Poor in Spirit

Pentecost 21 year A Sermon All Saints Mt 5

Title slide

Once upon a time there was a great corporate king… who ruled his empire with power and might…

one morning he woke up bleary eyed from a night of revelry…during which he’d done many shameful things…

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he ridiculed his best friend on earth in front of everyone …he flirted with the serving wenches…when he thought his wife’s back was turned… he cheated at cards…
and lied about his prowess as a salesman and a lover

And so in the morning when this king rose from his bed
he staggered to the mirror by the bathroom window [pause]
…he leaned his hands on the bench top…
and peered into his own blood shot eyes.

And from the depths of his misery and guilt… he prayed… ‘thank you God…
that I’m not the highest power in the universe.’

The king knew there was a mess to clean up…
his mess… apologies and amends to be made… relationships to be mended…not least with his own wife
and his best friend…
after all…he didn’t want to lose them…

Oh God the king prayed…you’re going to have to help me…I’m to blame for much pain...
and I can’t fix this in my own strength…

Slide words

And Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit
for theirs is the kingdom of God… [pause]

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And once upon a time there was a young woman…
who made a living from selling her body…

She did this to pay for the drugs which helped her escape the haunting nightmares from her childhood.
Her self-esteem was non-existent…she considered herself the lowest of the low…deserving the life she led …undeserving of love…in fact un-loveable…

One day when business was bad…hunger
drove her to an old stone chapel… to look for a hand-out.  And there she met a kindly and plump old priest…
who invited her to join him and his assistant for lunch

‘No’, the young woman protested…

‘You don’t want to be eating with the likes of me’

‘We’re not so different,’ chuckled the old priest…
as he ushered her through to the vestry…

where a lavish feast  was laid…‘We aren’t so different… for God loves both of us!’

I seriously doubt it…the young woman scoffed.

‘My girl…it’s only the sin of pride…that makes you think you’re too bad to love and too lost to forgive…
come lets pray together…
and I’ll teach you to become truly poor in spirit.

And so with the old priest’s help… the young woman became…very poor in spirit indeed…
and exchanged her pride for the love of God.

Slide words

And Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God…

How is it we can be poor in spirit and blessed at the same time?

And what is it… about the kingdom of God
that makes such blessing possible? [pause]

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Well in the past few weeks we’ve learned a lot about Jesus vocation as the anointed one of God…ushering in the Messianic Age…the age of peace with justice and wellbeing for all…the age of  God’s Shalom…
of God’s Kingdom

And what Jesus is telling us from that hillside so early in his story…
is whether we’re looking up from the gutter
or down from a penthouse…
when we look at ourselves in the mirror….we’re poor in spirit…when we perceive our true place
in the kingdom of God…

What Jesus is saying is … before we can be truly filled
with the blessing of God’s love…
we must come to understand our true poverty…

And instead of viewing our brokenness…
as a horror and a burden… Jesus suggests… we view it as a door… to walk through… into the kingdom of God.

Woman mirror

And Jesus suggests…when we get a realistic view of ourselves…when we live out of this poverty of spirit…
then we see both how fallen and how lovable we are
in God’s eyes.

And with this new sight…the unexpected happens…we find our self…blessed …
for suddenly every moment seems like a gift…a lot of nonsense is cut out of our lives…
we don’t need to defend ourselves all the time…
or sacrifice our wellbeing to keep up a false image.

Man mirror

When we accept our true place in the kingdom…suddenly we’re free from the compulsion to criticise,
judge, and condemn ourselves and others people…and free from the need to retaliate …

We find that living out of our poverty of spirit
changes our self-image and our expectations of others.
It changes the way we see the world.

woman praying

And when we’re poor in spirit we can become so open
that the love of God can flow through us into the world. 

Because we’re not blocking it off with our own pride.

So how do we find our place in the kingdom of God…where the poor in spirit are blessed? [pause]

We pray for it…

Reveal words one by one.
We pray for the blessing of serenity that comes when we accept we’re not God and there’s much in our lives over which we are powerless.

We pray for the blessing of freedom that comes from laying down our pride and admitting how broken we really are and how much damage we’ve caused.

We pray for the blessings of courage and endurance…
to work at restoration and reconciliation in our own lives and in the world…

And we pray for the blessing of forgiveness
when patching things up is simply not our power.

We pray for the blessing of wisdom to seek God’s will in all things…and the blessing of humility…
to accept our dependence on God… in all things. [pause]

All Saints slide

This past week… the church celebrates the feast of
All Saints…or all saints day.
And a special part of this observance is to remember those Jesus called blessed in
his vision for the Kingdom of God revealed in the Sermon on the Mount in the beatitudes…

And we also recall the story where Jesus tells us…

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unless you become like one of these children…
you won’t inherit the kingdom of God…

And so with God’s may we be like children…
knowing our profound dependence on God,
our limitations, our weaknesses, our vulnerability…

and how easy it is for us to fall down…hurting ourselves and others…and like children…
in our helplessness let us turn to God with gratitude and trust…and accept God’s love

and we when do…

as Jesus promised…

we will be blessed and the kingdom of God will be ours.