+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Here’s a bit of liturgical trivia. The number of Sundays which fall between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday (as well as the number of Sundays which fall between Pentecost and Advent 1 is variable), since the date of Easter is itself variable (it’s always the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox for complicated reasons). That being the case, and because we have been on a three-year lectionary since the 1979 BCP replaced the one-year pattern of previous prayerbooks, there are some lessons we just don’t get to hear very often, because they occur in late Epiphanytide or early in the season after Pentecost on Sundays that frequently don’t get observed. Anyway, this week provides us one of those rarely heard sets of lessons since Ash Wednesday fall pretty late this year.

It’s a shame we don’t hear it more often, because the message our Lord delivers in today’s Gospel–in his continuation of the Sermon on the Plain, whose beginning we heard last week–is one each of us needs to hear over and over again.

So what is the message we don’t hear enough because of this peculiarity in our calendar? “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Maybe I’m the only one here with this problem; it’s entirely possible I am the greatest sinner in this regard in a room full of honest-to-God “capital S” Saints, but somehow I doubt I’m the only one with this difficulty. Of all the moral demands of the Gospel, I find this to be the most difficult, personally.

But let’s take a step back. Who is this enemy we’re supposed to love? I suspect that most of us most of the time don’t have people of ill will who are actively attempting to do us harm. Now, sometimes we do. I think the way we interact with each other on social media as well as the polarization of our national politics has made this worse in recent years. This happens in all sorts of arenas–in families, in politics, even in churches–and if your perceived enemy is a straight-up combatant wishing you harm and possessing some capacity to actually inflict it, the task of loving them is certainly more difficult, and perhaps more important for the well-being of your own soul, if for no other reason than having such an enemy can lead to resentment, which in my experience manifests as a kind of obsession in which said enemy’s existence in your mind is so consuming that it can be like a bit of acerbic poison which makes everything in one’s heart bitter.

But, like I said, most of us don’t always have such adversaries hounding us all the time. More commonly, it is somebody we just don’t particularly like, somebody whose personality irks us or whose approach to us is condescending or with whom we have some difference of opinion in politics or religion with which we so vehemently disagree that they irritate us more than we should let them. We all have personal buttons which some are expert in finding and pushing, intentionally or unintentionally.

I’ll tell you what mine is. I have trouble with people who are either bossy or whom I perceive as being “know-it-alls.” You know why? Well, it’s because when I’m not keeping myself in check and striving through prayer to have the Lord help me in restraining myself, I can be a bossy, know-it-all. Some of my colleagues, I think, put too much faith into Carl Jung’s analytic theories, but one thing I think Jung got right was in his identification of the shadow side, and the recognition that what most irritates us about others is likely what we most dislike about ourselves. This is a liberating idea, because it helps us identify something we can, with God’s help, affect (namely, our own reactions), rather than something we usually cannot (namely others’ actions and perceptions of us).

So, what do we do about this, whether we have a full-on adversary gunning for us or just somebody who bugs the fire out of us? Well, Jesus tells us in this morning’s Gospel, right? Love them and do good for them. But how? Perhaps the second most practical bit of advice I’ve ever received along these lines outside scripture (and I’ll mention number one in a minute), is the following from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity:

Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.

Here’s one of my homiletical hobbyhorses again. Remember: Christian love isn’t about warm fuzzy feelings. You might eventually get there, but that’s not the goal. Love is a set of intentions and actions centered on placing the good of another above one’s own good. So behave lovingly to your enemy, and presently you will come to love him.

But what if you’re not in a position to do anything practically loving for this enemy of yours? Again, Jesus gives us the answer in this morning’s Gospel. Bless them and pray for them. When I am counseling somebody about a resentment he or she has, I will generally tell that person to pray not that their enemy change their heart or reap the fruits of God’s judgment, but to simply pray for them without any agenda. I advise this, because I need to hear it myself. It’s not an easy thing to do. I try to do it every day in my private prayers. Sometimes I succeed; sometimes I find myself reverting back to praying for God to change somebody else or (worse) to heap judgment on my enemies, and then I realize I have a lot more work to do in order to pray aright. But I keep at it, and my prayer is that you will keep at it, too.

