Sermon Library
“Blessed Are Those Who Mourn”
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
February 27, 2011
Service Theme: Epiphany VIII
Epiphany VIII February 27, 2011
“Blessed Are Those Who Mourn”
Broken Open
There is a book by Elizabeth Lesser with a wonderful title. The title is simply Broken Open. It is subtitled How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow. In her opening pages she describes a trip to Jerusalem prompted by a friend who was trying to help her during a difficult time of impending divorce. She writes that she flew half way around the world to a city as mixed up as herself and scared and confused about her crumbling marriage. Wandering deeper into the walled Old City, she came to an ancient alleyway lined with shops selling religious artifacts for the Western pilgrims. She went reluctantly into one dusky shop where she met two Arab men, a father and a son who were offering Persian rugs and art. They had some brief conversation and the father could sense a special need about her. She writes, “Fixing his gaze on me, as if trying to read the secrets of my heart, he said in perfect English, “Come, you will like this picture.” Taking my hand, he led me around piles of rugs to the back of the store. He placed his right hand on his heart and bowed his head in the traditional Islamic greeting. “Look,” he said, pointing at a small painting hanging on the wall. He touched my arm with the kindness of a grandfather. “See the rose?” he asked, turning me toward the picture. There, framed in dark wood, was the ethereal image of a rosebud, with shimmering, pale petals holding one another in a tight embrace. Under the flower was an inscription that read:
And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin
The father said that the painting meant more than the painting. He said, “I mean that your heart is like the flower. Let it break open. What you want is waiting for you in your own heart. The time has come.” He concluded with salutation, “May Allah bless you.” She returned to her room with the words under the painting echoing through her mind, thinking more and more how she was, indeed, like the rosebud, holding herself together, tight and tense, terrified of breaking open. Remaining tight in a bud had become a kind of death. With this rosebud image in her mind and now in her heart, she realized that now had to become the time to begin to open and eventually blossom. Broken Open is the story of hers and other such journeys.
What Did Jesus Mean?
The second Beatitude given by Jesus is “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Was Jesus saying that when we face our fears and feel our pain, we will begin to find solace and comfort? Was Jesus saying that when we mourn as human beings and open our hearts to the spirit of God and see the clearer picture, we will find grace and comfort? Was Jesus saying that compassion is the plan of God and the purpose of people? We probably cannot know for certain the precise meaning of this Beatitude, but it certainly provokes our need and desire. Perhaps it is perfectly appropriate to understand this Beatitude in more than one way, just as Jesus’ parables elicit more than one exact interpretation.
Aramaic
In terms of interpretation we do need to realize that we are looking at a saying which is simple, beautiful and meaningful, but it is probably in a third or even fourth lineage of language. It is more than likely that Jesus spoke the most common lay language of Jerusalem at the time which scholars have clearly identified as Aramaic. So what Jesus probably said on this mountain side to his disciples was “Tubwayhun lawile d’hinnon netbayun.”
So now we have that clarified. This Aramaic statement was handed down in a fairly strict oral tradition and then written in Greek a number of years later. It was then spread in Latin and over a millennium later we have the English translation. And as one elder and defender of the literal interpretation of the Bible said, “If English was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me.”
According to a professor at Holy Names University, Neil Douglas-Klotz, Lawile (lah-wee-lay) can mean “mourners” as translated from the Greek, but in Aramaic it also carries the sense of those who long deeply for something to occur, those troubled or in emotional turmoil, or those who are weak and in want from such longing. Netbayun (net-baih-yoon) can mean “comforted,” but also connotes being returned from wandering, united inside by love, feeling an inner continuity, or seeing the arrival of what one longs for.
Toni Cook suggests that in the very word “Lawile you can almost hear the sounds of mourning or the sounds of being confused. So we have a part of our being that both knows where we want to go in life and a part of us that is wandering in confusion. In the very word Netbayun you can get a sense of being knit back together from within – we can be healed and made whole in our hearts. There are so many layers of who you are and we could spend many lifetimes discovering deeper and deeper layers of ourselves, and finding out about being ‘all here.’”
Neil Douglas-Klotz provides another interpretation of this beautiful beatitude which could profess an equal if not greater accuracy such as, “Blessed are those in emotional turmoil; they shall be united inside by love.” Or, “Healthy are those weak and overextended for their purpose; they shall feel their inner flow of strength return.” Or, “Healed are those who weep for their frustrated desire; they shall see the face of fulfillment in a new form.” Or, “Aligned with the One are the mourners; they shall be comforted.” Or, “Tuned to the Source are those feeling deeply confused by life; they shall be returned from their wandering.”
