Blessed, But Who's Counting?
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
January 30, 2005
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany | Cycle A
Dear Fellow Preachers,
At first glance, the juxtaposition of Jesus' most compelling teachings, the Beatitudes, with the current alarming situation in Iraq might seem jarring. But, as lead writer Carlos Wilton points out, Jesus words in this Sunday's Gospel Reading in the lectionary are directed at more than self-fulfillment. They call Jesus' followers to a radically new perspective on life and to positive action for peace and justice. Jesus certainly was aware of the dangers that can accompany peacemaking, and those involved in planning the election in Iraq are acutely aware of the perilous nature of their activity.
Members of The Immediate Word team offer other approaches to the gospel for the day, including links to the upcoming Super Bowl and comments on the function of the Beatitudes as a whole. Included also, as usual, are illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon.
Blessed, But Who's Counting?
Matthew 5:1-12
By Carlos Wilton
The Message on a Postcard
Sunday, January 30 is a momentous day both for the people of Iraq and for the people of the United States. Free elections will be held in Iraq for the first time that will determine the future of that land. Will voter turnout, representing the various ethnic groups and religious sects, be sufficient to guarantee a true democracy? Or will the intimidation tactics of the terrorists pay off, fomenting further chaos? Only time will tell.
Today's Gospel Lection is the Beatitudes of Jesus, which is among the most beloved of all passages of scripture. Yet in a certain sense, this oft-quoted passage is also among the most neglected. Two millennia have passed, yet most of the time we don't read the text deeply enough to grasp our Savior's message. We tend to read the Beatitudes looking for ways in which we ourselves may already be blessed. Jesus doesn't want us to count our blessings. He wants us to live them.
These days there are few blessings to count for the people of Iraq. There is freedom from a dreadful tyrant, yes, but there is also terrible risk. The economy is a shambles, the streets are unsafe, and the basic institutions of a healthy society are barely functioning. Stories have already reached us of election workers who have lost life or limb to advance the cause of freedom. Surely there will be more stories like those before this momentous election day is over.
"Blessed are those who mourn ... who hunger and thirst for righteousness ... who make peace ... who are persecuted for righteousness' sake." For people such as the long-suffering citizens of Iraq, blessings may not be very evident today: yet the Beatitudes encourage us to see the situation differently. For those who are courageous enough to live God's promised blessings in the here-and-now, God promises fulfillment in days to come.
Some Words on the Word
The first problem that faces any interpreter seeking to preach on the Beatitudes is the very first word. "Blessed," many translations render it. "Happy," say others. The Greek is makarioi -- a term that's difficult to translate. Douglas Hare, in his Matthew commentary in the Interpretation series (Westminster/John Knox, 1993, p. 35), points out that the word has a connotation of good luck, or good fortune. It could, he says, be rendered "Congratulations." Those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, who are meek, and so on, are not accursed -- as the world commonly imagines. Rather, they are lucky. They are lucky because God favors those who struggle and suffer. Jorge Lara-Braud has pointed out that, in Spanish, the word is often translated bienaventuranza, literally, "good adventure to you." Adventure, he says, "means risk, the courage to defy the odds, the refusal to play it safe." God journeys with adventurers who undertake risks for the sake of the gospel.
There is tremendous irony in this passage. Jesus is turning conventional wisdom on its head: "What the beatitude means to say, of course, is that the poor, despite their present evil circumstances, will joyfully participate in the grand reversal that will occur when God's rule fully arrives. This is made more explicit by the corresponding woe given in Luke 6:24: 'But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation' " (Hare, p. 36). Jesus' words are a prediction, a declaration, and a challenge. They are a prediction in that they look to the day when God's divine justice will be established on earth, and those who have been persecuted will be vindicated and glorified. The Beatitudes are also a declaration, in the sense that Jesus' statements have instrumental power to bring about the truth they proclaim. The poor, the weak, the oppressed are makarioi because Jesus says they are.
Finally, his words are a challenge. Jesus calls Christians to recognize the realities of God's reign in the here and now: to live as though the reversals he forecasts have already taken place. William Barclay, in his Daily Study Bible commentary on this passage, asserts that "... the beatitudes are not pious hopes of what shall be; they are not glowing, but nebulous prophecies of some future bliss; they are congratulations on what is. The blessedness which belongs to a Christian is not a blessedness which is postponed to some future world of glory; it is a blessedness which exists here and now.... The beatitudes in effect say, 'O the bliss of being a Christian! O the joy of following Christ! O the sheer happiness of knowing Jesus Christ as Master, Saviour and Lord!' The very form of the beatitudes is the statement of the joyous thrill and the radiant gladness of the Christian life. In the face of the beatitudes a gloom-encompassed Christianity is unthinkable" (Matthew, in the Daily Study Bible series [Glasgow: St. Andrew Press, 1956], pp. 83-84).
Rich sermon possibilities arise from word-studies on the principal words of each Beatitude. In truth, there could easily be a sermon on each verse. For today's purposes, however -- and in the context of the Iraqi elections -- it is appropriate to focus on verse 9, "Blessed are the peacemakers." When war is so frequently in the headlines, often there is a temptation to see peace as merely the cessation of hostilities. In that context, those who merely bring about a cease-fire -- by military might, diplomacy, or whatever means -- may be considered peacemakers. Yet this falls far short of the biblical concept of peacemaking. The Greek word is eirenopoioi; it includes within it the root, eirene, peace. Undergirding that term is the Hebrew shalom -- a term that is far-reaching in its meaning. Shalom is the daily greeting of neighbor to neighbor in the Middle East. The Jews speak it in Hebrew, and the Muslims speak it in Arabic: Salaam. It means not only peace but also wholeness, healing, and freedom. A person enjoying shalom is experiencing not merely the absence of conflict, but a deep and perfect inner peace, a tranquility of heart and mind and soul. Those who lead others to know this sort of peace - who performs the hard and dangerous work of reconciling those who hold weapons in their hands -- truly deserve the label, "children of God."
