Blessed Through Struggle

And today we're talking about John Wesley , the founder of United Methodism , by the way , the founder of Methodism and also the inspiration for any Wesleyan faith which there are a number of those too but today we're talking about social justice . Wesley had a big heart for social justice . So what do we mean by social justice ? I thought it was important .

We're going to have a definition , working definition for social justice , and I digged deep down into the bowels of Google and found you a simple definition Social justice is the belief that everyone should have equal rights , opportunities and treatment , regardless of their race , economic status , gender or other characteristics . So a working definition .

Somewhat general , wesley believed in this , and this is him back in the 1700s , so there is that context that we probably ought to keep in mind . So

, in trying to talk about social justice , I went to the Beatitudes , matthew 5 , verses 1 through 12 . I think I asked this at another time . Anybody have to memorize the Beatitudes ever . Yeah , all right , me and Becky , all right , that's right , linda . Not as many as I might have thought , though .

See , I was trying to save money going to church camp , I had to memorize all of these Beatitudes . I don't know that I could do it again right now , but that was something that is kind of this tight package , this summary of some of Jesus' teachings , some of the key teachings , this summary of some of Jesus' teachings , some of the key teachings .

So I landed on that because to me it spoke to that social justice , understanding the need that this world has . That Jesus would speak into . Now , some of you know , in Matthew the gospel , chapters 5 through 7 , is kind of a summary of a lot of Jesus's earthly teachings .

If you're trying to understand a little bit more what Jesus actually tried to teach us about living in this world , that's a really good place to start .

Matthew , chapter 5 through chapter 7 , it really tight kind of puts it all together and it opens with these beatitudes and it's all these definitions about people who are blessed right , blessed people in this world .

But what you'll probably notice , what I think you should notice , is that those first four categories should notice is that those first four categories they don't seem like people who are particularly blessed . Am I right ? We don't think of the poor in spirit as being blessed . We don't feel very blessed when we are mourning , when we're feeling meek .

We feel more frustrated than blessed when we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness . Now , if we're reading through this , the inclination would be to think oh okay , jesus is working with God , there's going to be some justice that gets meted out maybe not in this world , but in some other world , some judgment at some other time .

Maybe that's what Jesus is talking about . The problem is there's not a lot of hope for people who are in this place here and in this world

today . It doesn't help somebody who is poor in spirit to say , oh , don't worry , when you pass away and go on to be in God's next world , go on to be in heaven or what have you , you'll be fine . Then it doesn't carry much weight , right , it doesn't make you feel any better , really .

And when I talk about feeling better or feeling hopeful about the world and things like that and this teaching that maybe some other time everything will even out .

Well , yeah , we're talking about the poor in spirit suffering , but don't all of us suffer in that context , when we're talking about our world and living in a place where not everybody is given the opportunity to kind of be who God wanted them to be , to be fully who God wanted them to be when God created that person .

If we're in a place where they are suffering , they aren't blooming , they aren't offering the gifts that God gave them to share . Well , that's not just them suffering . Maybe they're getting the worst of it , but aren't we all suffering ?

The kingdom , to a certain extent , isn't fully what the kingdom is supposed to be , because a certain amount of us aren't given the space to be who God created . That's why this understanding that maybe God is going to fix things a little bit later doesn't carry enough weight for me . Bit later doesn't carry enough weight for me .

I feel like there has to be a message here that is about this world . When he's talking about the poor in spirit being blessed , those who mourn being blessed , the meek being blessed , I feel like he's got to be talking about some lesson for here .

But then the question becomes how Because they sure don't seem blessed have you ever been in one of those low ebbs of life , those times where you're feeling pretty poor in spirit , pretty poor in spirit , like we're talking about our spirit being how we connect with God ? You ever felt disconnected to God . That spirit thing seems to be absent .

We're not truly sure if God exists or not . Or even if God does exist , does that even matter ? We got a God . But I've known these times in my life . For me , the way the question kind of rose up was less about whether God was present or even about whether God mattered . It was more about are people going to respond ?

Maybe God doesn't matter , because the people aren't listening , they're not following . So if we're not going to do what God is inviting us to do and be who God is inviting us to be , you know well , maybe God doesn't matter . Maybe God's waiting for us to help build that kingdom . For me , that was a time .

Those are times of feeling poor in spirit , lacking the hope , lacking the faith . Getting back to this list a little bit , have you ever mourned ? I'm guessing yes , because life is life . Have you ever felt meek or been made to feel meek ? Have you ever hungered and were thirsty for righteousness , wondered where the good and the just was in this world ?

To me , the irony is that it's in these times , these places , where we feel like we have the least hope , the least connection to God , the least faith . It's often in these times that God is our most blessed presence . God is able to work with us most intentionally . Why ? Possibly because we got nowhere else to go .

We're not finding hope , we're not finding faith . I know in those tough times , for me it actually ended up being kind of a doubling down with God . Amidst the uncertainty of our world , the instability of our world , the instability of people , no matter how good intentioned , still broken in their own ways , amidst that uncertainty , god felt stable to me .

I knew that God was love and that love was real . And even if I wasn't seeing it all the time , I had seen it . I might have only had faith because

I couldn't find anything else to grab , but it was still faith , it was still trust in God and in that trust I gave God a chance to work inside of me , to help me find God's presence , not only inside but outside in the world , to find hope , to find context , to find comfort To me .

