The Burden of Being Human: Blessings and Woes

The Burden of Being Human: Blessings and Woes

Blessed are you when you leave everything behind, including your homeland to protect your family from violence.

Blessed are you when the violence you left is waiting for you in the country you hope will protect you, as soon as you cross the border.

Blessed are you when your local school is shot up by a gunman as he fires and kills your children and friends.

Blessed are you when your son, who was alive yesterday, was gunned down in the street near your home, and now you are planning his funeral.

Blessed are you when your government shuts-down, leaves you without pay, but your needs for food, medicine, and shelter are still a stark reality.

Blessed are you when you find your daughter overdosed on opioids.

Blessed are you when those with money and power take your money and power too.

Blessed are you when you work full-time as a teacher but must have another job so you can pay your bills.

Blessed are you when your skin is any color but white.

Blessed are you when insults, racial slurs, foul language, and other word-atrocities are hurled at you.

Blessed are you when you don’t know where your child is and you are in a foreign land.

Blessed are you when your baby’s cries ring in your ears. The cries you heard when she was ripped out of your arms.

Blessed are you when you have been abused in mind, body, or soul.

Blessed are you when the burden of a government, which should care for the people, weighs heavily on your own shoulders.

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Woe to you who take food from the hungry. In a country where many are over-filled – woe to you when you do not give to those with little or nothing.

Woe to you if you think one race is superior to another. No skin is different from another in the eyes of God.

Woe to you if you spend your money to comfort only yourself and your family. Give to others generously and often – or you will be emptied by your selfishness.

Woe to you if you use your power to destroy creation, lives, hope, the future. If you cause destruction, your own soul is gone.

Woe to you if you condemn, make fun of, or abuse someone who is different from you. Do not harm sisters and brothers. Each one has God’s handprints on them.

Woe to you if you use the name of Jesus Christ to promote bigotry, racism, or misogyny. Jesus Christ loved the stranger, the enemy, the outsider, the criminal, the sinner. Do not use his name against anyone. Ever.

Woe to you if you scheme and collude to enrich yourself, while letting others suffer at your dishonesty. You will be relieved of all you take. Sackcloth and ashes will be your clothes and food.

Woe to you if you lie. Liars are always revealed.

Woe to you if you if you follow a corrupt leader. Your heart is on full display. Woe to you.

WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! STOP!

Where is the comfort in this? Where is the Good News in this? Where is the healing, wholeness, kindness, openness, and love in this?

In 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. preached a Lenten sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington DC two Sundays before Easter. In that sermon he said this:

“We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made, this is the way it is structured.”

Thankfully, we have this entire sermon on record. His words live forever. He was dead before the next Sunday, Palm Sunday.

We can’t just throw blessings and woes around. We can’t say, “Be filled” to a starving person without filling them with the food they need.

We can’t say, “It’s too bad about you and your family being separated,” unless we act on the behalf of all the families suffering from separation right now.

We can’t say, “So sorry about your loved one who was shot dead,” without lobbying for laws to protect innocent citizens from gun violence.

We can’t say, “Love who you love,” if we don’t fight to uphold the rights of the LGBTQ community.

Love is a verb. It is an action word. We, as the followers of Jesus Christ, are the action-takers.

So…

Blessed are you when you uplift another with a kind deed and thought-filled words. For you are other-focused.

Blessed are you when you shed a tear with another, as you wipe their own tears from their eyes. For you have empathy.

Blessed are you when you share food with those who hunger – for food. You will always have insight into the needs of others.

Blessed are you when you give more than you think you can, or should, to benefit someone who has little or nothing. For you have compassion.

Blessed are you when you aren’t afraid of being taken advantage of and give generously no matter what. For you will not be owned by material things.

Blessed are you when you stand up for someone being persecuted because of the color of their skin, who they love, or their history. For you have an open heart.

Blessed are you when your daily goal is to make someone’s life (someone you don’t know) a little easier. For you will gain wisdom.

Blessed are you when you hear stories of abuse or neglect, and you believe the story and love the teller. For you have chosen not to judge.

Blessed are you when you tear down walls of bigotry and hate and build beautiful bridges for easy crossings. You will lighten the burdens of those trodden-down.

Blessed are you when you speak the truth to power, especially when power has become corrupt and harm is being done to the masses. For you will have harnessed your own power.

Blessed are you when you marvel in the goodness of Jesus Christ and don’t argue over the dogma of Christianity. For you will understand true love.

Blessed are you when you see human beings as human beings. Each one a sister or brother worthy of respect and love. For you will know the true meaning of being human.

Blessed are you when the security of who you are, and the sureness of the God to whom you belong, allows you to invite and welcome “the other” to be a member of the family. For you will have a peaceful soul.

Blessed are you when you set fear aside and care for your neighbor with reckless, love-fueled, abandon. For you will have joy.

Blessed are you when you are able to live as you ought to live, because you have allowed others to live as they ought to live. And we are “one single garment of destiny.” For that is God’s good plan.

God in heaven recklessly loves us with complete abandon. God showers us with forgiveness, mercy and grace. Each of us is made in the image of the Almighty- our patient and purposeful God. The one who has redeemed us all.

Blessed are we when we live as redeemed people and spread that Good News lavishly.

Everywhere.

Amen.