This is all interesting, but I suspect that the simpler translation we are familiar with is part of the proliferation and popularity of the Beatitudes. They all leave us with something to keep thinking about for ourselves. Perhaps Jesus knew that we would learn better by applying such teachings to ourselves. Jesus must have been really smart.
My Interpretation
However we may interpret or understand this beatitude, what does it mean for us, for each of us? I suspect it can have many different meanings. For me, it can mean that we are not to escape or deny the feelings of loss or mourning that we naturally experience as human beings. We need to feel all the emotions of life. I have often said that crying is one of the better things we do in life. It is certainly healthy for us to cry, whether it is tears of joy or tears of sorrow. To mourn or to experience the wandering is to feel all of life. When we suppress or deny any part of ourself, we lose that valuable part of ourself. I have said many times at many memorial services, “When we can more sincerely cry, we can more sincerely laugh.” And, in fact, to laugh after crying is most natural and when we think about it, we almost always follow up our crying with laughter. “Blessed are those who cry, for they shall soon laugh.”
Crying is Natural at Birth
Crying is most natural. In fact, crying is one of the first things we do in life. We are most comfortable in the womb. Everything is taken care of for us there. No worries, no pressure. All is well in mommy’s tummy. Then, all of a sudden, we are pushed and pressured out into the world. We take our first breath in the reality of the world around us and we realize that we have more things to do than we can manage, the newspaper only headlines bad news, we realize all that is before us, strict parents, school, tests, proving one’s self, college, marriage, and a long term job and we can only begin to cry. It is no wonder that our first breath is to mourn and to cry. Crying is natural. Mourning is natural and good and does, indeed, lead to solace, reconciliation and comfort.
And I have never been present at any memorial service when both extreme emotions have not been genuinely expressed. I would even go so far to say that it is specifically our mourning which even allows us to begin to be comforted. Or, we cannot be comforted without the mourning. Tears and laughter accompany every memorial service. Personally, I have learned more about life from death than anything else. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.
Garrison Keeler
Sometimes, we as people will take certain risks or adventures in life to feel more of life. We often know the risks of venturing forth in new territories, but we are willing to take the chance for a greater gain or even good. Garrison Keeler of the Prairie Home Companion radio show tells a story about the need for storms and fear and upheaval in our lives. Otherwise, he says, we would be bored. Once, as an example, when he was a child and bored one day, he threw a tomato at his sister just to get a response. And “boy,” he said, he really got one.
Garrison Keeler tells this next story and I invite you to imagine Garrison telling it in his down-home folksy style. He talked about a man called Lightning Bolt Hal. He was a dairy farmer, who spent all day out in the fields working with his cows and getting up early every morning to call them into the barn to milk them. Every day was the same. So Hal was bored, but he liked to watch storms whenever they would appear. Whenever he saw a storm coming, when the clouds would start to swirl and turn dark in the sky and the wind blew, and whenever he’d see lightning in the distance, he would follow the storm all around his farm, carrying with him his tall metal ladder so he could climb up a tree and be close to the wildness of the storm, courting danger, terror and excitement. Over the years, Hal got struck by lightning seven times. He was a phenomenon in his local community. People would come up to see him at the county fair. There he is “Lightning Bolt Hal.”
From Toni Cook
My clergy friend Toni Cook told me about the story from Garrison Keeler when she was talking about this very beatitude. Toni says “We do seem to need the full range of experiences to really feel alive. But most of us don’t have to go looking for them or climb up a tree with a metal ladder during a thunder storm. And there are many people in the world today who would give anything not to have to be in the pain and difficulty that has been thrust on them today. Sometimes we crave more intensity because we find it difficult to really feel the full range of what is in our own hearts. Jesus tried to address the whole spectrum of human feelings and responses to the world in the Beatitudes. He was trying to evoke the whole person. One spiritual practice that can help us understand what that means is cultivating sensory awareness. By becoming more aware of our own body and its sensations – because our body may be the most conscious part of ourselves – we can be in touch with more of our full range of feelings, like grief and mourning and fear and shame and anger. Our bodies know what we are feeling even when we don’t want to think about it.”
