Epiphany 6                              Luke 6:17-26                                   2/15/04

                                    Yours Is The Kingdom Of God

I love that song we sang as an anthem this morning (Blessed Are You by M. Haas). This is the blessing the kingdom brings to us. The kingdom of God is not a place like an earthly kingdom, God’s kingdom is God’s reign in our hearts and lives, and it comes into being whenever we submit to His will for us.

God’s rule is gentle and good. God doesn’t demand what we cannot give or do. He challenges us to grow to our full potential - to be all that we can be - but He doesn’t force us to conform to His plan for us. He leaves us free to reject His will and His plan. Even within the development of that plan He gives us freedom to live it out in any number of ways. Furthermore, He doesn’t berate or reject us when we fail. Instead, God loves, forgives and encourages us. This is what being blessed is all about. And we can be blessed even while poor, hungry, sad or rejected by others. Being blessed is having God present with us all the time. This was the original blessing, but people didn’t understand it. They came to believe that blessing had to do with what a person possessed. This misunderstanding of being blessed by God continued into Jesus time. Jesus came to show that we humans have gotten it backward. He came to restore blessing to its rightful place and to show that some of the most unlikely people are blessed.

I’m not a fan of so-called reality TV. But, if you turn on your TV at all you can’t avoid commercials for these shows. One of the most popular reality shows is "The Apprentice". As I understand the concept, a group of young hot shots are vying for thee position of apprentice to Donald Trump. Each of them would do anything to win the job and each week the individuals knock themselves out trying to impress "The Donald". Above all, they try to avoid hearing him say, "You’re fired!" I can’t imagine wanting to be rich so badly that I’d submit to Donald Trump’s rule over my life.

As bad as being under the rule of Donald would be, I (and perhaps some of you) all too often submit to an even harsher ruler. I can be the most tyrannical and cruel ruler I know. I can criticize and beat on, as well as make demands of myself that I would dream of making on anyone else. As ruler of my private kingdom, I’m rarely satisfied with myself and often reject even that which others find worthy of praise. And there is no blessing to offset the rough treatment I can give myself.

God, on the other hand, is a ruler who offers only blessing to those in His kingdom. He does not remove poverty, hunger, death or persecution by force of His will (He does leave it for us to work on as His agents though) because that would violate human free will. But, the poor, those who mourn, the hungry and the persecuted are blessed. They are blessed because they can experience God present in all the circumstances of their lives. And lest that blessing seem empty, those who suffer know that Jesus has experienced all that humans experience and that gives strength and hope.

This is how God planned life for His beloved human creatures from the begin. God created humans in order to have someone to bless - to walk with them in the cool of the evening and pronounce everything as good, to love them and be loved by them (this is why free will is necessary), to project His image onto them and through them to others.

But, humans brought (and bring) the woes on themselves. Because of our determination to be our own gods and rule our own kingdoms, we push God away. We may think that we are self-sufficient. We may buy into the unscriptural motto: "God helps those who help themselves," and thus put a quasi-religious veneer on our egotism. We may rely on our riches, our power, our beauty, our charm, our strength of will, our ability to intimidate or on some other "god-trait" in us. But, whatever we do that pronounces our ability to take care of ourselves without much acknowledged need for God, pronounces woe upon us. We become the rich, the full, the laughers, the praised whom Jesus condemns when we allow that to happen in us.

Now, I imagine that very few Christian people choose to be this way. It just sort of sneaks up on us. We start out life praying for God’s help and presence with us in our activities. We look upon the good things that happen to us with awe an gratitude, acknowledging God’s hand in events. We respond with humility to compliments, perhaps even saying that our ability is a gift from God.

Unfortunately, as time goes by we get busier and busier. At first we may acknowledge God’s presence in and with us in a general way, and then not at all. Little by little our ever ambitious egos may take over and claim all the credit, even seeing material blessings as something we earned or have a right to. Thus, God is forced out.

By the grace of God, this doesn’t have to be our permanent condition. Our God who is ever-more desirous of pronouncing blessing than woe is always ready to be a part of our lives. All we need do is become aware again of His work in our lives.

For that matter, we are not condemned to repeatedly entering that state where woe is pronounced. By employing some spiritual discipline God gives us, we can stay among the blessed who acknowledge their place in God’s kingdom and His rule in their lives.

Those disciplines include: Bible study, meditation, holy conversation, life review and prayer. Primary among those disciplines is a regular (daily)review of our lives. We ask at the end of the day questions that help us see God’s blessings that day: Where did I see God in the experiences I had? Where did I see God in people I encountered? In what ways did God use me to further His kingdom or to pronounce a blessing on someone else? How might I be more open to the blessing of God’s rule in my heart tomorrow?

If we ask these questions and follow through on the answers God gives, we will surely enjoy peace, comfort and love when we hear, "Blessed are you,... yours is the kingdom of God." Amen.