Christ tells us today to give, to forgive, to withhold judgment, and above all, to love and to pray, with no expectation whatsoever that there will be any reciprocation. You see, the economy of the Kingdom of God is not transactional. The only transaction that ever mattered was the full payment of our sin debt on the cross, the account is closed, and we are called to live as those who, in everything that really matters, are neither debtors nor creditors. So we are called to approach our enemies with Grace and Grace alone. Just as righteousness has been imputed to us, we treat as lovely those who have been ugly to us, because, just like us, they have been made lovely by the beloved Son of God.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I like to think I am a relatively sophisticated thinker when it comes to theological matters. This, I hope, is generally to the good, but it comes with a bit of peril. Sometimes the “theologically sophisticated” can live in a sort of echo chamber and, because of the sin of pride, can look down on popular or putatively “un-sophisticated” spirituality. All of that is to say that I’m turning over a new leaf, and I’m going to stop making snide little jokes among friends about the habit of some to append “#blessed” to everything they put on Twitter. Yes, it’s perhaps overused–and the release of “Hashtag Blessed: The Movie” a couple months ago didn’t help–but it’s harmless and it’s usually totally genuine and sweet. If only I could recognize that I am blessed at every moment and in every experience in life, I’m sure I’d be a better, happier person.

On the other hand, there is one popular turn of phrase which I cannot come to terms with, not because it’s a little trite, but because it strikes me as potentially genuinely harmful. I’ve seen it pop on social media and inspirational posters and I could swear I’ve seen it in needlepoint, but maybe that’s some kind of hallucination. It is the phrase “too blessed to be depressed.” However well-meaning, this strikes me as a rather cruel sentiment when one interrogates it. It suggests that counting one’s blessing, cultivating gratitude (wonderful practices in themselves) somehow prevents depression, and thus it implies that somebody struggling just needs to be more grateful already.

This is pure victim-blaming. I know that’s not the intention, but it can dismiss the reality of lots of folks- namely, that past trauma, present obstacles to thriving, and basic chemical problems in the brain can’t just be magically erased by coming up with a gratitude list. I believe that therapy, medication, social support, and spiritual practice can and should all work together to address depression. So, basically, I’d like the phrase “too blessed to be depressed” to be put in the bin.

One may counter, here, that the word translated “blessed” in the beatitudes, μακαριος, can be translated literally as “happy.” This is true, but here Jesus, I contend, must mean something more than what we commonly refer to as happiness. Take the first of the beatitudes in St. Matthew’s version. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” could be translated “happy are the sad.” So either blessedness means something more than mere cheerfulness, or Jesus is speaking in riddles or koans or something. Christ did not come to confuse us, but rather to give us the truth that we might be free, so I believe it must be the former.

What, then, is blessedness? Rather than a subjective feeling it is, I contend, an objective status–namely, the quality of being favored by God. To the poor, the hungry, the grieving, the excluded, and the persecuted Jesus is not saying “just look on the bright side.” Rather, he is saying “God has favored you. You have a special place in God’s heart and in his plan for salvation, and you will be justified.” It is right that those going through difficulty should take hope in this, but God’s blessing, his pronouncement of Grace and his promise, abide with those upon whom he pronounces it, whether or not they subjectively experience happiness or hope from it.

I suppose that this is what distinguishes both sacramental and traditional reformed Christianity from more evangelical or pietist or pentecostalist versions of Christianity. This is not to deny the good points of those latter Christian traditions; God knows that the “frozen chosen” such as myself can sometimes benefit from a less intellectual and more heart-felt faith. That said, I still contend that how God’s blessing “hits us in the feels” is less important than the fact that God has objectively made us worthy to stand before him.

I know I’ve said this perhaps a hundred times from the pulpit, but it bears repeating as frequently as possible: the Grace of God, the free gift of his favor bestowed on us, is objective and indissoluble. We were, most of us, baptized as infants before we knew anything or had a free will to accept or reject the blessing, and God made us his own for ever. We receive the Grace of God in the Eucharist at this altar week after week, and it works a miracle in and for us, whether or not we can get our minds and hearts around all that that means. And we are reminded today in the beatitudes that God’s special blessing comes down upon the heads of the most weak and marginalized among us, and he gives them a promise which cannot be revoked.

