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“ Good grief ”
Message preached on October
14, 2018
Long Green Valley Church of the Brethren
Glen Arm, Maryland USA
based upon
Matthew 5:4
“Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.”
Again, we are gathered on the
hillside as disciples sitting with Jesus. He begins what we call the
“Sermon on the Mount” with a series of blessings, according to Matthew’s
gospel. “Beatitudes,” we say. You know, “blessed … happy are those … who
grieve,” we hear him say. Again, sitting here with Jesus, we may do a
double take. To grieve is to be happy? To grieve is to be blessed? Last
time you and I sat here together, we pondered how poverty could be
considered a beatitude, something sounding a bit beautiful, a blessing, a
happiness – whether actual poverty, as in how the gospel of Luke remembers
it, or “poor in spirit,” as in
Matthew’s rendition. Both Luke and Matthew added Jesus saying that for
these poor persons, these
poor in spirit people – theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. Not theirs someday
will be, but theirs
is now the kingdom. This draws us up short. It may, in fact,
turn our view of the world upside down … or better put, turn it right-side
up.
Something I need to say about
these beatitudes is that this is not a catalog of ethics, a ‘to do’ list,
a map of morals. We are not instructed that ‘if only’ we could attain
these things, then blessedness/happiness would be ours. No, that is not
what Jesus is saying. On that hillside, he sits us down with him and
begins with some blessings. No strings are attached to them. We are not
expected to jump up and try to attain them, as if poverty (actual or
spiritual) were something to be achieved. Of course, some down through the
centuries have sought to do so. The best example many of us think of is
St. Francis of Assisi. Our own tradition lifts up simplicity as a virtue,
though I can tell you that Brethren were not all that poor down through
the years. They often were land rich, even as they sought to speak and
live simply.
Still, these beatitudes with
which Jesus begins his sermon are not a demand from God for us to live
these things out if we are to be blessed. Ethics come later in this sermon
on a hillside, interspersed with more of these unconditional statements
concerning God’s love and care. I have a hunch that when Matthew pulled
together this collection of Jesus’ sayings into what we call a “sermon,”
he purposely began with these beatitudes to remind us that living out the
gospel is itself a grace. It begins and ends with God’s blessing, which is
woven throughout anything and everything we do as disciples of Jesus. We
sit down at his feet and listen to get this straight. As we pass along the
faith, this beginning is essential. We are not sharing a law to be obeyed,
but rather a gospel to be lived. There is a difference. Law is built upon
“if you do this, then you will get that.” Gospel begins with blessing out
of which flows a lifestyle of grace - a gift from God.
Having said that, it does seem
strange to think of grief as a blessing, a gift from God. From the outset,
it is important to note that grief is not something with which God is
unfamiliar. Recall, if you will, the story of Noah in the first book of
the Bible. As this episode there begins, “The
Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that
every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil
continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the
earth, and it grieved him to his
heart”
(Genesis 6:5-6).
When things don’t go according to plan, we grieve. Even God did and does.
Even now, our “bitterness and wrath
and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice,” can “grieve the Holy Spirit of God,”
according to the apostle Paul
(Ephesians 4:30-31).
Grief is a significant part of
our journey of faith. The Psalms sing chorus after chorus, prayer after
prayer, to help God’s people deal with disappointment, disillusionment,
disaster, loss – everything that moves us into times of mourning when, in
the physicality of the Old Testament, we might - like Job - tear our
clothes and throw ashes all over ourselves in the face of tragedy. An
entire book is attributed to grief – Lamentations. There, the open wound
of mourning is placed into the hands of God. “He
(God) has filled me with bitterness,” it says “he
has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made
me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what
happiness is; so I say, ‘Gone is
my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord’”
(3:15-20).
It almost sounds like blaming God. And in a way it is. But only because
God is big enough to handle our grief.
In the very next breath, the
author of Lamentation continues, “But
this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the
Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every
morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The
Lord is my portion,’ says my
soul, ‘therefore I will hope in
him.’ The Lord is good to those
who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should
wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” A few verses later comes
this: “For the Lord will not reject
forever. Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to
the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or
grieve anyone”
(3:21-26, 31-33).
All of this and more lies behind
the second beatitude of the hillside: “blessed
are those who mourn.” While the first blessing spoke in present tense,
saying that for the “poor in spirit
… theirs is the kingdom
of heaven,” this second blessing for those who mourn speaks in future
tense, “they
will be comforted.”
You may be tired of being reminded when we share our joys and concerns
that “grief takes time.” But it does. Mourning is a journey. We do not
arrive at the comfort overnight. The fortification that the process of
grief brings is not immediate. It may feel like a long walk to get there,
and very often the destination arrives almost like a surprise. But that is
how the blessing of grief happens. It arrives as a grace – a gift of God
along the way.
