Grace to you and peace from God our parent, Jesus our Savior, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Ahh yes, the Beatitudes, one of the passages of the Gospel that everyone seems to have heard and many love it. A nice passage providing hope for the future, even possibly for after we die and are joined with the saints in the heavenly kin-dom. A passage letting us know that even if things aren’t all that great here on Earth, that they will be much better once we are with God. Or is it?  Is this what it is about?  I think there is a lot more here.

Just like much of Jesus’s life and preaching, Jesus was being counter-cultural here. He was going against everything that society, religion, and government was telling people. Wealth, religious piety in high positions in the church, power, strength, fighting for what they thought was right, forcing people into their ways, happiness – were all things society, then, and still today, values as a whole.

In other parts of the Gospel, John the Baptist and others tell people to repent, which means to turn around. They were being told – “Hey – you are going the wrong way – you are on the wrong path – turn around!” They were being told that they were living their lives not as God intended.

In today’s Gospel, the message changes to tell us which people are blessed. As Pastor Ellen very nicely explains in her study guide for today’s readings, “Jesus begins his message, the inaugural address of his ministry, by saying, “Blessed.”  Now, the Jewish people really knew their Hebrew scripture and they knew the Psalms. They knew that the great Law Psalm, Psalm 1, begins with exactly the same word, blessed.  You see, Psalm 1 begins like this, “Blessed is the one who walks not in the way of the wicked but in the way of the Lord.”  And ashar, the Hebrew word for blessed, really means something like ‘You are on the right road.’”

So we are switching from telling people that they are on the wrong road – to telling us who is on the right road, the right path, headed in the right direction – and it isn’t anything like what society is telling people.

The ones on the right path are those who are poor in spirit – maybe they feel like they aren’t worshiping correctly, or don’t have the resources to worship as society tells them they should. Those who want righteousness and peace, not war and violence. Those who are truly pure in heart – not just putting on a show for others. The ones who were probably shunned or outcast from society because of who they were and what they believed in or had the means to do, were now being told that they are on the right path, they are blessed.

Also to note is that who is described as blessed tends to be based on who they are, not what they do.  “Blessed are the merciful”, not “blessed are those who show or act with mercy”. “Blessed are the pure in heart” not “blessed are those who act correctly”. This is showing that we are on the right path, blessed, by being true to who God created us to be, not because of doing what we think are the right things to please God. As noted in today’s Micah reading, the people of God often had it wrong as to what would please the Lord – they think that offerings of a calf, or thousands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil would please the Lord. However, they are told that isn’t what the Lord wants – all that is required is “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Also, the promises for us, are for us now – not for some far off future. We often think of the kin-dom of God or the kin-dom of Heaven as where we’ll go when we die, but as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer “your kin-dom come”, we are calling for the kin-dom to come to us here, in our lives today, as has been promised to us. It may be hard to see the comfort or mercy or inheritance we receive now when we are on the right path because it is often hidden by society and the ways of the world, but the promise is there for us now, and if we open our hearts and minds to receive it, we’ll start seeing it amidst the turmoil of the world.

So the Gospel is telling people that they are blessed, on the right path, because of who God created them to be, even though society says otherwise. We have all been called blessed in our baptism, not through our actions. We are all God’s children because of who we are since we were created whole as a child of God.

So how does this pertain to us today? Before we get there – a brief story about me.

You all know me as “Rich”.  However, that isn’t my only name.  My legal name is “Richard” and that is what I use when signing legal documents and in more formal situations. Although I don’t remember it, I’m sure I was baptized as “Richard” as well. When I was a baby and infant – up until I started kindergarten, I was called “Ricky”. Then, and this is one of the strange things I remember from my childhood, after church one Sunday, by the coat rack, my dad talked to me and said that I’d be starting school soon and if I had thoughts about what I wanted to be called in school – and I decided on “Richard.”  So in elementary, middle, and part of high school, I was “Richard.”  Then somehow in high school my friends started calling me “Rich,” even though I still used “Richard” for everything.  Well, “Rich” stuck around and I eventually started using it myself, and that is who I am today.  Except for my family.  My family still calls me “Rick.” Oh yeah, and occasionally growing up when I wasn’t behaving the right way, my name became a very stern “Richard Dale”.  So here I am, one person, the exact same person God created me to be, with a handful of names over the years.

