Session 1

Count Your Blessings, Hold Fast to the Promise
by Martha E. Stortz

Theme verses:
Matthew 5:3–12

Opening
Hymn “Blest Are They,” With One Voice 764,
Evangelical Lutheran Worship 728

Prayer
Gracious God, we bless you, for you are the fount and source of all goodness; and you have created us, claimed us, and named us;
Fill our mouths with your praise;
Fill our hearts with your love;
Fill our hands with your purpose.
You invite us to ask for what we need, and today we ask for these particular needs:
(Invite petitions)
We pray in the strong name of Jesus, your Son, our Brother.
Amen.

Introduction
“Guess what the first words out of her mouth were?!” I never did find out, since I picked up this shred of conversation as I hurried through the airport. As my plane lifted into the clouds, I reflected on the significance of first words. We’re fascinated by them; they promise to unlock a mystery.

In Matthew’s Gospel, the Sermon on the Mount inaugurates Jesus’ public ministry, and the first word out of Jesus’ mouth is “blessed.” He repeats this word throughout his first sermon. In using the word blessed, Jesus reaches back to Old Testament stories of blessing in the creation (Genesis 1:1–2:3) and in the call of Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3). At the same time, he reaches forward to his final sermon and the last words of his public ministry (Matthew 25:31–46). Jesus places our Christian discipleship squarely in the midst of blessing. As he speaks, he introduces himself to us, for he is both the one blessing and the one blessed.

He also introduces disciples to themselves, for the Beatitudes offer a character sketch of who disciples will become if they follow him. The Beatitudes are a compass for the journey of Christian discipleship.

Numbering our days
We count calories; we count out the day’s pills or vitamin supplements; we count down the days to vacation or the minutes until quitting time. Along with all these everyday countdowns, we have more serious systems of calculation. We count grudges; we keep track of slights. We count American, Afghani, and Iraqi casualties in the war on terror; we count upticks and downturns in the stock market; we count a mounting national deficit and a growing trade imbalance.

When someone asks us, “how are you doing?” which measurement should we use? Should we respond in terms of how close we are to quitting time? Should we enumerate our grudges? Whether we count market points or minutes left in the working day makes a huge difference. Suddenly the psalmist’s plea carries a certain urgency: “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart” (Psalm 90:12).

Jesus’ First Words
Read Matthew 5:3–12.
In his first big public appearance in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus outlines a new math – counting the blessings: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…blessed are those who mourn…blessed are the meek…blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness … .”

The Beatitudes describe a country of blessing, and there is something both holy and terrifying about Jesus’ blessings. These are not sought–after states. We’d prefer to be “healthy, wealthy, and wise,” as Benjamin Franklin put it. Mourning, meekness, poverty,

and persecution — not on your life! If Jesus were recruiting followers, these blessings would not move people to sign up. Yet the words accurately describe the lives of too many of the world’s people. Sorrow and oppression, hunger and thirst, persecution everywhere: the realities overwhelm us. So what’s going on in Jesus’ first sermon? His first words give us a clue.

1. How has a blessing that you have experienced shaped your life as a disciple? For example, perhaps you were blessed to grow up in a loving, Christian home, and that shapes how you treat people today.

The Beatitudes also describe a country of call and promise. Jesus does not bless commandments or invitations; he calls and blesses people. Moreover, Jesus blesses people by sharing our lot–and reversing it. He takes our curse into his body, blessing it. In blessing, he becomes our hope.

For example, Jesus calls those who mourn and absorbs their tears; he offers the comfort mourners need. Jesus is merciful; indeed, he is mercy made flesh.

2. Look at the calls: Do these seem like blessings to you? Why or why not?

3. Look at the promises: Are the promises worth the blessings? Why or why not?

And third, the Beatitudes describe a country of suffering and healing. Scholars treat the first eight Beatitudes as a distinct unit. They are all cast in the third person plural (“those who”), in contrast with the ninth Beatitude, which is phrased in the second person (“you”). Further, the same promise opens and closes the unit: “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

4. The Beatitudes describe suffering and healing. During the course of a lifetime, we will all probably get to know both. Where would you locate yourself right now? In suffering or healing?

Or both? Where have you experienced blessing? Can you hear the promise–even a whisper of promise?

Eavesdropping on Other Biblical Conversations
In his first sermon, Jesus reaches back to the blessings and curses in the creation and in the call of Abraham. At the same time, he reaches forward to the blessings and curses of his final sermon in Matthew’s Gospel. In this reaching forward and reaching back, he catches disciples up in an embrace of blessing.

Creation’s First Words:
Echoes of Blessing in the Old Testament
Read Genesis 1:1—2:3.
Read this passage aloud with a different person reading each day of creation.
“Like father, like son,” the saying goes, and Jesus’ first words echo the Creator’s. Genesis 1 shows the work of creation to be a shower of blessings. God surveys each day’s work and blesses it. Indeed, if the creation were a song, its refrain would be “and God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).

