Lenten Devotional – MON, Mar 22: Persecuted
Commentators connect this week’s blessings with the earlier Beatitude passage about peacemakers. All the blessings are integrated. One scholar writes, ‘Here again there is a profound significance in the order. The work of the peacemakers is not a light and easy work.’ When believing in, and working for, a righteous or just cause, a person may suffer ridicule or harm.
What does persecution mean? Why would we ever put ourselves in a position to experience it?
Perhaps the threat or damage is verbal or physical, psychological or emotional, personal or social. It can come in the form of insults and lies, gossip and judgment. It may mean torture or bullying.
The reason for which one experiences the persecution is integral to the blessing. The reason — the cause that speaks to our values — is the only reason we’d risk anything that could be called persecution.
The people who are persecuted have found something for which they’re willing to take risks. They are folk choose uncommon, even revolutionary paths, in the sense of going against public opinion. They’re committed.
They’re the family, friends, neighbors and strangers we’ve met in earlier Beatitudes. The pure-hearted, who are single-minded and whole-hearted. The meek, who are kind but strong when they choose to hold their ground.
This state of being includes those who are passionate about their faith, and what it calls them to do for other people we also see in the Beatitudes: the hungry, the poor, the sorrowing, the powerless, the marginalized, the vulnerable, the hurt, the broken. Do you recognize yourself in this description, as one who will stand up for others, because of your faith-based values? — Rev Gail
MEDITATIONS:
Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. ― Voltaire
They can take our homes, our possessions. Our families. Our lives. They can drive us out, like they’ve driven us out before. They can humiliate us and dehumanize us. But they cannot take our thoughts. They cannot take our talents. They cannot take our knowledge, or our memories, or our minds. ― Amy Harmon
Challenge or Question: What causes require that you put yourself at risk, either exposed to public opinion or in some other form? Have you ever felt persecuted? Or perhaps, upon reflection, have you ever participated in the persecution of another person?
March 21 Worship
Full Service
Message: What We Believe In
Lenten Devotional – Sun, Mar 21: Blessed
This week’s texts:
Matthew 5:10-12 (NRSV)
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely[b] on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 5:10-12 (The Message)
10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
11-12 “Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.
BLESSINGS:
Today we explore how people adapt the idea of the Beatitudes in contemporary language and contexts. This example can start your thoughts about what blessings you see in the ‘upside down’ Kingdom of God. They are written by Rev Nadia Bolz-Weber:
Blessed are the agnostics. Blessed are they who doubt. Those who aren’t sure, who can still be surprised.
Blessed are they who are spiritually impoverished and therefore not so certain about everything that they no longer take in new information.
Blessed are those who have nothing to offer. Blessed are they for whom nothing seems to be working.
Blessed are the pre-schoolers who cut in line at communion.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are they for whom death is not an abstraction. |Blessed are they who have buried their loved ones, for whom tears are as real as an ocean.
Blessed are they who have loved enough to know what loss feels like.
Blessed are the mothers of the miscarried.
Blessed are they who don’t have the luxury of taking things for granted any more.
Blessed are they who can’t fall apart because they have to keep it together for everyone else.
Blessed are the motherless, the alone, the ones from whom so much has been taken.
Blessed are those who “still aren’t over it yet.”
Blessed are they who laughed again when for so long they thought they never would. Blessed are those who mourn.
You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.
What blessings would you add to the Beatitudes? Who has surprised you, in your lifetime, as a child of God? — Rev Gail
MEDITATIONS:
I imagine Jesus standing here blessing us all because I believe that’s his nature. Because, after all, it was Jesus who had all the powers of the universe at his disposal but did not consider his equality with God something to be exploited. Instead, he came to us in the most vulnerable of ways, as … flesh-and-blood … As if to say, “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.” 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. Because he was God’s Beatitude—God’s blessing to the weak in a world that admires only the strong. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
Challenge or Question: Identify a blessing within your life. One aspect of your life for which you are grateful. Give thanks for it. Say a prayer, write it in a journal, or light a candle to acknowledge this blessing.