And God is like that. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity, Creator, Holy Ghost, Jesus, Savior, Abba, Teacher, Servant, Holy Wisdom, and so many more names – all referring to our one God. In Islamic scripture it says they have 99 names for God, but when they list out the names, there are more than that.  So while God has many names, each name looking at a different aspect of God, there is still one God. Different names don’t change who God is, God is still God.

During the transfiguration of Jesus we are told, “And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.” [Luke 9:29] yet even with his drastic change in appearance, the disciples knew who Jesus was. The appearance of Jesus was just that – his appearance, who Jesus is, didn’t change. Just like me – I didn’t always have a beard and I used to have more hair on the top of my head, that has changed. I wear different clothing. None of that changes who I am, a child of God. I was created whole, and that stays the same.

So, names and appearances don’t change who we are or who God is. The nature of who we are is always the same – a child of God, exactly how we were created whole. Many things about us may change, a little bit or drastically, over the years, but the very nature of “self” remains the same.

So, the beatitudes today. Just as Jesus was counter-cultural and declared people to be on the right path, declare them blessed, for who they are, against what society said of them – that is the call of us as proclaimers of Christ today. To be counter-cultural today and proclaim God’s unconditional love for all, to proclaim that people are created whole as a child of God, and are on the right path, are blessed.

We live in a society that wants to call gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as groomers and proclaim they are corrupting our youth. That transgender people are perverts and against God’s nature and that they shouldn’t exist or participate in society. That our black and brown siblings should go back where they came from, they aren’t welcome here, and that they are criminals and their lives don’t matter. That our Asian American siblings are also not welcome here, that they come from countries that bring disease, and do nothing but cause problems. That Native Americans should adopt “our ways” and be happy with small pieces of land we “give” to them. Our society constantly vilifies these people, declares they are all on the wrong path and need to repent. Society is often against these people so much that society will often murder them either directly or indirectly by not providing the care they need.

This is where we, as proclaimers of Christ, come in – we must proclaim to these people the true message, the counter-cultural message, that they are loved, they are children of God, not because of anything they do, but simply because they are God’s children. They are created whole in God’s image and they are blessed. Living into the person God created us to be is what puts us on the right path with God.

In case my message wasn’t clear before when stating that names and appearances don’t change who we truly are, I am talking about our transgender siblings here. God loves our transgender siblings for exactly who they are, who they were created to be, a beloved child of God. From before birth and continuing forever, God loves them for who they are. No matter what appearance they have today, yesterday, or tomorrow; no matter what name or pronouns they use, and no matter how often they might change – God loves them, and all of us, for our very being.

Declaring God’s truth of God’s unconditional love and proclaiming it to the world, shouting “You are blessed” to everyone that society calls “other” or  “unwanted” is hard work. As Jesus showed, very hard work – to the point that going against society, religious leaders, and the government got him murdered.  Yes – to fully live into God’s call to us can be risky. Fully living into our call is what is needed if we are going to stick to the truth of our call as stated in Micah 6:8, to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

No doubt this is hard work, no doubt we are going to get it wrong, but that is where the good news comes in – we have been given grace by God, through our faith in Jesus, so that we can do this work.  As my friend Pastor Rachel Laughlin mentioned in a comment on Facebook recently, “Grace isn’t a pass for not trying. ‘Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means!’ writes Paul in Romans 6:1-2. Grace is freedom to boldly strive to do justice and mercy and love our neighbors even when we aren’t sure how to do those things well. It is freedom to fail at all of it, then try again and again and again as we learn and grow.”

We have been created whole by God, every single one of us, we are blessed by being God’s children and living fully into who God created us to be, let us go and boldly strive to continue to proclaim that to all. Amen.