A Map of the Message
"We have declared an all-out war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," said terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- or someone claiming to be him -- on an audiotape recently released in Baghdad. "Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part of it" (John F. Burns, "Tape in Name of Leading Insurgent Declares 'All-Out War' on Iraq Elections and Democracy," New York Times, January 24, 2005). With those words, al-Zarqawi declared war on all Iraqis -- and indeed, on citizens of any nation -- who are working to achieve free elections in that troubled land.
A sermon could begin with some mention of "counting our blessings." It's a common enough pastime to enumerating life's rewards. Yet this sort of self-satisfied list making fails to do justice to the rich concept of blessedness expressed in the Greek word makarioi. What Jesus is talking about is not so much blessings as blessedness. That blessedness comes, by the grace of God, to those who seek to live in godly ways. It is not a victor's olive branch, bestowed at the end of a long and grueling race, so much as it is a state of blessedness that descends on those who seek to do God's work in the here and now. We are blessed as we run this race, and not merely as we break the tape at the finish line. This defies ordinary logic. How can those who are "poor in spirit," who "mourn," who are "reviled and persecuted" be blessed? Jesus seems to be dealing in oxymorons.
Yet this is exactly what our Lord means. The Beatitudes shimmer with paradox and mystery. Down through the generations they have spoken hope to the afflicted, who continue to believe, despite often-harsh treatment from a world whose only word to them is the derisive taunt of Job's companion, Eliphaz the Temanite: "Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same" (Job 4:7).
When it comes to peacemaking in Iraq, the Beatitudes compel us to expand our definition of "children of God" (v. 9) to some who are outside the Christian tradition -- for there are those who are sacrificially working for peace in that land who follow the teachings of Muhammad. Many brave men and women who wear the uniform of the United States and other coalition partners are putting their lives on the line for peace, but those who are most directly in harm's way are the Iraqi security forces. Al-Zarqawi and his followers have targeted these courageous police officers to receive their most vicious attacks. Many of these Iraqi Muslims are risking their lives daily for the cause of peace. Would Jesus call them blessed for their peacemaking work? Very likely.
Blaming the victim is easy to do. It enforces an idea we are inclined to hold dear: that the world is fundamentally a just place. Jesus, however, knows otherwise. He knows the only true justice is the justice of God. And that justice is quite a different thing than the "might makes right" principle that rules this fallen world.
Another homiletical approach would be to look ahead to next week's Super Bowl, and contrast the competitive ethic of that sporting event with the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount. One short week from now, it will begin. Standing astride the fifty-yard line of Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, a senior NFL referee will toss a coin. Moments later, he'll blow his whistle, and Super Bowl XXXIX will be underway. For several bone-jarring hours, the Patriots and the Eagles will pound each other. When the dust finally settles -- as if there were any dust kicked up on Astroturf -- one team will emerge the victor. The players of that team will embrace, pound one another on the back, and probably dump a barrel of Gatorade over their head coach. Sportscasters will cluster around their team captains and star players, hungry for a few pithy quotes about sportsmanship, and how it feels to be America's heroes. When everything's said and done, every player on the winning team will walk away with a fancy gold ring and a multi-thousand-dollar bonus check.
As for the opposing team, they'll be paid pretty well, too. But there will be no Super Bowl ring for them. No cheers and hugs. No victory party. Just a slow, dejected walk through the tunnel: to the place that will be known for the next year as the Losers' Locker Room. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. That's football. It's winner-take-all. How different this thinking is from the wisdom of Jesus in the Beatitudes! What the Lord seems to be saying, here, is much closer to "loser take all."
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: Several of our texts and topics during this Epiphany season have presented us with the same question: How do we speak the good news to the world and at the same time recognize that the texts we're dealing with are directed to the people of Israel and/or the Christian community? Can we properly take specific messages that were intended first of all for those who believed in the God of Israel and who recognized Jesus as Lord and apply them to people in general in today's world?
That same question faces us this week with the opening verses of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Jesus proclaims "blessing" upon "the poor in spirit," "those who mourn," and others -- but are those blessings applicable to all who mourn, all who work for peace? Or only for some? Even to suggest the latter possibility may seem intolerably exclusive and inconsistent with the universal love of God. But the fact is that many mourners have gone grieving to their graves with no sense at all of being blessed. Iraqis who strive for peace may see only bitter disappointment.
And when we look at the context of the Beatitudes it seems that Jesus is indeed not speaking of everyone. "After he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them...." Jesus is speaking here to those who have already responded to the call to follow him (as in last week's Gospel Reading). And the final paradoxical Beatitude of verse 11 is specifically directed to "you," the disciples who are his hearers.
The contrast is, indeed, not as obvious with Luke's version (6:20-26). There not only are all the Beatitudes addressed specifically to "you poor" and so on, but there are corresponding "woes" in verses 24-26 for some others. (Matthew reserves the woes to his chapter 23, just one of many chiastic features of this Gospel.)
Matthew's version especially of the first of the Beatitudes has sometimes been seen as a "spiritualized" version of what Luke gives. Perhaps so, but it does seems more realistic to say that it is not simply the poor but those who are "poor in spirit" who are blessed. (Isn't there a line from Fiddler on the Roof something like "It's no disgrace to be poor but it's no great honor either"?)
