Bible Text: Matthew 5:10-12, Isaiah 58:6-9 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry | Series: The Beatitudes | Good morning.  Thank you for joining in worship today.  My name is Dorry Newcomer, and it is my joy to be the lead pastor of Lima United Methodist Church.  One of the perks of being the “lead pastor” is that I get to delegate tasks to our associate pastor from time to time.  All week as I wrestled with Jesus’ words, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” I thought to myself, I should have had Pastor Karen preach this week!  This is the perfect passage to delegate to someone else!

But apparently God did not want me to avoid the subject of persecution, so here I am.  You’ve heard that saying, “Life is short, eat dessert first.” So let’s make things at least a little easier and start out by focusing on the blessing part.  As we have worked our way through the Beatitudes, we have been defining the word blessing as a “sacred gift.”  Jesus teaches in the Beatitudes that God has a myriad of sacred gifts to give us when we align ourselves with God’s will.  When we recognize our poverty of spirit, we become citizens of a new kingdom where our limitations are leveraged for good.  When we mourn our losses, we get the sacred gift of God’s comfort.  When we are merciful, we get the sacred gift of God’s mercy.  Over the last several weeks, it’s been eye-opening to see all these sacred gifts God longs to give us listed in one place.

But this week I stumbled upon a different definition for blessing, one that I think is helpful particularly when considering this verse.   A blessing is “a transfer of spiritual energy.”  Isn’t that interesting?  A blessing is a transfer of spiritual energy.  When we take on the qualities Jesus outlines in the Beatitudes, we get blessed, we get an infusion of God’s energy for living.  If we don’t take on those qualities, we have to rely on our own energy, which we know is simply not enough!  But when we seek God’s will and align ourselves with Christ’s teachings, we get receive a transfer, a deposit, of God’s energy, into our souls.

I think that is why Jesus could say, “Rejoice and be glad” when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on his account.  It’s not because Jesus enjoys seeing us to suffer. Jesus came to earth to make for less suffering, not more!  And one day, Christ will come again.  God’s ultimate will is that there will be no more suffering of any kind!

But in the meantime, if we suffer for doing what Christ calls us to do, there is a unique blessing, a transfer of spiritual energy, from God to us.  We get connected in a profound way to the God who also suffers.  When we suffer for the sake of the gospel, it’s like all the barriers between us and God fall away, and God’s energy can flow into us unencumbered.  And the result of removing those obstacles is always joy.

That’s why we sing, “Joy to the World” at Christmas.  Christ was born so that the barriers of sin that keep up separated from God would fall away.  Anytime we are able to connect with God unencumbered, there is joy.  There is joy in holy communion, even though it may also feel like a somber or sober experience.  There is joy in death, even though it may also be heartbreaking.  The New Testament also affirms that there is joy in suffering for the gospel, because it is an extraordinary opportunity, like communion, like death, to see the barriers between us and God fall away, and to receive a transfer of God’s energy into our souls.

And this spiritual energy is so sweet, that over time, we begin to develop a taste for it.  Psalm 34:8 says, “O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.”  Tasting God’s blessings leads us to seeing God’s ultimate goodness.  And seeing God’s ultimate goodness transforms us from people to need to play it safe and focus on taking care of ourselves, to people who can take risks and be willing to suffer for ministry of Christ, which seeks to take care of everyone.  Isaac Watts wrote a hymn called, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” When we see Christ, we change.  Watts wrote, “All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood.”  Little tastes of God’s blessings add up to being able to see the big picture, and it is those visions that empower us to let go of earthly comforts, challenge the status quo, and behave in ways that might attract persecution.

This is what happened to the prophet Isaiah.  In our passage today, he articulates a vision he has received from God.  A vision of the world where the bonds of injustice are loosened, where the oppressed are freed, where all the unfair and heavy yokes placed upon people are broken once and for all.  To get to this place, Isaiah says, instead of fasting and observing religious rituals, how about going out on a limb?  Feed the hungry.  House the homeless.  Clothe the naked.  It is when we do these things, when we work for justice, that our light will shine.  It is when we do these things that we will experience God’s protection and provision.  It is when we do these things that the barriers between us and God will be lifted, and we will be so connected to God we will be like a well-watered garden.  Our roots will be able to soak up God’s energy.  We will be, ultimately, blessed.

I think all of the major religions in the world encourage their members to work for the greater good.  Being justice oriented is not unique to Christianity.  But what I think is unique to Christianity is how open it is about what is likely to happen to you if work for justice:  you will get persecuted, and you will get blessed.  Our faith in Christ leads to action that will be like a solvent, and break down the old kingdom so God’s kingdom can come on earth as it is in heaven.  But this is probably not going to be popular!  If there are people in this world who are on the short end of the stick, you can be sure that people on the long end are not going to like it when the status quo is interrupted.  If your faith is working in ways that are making a difference, persecution is likely.  That makes complete sense.

But then Jesus adds this unlikely claim, that there is a blessing in being persecuted.  Countless people throughout Christian history have found this to be true.  We are part of a great cloud of witnesses who experienced communion, who developed a taste for God’s energy for living, and who put their personal safety and comfort on the line for someone else.  We stand on the shoulders of giants who are cheering us on, encouraging us to be justice seekers for our generation and time.  Blessed are the persecuted for they are following Jesus.  As Charles Wesley wrote, “Made like him, like him we rise…Ours the cross, the grave, the skies.”