I used to share a little book by
Granger E. Westberg, entitled
Good Grief,
with those who had recently lost a loved one, or faced some other kind of
loss. In it Westberg, a Lutheran
minister who helped create the
parish nurse program, identified ten stages of grief in his 64 page
book. Recognizing, however, that grief is complex and deeply personal, he
wrote that there is no “right” way to grieve, and that these are not steps
we all go through in exactly the same pattern. They are just there. They
come with the territory.
Let me simply name and describe
them. These “bus stops” (if you will) along the way of grief feel very
familiar – at least they do to me as I journey through the loss of my
health. The initial one is a state of
shock, where we don’t feel the
impact of our loss. We may, in fact, feel not much at all. Shock is our
body’s natural sedative to hold back pain … for a while. It’s often
followed by waves of strong emotion,
the second stage. Friends of those who grieve sometime ask, “how are you
feeling?” I know I have. The only problem is that this is a very hard
question to answer in the middle of it all. It’s better just to sit and
listen.
Along the way of grief it’s okay
to be depressed – which
Westberg identified as another step along the way of grief. Let me say,
however, that clinical depression is something different. Thank you,
Meghan for helping us to understand this. In grief, depression comes and
goes. Clinical depression, however, does not leave - it becomes chronic.
In both, being depressed is not “bad.” It is not a failure along the way.
It is not an absence of faith. To the contrary, it takes faith to admit
being depressed.
Other “bus stops” along the way
of grief that Westberg identified are
physical distress and
panic, both of which are felt
bodily. We may over or under-eat, for instance. We might experience
nausea, dizziness or have bad headaches. Our immune system may not up to
par and we can become susceptible to colds or infections. Anxiety along
the way can immobilize us or it may make us hyper or impulsive. These all
come with the territory of grief.
Feeling
guilt is also par for the course, another step along our journey.
Something we did or didn't do may bother us greatly – perhaps, for
instance, what we said or didn’t say to a dying loved one. This is a very
normal feeling, by the way. We run into problems, however, when we
irrationally blame ourselves for something over which we had no control.
I find myself waiting at the
anger “bus stop” fairly
frequently. Many times my wife has patiently listened to me say, “I want
my body back!” or “I am so tired of this hospital, I want to scream!” or
“why didn’t the surgeon just replace my hip and femur last year?” If
you’ve read the book of Job in the Bible, you find plenty of examples of
this, along with examples in his friends of how
not to respond. They
basically tell him not to be angry. God, who finally speaks in a whirlwind
at the end has some choice words for these not-so-helpful friends. I hope
I have been a non-anxious presence with many of you during such times,
listening to your anger (as well as your other responses as you journey
through these stages of grief). It’s okay to be angry when life changes –
when you can no longer do what you once did.
Now, we can
resist moving on in our grief, remaining at a certain place along
the way, feeling unable for various reasons to make a shift. I can still
remember Buddy Clayton, over twenty-five years ago, telling me, “You know,
they took my driver’s license away.” The fact that this car mechanic - who
lived across the street from the church – had been bedfast for years
didn’t matter. His resistance was another step along the way of grief. And
it was okay.
Eventually, however, rays of
hope start to shine through,
when we glimpse – even for just a moment – new possibilities, leading
toward acceptance. These final
two steps do come – hope and acceptance. They cannot be forced. Nor do
they lead to the past, to making our lives just like they used to be. No,
something new emerges. “Blessed are
those who mourn,” Jesus said, “for
they will be comforted.” Notice, his promise is in future tense. We
journey toward it … and it takes time and our own energy to walk, step by
step. That’s true no matter our loss, whether we grieve the death of a
loved one or mourn the loss of health or lament any major change in our
lives.
Back to this second beatitude. A
major change those first disciples gathered around Jesus on that hillside
would face in the future was the fact that God’s kingdom didn’t burst
forth like they thought it would in the years ahead, after he rose from
the dead and then left to be with God. Yes, the Holy Spirit came on
Pentecost like wind and fire, and the church was born, but Jesus didn’t
return. Like us, they had to deal with a messy world. There is much to
grieve today in how things are. No matter what your politics are, we can
tear our hair out and rend our clothes over the current state of affairs.
In fact, I’d say our country is in a very angry stage of grief right now.
Would you agree? Can we, as disciples who sit at the feet of Jesus on the
hillside, be a non-anxious presence in our world, really listening through
the grief – listening not to respond, but just to hear? Can we be a
beatitude, a blessing, God’s grace in this world? This promise from the
mount is for us along the way: “Blessed
are those who mourn, for they will
be comforted.”
Remember what the apostle Paul
wrote his young friend Timothy, “God
has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a
sound mind”
(2 Timothy 1:7, KJV).
Remember, also, what John wrote
in the last book of the Bible – a glimmer of hope for those who walk
through grief toward the kingdom. “And
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold,
the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be
his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear
from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will
be no more, for the first things have passed away.’
And the one who was seated on the
throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”
(Revelation 21:3-5a).
©2018
Peter
L. Haynes
(you are welcome to borrow and, where / as appropriate, note
the source - myself or those from whom I have knowingly borrowed.)