So these words of Jesus are addressed immediately to his followers -- today, to Christians. But we can't stop there. Go on a little further in Matthew 5 to verses 14-16: "You are the light of the world.... Let your light shine before others." The words are again addressed to Jesus disciples -- to us -- but their effect is intended for the whole world. What Jesus says here is not intended to be the private property of Christians but is something that is to be passed on to and shared with others. In the same way, Christians are blessed so that they can be a blessing to others. If we are spiritual descendants of Abraham then the words spoken to Abraham are relevant: "I will bless you ... and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:2-3).
Chris Ewing responds: To embark on peacemaking is always a risky and uncertain business. The combatants may not appreciate the interference; it is likely to become quickly apparent that there were good reasons for the conflict; and it is probable that all parties (including the peacemakers!) will bring different values and expectations to the table, and different visions of what would constitute a solution. Not infrequently people who try to mediate between friends or acquaintances come away shaking their heads and vowing never to try that again. "Let them sort it out!" people are apt to say, and then keep a safe distance.
It is here, perhaps, that the Beatitudes, placing peacemaking in the middle of a gritty list of challenges we would rather avoid, intersect Paul's reflections on the counter-intuitive wisdom of God. It is in the middle of the unsafe and the unsavory circumstances that Christ is most likely to be found at work; and he tends to have a most distressing disregard for what most of us would consider a "successful" outcome. As Jim Taylor noted in Aha! in 1999, God doesn't give us what we demand. "God took what we fear and avoid -- not just death, but ignominious death, death in pain, in disgrace, without a shred of dignity -- and used it to reveal God's ultimate intention for all of us: resurrection, integration with God's own self." The kind of integration described in the Beatitudes, where human longings become sublimated to God's nature and purpose. The kind of integration we theoretically all aspire to, but which most of us resist tooth and nail.
I remember the time at which it became clear to me that our marriage was destroying both us marital partners and our children. What I wanted was to make peace, in the deepest sense of shalom -- to affect a healing and restoration that would allow us to live well together. (In the Haitian Creole translation of the Beatitudes, the blessing is for "moun kap travay pou lèzòm viv byin youn ak lòt" -- those who work so that people can live well with one another.) I did not expect it to be easy to make peace. But I was unprepared for the strength of the resistance -- not least my own. In the end, we were unable to restore shalom within the marriage. It has taken a decade of slow and challenging work to achieve a reconciled relationship outside of it. But the blessing of a sane and functional relationship has been worth every scary step out from behind the barricades and every bruise from others who felt threatened. (And there were fear and bruises aplenty, especially in the first half dozen years.) Having a degree of shalom developed, an ability to trust and cooperate to some extent, was crucial in navigating our daughter's life-threatening depression; and now as our children move into adulthood we are able to negotiate challenging questions of how tight to hold the reins and how to finance their education, in a spirit of unity that would not have been imaginable ten years ago. Truly blessed is the peacemaker! But in the long and painful years before we saw fruition, the blessing of the beatitude was one, not of realization, not even necessarily of hope for our particular case, but of vision that the sorry present was not the only possibility, and that the Creator of the universe invited me to live already the life I hoped for and to count on one day seeing it. That I have been blessed to see it in this life, and in time for at least some of my children's growing-up years, is more than I dared to hope, and gives me courage to keep on trying to live into the rest of God's call.
This word of bracing hope for those trying to "live tomorrow's life today" (a recurring refrain in Brian Wren's hymn, "There's a Spirit in the Air"), in the face of challenges too big, is what the Beatitudes are all about.
Related Illustrations
From Carlos Wilton:
Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, "Prove that you are a good person." Another voice says, "You'd better be ashamed of yourself." There also is a voice that says, "Nobody really cares about you," and one that says, "Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful." But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, "You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you." That's the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen. That's what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us "my Beloved."
-- Henri J. M. Nouwen
***
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/cold_turkey
***
The dedication demanded in the Sermon on the Mount is not a new law or moral teaching. Instead it is forgiveness. Its vital element is the light and warmth of the Holy Spirit. Here is Christ: the essence of salt, and the strength of the tree that bears good fruit. The Sermon on the Mount shows us the character of a community, which shines like a light for the whole world.
The Sermon on the Mount is not a high-tension moralism, but we must grasp it as the revelation of God's real power in human life. If we take our surrender to God seriously and allow him to enter our lives as light, as the only energy which makes new life possible, then we will be able to live the new life.
If we see the Sermon on the Mount as five new commandments, as the Tolstoyans do, we will fall right into a trap. For in his book My Religion, Leo Tolstoy lists the commandments of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount as five new laws: peacefulness with others, sexual purity and marital faithfulness, the refusal to swear oaths, nonresistance to evil, and love for one's enemies. But Jesus shows us that the clarity and demands of the old laws are not weakened by his coming into the world; instead they are infinitely sharpened. Moreover, these are only five examples --there could be five hundred or five thousand -- revealing the powerful effect of God's work in Christ.
-- Eberhard Arnold, http://www.eberhardarnold.com/articles/ea/NotANewLaw.htm?source=DailyDig
***
You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
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.
You're blessed when you're content with just who you are -- no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
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.
You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.
You're blessed when you get your inside world -- your mind and heart -- put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.
-- Eugene Peterson, paraphrasing Matthew 5:2-9, in The Message (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2003)
***
Barbara Brown Taylor, in one of her sermons, uses the image of a Ferris wheel to portray Jesus' message. It's as though everyone in the world were riding a great Ferris wheel, she says. The wheel is stopped for now. At the top of it, where the air is exhilarating and the view is broad, sit the wealthy, the powerful, those whom the world considers blessed. Down at the bottom of the wheel sit the poor people whom Jesus especially loves. It looks, right now, like those on top will stay on top -- but sooner or later, by the grace and providence of God, that great wheel will one day begin to turn. When it finally stops, the rich and powerful will be on the bottom, and the poor will be on the top.
