Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Matthew 12:1-12

When my siblings or I were sick in the wee hours of the night, whether it be with a bucket next to the bed or a run down the hall to the bathroom, it wasn’t but a few seconds between the “sounds of illness” to the presence of my father.  He often had his hand on my neck as I wretched in the toilet, or on my back.  He would say over and over again, “God love ya.  God love ya.”

To this day, when I’m sick, I think of that.  “God love ya.  God love ya.” He died in 2000 but his presence is still there. I often write that in emails when people are telling me about their sick ones.  Or I say it at a hospital bed, or when we’re praying the commendation of the dying.

God love ya. I’m ninety percent sure that his father or mother said that to him. How long does that stretch back?  To the Mount of Beatitudes?

In Matthew’s gospel, the Beatitudes is Jesus’ first big speech.  He says that when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain.  As he gathered his disciples, he was clearly going to give his disciples instructions on how to consider these growing crowds that were now following them through the countryside.  The reader was supposed to think of Moses on Sinai, bringing down the law.  The disciples must have wondered how this new Moses going to lay down the law.

Consider first who was likely in these crowds.  They were not likely the ones picked out for their capacity to do great things. Even the disciples, who would get labeled saints later by a forgetful church were not exactly on track for official beatification.  Likely, those crowds, even the most ardent followers, were the ones whose lives weren’t very put together.  Maybe some in the crowd were a little challenging to be around or had been pummeled into timidity by trauma or poverty.  There were those who whose physical or mental condition suggested to many of that time that they, or those that raised them, had done something wrong. Every culture, from then until now, has its list of behaviors that it uses to blame people for their problems. Poverty has always been included on that list, as if having less meant that somehow you just hadn’t tried hard enough and “you only have yourself to blame.” There were probably also folks in that crowd who had given up. Or those who felt like they just didn’t have the inner depth to be what they should be.  This crowd, waiting to hear what this prophet would say, might be expecting to hear now they could address their bad behaviors or become better people. Judgment from a nice person, after all, is easier take than from a cruel one.

I think many think that’s what Christianity is about.  When we arrive at the gates of heaven, there will be a spreadsheet? Will the list of good be just enough longer than the list of our mess-ups?  And if the door is thrown open, we’ll likely overhear St. Peter saying to Jesus, “Ooof.  That was a squeaker.”

In certain regions of South Africa, when someone does something wrong, [that one] is taken to the center of the village and surrounded by [the] tribe for two days while they speak of all the good he [or she] has done. They believe each person is good, yet sometimes we make mistakes, which is really a cry for help. They unite in this ritual to encourage the person to reconnect with [their] true nature. The belief is that unity and affirmation have more power to change behavior than shame and punishment. This is known as Ubuntu – humanity towards others.[1]

What Jesus sets into motion on that mountain top was this word to our humanity:  God love ya.  Pass it on.

Blessed are you who can’t quite find the inner resources to glow with perfect divine light. You will shine with brightness.

Blessed are you who are broken-hearted about the way the world is working right now. You will find heart in other places.

Blessed are you who don’t fit.  You will dream of a new way.

Blessed are you who hunger for a different rhetoric and a generosity of spirit that is healing. You will dawn the future.

Blessed are those who see the world from the sidelines.

Blessed are those who practice understanding and compassion.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

God love ya.

Maybe that’s the call right on this All Saints’ Day, 2023.  To say to a world that is terrified of what is coming, to those stuck behind bars or on the other side of human-constructed borders; to a world that that has cancer and fumbles with addiction, to those held hostage and those so fearful that violence seems the only answer; to those who wander streets and in and out of respectability; to those convinced that love isn’t wide enough for all:

God loves you.

There’s a world coming that our beloved saints already know; A world they witnessed to in the living of their own lives, passing it on, sentence by sentence, in the dark of night, from one generation to the next, an unbroken stream since the beginning of time, from the mountaintop, from baptismal waters:

Blessed are you.

Blessed are you.

God love ya.

[1] “The Meaning of Ubuntu” by Kristine Dewar, May 7, 2019. https://counselwise.ca/meaning-ubuntu/#:~:text=“In%20certain%20regions%20of%20South,really%20a%20cry%20for%20help.