If we were worshipping in person, I would be saying something like, “Alleluia! Can I get an Amen to that?”  Ours the cross—the suffering.  Ours the grave—the consequences for sin.  But also ours is the skies!  The kingdom of heaven awaits us if we will follow Christ and work for justice, even if that means experiencing persecution.  We will be blessed with an energy transfer strong enough to turn death into life.

That sounds pretty good, right?  It all starts little tastes, foretastes of glory divine, as Fanny Crosby wrote.  These little tastes gradually become a vision.  And visions become catalysts for joy, no matter what our circumstances may bring.  I have to tell you, I am still very much a beginner when it comes to experiencing the blessings of being persecuted.  And honestly, I’m not sure I really want to be an expert!  I am still counting the cost.  But I had a taste this week that has whetted my appetite, and I am wondering where it will lead.

Like most of the important spiritual experiences in my life, the seeds for it were planted a long time ago.  When I was in third grade, I started taking piano lessons, and I practiced on an old spinet we had in our basement.  But when I was in sixth grade, my family purchased a much nicer piano.  It had been in the manse, the Presbyterian Church’s version of a parsonage, and my church had decided to sell it.  My parents bought it and arranged for a professional mover to bring it to our house. We were going to put it in the “new room”—a breezeway my parents had converted into a family room.  Forty years later we still call it the new room!  Anyway, the movers had a difficult time getting it out of the manse, and then, when they brought it to my house, they damaged the tracks for the sliding glass door getting it inside.  I remember vividly the owner of the moving company telling my dad, “If you ever want to move this again, don’t call us!”

Fast forward to 2020.  Over Memorial Day weekend I went upstate to visit my family home for what I thought would be the last time, because my sister had decided to sell it, with the understanding that the buyers would be okay that the house came with a piano.  I had assumed that moving it was an impossibility, and I was at peace with letting it go.

But when I sat down at that piano which had been my sounding board for so many years, my future brother in law Kent did not see impossibility.  What he saw was joy!  He said, Marlene, we have to keep this piano in the family!  Tell the buyers we are going to need to get back in here later in the summer to move it.  Since the buyers are her friends, that was worked out without any trouble.

The arrangements were made to move the piano this past Monday.  Kent has a truck, and he borrowed a covered trailer from his neighbor.  He got dollies and a strap for moving furniture from somewhere.  We recruited our son-in-law for extra muscle.  When I talked to Kent on the phone Sunday afternoon, he was excited and confident.

But Sunday night, I couldn’t sleep.  I had two big worries.  What if we damaged the sliding glass door tracks to a house my sister no longer owns?  If the professionals had problems, doesn’t it seem likely us amateurs would too?  And, what if Kent or Phil hurt their backs moving the piano? They are not as young as they used to be!

On Monday morning, Marlene and I stopped on the way to pick up a thank you gift for the new homeowners.  By the time we arrived at the house, the piano was already out of the new room and sitting on the back patio, ready to be rolled into the moving truck.  When Marlene and I asked about the sliding glass door tracks, and if everything was okay, Kent said of course it’s okay!  After the movers messed up the door all those years ago, your dad made a wooden bridge so he could roll things in and out of the sliding glass doors without having to worry about every damaging the door frame again!

The rest of the move went off without a hitch, and I am looking forward to many happy hours playing that piano in its new home, our place in the Poconos.  I will use that piano to express my emotions and experience joy.  But before I do that, I felt like I needed to use a different kind of keyboard—my laptop as I wrote this sermon—to express my emotions and experience joy.  The Great Piano Move on Monday was a symphony of grace that has been in the works for decades.  It was made possible by my brother-in-law, who got a little taste, a little glimpse of the joy I was feeling, and that led to a vision of a different future.  His vision was aided by the fact that he knew about the wooden bridge my dad built.  I don’t know why, but I never saw that before.  My mom didn’t realize he had built it, either.  But Kent knew.  And because he knew about my father’s provision, he could picture moving that piano without hindrance.  He could picture even greater joy in the future.

Friends, the prophet Isaiah was calling people to a future with greater justice, greater compassion, and greater joy.  But the people couldn’t picture it, because how were they to achieve that all on their own?  How were they supposed to stand up to injustice and oppression and unfair yokes?  When they tried to imagine that, it seemed impossible.  Their response to the prophet Isaiah reminds me of the professional movers.  If you ever want to move that piano again, don’t call us!  This is just too big a job.

But the Christian does not fear working for justice because we know God has provided something amazing for us:  a Savior!  Christ came to be the bridge between the world as it is and the world as God wants it to be.  Jesus is our heavenly Father’s invention, design, his very self, sent to remove every barrier and obstacle.  When we join him in that work, no matter what happens to us we can rejoice and be glad!  For in those moments, we are one with God.  We are aligned so closely, there is a transfer of spiritual energy so powerful, it can turn death into life.  We become so wrapped up in the vision of Christ and his kingdom, that even earthly persecution just falls away.  It is nothing compared to the glory of his name.

We are all anxious to come back to church, to our favorite “energy transfer station”.  But as we have studied the Beatitudes, I hope it is becoming clear that God desires to bless us, to transfer life-giving spiritual energy to us, at all times and in all places, if we will only embrace his vision of justice and peace.  Ours too will be the cross, the grave, yes.  But ours too will be the skies.  Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for there is the kingdom of heaven.  Amen.