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Matthew 5.4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

We mourn when we experience the kinds of loss that are life-changing. It could be our job, our health, a relationship, and yes, the death of a loved one. Comfort is not emotional cotton wool; it is strength to go on. Comfort is when we are surrounded by the strength and prayers and practical help of others. And every such word and act of comfort that comes our way has God’s signature written all over it. Because God is the God of all comfort.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." (2 Cor. 1.3-4)

That word translated as ‘comfort’ is a couthy word. It means paraclete, and that refers to someone who comes alongside to help, an advocate, someone who has our back. The God of all comfort comes alongside those who mourn, the Father of compassion feels our sorrow, hurt and sense of loss when life goes wrong.

In the story of Crown Terrace Baptist Church in Aberdeen, Stewart and Helen were fine examples of Christian service and compassion. They were people who came alongside folk who were struggling. One of Helen’s sentences in her prayers for people was “may you be blessed and be for blessing.” That’s exactly what Paul is saying to the Corinthian Christians then, and his words come as benediction to us now. 

We are blessed to be for blessing. As a community each church is a conduit of grace, love and compassion, each of us called “to comfort those in any trouble, with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” When we struggle, God comes alongside. When others struggle, God sends us to come alongside them – may we be blessed, and be for blessing.

These past months have been times of loss for so many people: bereavement, unemployment, loneliness, illness, lock down isolation, loss of the company of friends, family and social interaction, freedom to shop without anxiety, and a long list of etc. etc. we could all add to.

Blessed are those who mourn…Give thanks for all those phone calls, cards, acts of kindness, supportive gestures, and even allowing for physical distancing, folk who have come alongside us when we mourn what we have lost. So may we each be blessed, and be for blessing. “for we shall be comforted.”

Matthew 5.3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Most of us want to be independent, resourceful, and resilient. We prefer to be the ones who help others, rather than need help ourselves. When Jesus says happy, to be congratulated, are all those who find it hard to make life work sometimes, it all sounds counter-intuitive. And that’s true – so much of what Jesus teaches goes against what we think is usually the case.

Interestingly, the words of Jesus in Luke are not so much about those who are “poor in spirit”, and struggling with guilt, or feeling inadequate, or anxious about problems too hard to solve, or low in spirits. Luke’s Beatitude says “Blessed are you who are poor”, and by that he means those who don’t have enough money or enough to eat. But that lack of material security also causes poverty in spirit, anxiety about tomorrow, feelings of injustice and just the struggle to keep hoping.

One way or another, we’ve all been in places and times when our own resources are not enough. We may even feel that blessing has passed us by, God’s interests are elsewhere. Jesus’ words make a promise. When we are at our lowest, God is there, in strength, in grace, and in the power of a love that understands those deep longings we all have, for life to be fruitful, and for hope to pull us forward.

“For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”, is not a promise of something better, sometime, like the postponed promises of patronising politicians! Both Matthew and Luke promise that when we are at our lowest, ours is the Kingdom of heaven. Like treasure discovered in a field, God will not leave us bankrupt. Like seed growing on good ground, fruit will grow out of our lives; like a mustard seed growing into a tree that shelters the birds, so is our faith – and so is God’s kingdom in our hearts.

Blessed are the poor in Spirit… When we reach the place where we run out of resources, ideas, and solutions, we never run out of God’s love for us, or God’s grace to help us. The kingdom of heaven is that place in our lives where we trust God to care for us no matter what. And no matter what, He does…for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

I keep coming back to the Beatitudes. This is distilled essence of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God. They are also a series of sayings that simply and uncompromisingly contradict the cultural assumptions that fuel the way we live just now. 

Ever since Christians thought seriously about the Sermon on the Mount as a charter for human life and flourishing, there have been arguments and qualifications and rhetorical moves to soften the demands, and even evade the ethical imperatives of the Kingdom of God.

The Beatitudes are so counter-intuitive, and so counter-cultural that reading them as true statements can create cognitive dissonance, an inner uneasiness that we are being asked to believe statements inherently contradictory.

It's that blessed word 'Blessed', that causes the bother! How can Jesus possibly think, and say, and claim, that all these poor in spirit, mourners,meek, hungry and thirsty folk are to be congratulated? Helped, supported, defended – all of that – but to describe them as blessed and happy? And once you work out how the world works, are we really to make habits of mercy, purity of heart, peaceable peace-making, and welcoming persecution the working assumptions of our lives? Really? Is that what Jesus demands of us? Yes. Really.