***
We have all heard poems, songs, and prayers that exhort us to see God in a blade of grass, a drop of dew, a child's eyes, or the petals of a flower. Now when I hear such things I say that's too easy. Our greater challenge is to see God not only in the eyes of the suffering child but in the suffering itself. To thank God for the sunset pink clouds over Red Hill -- but also for the mosquitoes I must fan from my face while watching the clouds. To thank God for broken bones and broken hearts, for everything that opens us to the mystery of our humanness. The challenge is to stand at the sink with your hands in the dishwater, fuming over a quarrel with your spouse, children at your back clamoring for attention, the radio blatting the bad news from Bosnia, and to say, "God is here, now, in this room, here in this dishwater, in this dirty spoon." Don't talk to me about flowers and sunshine and waterfalls: this is the ground, here, now, in all that is ordinary and imperfect, this is the ground in which life sows the seeds of our fulfillment.
The imperfect is our paradise. Let us pray, then, that we do not shun the struggle. May we attend with mindfulness, generosity, and compassion to all that is broken in our lives. May we live fully in each flawed and too human moment, and thereby gain the victory.
-- Philip Simmons, excerpted from Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life, on the spiritualityandhealth.com website: http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/newsh/excerpts/bookreview/excp_3738.html. Philip Simmons is associate professor of English at Lake Forest College in Illinois where he taught literature and creative writing for nine years before being disabled. In 1993, at age 35, he was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease.
***
From Chris Ewing:
If you were to take all the authoritative articles ever written on the subject of mental hygiene, if you were to combine them and refine them and clean out the excess verbiage, if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have the unadulterated bit of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount.
-- James Fisher, The Case Book of a Psychiatrist
***
Peace is not something you wish for, it's something you make, something you do, something you are, something you give away.
-- Robert Fulghum
Worship Resources
By George Reed
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: God calls us to follow Jesus.
People: We come to learn the way of our God.
Leader: God calls us to a new way of life.
People: We come to follow the new way.
Leader: God calls us to forsake our old ways.
People: We come to confess our old ways and leave them.
Leader: God calls us to the joyful dance of life.
People: We come to dance with God and one another.
COLLECT
O God, who calls us to a new life and a new way of being, Give us the courage to follow Jesus into the new reality of your commonwealth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
We come into your presence, O God, in awe of how you call us into a new way of being. You turn our world upside down and offer us a new way of understanding our relationship with you and with one another. As we worship you this day help us to leave behind our past and move forward into our future in you. Amen.
PRAYER OF REPENTANCE AND FORGIVENESS
Leader: Let us with confidence in the love of God confess who we have been and open our lives to the newness God is calling us into.
People: We come into your presence, O God, and find your love inviting us to be truthful with ourselves, with you and with one another. We have lived our lives by the standards of this world. We have sought security in wealth and material goods; we have sought meaning in the praise of others; we have sought love from those who have none to give.
Forgive us our blindness and our perversity in seeking in the arms of the world that which only you have to offer. By the power of your Spirit, renew us so that we may live in your commonwealth, your kingdom, and come to know you in your fullness. Amen.
Leader: The God who created us, is seeking to bring us to new and eternal life. God does not desire that we should perish but that we should find and share life. In the Name of Jesus the Christ, you are forgiven so that God's life may be in you and shared through you.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY
We worship and adore you, O God, for the wonder of your Being. You are far beyond our understanding and yet you come to reveal yourself to us and teach us how to become more and more like you. As we pursue the things that lead to death thinking we are seeking life, we find ourselves in your presence as you follow after us, calling us back to you and to real life.
For all the ways in which you share life with us, we give you thanks. For our place on your earth and in your church, we give your thanks. For our place among our brothers and sisters throughout the world, we give you thanks.
For the celebrations of love and life that we share with you and with one another, we give you thanks. Because you have shown us your love in so many ways, we share with you the cares of our hearts. We lift up to your care those who are sick and lonely; those who are denied the good things you created the earth to provide for all your children; those who have not learned of your love.
May our words and our actions share your love with all. This we pray in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray together saying: "Our Father.... Amen."
A Children's Sermon
A great reward
Object: none
Based on Matthew 5:1-12
Sometimes it's hard to do the right thing, isn't it? Other times it's not so hard at all. Tell me about some times when doing the right thing is hard. (spend a few moments with this) Now what about the times when it's easy? (listen for responses) Is there anything that makes you want to do the right thing? I know it's a lot easier for me to do the right thing if I'll get a reward or a prize for doing it.
Today's lesson is about doing the right thing. Jesus is teaching a group of people how they should act, how they should treat others, and how they should live. At the very end, Jesus says to "rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven." At first that sounds great, but wait a minute. Does that mean that if I do the right thing I'm not going to be rewarded for it until I get to heaven? Yuk! What about right now? I don't want to wait. If I do the right thing I want to be rewarded for it now.
When I think about it a little more, I'm not so sure that that's what Jesus was trying to say. I think he really wants us to be more concerned with doing the right thing than with the reward. A reward will come in heaven; that's a promise. It's not the most important thing, though. We should do the right thing because it's the right thing. It's as simple as that. Listen to the whole lesson again. (read verses 1-12 again) We should be people with pure hearts. We should be merciful.
All the things that Jesus teaches are good for us. Living his way is good for the people around us too. Sure, a reward in heaven would be great, but Jesus offers us full and happy lives right now. We will be more joyful if we live like Jesus wants us to live. We will be more peaceful. As far as I'm concerned, being peaceful and joyful is a good enough reward for me.
