescue him, like Mary and Martha had hoped. He takes his time getting there and when Jesus finds Lazarus dead – stinking up his tomb after four days inside – the sisters are mad. “Jesus if you had been her, our brother wouldn’t have died.” Isn’t that the accusation of the ages? “God, where have you been?” “God, why didn’t you show up?” “God, if you are who you say you are – and if you just would have shown up to prove it – our brother, our sister, our son our daughter, our mother, our father, our aunt, uncle, friend, whoever – wouldn’t have died.” Haven’t we all wondered or accused something similar?

And so I think our greatest lesson – as hard as it can be to learn or to practice some days – comes from Martha. In the midst of all her grief and despair and anger and frustration; when she’s as sad as she can be, she confesses a faith that, I frankly wonder, if she’s all that certain of at the moment. I mean, her brother’s dead, and has been for four days. His friend – and her Lord – seems to have neglected their prayers for help. And she’s no super-hero, so I’m okay guessing that maybe she was trying to convince herself that she believes something she may not be all that sure of: “Yet, even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.” “I know that he will rise again, in the resurrection on the last day.” And, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent my own fair share of time, like Martha, convincing myself to believe some pretty incredible things at some pretty difficult times. And I don’t mean to over-simplify this dying and grieving stuff too much, but I wonder, today, if that isn’t our calling as believers in the world: to remind and to convince and to comfort and to hope with one another – and for one another – when we need it most, even in the face of death.

Because Jesus ends up working a miracle for Lazarus that day, by raising him from the dead. He calls him out of that tomb, smelling like death, and still wrapped in his grave-clothes, but walking and talking and living and breathing, in spite of it. And Mary and Martha get their wish, their prayers are answered, and we get a reminder of what it means to trust in the promise of God’s love, in spite of and in the face of the power of death in this world.

Now, we can’t all do that – raise each other from the dead, of course. But we do have a story to tell. And some of you have heard me say something like this before… that there are three things about death that can’t be denied – that it is irreversible, that it is universal, and that it is final. Remember those words for a minute – irreversible, universal, final. I got this from another pastor who talks this way to kids about death and dying - Irreversible… Universal… Final…

Death is irreversible. Like I said before, we humans haven’t found a way to undo the work of death in our lives or for the sake of ones that we love. Even Lazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead this morning, dies again, and for good, just like the rest of us will one day. Death is irreversible.

And death is universal, too. No one is beyond the reach of death. Black, white, rich, poor, Lutheran, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, American, Asian, European, you name it, the whole lot of us will die one day. It happens to the best of us. Death is universal.

And death is final. It is our last official act as people on the planet. There is nothing to follow our final breath or last heart beat on this side of the grave. Death is final.

It is irreversible… universal… final. But we get to say all of that, as Christian people, with a different kind of perspective.

What might sound like fear or sadness, despair or defeat to some people, doesn’t have to be that way for the likes of you and me who, like Martha in the Gospel story, believe Jesus to be the Messiah, the one coming into the world; believe Jesus, himself, to be the resurrection and the life. Because we know something else about “irreversible…” “universal…” and “final…” as the people of God.

We know that the love of God in Jesus Christ – the love poured out and promised in and through Holy Baptism – is irreversible. It cannot be taken away. It cannot be undone or erased or mistaken, for that matter. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ, remember… not hardship or distress or nakedness or persecution or peril or sword. And not even death. God’s love for us is irreversible.

And it’s universal, too. The love of God in Jesus Christ is for all people – red and yellow, black and white; slave and free; Jew and Greek; for God so love THE WORLD that he gave his only Son…not to condemn the world, but in order that the world would be saved through him; the light of God in Jesus Christ was/is the light for all people. God’s love is universal.

And God’s love is final. The Good News of our Gospel in Jesus Christ is that the love of God wins every time. It trumps cancer and heart disease and natural disasters and suicide and alzheimer’s and MS and battle fields, bombs, the bottle and all of our bad choices. Because on the other side of Easter’s resurrection tomb, the love of God in Jesus Christ always, always, always gets the last word. God’s love is final and forever.

Irreversible, universal and final. Death is all of those things, for sure. But even more is the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ irreversible, universal, and final. And the love of God in Jesus Christ – out-lives and out-lasts the death that scares and saddens us too often in this life. And it’s that kind of love that defies and defeats, even death, when we share it with each other and for the sake of the world, in Jesus’ name.

Amen

"Blessed for Blessing" – Matthew 5:1-12

Reformation Series: Dying and Grieving - John 11:17-27