I think this is really what Jesus was trying to get across when he talked about us being blessed despite these times where we felt poor in spirit . I'm moving on to the list a little bit more . The next four on this list of blessed people . To me they feel a little bit more palatable things I might actually strive to be .

I want to be merciful , I want to be pure in heart , I want to be a peacemaker . I want to be those who , if I'm going to be persecuted , it's going to be fighting for what's right . This part of that blessed list we might actually get a little excited about .

In fact , if you look at it , and maybe when you get home , or if you pull it out of the pew and you look at it Matthew 5 , you might see kind of a progression , a progression that Matthew creates out of Jesus' teachings , where it starts at the very lowest of the low , poor in spirit , where we feel like we have nothing to grab onto , and then it slowly

begins to build . We're mourning to meek Until we're getting into some of these other things where we're having more confidence , we're getting more stable , we're getting more confident in God's presence , living that out until finally we get to that ultimate , ultimate depth of faith , so strong that we can take on the most difficult this world has to offer .

Look at this last verse , or at least verse 11 , I should say Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you , falsely on my account . That one right there , that's going to take the deep faith . Am I right ? Have you been that person getting persecuted for trying to do the right thing ? That's the deep faith .

That's MLK in the Birmingham jail kind of faith , right there . I have a suggestion for you , kind of a fun suggestion , but you might try this passage as a bit of a locker room inspirational .

Go out for the second half kind of speech , because you could see it build and you can see it grow and you can see somebody getting built as they become deeper and deeper in their faith . If you want to have even a little bit more fun , imagine the preacher cadence of an african-american preacher , because those folks can bring it .

I thought about trying but I thought no , you , you , you small white man , just just ride in your lane , but let yourself hear it at some point . Pull out that passage and let yourself hear the inspiration that can come from that .

It's a passage obviously about social justice , and when you're talking about John Wesley and his belief in social justice , he's living at a time and I would argue we're in a similar time where the theology , the understanding of God that comes up against social justice is often about personal holiness or personal piety , the argument being oh okay , well , if we have

our faith right , that's what matters . That's what matters

to God . You've got to get that straight . It doesn't necessarily matter what we bring to the world or how we change the world . For Wesley , this was absolutely not true . For Wesley , he spoke not of personal holiness , but he talked about social holiness .

He knew that our faith needed to be present in our action , or that we probably hadn't had much real faith at all If you didn't believe . Well , if you believed but it didn't lead to some action , was it really anything at all ? Did you get inspired in any way ? For him , faith and works were a little bit like breathing .

That faith led to works and back to faith . I might say it a little more concretely An inward experience , an inward spiritual experience , leads to an outward spiritual experience , and vice versa , does it not ?

Does it not that inward taking in of all that God is makes you want to go out and do the good work and have that experience , and that experience out doing the good work makes you want to go get some more . Go back inside . Now for Wesley some areas of social justice work that were important to him . He was always addressing poverty and hunger .

That was hugely important for him . This another one that was important , especially considering the time abolition of slavery . He was definitely against slavery , the irony being we were split as United Methodists over the Civil War , so you can wrestle with that . He was also a big advocate of prison reform .

I can tell you too , there is significant social justice legacy that came from John Wesley . Wesleyan theology and teachings are the underpinnings for the Salvation Army Church . So they're out there and they're dinging their bells at Christmastime . Are the underpinnings for the Salvation Army Church , right ?

So they're out there and they're dinging their bells at Christmas time . You can know that the formation that led to them leading this ministry and really leading church grounded in that social justice came from Wesleyan thinking . Here's another one . Do you know we were really active in prohibition , right ? Some of you are really proud of that .

Some of you really begrudge that Funny story . You know how we have grape juice for communion . You know the name of a famous Methodist Welch's Not an accident . You know you got to take advantage of opportunities . But I make jokes but at the same time . Part of why we do grape juice is to be in solidarity with people who have that , who wrestle with that .

I'll call it a demon alcoholism . To be in solidarity with people who wrestle with that . Also , I'll mention what we call our social principles . Social principles is this living document that we , as a denomination , own , and it is a document that we revisit periodically .

We revisit every fourth year at our general conference , where you can submit suggestions for adjustments to this document . So it is a living document that we would come back and vote on , and what it is is . It's a gathering of our collective beliefs , or a statement around our beliefs , around some of the cultural issues of our time .

We are not a creedal church , and what I mean by that there's not a set of beliefs that we mandate or that we invite you to say every single Sunday . There is an openness to some conversation , to the

journey of faith amongst us , in that we can disagree to a certain extent , why we are not a creedal church . At the same time , time that we are a church who claims a social principles document that we do hold ourselves to . I want you to know that , as you can probably guess , in 2025 , it is flawed at best .

The issues of the day are often provocative and challenging and not easy . So as you read through , there will be things you continue to wrestle with , but I think for me there's a certain amount of pride in that . That is something that we're willing to wrestle over .

We're willing to own the fact that we're going to try our best to be relevant , to speak into relevant topics and to try to bring at least the United Methodist body together with some sort of unity , as best we're able . But , like I said , it's 2025 .

Unity is not always a value we share in our culture these days , but at least , as Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr might argue , we are not so heavenly focused as to be no earthly good . We are out there doing our best to make the world better .

So maybe the most important part of our social principles is that they are an important part of our being united Methodist , that the wrestling is as important as in anything we actually believe , and we'll talk about that a little bit more next week . But what I like to know is that we're being proactive about making the world better .

It's a critical part of who we are and when we live it out . As we understand from Matthew 5 , we are blessed , amen , amen .