Prayer: God, help us to do the right things in our lives. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 30, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany | Cycle A
Dear Fellow Preachers,
At first glance, the juxtaposition of Jesus' most compelling teachings, the Beatitudes, with the current alarming situation in Iraq might seem jarring. But, as lead writer Carlos Wilton points out, Jesus words in this Sunday's Gospel Reading in the lectionary are directed at more than self-fulfillment. They call Jesus' followers to a radically new perspective on life and to positive action for peace and justice. Jesus certainly was aware of the dangers that can accompany peacemaking, and those involved in planning the election in Iraq are acutely aware of the perilous nature of their activity.
Members of The Immediate Word team offer other approaches to the gospel for the day, including links to the upcoming Super Bowl and comments on the function of the Beatitudes as a whole. Included also, as usual, are illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon.
Blessed, But Who's Counting?
Matthew 5:1-12
By Carlos Wilton
The Message on a Postcard
Sunday, January 30 is a momentous day both for the people of Iraq and for the people of the United States. Free elections will be held in Iraq for the first time that will determine the future of that land. Will voter turnout, representing the various ethnic groups and religious sects, be sufficient to guarantee a true democracy? Or will the intimidation tactics of the terrorists pay off, fomenting further chaos? Only time will tell.
Today's Gospel Lection is the Beatitudes of Jesus, which is among the most beloved of all passages of scripture. Yet in a certain sense, this oft-quoted passage is also among the most neglected. Two millennia have passed, yet most of the time we don't read the text deeply enough to grasp our Savior's message. We tend to read the Beatitudes looking for ways in which we ourselves may already be blessed. Jesus doesn't want us to count our blessings. He wants us to live them.
These days there are few blessings to count for the people of Iraq. There is freedom from a dreadful tyrant, yes, but there is also terrible risk. The economy is a shambles, the streets are unsafe, and the basic institutions of a healthy society are barely functioning. Stories have already reached us of election workers who have lost life or limb to advance the cause of freedom. Surely there will be more stories like those before this momentous election day is over.
"Blessed are those who mourn ... who hunger and thirst for righteousness ... who make peace ... who are persecuted for righteousness' sake." For people such as the long-suffering citizens of Iraq, blessings may not be very evident today: yet the Beatitudes encourage us to see the situation differently. For those who are courageous enough to live God's promised blessings in the here-and-now, God promises fulfillment in days to come.
Some Words on the Word
The first problem that faces any interpreter seeking to preach on the Beatitudes is the very first word. "Blessed," many translations render it. "Happy," say others. The Greek is makarioi -- a term that's difficult to translate. Douglas Hare, in his Matthew commentary in the Interpretation series (Westminster/John Knox, 1993, p. 35), points out that the word has a connotation of good luck, or good fortune. It could, he says, be rendered "Congratulations." Those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, who are meek, and so on, are not accursed -- as the world commonly imagines. Rather, they are lucky. They are lucky because God favors those who struggle and suffer. Jorge Lara-Braud has pointed out that, in Spanish, the word is often translated bienaventuranza, literally, "good adventure to you." Adventure, he says, "means risk, the courage to defy the odds, the refusal to play it safe." God journeys with adventurers who undertake risks for the sake of the gospel.
There is tremendous irony in this passage. Jesus is turning conventional wisdom on its head: "What the beatitude means to say, of course, is that the poor, despite their present evil circumstances, will joyfully participate in the grand reversal that will occur when God's rule fully arrives. This is made more explicit by the corresponding woe given in Luke 6:24: 'But woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation' " (Hare, p. 36). Jesus' words are a prediction, a declaration, and a challenge. They are a prediction in that they look to the day when God's divine justice will be established on earth, and those who have been persecuted will be vindicated and glorified. The Beatitudes are also a declaration, in the sense that Jesus' statements have instrumental power to bring about the truth they proclaim. The poor, the weak, the oppressed are makarioi because Jesus says they are.
Finally, his words are a challenge. Jesus calls Christians to recognize the realities of God's reign in the here and now: to live as though the reversals he forecasts have already taken place. William Barclay, in his Daily Study Bible commentary on this passage, asserts that "... the beatitudes are not pious hopes of what shall be; they are not glowing, but nebulous prophecies of some future bliss; they are congratulations on what is. The blessedness which belongs to a Christian is not a blessedness which is postponed to some future world of glory; it is a blessedness which exists here and now.... The beatitudes in effect say, 'O the bliss of being a Christian! O the joy of following Christ! O the sheer happiness of knowing Jesus Christ as Master, Saviour and Lord!' The very form of the beatitudes is the statement of the joyous thrill and the radiant gladness of the Christian life. In the face of the beatitudes a gloom-encompassed Christianity is unthinkable" (Matthew, in the Daily Study Bible series [Glasgow: St. Andrew Press, 1956], pp. 83-84).
Rich sermon possibilities arise from word-studies on the principal words of each Beatitude. In truth, there could easily be a sermon on each verse. For today's purposes, however -- and in the context of the Iraqi elections -- it is appropriate to focus on verse 9, "Blessed are the peacemakers." When war is so frequently in the headlines, often there is a temptation to see peace as merely the cessation of hostilities. In that context, those who merely bring about a cease-fire -- by military might, diplomacy, or whatever means -- may be considered peacemakers. Yet this falls far short of the biblical concept of peacemaking. The Greek word is eirenopoioi; it includes within it the root, eirene, peace. Undergirding that term is the Hebrew shalom -- a term that is far-reaching in its meaning. Shalom is the daily greeting of neighbor to neighbor in the Middle East. The Jews speak it in Hebrew, and the Muslims speak it in Arabic: Salaam. It means not only peace but also wholeness, healing, and freedom. A person enjoying shalom is experiencing not merely the absence of conflict, but a deep and perfect inner peace, a tranquility of heart and mind and soul. Those who lead others to know this sort of peace - who performs the hard and dangerous work of reconciling those who hold weapons in their hands -- truly deserve the label, "children of God."