Creation’s blessings call order out of chaos, separating and distinguishing elements of the cosmos: light from darkness, earth from sea and sky, sun from moon and stars. God blesses with naming, then passes the pleasure of naming on to Adam, and “whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name” (Genesis 2:19). God assigns each of these newly named creatures a place to inhabit. There are creatures specially created to fly in the skies, to swim in the seas, and to crawl on the earth. Blessing knits creation together in a unity of peace.

5. How does naming a person, a pet, a ship, even a house or a car, bless the one that is named?

6. What sort of honor is bestowed or received by naming, even nicknaming something?

7. How does naming someone or something call order out of chaos?

Read Genesis 12:1–3 and Genesis 22:16–18.
Abraham is blessed in order that he might be a blessing to others.
The blessing of Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3; Genesis 22:16–18) repeats and amplifies the blessings of the first days of creation. Again God calls order out of chaos, sending Abraham on a journey. God gives no destination, only a promise: “I will make your name great.” Not only does God bless Abraham, but God makes him a blessing to others. After the near-sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham’s only shot at establishing an inheritance in his world, God repeats the promise: “… by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing” (Genesis 22:18). Against all odds, even against inscrutable divine commands, Abraham’s blessing extends through him and his offspring across the centuries and around the world.

Old Testament blessings leak. Old Testament curses prove leaky as well. God tells Abraham that “the one who curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3), words that recur throughout the Old Testament. The threat reflects the ancient law of returning evil for evil, “an eye for an eye,” but Christians are counseled otherwise. Jesus himself directs disciples to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44), reversing the strict reciprocity of the ancient world. The apostle Paul reminds Christians that Christ Jesus turned the old order upside-down: “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly” (1 Corinthians 4:12–13). Paul’s counsel sounds a lot like the Beatitudes. Blessing replaces cursing as the Christian response in good fortune and bad.

Read Genesis 3:14–19.
The fall alters relationships among the creatures.
The sheer persistence of divine blessing becomes clearest in the fall. The incident with Satan and the apple does not send creation spinning back into the chaos from which it came. Divine blessings hold strong “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world” (Ephesians 6:12, KJV). Nor can blessings be revoked, as we see with Jacob, who tricks his way into a paternal blessing intended for his brother Esau (Genesis 27:1–33).

Even the curses of Genesis 3 cannot erase the blessings of Genesis 1. Rather, the fall dissolves the peace of creation, leaving conflict in its wake. Humans are set against the earth and all its creatures, even against the work of their hands. Woman is set against man and child, man against woman, the serpent against the other animals (Genesis 3:14–19). Finally, God condemns the serpent to crawling on its belly, suggesting that before the fall it walked upright. Medieval artists delighted in this image, painting the snake with feet—even an occasional walking stick! (The Flemish artist Hugo van der Goes painted one example: “Temptation and Fall” in about 1470. It hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and you can find it on the Internet.)

Sometimes when we are frustrated or angry, curses come out of our mouths before we think about what we’re saying. “Bad words” aren’t the only bad words. Even the mildest among us have muttered such things as “Oh, dry up!”

8. Imagine cursing someone. What would happen if that curse came true?

9. Now, imagine blessing that person. What happens when the blessing comes true?

Sometimes doing the right thing requires practice; yet, look at the results, both in ourselves and in others.

Old Testament blessings set the stage for Jesus’ first sermon, offering important clues to what blessing is all about. First, blessings call life into being, naming and inviting distinction; second, blessings relate things, placing parts into a divine whole; third, blessings bestow peace, allowing for unity in diversity; and finally, blessings leak, as the blessed become a blessing.

Jesus’ Last Words: The Blesser Becomes the Blessed
Read Matthew 25:31–46.
A seasoned preacher once said: “You’ve got one good sermon in you — give it with gusto.” Maybe Jesus overheard his advice. His final sermon in Matthew’s Gospel recalls his first, but reveals that the one who blesses joins the ranks of the blessed. Traditionally known as “The Great Judgment,” the last words in Jesus’ public ministry could also be called “Revisiting the Beatitudes,” because here he reveals himself as one who hungers and thirsts, one who is meek and mournful, naked and sick and imprisoned. Repetition renders the message more powerful: “I was hungry…I was thirsty…I was a stranger… I was naked… I was sick… Just as you did it to one of the least of these…, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:35–36, 40).

Jesus’ final sermon shows him in solidarity with those he blessed in his first sermon. Jesus not only feels people’s pain, he shares it, bearing their burden and finding in it blessing. Moreover, the last words identify the source of the blessing: “Come, you that are blessed by my Father…” (Matthew 25:34). Blessed disciples become a blessing for others. Jesus’ last sermon repeats his first sermon — and look at what has happened! The disciples have been swept into God’s plan — unaware. They ask with amazement:

“When was it that we saw you… ?” (Matthew 25: 37, 38, 39). Unknowingly, disciples have been caught up into the kingdom.
The Beatitudes bear blessings, and each blessing bears a promise:

         “ … theirs is the kingdom of heaven,

… they will be comforted,

… they will inherit the earth,

… they will be filled,

… they will receive mercy,

… they will see God,

… they will be called the children of God,

… theirs is the kingdom of heaven,

… your reward is great in heaven.”

