"God is Still God" | Christy Stang, Seminarian | November 1, 2020

All Saints’ Day | November 1, 2020

Revelation 7:9-17
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12

May I speak in the name of the Creator, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Imagine. Crowds of people eagerly wait for Jesus, the man sitting on the mountain with his disciples, to speak. Maybe there is some nervous chatter from the crowds as they anticipate what he might say. Maybe people are jostling one another, trying to get a better view. Then Jesus begins to speak, and the first word he says is “blessed.” Although Jesus would have preached in Aramaic, the word in the ancient Koine Greek of the New Testament is “μακάριοι,” which also can mean “happy” or “fortunate.” Today’s Gospel looks at the famous Beatitudes, which begin Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. This series of proclamations appears in both Matthew and Luke, with the longer version appearing in Matthew, which we read for today. 

When I read the beatitudes, I often wonder, “What about the people who aren’t meek, or peacemakers, or pure in heart? What about the people who aren’t mentioned? Are they still blessed?” But even if we aren’t peacemakers all the time, all of us have mourned something and all of us have hungered and thirsted for righteousness or justice at some point. Ultimately, however, I think the Beatitudes are not about who we are so much as they tell us about who God is. Some of the beatitudes are affirmations of righteous qualities, but others are an expression of solidarity in our pain. Even if we aren’t pure in heart or meek, God is still God. The connection between each of the beatitudes is that the power and glory ultimately belongs to God. In each one of these statements, even the ones that talk about humanity as inheritors of the kingdom, God is still the creator of that kingdom. Humanity may be blessed in various ways, but it is God who has the power to comfort, to fill, to bestow mercy, and to call us children of God. The beatitudes highlight God’s power rather than the righteousness of humanity.

God’s steadfastness to humanity is evidenced in Scriptures as well as in the stories of saints, but sometimes it can be challenging to notice God’s faithfulness concretely in our lives.  I don’t know about you, but sometimes it’s difficult for me to see the fulfillment of these beatitudes. When I see people continuing to struggle in various ways day after day, sometimes I wonder, where is their inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven? Are they being filled? St. Augustine, in his Confessions, expresses that God is “deeply hidden yet most intimately present” (5). Faith calls us to trust that God is present and God is moving, regardless of our ability to see it. With election day coming up this week, there is anxiety in the air no matter what part of the political spectrum we find ourselves on. With this world that we live in, I think we are all hungry and thirsting for righteousness in different ways. I can’t tell you what will happen this week. But no matter what happens, I can tell you that God won’t change. Even if it seems like we are standing on fragile ground, we are called to let God be our true foundation and to trust that God is still loyal, regardless of any outcome. God is still our creator, and God will never abandon us. Even if the state of the world is leaving many of us feeling poor in spirit, even if we find ourselves mourning, even if we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness, we are blessed. God will comfort us. God will fill us. It’s not about what we can see or understand, but about who God is. God stands in solidarity with our experiences, and nothing on earth can change who God is to us. 

In honor of All Saints’, this morning I’d like to use the life of St. Teresa of Avila as an example of God’s constancy. She was in fact reluctant to become a nun, and explains in her autobiography that when she first arrived at the convent, she “had the greatest possible aversion from being a nun” (38). Although she did not initially enjoy being a nun, she saw it as the “best and safest state” for her soul, sort of like spiritual insurance (40). Even amidst her struggle with her vocation, her mistakes, her health issues, and her frustrations with her circumstances at different points of her life, she still describes God’s faithfulness. When I was little, I thought all saints could levitate and had glowing halos around their heads. These are holy people, I thought. But I wasn’t really thinking about who God was. I was just marveling at who these saints were, at least who they were in my idolizing eyes. Yes, the saints are amazing people, but their lives are more a testament to who God is than to who they are. At one point, St. Teresa experiences God’s constancy through a sense of mystical understanding of “how all things are seen in God and how within Himself He contains them all” (237). She tries to articulate it in this way:

Let us say that the Godhead is like a very clear diamond, much larger than the whole world, or a mirror. . . . Let us suppose, furthermore, that all we do is seen in this diamond, which is of such a kind that it contains everything within itself, because there is nothing capable of falling outside such greatness. (238)

God is constant because God encompasses all that we are and all we experience. Whatever goes on in our world, it will never be big enough to shake God, but it will always be important enough to earn God’s attention. God is greater than we can imagine, and yet each detail of our lives is significant to the creator of the universe. 

As the eighth chapter of Romans tells us, nothing can separate us from the love of God. We may feel separated from our families in this time of isolation, separated from a sense of security in the future of our nation, and separated from justice in the many deaths in society, but nothing can separate us from God. God is so constant that our constancy does not even factor into the equation. No matter what we do, no matter what we experience, no matter what happens in the world, God’s reliability won’t change. Knowing that God will never stop calling us into relationship, knowing that God will never stop seeking after each and every one of us, we can trust that God is unshakable. No matter how fragile we feel, our God is unshakable. 
No matter what happens this week, God will be with us. Even if those among us are mourning realities of the world or possible outcomes of the election, are thirsting for hunger and righteousness, are among those oppressed by the plague of racism, God is still God. And if God is still God, we are all still children of God, we will still receive mercy, and our reward is still in Heaven. As Jesus began his Sermon on the Mount with the word “blessed,” so God will continue to say “blessed,” continue to love us, be faithful to us, and to remain true to who God is. So let’s follow Jesus up that mountain to hear that word “blessed.” Let’s sit down on the grass and settle in to listen. To listen to the affirmations of who God is to us and to know that who God is and how God cares for us is unchangeable. Because no matter what happens on earth, this week or beyond, God is still our comfort, God is still merciful, and God is still steadfast. Nothing can separate us from the truth of who God is to us. God will always be God. Amen.