A Map of the Message
"We have declared an all-out war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," said terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- or someone claiming to be him -- on an audiotape recently released in Baghdad. "Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part of it" (John F. Burns, "Tape in Name of Leading Insurgent Declares 'All-Out War' on Iraq Elections and Democracy," New York Times, January 24, 2005). With those words, al-Zarqawi declared war on all Iraqis -- and indeed, on citizens of any nation -- who are working to achieve free elections in that troubled land.
A sermon could begin with some mention of "counting our blessings." It's a common enough pastime to enumerating life's rewards. Yet this sort of self-satisfied list making fails to do justice to the rich concept of blessedness expressed in the Greek word makarioi. What Jesus is talking about is not so much blessings as blessedness. That blessedness comes, by the grace of God, to those who seek to live in godly ways. It is not a victor's olive branch, bestowed at the end of a long and grueling race, so much as it is a state of blessedness that descends on those who seek to do God's work in the here and now. We are blessed as we run this race, and not merely as we break the tape at the finish line. This defies ordinary logic. How can those who are "poor in spirit," who "mourn," who are "reviled and persecuted" be blessed? Jesus seems to be dealing in oxymorons.
Yet this is exactly what our Lord means. The Beatitudes shimmer with paradox and mystery. Down through the generations they have spoken hope to the afflicted, who continue to believe, despite often-harsh treatment from a world whose only word to them is the derisive taunt of Job's companion, Eliphaz the Temanite: "Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same" (Job 4:7).
When it comes to peacemaking in Iraq, the Beatitudes compel us to expand our definition of "children of God" (v. 9) to some who are outside the Christian tradition -- for there are those who are sacrificially working for peace in that land who follow the teachings of Muhammad. Many brave men and women who wear the uniform of the United States and other coalition partners are putting their lives on the line for peace, but those who are most directly in harm's way are the Iraqi security forces. Al-Zarqawi and his followers have targeted these courageous police officers to receive their most vicious attacks. Many of these Iraqi Muslims are risking their lives daily for the cause of peace. Would Jesus call them blessed for their peacemaking work? Very likely.
Blaming the victim is easy to do. It enforces an idea we are inclined to hold dear: that the world is fundamentally a just place. Jesus, however, knows otherwise. He knows the only true justice is the justice of God. And that justice is quite a different thing than the "might makes right" principle that rules this fallen world.
Another homiletical approach would be to look ahead to next week's Super Bowl, and contrast the competitive ethic of that sporting event with the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount. One short week from now, it will begin. Standing astride the fifty-yard line of Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, a senior NFL referee will toss a coin. Moments later, he'll blow his whistle, and Super Bowl XXXIX will be underway. For several bone-jarring hours, the Patriots and the Eagles will pound each other. When the dust finally settles -- as if there were any dust kicked up on Astroturf -- one team will emerge the victor. The players of that team will embrace, pound one another on the back, and probably dump a barrel of Gatorade over their head coach. Sportscasters will cluster around their team captains and star players, hungry for a few pithy quotes about sportsmanship, and how it feels to be America's heroes. When everything's said and done, every player on the winning team will walk away with a fancy gold ring and a multi-thousand-dollar bonus check.
As for the opposing team, they'll be paid pretty well, too. But there will be no Super Bowl ring for them. No cheers and hugs. No victory party. Just a slow, dejected walk through the tunnel: to the place that will be known for the next year as the Losers' Locker Room. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. That's football. It's winner-take-all. How different this thinking is from the wisdom of Jesus in the Beatitudes! What the Lord seems to be saying, here, is much closer to "loser take all."
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: Several of our texts and topics during this Epiphany season have presented us with the same question: How do we speak the good news to the world and at the same time recognize that the texts we're dealing with are directed to the people of Israel and/or the Christian community? Can we properly take specific messages that were intended first of all for those who believed in the God of Israel and who recognized Jesus as Lord and apply them to people in general in today's world?
That same question faces us this week with the opening verses of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Jesus proclaims "blessing" upon "the poor in spirit," "those who mourn," and others -- but are those blessings applicable to all who mourn, all who work for peace? Or only for some? Even to suggest the latter possibility may seem intolerably exclusive and inconsistent with the universal love of God. But the fact is that many mourners have gone grieving to their graves with no sense at all of being blessed. Iraqis who strive for peace may see only bitter disappointment.
And when we look at the context of the Beatitudes it seems that Jesus is indeed not speaking of everyone. "After he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them...." Jesus is speaking here to those who have already responded to the call to follow him (as in last week's Gospel Reading). And the final paradoxical Beatitude of verse 11 is specifically directed to "you," the disciples who are his hearers.
The contrast is, indeed, not as obvious with Luke's version (6:20-26). There not only are all the Beatitudes addressed specifically to "you poor" and so on, but there are corresponding "woes" in verses 24-26 for some others. (Matthew reserves the woes to his chapter 23, just one of many chiastic features of this Gospel.)
Matthew's version especially of the first of the Beatitudes has sometimes been seen as a "spiritualized" version of what Luke gives. Perhaps so, but it does seems more realistic to say that it is not simply the poor but those who are "poor in spirit" who are blessed. (Isn't there a line from Fiddler on the Roof something like "It's no disgrace to be poor but it's no great honor either"?)