So whenever we return to these words of Jesus, and read and hear again these outrageous reversals of our usual perceptions, we are likely to be not a little unsettled. Which is good. Because sometimes we become a little too settled. These are words that stop the slippage of minds too preoccupied to seek first the Kingdom of God; they collide with any kind of complacency about what a Christian world view is for those who faithfully follow Jesus; and they set the agenda for any of us who dare to pray "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

So I often return to the Beatitudes

to get my motives, motivation and moral compass reset towards Christ as the magnetic north

to have my eyes tested to ensure I am still looking at the world through eyes attentive to movements of mercy and options for peace-making

to check that my appetite for justice and righteousness is still hungry and thirsty and pushing me towards the new reality that is God's purpose of shalom

to listen for a Voice that isn't trying to seduce me into selfishness, and its multiple goals of buying, possessing, competing, resenting, coveting and colluding

to hear Jesus say, once again, as a regular reminder, "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness" and all the other things that matter most will fall into place

to lay my mind and heart open to the deep cleaning corrective of promises that do not promise free expression of my self-interest, but the freedom to engage in a life work shaped by redemptive gestures of Kingdom grace.

No wonder Matthew tells his readers that Jesus took his disciples to a high place, up the mountainside. The Sermon on the Mount sets the rules of the Kingdom of God. The reign of God in a human life is not about coercive power; it is an invitation to risk, a calling to side with the vulnerable, a demand that we choose one of two ways, one of two foundations, one of two lifestyles.

So, yes, the Beatitudes are not airy fairy ideals for the sentimental, or the over spiritual happy makers; they are demands for a way of seeing the world, and living in the world by practices that subvert the way things are. The Beatitudes are not for the fainthearted, but for those whose hearts are already and repeatedly given over to the reign of God. 

This morning I wrote Pastoral Letter 19 since the lock down started on March 23. We didn't know then how long this would all go on, and we still have no clear pathway forward beyond easing lock down and carrying on with the public health measures known to hinder the spread of Covid 19. Over these weeks I have written weekly to our church community, and prepared a brief Thought for the Day based on one biblical text each day. As time passes they are building up into an archive of pastoral care by written words. I live 40 miles from Montrose, so till the last week or two travel was impossible, and even now physical distancing and restricted meeting frustrate the desire for presence when face recognises face and heart speaks to heart. 

I haven't reread any of them, but I suspect some recurring themes will be becoming evident to those who read them week by week. The theme or text on which I write is not pre-planned but arises out of the overall context we find ourselves living through. The mood of the country, the daily updates on statistics and public health measures, my own sense of what is happening, conversations with various folk I try to help and support, all influence the way I think, pray and write. In other words, theological reflection takes place in the here and now of a zeitgeist exuding anxiety about health, uncertainty about work and economic damage, impatience to return to normal which feels like a form of denial of the reality that it may never again be the way it was.

So, where now? How to live faithfully and purposefully in a world evolving into something different but unclear? At the level of local church communities the questions are just as troubling and the answers just as difficult to find. Every week I've struggled to find words and ideas that might help our church community to hold on to hope, to think new thoughts, to see our times against the backdrop of God's long purposes, to acknowledge the reality of suffering and not give facile faith lifts.

In doing all that I've learned to do something that has become part of the way I am a pastor mostly en absentia, physically distant but wanting to be near. I pray through the list of all those who are part of our church, formal members and committed friends, those who are always there and those who are seldom there. A number of folk I've supported by phone, email, text and letters / cards. I've always done these things, but now they are the primary expressions of a calling that has previously relied so much on presence, spoken words, and the sacrament of physicality that is the human body being present as grace to other people.

So as I have come to write each week, I have a growing sense of those who will read, think about, and respond to all those words. Some will be for blessing, some will touch places where pain resides, some will annoy though that is never the intention, and some will inform, encourage, or empower – this I hope, and pray. It isn't the same; indeed it's nothing like the same as embodied, incarnational presence which is both sacramental and mutual in the meeting of hearts and minds and the nearness of the other. 

