This month we have the privilege of reading Jesus’s sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12. This passage is one of the most familiar passages for Christians. But often times we misinterpret this passage to focus on how we as people have been blessed because of the things we have, or the things we do. Instead Jesus talks about blessing in a completely different way.  

The first words Jesus offers his commissioned disciples--the first words the Gospel of Matthew records from Jesus’s inaugural sermon--are words of blessing. Blessing comes first.  We begin with blessing.  Blessing, not judgment.  Blessing, not terms and conditions.  Blessing, not penance.  

Jesus starts his ministry by telling the disciples who and what they already are: they are blessed.  Blessed, fortunate, privileged, favored.  Why?  Because they are near and dear to God’s heart.  Whatever else Jesus’s first followers go on to learn or accomplish in the future is merely the outgrowth of what is already their ground-of-being, their identity, their solid-as-a-rock foundation.  God gifts their identities to them, without condition or measure.  They are freely blessed, and so they're freed to bless others.  

What does this mean?  It means we’re not God’s nine-to-five employees, working for blessing as our compensation. We don’t endeavor to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in order to earn God’s blessings.  We do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly because we are always and already blessed.  

What would happen, I wonder, if we who profess faith in Jesus, actually followed his example, and made it our first priority to bless others as we have been blessed?  To lead with blessing?  To make blessing our most visible and foundational gift to those around us?  What would happen to our hearts, to the Church, to the world, if we offered blessings to our neighbors as generously as God offers blessings to us?  

I’ll be honest--I’m not good at accepting blessings from others, and I’m pretty clumsy about giving blessings away.  On the accepting end, I tend to get cringy and anxious:  If I accept this blessing, will God think I’m arrogant and presumptuous? Shouldn’t my posture as a Christian be more self-deprecating?  Shouldn't I deflect and cower more?  What right do I have to bask in blessing?

On the giving end, my fears are similar:  Who am I to offer anyone else a blessing?  Little piddly me--how dare I presume so much?  What do I have to offer, anyway? 

Both sets of fears come from a refusal to accept the core identity God has given me — and given all of us.  It's not a matter of our deserving; it's a matter of God's astonishing love and generosity.  Ours is an identity of blessedness. 

Blessings, Gary