Blessed Are

If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands. If you’re happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.

So how do you know you are happy? Is happiness something we achieve or earn? Something we choose? Something we learn?

We probably each have our own unique vision or idea of what happiness is. When I gathered with clergy and laity this weekend from all over MS to plan worship for Annual Conference, we all had to go around the room and hold this pillow that said “Feed Your Soul” on the front in bold bright letters and each share what fed our souls. In other words, what makes us happy?

People talked about blessings of family and friendships, of laughter and of hobbies. They talked about travel and pets. Oddly enough, no one ever said they felt blessed when they were in hardship, or in grief, or hungry, or weak, or the ones who just want everyone to get along.

When it comes to the key to happiness and success, the Beatitudes don’t get nominated. And yet, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus climbs a mountain and then he blesses the people. Not with the blessings of land or inheritance or prestige or rule. Jesus blesses them in their meekness, their poverty of spirit, their contentment, and their peace.

Now if you look at the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke, you will notice some distinct differences. Luke has blessings with accompanying woes. Luke seems to describe the kingdom of God breaking through. Matthew seems to prescribe how we should live in light of that kingdom.

Either way, the key ingredients to a blessed life look much different than the crowds surrounding Jesus would have expected. Surely their keys to happiness didn’t include suffering and meekness. Everything was upside down.

Barbara Brown Taylor likens it to when you stand on your head and see the world in reverse. In the readaptation of Mary Poppins, Meryl Streep’s character sings a song called “turning turtle” when everything gets turned upside down. Suddenly the ceiling is the floor and what was on the bottom is now on top.

When Jesus began to preach the Beatitudes, it was topsy turvy. Jesus blessed those at the end of their rope, those who have lost what is dear to them, those who are content, those who are desperate for God, those who care for others more than themselves, for those with great big, beautiful hearts, for those who are always seeking to walk in the way of peace, and for those who are persecuted anyway.

But I know that when we fit into one or two of these categories we don’t feel blessed. We don’t feel happy. We don’t feel rich or fortunate as this word is sometimes also translated.

So what kind of happy is this?

The Greek word for blessed here is makarios. The first part of the word is “mak” which means macro or to make large. Dean Nadasdy says that when Jesus spoke his blessing he was literally extending or making large his grace to others.

Jesus doesn’t bless those who have it together, those who have the answers, or those who have more than enough. He blesses the losers, the down and out, the forgotten, and the oppressed. He blesses the actual lives of those around him, right where they are. Kate Bowler calls this blessing the lives we actually have. Somehow Jesus was saying that these people, the ones nobody ever paid attention to, the bottom of the barrel- they are the ones who are actually blessed, who can teach the more educated folks a thing or too about God’s grace.

Author John Pattison was reflecting on this passage and started to think of Apple’s original Think Different campaign. He began to wonder what it would look like if Steve Jobs had translated the beatitudes. This is what he came up with:

Here’s to the weak ones. The outcasts. The broken. The peacemakers. The ragamuffin royalty who will inherit a new world.

The ones who see God through open eyes and open hearts.

They don’t long for power. And they have no respect for status.

You can insult them, spread lies about them, disbelieve, vilify or persecute them. About the only thing you can’t do is dishearten them.

Because God is changing them, they change things.

They comfort. They show mercy. They heal. They mourn with those who mourn. They love.

They are filled to overflowing with goodness.

And while some may see them as the weak ones, I say they are blessed.

Because the people who give up everything to follow me in this life, will get it all back and more in the next.

Jesus took those who everyone else deemed unworthy and claimed them with a blessing. His upside down words became words of life, words of happiness, words of extending grace.

Nadia Bolz-Weber says it’s almost as if Jesus was saying “you may hate your bodies, but I am blessing all human flesh. You may admire strength and might, but I am blessing all human weakness. You may seek power, but I am blessing all human vulnerability. ***You may think you are worth nothing but I am going to bless you.*** This Jesus whom we follow cried at the tomb of his friend, and turned the other cheek and forgave those who hung him on a cross. He was God’s Beatitude- God’s blessing to the weak in a world that only admires the strong.”

This weekend as I mentioned, the Annual Conference worship planning team began to pray and plan for worship. Knowing that it will be a difficult conference emotionally, one of the things that kept surfacing was how can we continue to bless one another? How can we be those who embody and extend God’s grace?

And I wonder, where are those places that we might need to extend grace? Who are those people we need to extend grace to? What situations do we need to stand in and allow the grace of God to pour in the space between? How can we continue the work of God’s Beatitude, of extending and widening the grace of God? Oh friends, if you are happy and you know it.

If you’re and you know it. If grace has been extended to you and you know it. If somehow your very life in this moment is a miracle and you know it. If your world has turned upside down and you know it. If the grace of God keeps getting larger than anything that tries to knock you down. Even when you are slap worn out. Even when you have more sick days than good days. Even when you are tired of the fight and want to throw in the towel. Even when you feel alone. Even when you miss your person. Even when you are just trying to make ends meet.

Even here.

Especially here.

May you be blessed dear ones and know it. May your whole souls surely show it. Blessed Are You.