The beatitudes found in the 5^th chapter of Matthew, are eight statements of the wisdom of Jesus. Beatitude means blessing or being blessed. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out his teachings for how we are to live our lives; such subjects as conflict, divorce, adultery, lying, giving, enemies, worry and judgment. The first Beatitude is a summary of all that follow.

This summer I found myself worshipping in a mountain church with my closest friends from Illinois. We had gathered for a wedding, but the main event for me was the gathering of these precious friends around a common table. Since our Illinois days seven of our ten couples have moved and now we gather once a year to be together.

Each time we manage to eek out some time to be alone together, I always experience the thirst quenching results of drinking deep from this well of friendship. We share our lives at the moment, our worries, our plans for the future. We celebrate and other times push against our diverse strengths, but none of us will sacrifice what holds us close.

I consider these deep friendships an intentional gift from God; a gift that has helped me grow in my faith and ministry; friends who have guided me into physical and spiritual maturity, friends who have humbled me with loving hands. They celebrate my successes and walk beside me in my disappointments; they laugh out loud with me and wipe away my tears. This gift from God is not something I created or could ever make happen. It is not something I deserved or earned. It simply is, and it brings me to my knees every time I think of it, for this gift of friendship I truly need and cherish.

I think the ways God gives to us are so beyond our capability to fully understand, let alone match, but it is the kind of giving that blesses us, holds us up, and says to us, "I want to give you what you cannot give yourself, because I love you so much". I think of God wrapping up these friends of mine in precious wrapping and ever so carefully laying them in my lap. Much greater than a gift that is purchased; a check that is written or a promise that is made; the giving of God’s very self is the greatest gift of all. It is what allows us to be in relationship with God and each other.

I have thought of this treasure in new ways this week, as one of our group laid in the hospital on life support. Last Sunday, he had suffered a massive heart attack with little damage to his heart, but without oxygen for a long time, damage to his brain. All of us around the country waited in angst to hear reports. His pastor sent out daily updates to all of us of what was happening. One day she invited us to pray together at noon, as we gathered ourselves around his bedside, from far away. He had not responded. We waited. We worried. We prayed. Then Thursday we got word that he had started to respond. The life support was removed. You could almost hear our collective sighs and thanksgivings to God.

God wants to give to us and waits for us to ask. But it is easy for us to miss this. We get wrapped up in our day to day living; due dates for projects, bills to pay, plans to make, relationships to feed. We are busy raising children, taking care of aging parents, connecting with family and friends and doing our jobs, and often there is no time for God. Or at least that is our excuse. We fall into bed at the end of a day exhausted with all the things we assume are ours alone to do. And in the process God gets left out of our equation. And when that happens we can easily slip into the arrogance and misconception that we can get along without God. This is true, in part. We can get through our day without connecting with God. But we are ever richer when we place our hand in God’s and are gifted in ways only God can offer.

This fall there are seven, soon to be eight, small groups taking a look at the Beatitudes together. Here they are, eight strange sayings that confuse us with their meanings. Right off the bat is "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." What can that possible mean? It doesn’t sound like a blessing at all.

Blessed are the poor in spirit; who wants that? Or poor in anything, for that matter. We run from the person with a cardboard sign on the corner; we are irritated by requests to help the less fortunate; afraid that if we get too close to poverty, we might catch it somehow. Why wouldn’t Jesus say Blessed are the rich? Or blessed are the beautiful? Or how about blessed are those who satisfy their desires? Now that would make more sense to us wouldn’t it? But instead Jesus talks in words that are opposite to the culture, both then and now. We don’t connect to such words. Who wants to be poor? And yet these are Jesus words to us.

So when my small group took a look at this first beatitude, I was intrigued; to be poor in spirit sounds weak or helpless, someone with a victim mentality. We are taught to be strong, in our opinions and actions; independent in our life style and thinking, able to take charge in any given situation. Being weak or submissive is not a blessing in our society.

But as so often happens in a small group, wisdom emerges. We learned that being poor in spirit meant being dependent on God’s love and direction. That by stepping aside and letting God take the lead, we are empowered instead of weakened. Its meaning is the exact opposite. The author went on to say that furthermore, we are created intentionally with a longing, a void inside us that only God can fill. We are not self made.

I know these are shocking words……….we think we are self made most of the time. Yet our purpose, our very identity is rooted in God, and not ourselves. If we are truly honest with ourselves, we know that our needs go way beyond our capabilities. Without God, at the center of our lives we cannot be what God has intended us to be. It is only through a dependence on God that we can enjoy a fulfillment that we cannot find on our own. Now here is the paradox: it takes a lot of strength to be dependent. In order to set aside our own wills, and our independence, we have to be strong, not weak.