This makes me think that perhaps Jesus was trying to awaken and align within us a spiritual awareness that even during times of mourning, broken hearts or even when our lives seem like they are falling apart, there is within this very being, surrounding us with love and compassion which is greater than any troubles before us.
Toni says that this is in keeping with “the old Hebrew and Aramaic way of looking at life as made up of combinations of opposites: what is known and what is unknown, what is in the light and what is in the darkness. So one part of discovering joy in life is also discovering the part of our being that is wandering or confused or even grieving. When we do this, according to Jesus, we liberate what he calls in Aramaic hi -ee – a word that is usually translated as “life” but a better translation would be “life energy.” And this life is not somewhere else, it is not later, it is embodied life energy here and now. Jesus said that I have come so that you might have life and have it abundantly. So part of liberating this divine life energy in our being means uncovering all the aspects of our being, and even discovering some hidden aspects of our being that are awaiting us, maybe parts of ourselves that we try to avoid, difficult feelings, past pain, and grief.”
Gospel of Thomas
In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, “If you bring forth that which is within you, that which is within you will redeem you, it will return you with Sacred Unity, with God. But if you do not bring forth that which is within you, then that part of you that is ignored is part of what is slowly destroying you . . . (Logion 70) “not destroying our eternal souls, but it is slowly debilitating us, taking life away from us, because we are holding our breath away from that part of our inner being and we do not have it as a resource, we are not breathing with the fullest extent of our being so to speak. So particularly in this second Beatitude, Jesus is affirming parts of our being that longs to be recognized. It is most significant to note that many of the beatitudes exist within the Gospel of Thomas. We read in Thomas, “Blessed are the troubled ones, they have seized hold of life.” It is when we open ourselves to all of life that we seize hold of life.
Shattered Spirit House
I began with a story from Elizabeth Lesser in her book Broken Open. I conclude with her last words in this book. She had just received a good size box from UPS. She opened up what was supposed to be a Garden Spirit House from Thailand, a gift from her sisters for her 50th birthday. It was packed in bubble wrap, but it still came in shattered glass pieces. Nevertheless she kept the glass shards in a basket in her writing room to remind her that while she is never safe from breaking, she is always protected by spirit. She writes, “The promise of being broken and the possibility of being opened are written into the contract of human life. Certainly this tumultuous journey on the waves can be tiresome. When the sea is rough, and when we are suffering, we may want to give up hope and give in to despair. But brave pilgrims have gone before us. They tell us to venture forth with faith and vision. The Sufi Rumi writes, “Drum sounds rise on the air, and with them, my heart. A voice inside the beat says, “I know you are tired, but come. This is the way.” Jesus has shown us the way and taught us the way. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Amen.
Gregg Anderson
Aspen Chapel
0077 Meadowood Drive
Aspen, Colorado 81611
http://www.aspenchapel.org
Addendum
The plain fact is that a great deal of growth often happens to us after we’ve been through some form of suffering. The eminent professor of pastoral counseling Howard Clinebell shares this poignant image from his childhood about the impact of pain and anguish in our lives. He was raised on a farm, and so he was struck as a boy at the sight of a good, sharp plow blade slicing deep into the soil, cutting through the shallow roots of things which made the soil ready for receiving seeds of crops that needed to be able to reach deeply into the dirt. Pain and grief does the same for us—it prepares the soil of our souls for the deeper seeds of truth of God that desperately need to take root in us. Clinebell writes: “[Sharp plow blades] sever any shallow spiritual roots. But disturbing the soil also prepares it for receptivity to new seeds of meaning…. In due season, some will flower. The deeper the plow goes, the deeper the new roots of faith can penetrate. Right after plowing, the furrows become tiny rivers when the spring rains send needed water. From a spiritual perspective, the furrows cut by crises and losses can become channels for either the toxins of bitterness toward God (as often is true, at least initially) or the living water that nourishes life in all its fullness. Gradually, we can let the living water of healing love—ours and God’s—flow through this channel in our souls.”
As Rabi Zacharias once wrote, “What God whispers to us in our pleasure, He shouts to us in our pain.”
Somehow we need to be able to make peace with the reality that bad things happen to good people, whether their pain be physical, emotional or spiritual. This was the basic challenge that Job faced. It is a tough challenge for most of us. It sure has been for me for many years, but I can say that the Lord’s seeds of wisdom regarding that bad things happen to essentially good people sometimes have taken root and are growing.