All Consuming

[A reflection on the readings for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, also being Septuagesima (70 days from Easter) Sunday, which may be found by following this link: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/epiphany-4a/]

Over the past few years battle lines have been drawn by those who have taken a hard look at the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the Beatitudes (the catalogue of blessings at the very beginning of the discourse), and those who dismiss them because they are inconvenient, particularly because they undermine their attempts to gain and to hold onto cultural or political or even emotional power. We know very clearly now, because those lines have been drawn in stark contrast by those currently aligned with the current government and the Kingdom of this World (please note that this is NOT the same as and indeed is opposed to the Kingdom of Heaven).

Often, we interpret the "blessed" at the beginning of each benediction as a vague, passive sort of desire for the spiritual state of each group called out. See how they are, God will love them. A more exacting reading will translate each "blessed" (μακάριος) as "honoured", as in each of these groups is honoured by God. However, we need to take this one step further. Those honoured (and loved) by God are to be served by those who love God, for by extension, they love each of these:

To be served and honoured are the poor in spirit,

To be served and honoured are those who mourn,

To be served and honoured are the meek,

To be served and honoured are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,

To be served and honoured are those who are merciful,

To be served and honoured are the pure in heart,

To be served and honoured are the peacemakers,

To be served and honoured are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

These are very heavy claims for many, for each of these groups is despised by the powerful, derided, and even hunted down, persecuted, and killed out of hand. St. Paul wrote today that we are to adhere to the message of the Cross. While many say the message of the Cross is the deliverance from our sins, as indeed it is, it is also the signpost of Our Lord's mission here on earth. Jesus did not come among us to exercise His power, but to serve each and every one who would let Him, to the point of going to His death by arguably one of the most barbaric forms of execution we have devised in our wickedness. Our Lord chose total pouring out (κένωσις) of Himself, the ultimate service, sparing nothing of Himself, so that we might be reconciled with God.

Too often in our selfishness, greed, and fear, we demonise the other. We fail ourselves to be merciful, pure (undivided) in heart, and we become enemies of peace, becoming persecutors in order to hold onto power. This has become the default setting here at home from our leadership even to beloved neighbours, a default that leaves God crying out the reproaches in the Prophet Malachi to us today as he had to Israel so long ago:

"Oh my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!"

God has given us much to do great things among others, but we have turned in greed and fear to deprive many of all God has given us. Many have come to us for asylum, for help, for stability, and instead we gave them internment camps, beating, and shameful, lonely death. Many have cried out for justice and mercy for those who have no voice to cry out for justice and mercy, and instead, we gave them tear gas, pepper spray, batons, rubber bullets, and even summary execution in the streets.

God has told us all that He needs from us is, in the words of the prophet Malachi, "...to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." Yet we have done anything but, revelling in injustice, delighting in cruelty, and strutting about in pride, from the head of this nation down to even our beloved neighbours. What judgement we accumulate for ourselves! What wrath we store up for our reckoning! As a nation, as a people, we should all be in sackcloth and ashes begging to be spared from our rightful due, all the while reversing the curse we have levied on the poor in spirit, on them that mourn, on the meek, on those who seek righteousness, on the merciful, on the pure in heart, on the peacemakers, on the persecuted. Far be it from us to claim the God of Abraham to be our God, for we have even today slain His prophets and done His children harm.

Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners. May we learn the lesson of all-consuming love before it is too late.