It is in depending on God, acknowledging someone much greater than ourselves, that we are able to move away from our proud self sufficiency and be truly open. By being poor in spirit, setting aside our arrogance, our need to control, we are able to accept a fullness that can fill our emptiness. Being rich in spirit belongs to God who wants to give to us generously. A friend of mine this week reminded me of the power of AA. It is only when an alcoholic bottoms out, that is, when they accept the fact that they are powerless under this addiction, that they are ready to accept the love God has to offer. I think that in some ways we are all alcoholics of sorts; addicted to our own importance, our own abilities, our own financial prowess, or our own egos. It is our addiction that keeps God out of our lives.

It is October and we find ourselves in the season of Stewardship. I am not up here today to encourage you to make a pledge, or consider giving to the building fund. I will not be explaining how to figure a percentage of your income as your giving to the church; for others have shared that with you and you will do that.

This is all important, to be sure; but I think the most important area of giving is more than our money; more than our possessions, even more than offering kind acts of service or compassion to another. Our truest giving is giving ourselves to God so that God can bless us. It is in this way that we might be a blessing to others. I think without understanding how to empty ourselves, how to depend on God each and every day, we can give for all the wrong reasons.

For example, we can give out of duty, or expectation. Or we can give out of competition to be on the top stair of the giving chart. We can give out of guilt or pressure, ways that do not lead to cheerful giving. We can give as a badge of good behavior; or to receive a gold star for obedience. But I think God has something different in mind. God’s kind of giving is designed to be a blessing to us and through us to others. The best kind of giving is because we want to give.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Say it with me will you? Jesus is teaching us that to be poor is actually to become rich. We are to be poor and God is the rich, waiting to shower us with the goodness of living.

Spiritual poverty is in fact, a radical dependence on God. However, despite our strong feelings of independence, you and I know that our lives are uncertain and insecure. We know, only too well, that in a heartbeat our lives can be irreversibly changed by accidents, violence, natural catastrophe, or physical weaknesses, like my friend this week. These are the things that are out of our control; things from which our fierce independence, financial portfolio, or our own good works cannot protect us.

So how do we shift to becoming dependent on God? Not just when things in our lives go wrong, but everyday? How do we set aside our strong feelings of control to allowing God to take the lead? How do we develop a sense of poverty that ironically brings us the richness of Christ? Perhaps we start with new definitions and stories.

One day Jesus was talking with those who were pretty confident of their righteousness. He told a parable about two men who came to the temple to pray; one a religious leader and one a hated tax collector. (and by the way, I am perfectly comfortable with the gender selection here!)The religious leader was pleased with himself. He had practiced good works, studied the Scriptures and prayed daily. He stood and prayed about himself; "God, I thank you that I am not like other men, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get."

The tax collector stood at a distance and could not even look up to heaven, but beat his chest saying, "God have mercy on me a sinner." This was the man who humbled himself and went home justified. He was poor but now was rich. Jesus reminded the crowd: for "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted." So who are we most like? Are we like the Pharisee, having our spiritual act together on the outside but inwardly lacking? Or are we like the tax collector, having made a mess of our lives, but knowing our need for God’s direction?

Jesus is contrasting the proud in spirit with the poor in spirit. We work hard at having our outward appearances together when often our inner appearance is in shambles. We are not whom we appear to be. Our appearances hide our inner faces.

I found this profound. To be poor in spirit is actually to be rich. To recognize that our internal state might be very different from our internal state is to acknowledge our need for God. Managing our lives alone is to play to the world, not God. This disconnects us from God and each other. If nothing else, this is a recipe for depression.

In the giving of ourselves to God, we are empowered instead of restricted and this leads to happiness. Now happiness is not just feeling good or having fun, that comes and goes with our circumstances. The kind of happiness Jesus means is a happiness of the soul living in harmony with God and each other. "Being poor in spirit means letting go of the myth that the more I possess the happier I will be."

Theologian, Frederick Buechner: puts it this way: "We live our lives like a clenched fist. The clenched fist can do many things: it can work, hang on to things, impress, even fight. But the one thing a clenched fist cannot do is accept, even from the good God himself, a helping hand."

Clearly the Beatitudes are a ladder, the rungs lead us in the opposite direction, from the way our capitalist society lures us.

Me, poor? You bet! Won’t you join me? Giving in this way can be a new beginning for all of us!

Amen