Lenten Devotional – FRI, Mar 19: PEACEMAKER
Notice that in this blessing, those who receive it are those working toward peace. Even this state of being, whether internal or societal, has not yet been accomplished. The gift is offered to those who seek its achievement, if not in their own lifetimes, then in generations to come. They help build it up.
Perhaps we can best refer to the adage attributed to Lao Tsu when we consider the scope of how we strive for peace in our lives:
If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.
All of us, at one time or another, need peace in our hearts, our homes and relationships, or within our communities. And most of us, at one time or another, have contributed to the possibility of knowing such peace, even for a period of time.
We are all, at some time and in some places, the peacemakers. — Rev GaiI
MEDITATIONS:
When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed. — Fred Rogers
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. — Black Elk
Challenge or Question: What gives you peace?
Lenten Devotional – WED, Mar 17: SEE
As mentioned in the past few days, at the center of this blessing is the promise of perception and presence. Those who are pure in heart will see the face of God. By clearing away everything that would distract us, by becoming single-minded and whole-hearted, we grow more attentive and attuned.
Many commentators suggest that being pure of heart will help God’s followers experience God’s revelation all around them. As The Message paraphrases the Beatitudes, ‘You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.’
Cynthia Bourgeault writes, ‘The heart in the ancient sacred traditions has a very specific and perhaps surprising meaning … an organ for the perception of divine purpose and beauty … our antenna … to orient us toward the divine radiance and to synchronize our being with its more subtle movements … for divine perception.’
She continues, ‘the physical world we take for our … time-and-space-bound reality is encompassed in another: a coherent and powerful world of divine purpose always surrounding and interpenetrating it. This other, more subtle world is invisible to the senses, and to the mind it appears to be pure speculation. But if the heart is awake and clear, it can directly receive, radiate, and reflect this unmanifest divine Reality.’
Some scholars expect to see God with their senses. To come into the presence of Godself. Yet according to tradition, Godself is veiled from us. We cannot fully behold God. Recall scriptures such as ‘looking in a mirror darkly’ at the reflection of God, with imperfect sight and perception, versus ‘seeing God face to face’. Only Moses, in Hebrew scriptures, could bear to look upon the unveiled face of God. The radiance of his experience made his own face become so bright that people couldn’t look directly on Moses when he came down the mountain.
While some commentators believe this blessing promises the chance to actually see God in person or to come into the presence of Godself. Others consider it a promise of spiritual companionship. Whitley Strieber suggests that the promise of the Beatitude is companionship with Godself.
One way or another, when we focus and grow mindful, we become more aware of God’s loving presence that has drawn close to us. We cannot come closer to God, except by opening ourselves and saying yes. If we simply consent, God will close the remaining distance between us., which may simply mean lifting the veils and barriers that have hidden Godself, even when God has been with us all along. We simply couldn’t see with the eyes of heart, until now. — Rev Gail
MEDITATIONS:
To love another person is to see the face of God. ― Victor Hugo
And when she wanted to see the face of God, she didn’t look up and away; she looked into the eyes of the person sitting next to her. Which is harder. Better — Glennon Doyle Melton from Carry On, Warrior about Mother Theresa
When the distorting instrument of the mind is made clear, we see life not as a collection of fragments, but as a seamless whole. We see the divine spark at the center of our very being; and we see simultaneously that in the heart of every other human being—in every country, in every race—though hidden perhaps by clouds of ignorance and conditioning, that same spark is present, one and the same in all. — Eknath Easwaran
The symbol of my prayer this day is the open heart. It is most natural for me to think of prayer in terms of the open hand. My needs are so great and often so desperate that there seems to be naught besides my own urgency. I must open my heart to God. This will include my own deep urgencies and all the warp and woof of my desiring. These things, deep within, I must trust with the full awareness that more important even than self-realization is the true glorifying of God. Somehow I must make God central to me and in me, over and above the use to which I wish or need to put His energy and His power. — Howard Thurman (prayer)
Challenge or Question: Where do you experience God’s self-revelation in the world?