Today's letter was written around words written 2,400 years ago, give or take a century or two. The Book of Proverbs is a reader's Digest of one liners for smart living, or wisdom as the book calls it. In chapter 3 there are words that will become axiomatic in how faith communities go about their decision making processes.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3.5-6)

What I wrote about that verse, I'll post on Monday once it has gone out to our folk. For now suffice to say it has sharp relevance to any of us who ask of God, where now? Meantime, I also came across a prayer written by one of the thinkers I follow closely in his books and online. A man of spiritual wisdom, humility and realism about how the world actually works, and who commits this day as each day to God. This is our prayer for the week in our wee church, in Montrose, week beginning August 3rd, in the 19th week since lock down, and in the confusion and uncertainty of the times, seeking for right paths. 

Eternal God, I have many plans for today.

But I do not know what the day will bring, despite my plans.

And more – I am a mist. I appear for a while – and then vanish.

My life here is but a moment, but you are eternal.

May I embark upon this day, intentional about what I think you want me to do,

and yet humble about the limits of my plans, my knowledge, my control.

Into your hands I commit my day. AMEN   

(David Gushee, Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Centre for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University.)

I wrote this prayer some years ago now. It was for closing worship after a Church day conference where I had been invited to help the group explore ways of dealing with conflict, disagreement, relational tensions and all the other words we use to describe what happens when people are finding it hard to get on with each other!

Reading it again, it all feels a bit idealistic, and raises the inevitable question, "But How?" But then the fruit of the Spirit isn't about us being perfect, but about God's work in us conforming us to the image of Christ, bringing us to maturity, or to put it in our own casual terms, the fruit of the Spirit become signs that we are growing up!

Anyway, I'm posting it here for those who might find it helpful…..  

Praying the Fruit of the Spirit When Dealing with Difficult People

Lord Jesus Christ, by your grace

help us to love others as you have loved us.

where there is the sadness of hurt, help us to bring the joy of laughter.

when we are provoked, may your peace stand guard over our hearts and minds.

when others speak hard words that hurt us, give us patience so that we don’t make things worse by speaking as we have been spoken to.

help us to find ways of showing kindness to those we find it hard to love.

may our thoughts and actions spring from goodness and not from defensive self-interest.

your love never gives up on us, no matter how often we hurt you; make our love for others as faithful as your love for us.

Lord Jesus, you are gentle and lowly in heart; give us that same gentleness and strength of character when we have to deal with difficult people.

by the power of your Spirit, give us self-control, in our words, in our thoughts and in the passions of our heart.

May the fruit of the Holy Spirit blossom, set and ripen in our lives, through your grace and by the obedience of our faith,  Amen.

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care for other people." (Dr Anthony Fauci) One of the world's leading experts on public health, immunology and clinical responses to viral outbreaks, demonstrates one of the key qualities of critical and strategic thinking; intellectual humility. He knows there are things he doesn't know, and acknowledges there are some things he cannot do.

Dr Fauci isn't alone in being lost for words when it comes to explaining that selfishness is against a person's self-interest. Even harder to explain, that care for other people is essential for a community to survive and flourish, and therefore there are times when personal freedoms and rights are limited by the common good. Which brings us to physical distancing and wearing face coverings. 

It isn't that Dr Fauci is not persuasive, convincing, eloquent or endowed with authority. It's just that none of these matter to the person who makes their own self-interest their categorical imperative. But in the context of a pandemic, and the spread of a virus that is highly infectious, which exacts a high mortality rate, and is novel and therefore not yet fully understood, one of the major strategies in limiting spread and therefore threat to life, is human co-operation, caring for and about each other by the exercise of coordinated disciplines of physical distancing, wearing face coverings, hand hygiene

These are known strategies that suppress the spread of the virus. However, if significant numbers ignore such precautionary strategies then the virus spreads, people become ill, and significant numbers will die. Caring for other people has become a public health strategy. But that can only work well when there is near unanimous participation in the protective measures. 

Reflecting on the poignant honesty of Dr Fauci's words, as a Christian theologian, minister and public citizen, it becomes clear to me that something is deeply wrong when significant numbers of the community for reasons of their own, choose to ignore medical evidence, scientific consensus, and their own responsibilities to protect public health. In other words choose not to care for others.

Of course many such folk will have their reasons. Fair enough. I suppose those who passed on the other side of the man who fell amongst thieves on the Jericho road, they too had their reasons. Leave it to the Samaritan to demonstrate why it is important to care for other people. Amongst the nudge, nudge clues Jesus embedded in that parable is the Samaritan "seeing the man", a word always freighted with meanings – paying attention to, being considerate of, having compassion for. And if that sounds like too much freight, just listen to the further nudges towards loving our neighbour properly. Just read slowly the underlined phrases, each of them an act or attitude of caring for the other: 

"…and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. “Look after him,” he said, “and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.”

