February 10, 2007: DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY
Matthew 5:1-12, Colossians 3:12-14, Psalm 1
Eileen Parfrey -- Springwater Presbyterian Church

There is a song that used to be so popular it was on the radio all the time and people would sing parts of it to each other in conversation. Mercifully, all I remember is the title, "Don't Worry, Be Happy." Maybe because my life had just fallen apart, I hated that song's simple solution to all the world's ills. As if that was going to solve things. Just be happy! Everything important or meaningful in my life was destroyed. My mother died, my marriage was ending in messy divorce, custody of the children was disputed, my church thought I should leave, and the company I worked for was sold, putting my job in jeopardy. Just be happy!

Maybe because that song was popular, reading the Beatitudes became what I did. Which is when I discovered they weren't "if/then" statements. "If you are meek, then you will inherit the earth." I don't know how I got the idea they were-if you do this, then this will happen. I should have noticed the preposition earlier-"for." But I found that Jesus wasn't predicting what would happen to people in the Beatitudes, he was describing himself and the way of life in God's kingdom. Isn't that good news?

Yesterday, Rick and I heard the Reverend Eugenia Gamble speak at a ministry of healing and wholeness conference sponsored by the Presbyterian Urban Network in Portland. She told a story, not unlike the time when my life fell apart, but one in which she had an experience in a single moment that took years to dawn on me. I asked her if I could share it.

Eugenia was in the midst of a painful divorce. Like most divorces, hers was not just painful legally, it was painful emotionally and spiritually. One of the worst things about divorce, in my estimation, is that it calls into question everything you believe about yourself. For Eugenia, it was a time in which she felt incredible shame and thought herself ugly. She felt, she said, as if she was "the most abandonable person in the world." As had been her custom before divorce proceedings, she went on her monthly prayer retreat. She found herself mourning, weeping, bereft, arguing with God, standing at the entrance to the labyrinth. She adopted the classic prayer posture.

You know what I mean-the one where you stand and hold your upraised hands out at your side. This is how the very earliest Christians stood when they prayed. Not kneeling; that developed later. Eugenia stood in the posture of vulnerability, hands open and empty, belly exposed the way a puppy shows submission to the big dogs. Eugenia presented her empty-handed self to God. Not the one who could bring talents and gifts, who had so much to offer. She brought the self that felt abandoned and unlovable, and she was ready to walk into the labyrinth. Now, the inward labyrinth journey is one of letting go, and as she walked toward the center, Eugenia wept and reasoned with God, laying herself open, grieving a life that had fallen apart. She doesn't remember how she got there, but she found herself in the center of the labyrinth, kneeling, hands outstretched, face lifted to God. She claims not to be the sort of person who has this kind of experience, but she heard a message in so many words. Flooded with a palpable experience of God, Eugenia was overwhelmed by the love of God. It was love of God, for her and through her, flooding her and completely filling her, spreading into the whole of creation. And God said, "You are my beauty." She was empty-handed, and God met her at the point of her deepest wound. That is Beatitude living. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst. Vulnerability that makes us available to grace. Submission that opens us to receiving God.

Sometimes people try to understand the Beatitudes by sorting them into categories. These are about characteristics, these are about actions, these are about consequences. But the best sorting I've seen says the first half of the Beatitudes describe our "need" (poor, mourn, meek, hunger), and the second half describes things we do to "help" (being merciful, peacemaking, getting harassed for trying). It has been a long time since we've had discussion groups as part of worship, so it's about time. Today's topics are the Beatitude points of view "need" and "help." Gather in pairs or threes; take the first 45 seconds to complain that I'm making you work. Then share a time in your life when you experienced one of the four Beatitude needs: poor in spirit, mourn, meek, hunger. Maybe not literally poverty, mourning, meekness, hunger. Maybe it was spiritual or emotional need. What was that like? Did you feel blessed? In the second half, discuss ways to "help" (being merciful, peacemaking, getting harassed for trying). Be concrete. Think of acts of mercy or peacemaking, examples of being harassed for trying. We're doing this to take the Beatitudes off the Mountain (as in, sermon on the) and put them into our lives. [break]

[After re-gathering] Richard Rohr writes of being at Lourdes, where people from all over the world come in hope of receiving miraculous cure for disabling conditions. When he notes that "something is happening," he says it's the people who need the miracles who know the "what" of the "something happening." It's the coming of God's kingdom. The grace in Jesus' Beatitudes, according to Rohr, is that the vulnerable ones are the ones who will be ready for God's kingdom (what the Beatitudes are describing). Beatitude living (he writes) "teaches us, in effect, how to suffer graciously. [Jesus] actually increases our capacity for pain. This is the central message of the eight Beatitudes. What kind of God is this? It is a God who increases our capacity to feel the pain of being human, a God who allows deformities and tragedies so that we can all be bound together in a sisterhood of need, a brotherhood of desire."

And that's the point. Becoming more human, being bound together, empty-handed as we are, to experience the abundance of God. Look at the wisdom of this prayer posture. As open and empty as the meek, poor, hungry, grief-stricken folks Jesus commends in the Beatitudes, these hands are empty, so as to receive the abundance of God's love. "You are my beauty," God tells you. Receive the love which is being poured out on you, even now.