Further sessions of this Bible study will explore these promises in more detail. For now, it is important to pay attention to what Jesus does not promise. He never promises: “You will never be afraid,” but he calms our fears just as he calmed the stormy seas. Words he repeats throughout his ministry comfort nervous disciples then and now: “Fear not” and “Be not afraid.” The only words Jesus repeats more frequently than these are the words of invitation: “Follow me.” With this invitation he calls us out of a chaos of our own creation into abundant life. With blessing comes call; with the call comes blessing.

10. How can blessing someone bless you in return?

11. Name some ways you have blessed someone or been blessed.

Disciples: Blessed and Blessing
A high school graduation speaker promised that citizenship was only “a diploma away.” Distracted and distracting, the class cut-up was nudged by a more serious student: “This is who you’re going to be in a few minutes: Listen up.” The Beatitudes tell us who we are going to be, so we listen up to this character sketch of Christian discipleship.

Here creation’s pattern is altered only slightly. The family resemblance between Father and Son is grafted onto the relationship between disciples and their Lord. As he sets his face toward Jerusalem, Jesus takes on the character of the ones he blesses. The prophet Isaiah saw this clearly: “he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4, NKJV). Jesus blesses us by sharing our lot — and reversing it. He becomes the one who is poor in spirit, the one who mourns, the meek, the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness (Matthew 5:3–6). He takes the curse into his own body, yet even as he absorbs abuse, he ministers. He is mercy made flesh, pure in heart, the Prince of Peace, the one who is persecuted for helping others (Matthew 5:7–11). Jesus blesses, and God reveals him to be the blessing intended for the whole of creation. The apostle Paul caught this insight in own first words to the Ephesians: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” (Ephesians 1:3).

Like master, like disciple: Jesus’ lot will be ours. If this feels scary, that’s because it is. The Italian artist Caravaggio painted terror on the faces of two great apostles in 1600, in the paintings “The Conversion on the Way to Damascus” and “The Crucifixion of St. Peter.” Hanging across from one another in a small side chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, the pieces stand as bookends of discipleship. These portraits of Peter and Paul show two terrified disciples, and we hear raw fear in Peter’s question to Jesus: “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” (Mathew 19:27). Discipleship is not for the faint of heart. The blessings of Jesus’ first and last sermons seem less like entrance requirements than a realistic description of what disciples can expect along the way. If we follow Jesus, we will find ourselves hungry and thirsty, naked and imprisoned, poor in spirit, mournful, and meek.

But just as God called out the whole of creation and blessed it, so Jesus calls out a wild and crazy crew of disciples, blesses them, and turns them in spite of themselves into a blessing for others.

Blessed by God, disciples deliver on the promise of Abraham, and spread peace to “all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3).

We marry “for better and for worse.” Perhaps the same is true of discipleship. How can being a disciple of Christ affect your life “for better and for worse”?

12. List some ways that following Jesus has changed your life, both for better and for (what the world might see as) worse.

Praise: A Practice of Discipleship
We all have stories of how revealing the first words out of someone’s mouth are. What are some of your stories? The psalmist was convinced that if we could speak from the heart, the first words out of our mouths would be words of blessing: “O Lord, open my lips; and my mouth will declare your praise” (Psalm 51:15). For centuries, Christian monastics have gathered to pray in the morning upon rising from bed. After the silence of sleep, these are the first words they speak into the new day. These words have been long been spoken or sung to open the daily Divine Office, and we preserve them in our services of Morning Prayer.

Think of the first words that usually come to your mind when you awaken: a list of things to do, a cloudburst of anxieties, a litany of aches and pains. Try waking by counting your blessings, beginning with the fact that you find yourself in a new day. Try ending your day the same way. See how many blessings you can number in your day. Be blessed.

• Count your blessings. Keep track of your blessings in your journal each day.

• Begin your day with praise and write your prayers of praise in your journal. Pay attention to how starting your day with praise shapes your day. Share that with the group if you like.

Closing

Prayer
Holy Jesus, you have blessed us abundantly, and as we name those blessings in our hearts, we thank you.
(Observe a time of silence.)
You have blessed us to be a blessing to others. And as we go forth from this fellowship, we ask your blessing upon those whose names we speak in this fellowship: (Pause for petitions.)
Bless these your children, and may we be a blessing to others. We pray in your Spirit, in whom we live and move and have our being. Amen.

Hymn “Praise God from whom All Blessings Flow,” Evangelical Lutheran Worship 884, 885; Lutheran Book of Worship 564, 565

Looking ahead
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Poverty takes many forms: the gnawing ache of hunger, the ravages of disease, the brittleness of emotional need, the fear of spiritual abandonment. Attend to the poverty around you and within you. Behold it — and bless it. Listen to the promise of this Beatitude.

Martha E. Stortz is professor of historical theology and ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif., and the author of A World according to God (Jossey-Bass, 2004).

Bible study: NRSV translation