I have every sympathy with Dr Fauci. But of this I am very sure. When someone asks Jesus "Who is my neighbour?", it isn't out of altruism and a concern for other people. And when people ignore physical distancing, hand hygiene, and refuse or resent wearing a mask, it isn't out of care for other people either. I share the genuine perplexity of Dr Fauci when he says"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care for other people."

But I read that story Jesus told – told mind you! We read it – the first audience heard it, and some of them hated it! Jesus left no wriggle room. Love your neighbour as yourself. It isn't advice; nor is it a polite suggestion; not merely an attractive option you may choose to consider. It's the law of God. It does not come as invitation but as imperative; and it is not hypothetical it is categorical. 

There is something profoundly amiss with the moral core of a society when an eminent Doctor comes up against individuals in whom invincible ignorance is rooted in self-interest, which in turn thrives in a culture where 'ought' has been dissolved into self-assertion, and in which the common good is an irrelevance, even an obstruction to the claimed rights of the individual.

So yes. No wonder Dr Fauci is at his wits end trying to explain moral obligation to people for whom social responsibility, public accountability, moral obligation and the common good have little or no ethical purchase.

But that can never, ever, be the case for those claiming to be Christians and followers of Jesus. Hear it clearly. "Which of these proved to be neighbour to the man?" And hear the reply, "The one who had mercy on the man." Exactly. The one who went to considerable cost, risk and inconvenience for the sake of someone else. Call in question the science; insist on your rights as a citizen; resent the encroachment on your freedom; refuse to wear a face covering during a pandemic. But don't then claim to follow the teaching of Jesus, because he is on the side of your neighbour.

The story of the Good Samaritan long ago entered universal currency as a barcode of authentic discipleship. All of our self-serving arguments demolished by a parable establishing once and for all the categorical imperative, to love the neighbour, to show mercy, to go and do likewise.     

John Bunyan went to prison repeatedly over a period of twelve years, for refusing to stop preaching. As an unlicensed and non-conforming preacher he was a serial offender, described in Court as a "pestilent fellow." On his charge sheet he is described as one who "devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to hear divine service" and that he is "a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom".

During his second imprisonment he started to write Pilgrim's Progress, and in one of the later sections appeared a poem which became the hymn, "Who Would True Valour See."

It is a hymn about stubbornness on points of biblical principle, faithfulness to spiritual conviction, refusal to be threatened into compliance or silence, and resilience through the hard times and painful consequences of fulfilling 'avowed intent'.

I remember sitting beside Gordon Wakefield, one of Bunyan's biographers, during a conference on Evangelical spirituality. Gordon was a fine scholar of Puritan spirituality and Methodist theology. We talked about this hymn, and those weird words 'hobgoblins or foul fiends.' Interestingly both of us understood those 17th Century scary words as a mixture of spiritual warfare terminology and code words for a Puritan pathology of mental ill health by people who understood depression, acute anxiety, guilt and inner emotional climates, with far more insight and honesty than our more sophisticated and often reductionist 21st Century terminology.

Bunyan wrote these words having been harried and threatened with everything from endlessly recurring cycles of imprisonment, to banishment from the Kingdom, and even hanging. He was not immune to fear, over-anxious sleeplessness, depression and despair of ever hoping again. Any careful reading of Bunyan's writings reveals a man for whom spiritual experience, emotional climate, physical health, psychological states and changing moods, are to be understood as the inevitable struggles of everyone trying to live an obedient Christian life, 'come wind or weather.' 

I mention all this because this hymn was used at the Thanksgiving Service for our special friend yesterday. We were unable to sing it due to public health restrictions, so I was asked to read it. Three and a half centuries on, Bunyan's words retain their realism and hopefulness for those who have tried throughout their lives 'to be a pilgrim', following after Jesus. Courage is not the absence of anxiety, but the enduring of it; and anxiety is not a negation of faith, it is the context within which we eventually discover God's hold is stronger than our own.

This hymn is defiant, confrontational, truculent even, in the face of contrary wind and weather. Bunyan is describing for us a dynamic of resistance to all that gets us down. But this is not mindless triumphalism, or a denial of real experiences of doubt, days of despair, periods of acute or chronic low-grade anxiety and the ache of longing for the return of hope. Presupposed in this hymn is the invasive and pervasive presence of the God of grace, and the reality of a divine love displayed in all its redeeming power on the cross, and demonstrated as God's new creation in the ultimate display of triumph, the resurrection of Christ.