So these words of Jesus are addressed immediately to his followers -- today, to Christians. But we can't stop there. Go on a little further in Matthew 5 to verses 14-16: "You are the light of the world.... Let your light shine before others." The words are again addressed to Jesus disciples -- to us -- but their effect is intended for the whole world. What Jesus says here is not intended to be the private property of Christians but is something that is to be passed on to and shared with others. In the same way, Christians are blessed so that they can be a blessing to others. If we are spiritual descendants of Abraham then the words spoken to Abraham are relevant: "I will bless you ... and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:2-3).
Chris Ewing responds: To embark on peacemaking is always a risky and uncertain business. The combatants may not appreciate the interference; it is likely to become quickly apparent that there were good reasons for the conflict; and it is probable that all parties (including the peacemakers!) will bring different values and expectations to the table, and different visions of what would constitute a solution. Not infrequently people who try to mediate between friends or acquaintances come away shaking their heads and vowing never to try that again. "Let them sort it out!" people are apt to say, and then keep a safe distance.
It is here, perhaps, that the Beatitudes, placing peacemaking in the middle of a gritty list of challenges we would rather avoid, intersect Paul's reflections on the counter-intuitive wisdom of God. It is in the middle of the unsafe and the unsavory circumstances that Christ is most likely to be found at work; and he tends to have a most distressing disregard for what most of us would consider a "successful" outcome. As Jim Taylor noted in Aha! in 1999, God doesn't give us what we demand. "God took what we fear and avoid -- not just death, but ignominious death, death in pain, in disgrace, without a shred of dignity -- and used it to reveal God's ultimate intention for all of us: resurrection, integration with God's own self." The kind of integration described in the Beatitudes, where human longings become sublimated to God's nature and purpose. The kind of integration we theoretically all aspire to, but which most of us resist tooth and nail.
I remember the time at which it became clear to me that our marriage was destroying both us marital partners and our children. What I wanted was to make peace, in the deepest sense of shalom -- to affect a healing and restoration that would allow us to live well together. (In the Haitian Creole translation of the Beatitudes, the blessing is for "moun kap travay pou lèzòm viv byin youn ak lòt" -- those who work so that people can live well with one another.) I did not expect it to be easy to make peace. But I was unprepared for the strength of the resistance -- not least my own. In the end, we were unable to restore shalom within the marriage. It has taken a decade of slow and challenging work to achieve a reconciled relationship outside of it. But the blessing of a sane and functional relationship has been worth every scary step out from behind the barricades and every bruise from others who felt threatened. (And there were fear and bruises aplenty, especially in the first half dozen years.) Having a degree of shalom developed, an ability to trust and cooperate to some extent, was crucial in navigating our daughter's life-threatening depression; and now as our children move into adulthood we are able to negotiate challenging questions of how tight to hold the reins and how to finance their education, in a spirit of unity that would not have been imaginable ten years ago. Truly blessed is the peacemaker! But in the long and painful years before we saw fruition, the blessing of the beatitude was one, not of realization, not even necessarily of hope for our particular case, but of vision that the sorry present was not the only possibility, and that the Creator of the universe invited me to live already the life I hoped for and to count on one day seeing it. That I have been blessed to see it in this life, and in time for at least some of my children's growing-up years, is more than I dared to hope, and gives me courage to keep on trying to live into the rest of God's call.
This word of bracing hope for those trying to "live tomorrow's life today" (a recurring refrain in Brian Wren's hymn, "There's a Spirit in the Air"), in the face of challenges too big, is what the Beatitudes are all about.
Related Illustrations
From Carlos Wilton:
Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, "Prove that you are a good person." Another voice says, "You'd better be ashamed of yourself." There also is a voice that says, "Nobody really cares about you," and one that says, "Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful." But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, "You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you." That's the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen. That's what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us "my Beloved."
-- Henri J. M. Nouwen
***
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/cold_turkey
***
The dedication demanded in the Sermon on the Mount is not a new law or moral teaching. Instead it is forgiveness. Its vital element is the light and warmth of the Holy Spirit. Here is Christ: the essence of salt, and the strength of the tree that bears good fruit. The Sermon on the Mount shows us the character of a community, which shines like a light for the whole world.
The Sermon on the Mount is not a high-tension moralism, but we must grasp it as the revelation of God's real power in human life. If we take our surrender to God seriously and allow him to enter our lives as light, as the only energy which makes new life possible, then we will be able to live the new life.
If we see the Sermon on the Mount as five new commandments, as the Tolstoyans do, we will fall right into a trap. For in his book My Religion, Leo Tolstoy lists the commandments of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount as five new laws: peacefulness with others, sexual purity and marital faithfulness, the refusal to swear oaths, nonresistance to evil, and love for one's enemies. But Jesus shows us that the clarity and demands of the old laws are not weakened by his coming into the world; instead they are infinitely sharpened. Moreover, these are only five examples --there could be five hundred or five thousand -- revealing the powerful effect of God's work in Christ.
-- Eberhard Arnold, http://www.eberhardarnold.com/articles/ea/NotANewLaw.htm?source=DailyDig
***
You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
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.
You're blessed when you're content with just who you are -- no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
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.
You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.
You're blessed when you get your inside world -- your mind and heart -- put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.
-- Eugene Peterson, paraphrasing Matthew 5:2-9, in The Message (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2003)
***
Barbara Brown Taylor, in one of her sermons, uses the image of a Ferris wheel to portray Jesus' message. It's as though everyone in the world were riding a great Ferris wheel, she says. The wheel is stopped for now. At the top of it, where the air is exhilarating and the view is broad, sit the wealthy, the powerful, those whom the world considers blessed. Down at the bottom of the wheel sit the poor people whom Jesus especially loves. It looks, right now, like those on top will stay on top -- but sooner or later, by the grace and providence of God, that great wheel will one day begin to turn. When it finally stops, the rich and powerful will be on the bottom, and the poor will be on the top.
