Imagine with me for a moment a world where there’s not enough to go around. There’s only so much money, only so much food, only so much blessing and goodness in the world, and there just isn’t enough for everyone to have full pockets, full bellies, and full hearts. In this kind of a world, the only way someone can gain money is if someone else loses money. The only way someone can get enough food is by taking some from someone else–maybe not directly, but by getting enough food ourselves, there wouldn’t be enough left for everyone else. This is a world of scarcity, a world where someone always has to be in need because there just isn’t enough to go around.

This is how people viewed the world in Jesus’s day, and this is why images like a garden with an abundance of fruit and a Promised Land flowing with milk and honey were so powerful. For people who had struggled and suffered and experienced the scarcity of life, these stories provided hope for a different kind of future. For people who knew what it was like to go without, images of abundance were a comfort and promise that someday their suffering would be no more, even if it took a miraculous act of God for it to be possible.

Can you imagine a world of scarcity like this? Maybe it doesn’t seem that far off from the world we live in now.

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7 are sometimes called “The Sermon on the Mount.” In these chapters, Jesus establishes what his ministry is all about. In the chapters right before this in Matthew, Jesus has done a few miracles of healing and he has called some disciples to follow him. He has not yet done any teaching, and the people are following him because miraculous things seem to happen wherever he goes. The crowd is in awe of Jesus, but I imagine they still have a lot of questions. Where does Jesus’s power come from? What does his ministry mean? Could Jesus possibly be the one the prophets promised would come and restore the fortunes of Israel?

Jesus’s healings gathered all kinds of people together–-religious leaders, and outcasts; wealthy people, and desperate people; young and old; Jew and Gentile. Jesus went up the mountain to begin his teaching ministry, and a variety of people gathered to listen. I wonder if the people thought about Moses, who went up the mountain and received the law from God. The gift of the law on that mountain began a new chapter in the life of the people of Israel and their relationship to God.

I wonder if the people expected Jesus to give them new rules to follow like Moses had done. Maybe they were hoping he’d tell them ways to gain wealth and prosperity, or at least ways for life to get a little easier. In any case, I suspect they were shocked when Jesus began with a series of blessings. 

He didn’t say, “Blessed are the wealthy, for surely they have good fortune on their side,” or “Blessed are the strong, for they can protect themselves from others.” No. He blessed the people right where they were in the midst of whatever circumstances they found themselves in: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted.” Each one of these blessings is in the indicative case. They aren’t future promises. They aren’t blessings that depend on the people working a little harder or doing a little more. Jesus sees the people as they are, with all their suffering, with all they lack, with all their rough edges, and he begins his message to them with a word of blessing.

Leaning on Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, I want to suggest that discipleship–learning to be like Jesus–happens in three movements (three movements that all conveniently start with a “Be”). Be Blessed, Belong, and Become. 

First, Be Blessed. The first word of the Sermon on the Mount is “blessed.” Jesus speaks this blessing over the people as a comfort. He sees them. He sees their struggle. And he tells them that they are blessed right now. They don’t have to put on a better face before God in order to receive God’s blessing. God is blessing them right now.

The first step of discipleship is blessing. Quite often we think we need to believe the right thing first. We need to have the right words or the right circumstances. Jesus brings us all back to the very beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. God created human beings, and God saw that all of it was good. God blessed human beings, delighted in them, and then gave them a purpose in the world. 

God’s call to us begins with a blessing, which brings us to the second “Be”–Belong. Jesus blesses the people, and he shows them what true community is going to be all about. When we are truly in community with each other, there will come a time when someone in our body is hurting. Someone in our body will carry the weight of grief. Someone in our body will be trapped in conflict or will be desperately trying to hold together the broken pieces of relationships. Jesus gathers the hodge podge group of people following him, he blesses them, and then he shows them to each other. 

This is one reason I love belonging to a church with a wide variety of age groups and life experiences. In this body, we will experience loss together, and we will feel the sadness of an empty place in our worshiping body where a beloved part of us once used to sit. We will rejoice at new birth and as new people become part of the body. We will struggle at different times, and be lifted up by each other at other times. Blessed are we, the broken, misfit people called together to form Christ’s body. We are blessed by God, and we belong to each other.

In our journey with Jesus, we will Be Blessed; we will Belong; and we will Become more who we are–people called to look a little more like Christ every day. Author and theologian N.T. Wright wrote about the call to “become” in the Beatitudes. The whole quote is exquisite, but I will offer you just a taste of it. He writes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; yours is the kingdom of heaven! What could the church do, not just say, that would make the poor in spirit believe that? Blessed are the mourners; they shall be comforted! How will the mourners believe that, if we are not God’s agents in bringing that comfort?…Blessed are the merciful; how are people to believe that, in a world where mercy is weakness, unless we visit the prisoner and welcome the prodigal? Blessed are the pure in heart; how will people believe that, in a world where impurity is a big business, unless we ourselves are worshipping the living God until our own hearts are set on fire and scorched through with his purity? Blessed are the peacemakers; how will we ever learn that, in a world where war in one country means business for another, unless the church stands in the middle and says that there is a different way of being human, a different way of ordering our common life?”

Be Blessed: dear friends, God blesses you whatever your life looks like today. God sees your tears and your hurt. God sees what’s good in your life, and what thrills you to overflowing. God knows what you need, and he offers you a blessing here, now, today.

Belong: Take a moment and look around this sanctuary. Each of us belongs to each other. We are called to be one body, even in our differences, even though our life circumstances are not the same. Some of us may be struggling in an area where another of us is strong. Others of us may be overflowing in an area of life where someone else is experiencing a drought. We belong to each other.

Become: All of us are on a journey of becoming more like Jesus. We learn about God’s call on our lives as we read the Bible, as we participate in Bible studies and in worship. We also learn how to become like Jesus as we watch others who have been at this longer than we have. We learn by watching.

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I loved doing what my mom did. My brother was only 3-4 years old, and it was fun to help him learn how to do things. My mom would bring dinner to the table, and I wanted to help. She would cut up food into bite size pieces for my brother, and I was right there trying to do it too. On one particular morning, I must have been copying my mother’s parenting for a while. My mom got into the car. I was in the front passenger seat (these were different times, and that would never fly today!), and my brother was sitting in the backseat. “Zach, make sure the car door is shut,” my mom said.

“Zach, make sure the car door is shut,” I repeated.

“Zach, sit up tall in your seat,” my mom said.

“Zach, sit up tall in your seat,” I repeated.

“Zach, put your seatbelt on,” my mom said.

“Zach, put your seatbelt on,” I repeated.

All at once, my brother snapped back, “I don’t need another mom!” 

We are called to become like Christ.

Friends, you are blessed by God. We belong to each other. And we are called to become like Jesus–who started his ministry by blessing the people who were down and out in life. Let’s receive God’s word of blessing, find comfort and encouragement in one another, and let’s become like Christ by reaching out beyond ourselves, by imitating Jesus, and by speaking a word of blessing over those who need to hear it the most. Amen.