It is the accompanying presence of the crucified and risen One who inspires in Christian hearts the avowed intent to be a pilgrim, and to follow faithfully after Jesus. We knew our friend a long time, and we knew her well. These old words by Bunyan describe so well the varied inner landscapes and changing climates of each human journey – the oscillations of doubt and trust, the ebb and flow of anxiety and courage, and fluctuating moods of sadness and gladness. And for those of us privileged to be fellow pilgrims in her life, they describe well that underlying determination, 'to be a pilgrim'.

On yesterday's hymn sheet we made the words gender specific, a tribute to a woman who 'was constant, come wind or weather.'       

Who would true valour see,
Let her come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather;
There’s no discouragement
Shall make her once relent
Her first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim.

Whoso beset her round
With dismal stories
Do but themselves confound;
Her strength the more is,
No lion can her fright;
She’ll with a giant fight;
But she will have a right
To be a pilgrim.

Hobgoblin nor foul fiend
Can daunt her spirit;
She knows she at the end
Shall life inherit,
Then fancies fly away,
She’ll fear not what men say;
She’ll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.

Today I'll be conducting the Thanksgiving Service for a special friend. We met forty years ago and I was her minister for some years, and have been informal minister ever since.

It's always difficult to reduce the rich complexity and complex beauty of a life to words, however well chosen. My friend was neither forward nor outspoken about her faith. Her ways were gentle, patient, generous, practical and in all her dealings with others, compassion and understanding were default responses.

She kept two well worn and often read books by her bedside, one of which was The Prayers of Peter Marshall, the C of S Minister from Coatbridge, who went to the US and became chaplain to the senate.

One of his prayers echoes her favourite hymn which we won't be able to sing, but which will be played at the service. Here is the prayer, followed by the hymn. There is much to be said for a spirituality that refuses to make faith a means of self-assertion, and instead enables the person to listen, understand, come alongside, and share the journey as companion. When it comes to quietly spoken, and sometimes unspoken support of other people, my friend was a gifted natural.

“In the name of Jesus Christ, who was never in a hurry, we pray, O God, that thou wilt slow us down, for we know that we live too fast. With all of eternity before us, make us take time to live, time to get acquainted with thee, time to enjoy thy blessings, and time to know each other. Amen”

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
As noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.

John 15.5   “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in them, they will bear much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”

The older translation was “Abide in me.” Like when we ask, “Where do you bide?” That lovely Scots word is about being at home, the familiar place where we do our living, where we belong. That’s what Jesus means. We are at home in Jesus, belong with him, like a branch that’s part of the vine tree, nourished, fruitful, exactly where we should be.

So much has changed, rapidly, radically and frighteningly, in these past four months. It is part of our humanity that we are social beings, but we are forcibly separated from others for our own and their safety. What we have come to rely on and assume as our way of life has been suddnely and disturbingly upended. Routines and relationships, careers and family, holidays and parties, conversations and crowded gatherings, all disrupted.

So what remains? We have had to learn with shocking speed, nothing stays the same when a pandemic strikes. Our way of life has changed, and will have to change going into the future. Change in itself is a good thing, a sign of growth and development, new ideas and ways of doing things. But managed and planned change is one thing; rapid and enforced change is something else, and comes at a cost.

Jesus knew that the disciples were facing the catastrophe of losing him. The crucifixion and death of Jesus would come as a shock from which the disciples might not recover. So he made a promise. He would come to them. He made another promise, the Spirit of counsel and comfort would come and be with them. Then he made a third promise, “Whoever remains in me and I in them, they will bear much fruit.”

And there it is. The still point in a whirling world. “Abide in me and I in you.” Whatever else changes the love of God in Christ remains, as a constant in a changing world. Whatever else passes and becomes history, the contemporary Christ stays with us, and within us. We are at home in Christ, and he makes His home in us; we live, yet not us, but “Christ lives in us and the life we now live we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for our sins.”

Reflection: John Wesley asked God, “Lord let me not live to be useless.” Whatever these next weeks and months hold, Christ dares us to be open to the presence of the living Lord, and invites us to abide in him and him in us. Our usefulness, and fruitfulness in the service of Christ requires that stable relationship of trusting love. Even if everything else around us is perplexing and uncertain, we are in the right place, near to the heart of God, whose love abides, and in whose love we abide.