***
We have all heard poems, songs, and prayers that exhort us to see God in a blade of grass, a drop of dew, a child's eyes, or the petals of a flower. Now when I hear such things I say that's too easy. Our greater challenge is to see God not only in the eyes of the suffering child but in the suffering itself. To thank God for the sunset pink clouds over Red Hill -- but also for the mosquitoes I must fan from my face while watching the clouds. To thank God for broken bones and broken hearts, for everything that opens us to the mystery of our humanness. The challenge is to stand at the sink with your hands in the dishwater, fuming over a quarrel with your spouse, children at your back clamoring for attention, the radio blatting the bad news from Bosnia, and to say, "God is here, now, in this room, here in this dishwater, in this dirty spoon." Don't talk to me about flowers and sunshine and waterfalls: this is the ground, here, now, in all that is ordinary and imperfect, this is the ground in which life sows the seeds of our fulfillment.
The imperfect is our paradise. Let us pray, then, that we do not shun the struggle. May we attend with mindfulness, generosity, and compassion to all that is broken in our lives. May we live fully in each flawed and too human moment, and thereby gain the victory.
-- Philip Simmons, excerpted from Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life, on the spiritualityandhealth.com website: http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/newsh/excerpts/bookreview/excp_3738.html. Philip Simmons is associate professor of English at Lake Forest College in Illinois where he taught literature and creative writing for nine years before being disabled. In 1993, at age 35, he was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease.
***
From Chris Ewing:
If you were to take all the authoritative articles ever written on the subject of mental hygiene, if you were to combine them and refine them and clean out the excess verbiage, if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have the unadulterated bit of pure scientific knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount.
-- James Fisher, The Case Book of a Psychiatrist
***
Peace is not something you wish for, it's something you make, something you do, something you are, something you give away.
-- Robert Fulghum
Worship Resources
By George Reed
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: God calls us to follow Jesus.
People: We come to learn the way of our God.
Leader: God calls us to a new way of life.
People: We come to follow the new way.
Leader: God calls us to forsake our old ways.
People: We come to confess our old ways and leave them.
Leader: God calls us to the joyful dance of life.
People: We come to dance with God and one another.
COLLECT
O God, who calls us to a new life and a new way of being, Give us the courage to follow Jesus into the new reality of your commonwealth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
We come into your presence, O God, in awe of how you call us into a new way of being. You turn our world upside down and offer us a new way of understanding our relationship with you and with one another. As we worship you this day help us to leave behind our past and move forward into our future in you. Amen.
PRAYER OF REPENTANCE AND FORGIVENESS
Leader: Let us with confidence in the love of God confess who we have been and open our lives to the newness God is calling us into.
People: We come into your presence, O God, and find your love inviting us to be truthful with ourselves, with you and with one another. We have lived our lives by the standards of this world. We have sought security in wealth and material goods; we have sought meaning in the praise of others; we have sought love from those who have none to give.
Forgive us our blindness and our perversity in seeking in the arms of the world that which only you have to offer. By the power of your Spirit, renew us so that we may live in your commonwealth, your kingdom, and come to know you in your fullness. Amen.
Leader: The God who created us, is seeking to bring us to new and eternal life. God does not desire that we should perish but that we should find and share life. In the Name of Jesus the Christ, you are forgiven so that God's life may be in you and shared through you.
PRAYER FOR THE DAY
We worship and adore you, O God, for the wonder of your Being. You are far beyond our understanding and yet you come to reveal yourself to us and teach us how to become more and more like you. As we pursue the things that lead to death thinking we are seeking life, we find ourselves in your presence as you follow after us, calling us back to you and to real life.
For all the ways in which you share life with us, we give you thanks. For our place on your earth and in your church, we give your thanks. For our place among our brothers and sisters throughout the world, we give you thanks.
For the celebrations of love and life that we share with you and with one another, we give you thanks. Because you have shown us your love in so many ways, we share with you the cares of our hearts. We lift up to your care those who are sick and lonely; those who are denied the good things you created the earth to provide for all your children; those who have not learned of your love.
May our words and our actions share your love with all. This we pray in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray together saying: "Our Father.... Amen."
A Children's Sermon
A great reward
Object: none
Based on Matthew 5:1-12
Sometimes it's hard to do the right thing, isn't it? Other times it's not so hard at all. Tell me about some times when doing the right thing is hard. (spend a few moments with this) Now what about the times when it's easy? (listen for responses) Is there anything that makes you want to do the right thing? I know it's a lot easier for me to do the right thing if I'll get a reward or a prize for doing it.
Today's lesson is about doing the right thing. Jesus is teaching a group of people how they should act, how they should treat others, and how they should live. At the very end, Jesus says to "rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven." At first that sounds great, but wait a minute. Does that mean that if I do the right thing I'm not going to be rewarded for it until I get to heaven? Yuk! What about right now? I don't want to wait. If I do the right thing I want to be rewarded for it now.
When I think about it a little more, I'm not so sure that that's what Jesus was trying to say. I think he really wants us to be more concerned with doing the right thing than with the reward. A reward will come in heaven; that's a promise. It's not the most important thing, though. We should do the right thing because it's the right thing. It's as simple as that. Listen to the whole lesson again. (read verses 1-12 again) We should be people with pure hearts. We should be merciful.
All the things that Jesus teaches are good for us. Living his way is good for the people around us too. Sure, a reward in heaven would be great, but Jesus offers us full and happy lives right now. We will be more joyful if we live like Jesus wants us to live. We will be more peaceful. As far as I'm concerned, being peaceful and joyful is a good enough reward for me.
Prayer: God, help us to do the right things in our lives. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, January 30, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
