Micah: 6: 1, 6, 8; Matthew 5: 3-7, 10, 11,12

Roughly a billion and a half people celebrate the Lunar New year this weekend.  Envelopes of lucky money are being passed around.  Family members are on their best behavior. Great movements of people are taking place.  The stage has to be set for the New Year.  Luck is an important concept, luck and how to guarantee it.  This made me think about the relationship between luck and blessing.  “Blessed are those who….” Jesus says. “Blessed are those who are lucky,” say the Chinese.  Linda Schiphorst McCoy (sermon notes)writes: “Happy are those who have lots of money and can go anywhere, do anything, have anything they want. Happy are those who are successful and well acclaimed in their businesses or professions. Happy are those who are healthy, or those who have good marriages, or who have perfect children. (Linda Schiphorst McCoy writes) “Happiness is, in John Powell’s words, an inside job.” If we stop to think about it, we are all smart enough to know that happiness does not come as a result of money or material possessions or from any external source. Sometimes we let ourselves believe that having all the outward looks of happiness actually means we’re happy. However, happiness doesn’t have anything to do with external circumstances. In the movie, Cool Runnings, John Candy played a former American gold medalist who became coach to the Jamaican bobsled team. As the story evolves, the coach’s dark history comes out. After his gold medal performance, his competitors discover that he broke the rules by weighting the U.S. sled. By doing so, he brought disgrace to himself and to his team. One of the Jamaican bobsledders didn’t understand why someone who’d already won a medal would cheat, so he asked Candy to explain. The coach said, “I had to win, but I learned something. If you are not happy without a gold medal, you won’t be happy with it.” In some ways, that’s what Jesus is trying to say in this familiar passage that we call the Beatitudes. If we were to take these sayings literally, we would get the wrong idea. The point Jesus is trying to make is that happiness is not found where the conventional wisdom of the world would have us believe. In essence, Jesus turns things upside down, and offers the reverse of what we might expect. Happiness is found in some unlikely places, and is a byproduct of our manner of living and our attitudes toward life. Part of the assumption here is that God wants us to be happy. That’s God’s intent for our lives. Jesus knew that unhappy people tend to be self-focused, and look on the gloomy side of things. Happy people, on the other hand, have different characteristics, and tend to be more energetic, decisive, flexible, and creative. They tolerate more frustration, are more forgiving, and tend to be more willing to help those in need.”

Friends, when I was still a member of 24 hour fitness in Rancho Cordova, there always was this nice looking young man with a walker working out in his undershirt.  I would always ask him how he was and he would always answer: “Blessed every day, blessed everyday.”  It always made me feel a bit guilty, because physically he was struggling to keep his balance. He told me one day that he was shot in the head and suffered great brain damage. But he had learned to count his blessings.  Blessing and happiness to him was an inside job, not something you can buy or that the world provides. It reminds me of when I was working in the hospital in Central Java and I would talk to a farmer who lost a leg and I would ask them how he was and he’d say:”I’m so lucky I still have my other leg.” I still can’t relate to that.

Friends, let me be very clear, friends, we should never ever talk to a suffering person and tell them they are blessed in disguise. There is something banal about that. Tasteless.  On the other hand we should not prevent them from seeing a blessing where we would not be able to see one.

Today is Superbowl Sunday.  With great interest we will watch a bunch of testosterone driving guys trying to knock the living daylights out of each other.  Earl Campbell was a good hearted football player who played for the old Houston Oilers, an African American, country music loving, Texas country boy who had a stellar career but never made it to the Superbowl.  He is so humble that never even talked to his sons about his football career.  He was amazing. Earl Campbell spent a decade just running over people. He also suffers from a spinal abnormality that leaves him in excruciating pain. I saw a documentary about his overcoming an addiction to pain killers and finding the blessing in disguise.

Friends, in the beatitudes Jesus teaches us to find blessings where we least expect them. He transforms the entire idea of what it means to be blessed.  He puts blessing into a spiritual and eternal light.  He reminds us that the experience of blessing is an inside job. This leads me to ask a question that has to do with your life: “friends, where are you blessed in disguise?” May God give you insight.