Last Sunday at Cityside, a beautiful young woman spoke the beatitudes. It was striking for two reasons (neither of these being the fact that she was young and beautiful)
– the way she spoke these core teachings directly to us rather than reading them added so much dramatic power
– and her choice of The Message version gave, as it so often does, depth, freshness and impact to these well known words.
Somehow the beatitudes seem especially relevant during Lent when you may have given up something you relish…
“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”
If you’re fasting this beatitude is particularly pertinent…”You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.”
If you’re spending extra time in prayer or trying the “wilderness therapy” I mentioned the other day – think on this “You’re blessed when you get your inside world – your heart and mind – put right. Then you can see God in the outside world”
Maybe you’re donating the money you save on coffee, chocolate or whatever you’ve given up to help those in great need. “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full’, you find yourselves cared for.”
But my favourite is this one…”You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are – no more, no less. That’s the moment when you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”
What a brilliant endorsement of simple life style! What a profound and revolutionary truth in a society that shouts discontent. Your car, your clothes, your face, your phone, your job, your family… none of them are good enough. You have to upgrade to something bigger, better, faster, more expensive. Enough is never enough.
What freedom to get off the racing treadmill of consumerism and find contentment in the good, real, simple things you already have – laughter round the meal table with good friends, sunset over a wild west coast beach, snoozing under a vast tree while a band plays free jazz in the background. Forgiveness, faith, love they can’t be bought and as Jesus said, can only be found when you give up the frustration of chasing what you don’t need and can never attain.
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