It is, of course, all the more wonderful when we can recognize and respond to that Grace. It is “icing on the cake”, as it were, when we find subjective strength and comfort and (yes) happiness in that Grace so freely bestowed. Let’s be open to that, but let’s also recognize that even when that joy seems illusive, even when we’re not “feeling it” God is still at work in us and he is still for us.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This week’s humor section–“Shouts and Murmers”–in the New Yorker (which some of you saw that I posted on Facebook) was titled “Preaching-Team Tips for Surefire Sermons!” and it included some very amusing suggestions. I have two to add, though. First, “you might enjoy online word games, but have you heard the ‘Wordle of the Lord?’” Second, stand in the pulpit, microphone in hand, and shout, as if it were a boxing or pro-wrestling match “Let’s get ready to HUMBLE!” (This is why I don’t usually open with a joke.)

Joking aside, “let’s get ready to humble” might be an appropriate start considering this week’s lessons. The Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel all point to the fact that humility is the staring point for faithfulness. They all suggest that a recognition of or own unworthiness is the necessary precursor to doing God’s work.

Upon seeing the glory of the Lord, Isaiah laments “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst jof a people of unclean lips” It is only after this realization, after his recognition of himself as a sinner in need of God, that Isaiah is given the wherewithal to respond to God’s call by saying “Here am I! send me.” Thanks be to God that He chose a man of unclean lips to be His prophet.

Likewise, Paul wrote to the Corinthians “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.” I would propose that Paul’s ministry was so transformative, initiating the mission to the nations and opening the church to gentile sinners, not in spite of his dodgy past, but precisely because of it, precisely because he could recognize with humility that none of us is outside the reach of God’s grace, because it changed his life despite his sinful past.

Finally, it is only after Peter says “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” that Christ commissions him to be a fisher of men. God chose sinful Peter to be the rock upon which He built His Church. He chose sinful Paul to be His apostle to the Gentiles. He continues to choose unworthy, sinful people to be His agents of Grace and Love in a world which needs both so desperately.

It is remarkably easy to view our own unworthiness as a way out of whatever God calls us to do and be. A great number of my seminary classmates avoided entering ordained ministry for years and sometimes decades precisely because they thought themselves unworthy of the task to which God was calling them. I’m thankful that God shook me out of this temptation early on, because you can rest assured I wouldn’t be a priest if I thought being worthy of the vocation was a prerequisite. The same holds for all those who do God’s work in any regard. It’s easy to avoid doing God’s work because one think one has to be a pillar of purity and propriety before she or he can engage in the tasks incumbent on a Christian, that one has to be perfect before one can do evangelism or charitable work or hold a position of leadership in the church. Of course, this is all nonsense, because God only has unworthy people to choose from. If one had to be perfect to do anything in the church, nothing would ever get done.

All that said, once we begin to engage in whatever work God has set aside for us, we cannot wallow in our own unworthiness, our own imperfection. Rather, we pray that Christ may make us perfect even as His Father is perfect. My constant prayer is “make me worthy of the vocation to which you have called me.” I’m pretty sure it won’t happen in this life, but I believe that with God’s help I’ll make some progress in that direction.

And we can take comfort in the fact that though we can never become worthy by our own efforts, we have nevertheless already been made worthy to stand before the Father. We have already been made worthy to engage in the work of the Gospel, not through anything we’ve done, not through any cleverness or quality of our own, but through Christ’s one sacrifice on the Cross. Just as God touched the mouth of Isaiah with the burning coal, so he has cleansed our hearts by his Precious Blood.

This is the great paradox of the Christian life. We are not worthy, but we have been made worthy. God does consider our unworthiness, that predilection to sin and selfishness that none of us will be rid of in this life, but the perfect love and power of His Son which has made us worthy.

So, never let “I’m not worthy” be an excuse. Isaiah and Paul and Peter already tried it, and we know how that turned out. Rather, give thanks that though unworthy, Christ has made us worthy, and the proper response is to stop running, stop “wrestling with God”, and do whatever it is He’s calling you to do. He’ll put us all to work sooner or later, so we might as well get on with it.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.