Homily by the Rev. Dn. Tim Jones
+ In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I wonder how many of us have a habit that annoys our friends, maybe even embarrasses those who are close to us? Maybe ones that we do without even realizing we’re doing them?
One of mine ( I say “one of” because I most certainly have a few) is whenever I speak with people from other countries or cultures, I often fall into this thing where I adopt their accent. Except it’s not really their accent—it’s a bad Southern Appalachian version of their accent.
I know. I know. That’s awful, but truly, I am not aware of it until Kerry points it out to me.
Talking on the phone with a customer service rep in India? Yep, Kerry has to get my attention and tell me to stop using the “faux Indian” accent because it’s offensive. And I’m shocked: “ What? I’m doing it again? Oh no!” In fact, sometimes she can be in the next room and know exactly who I am talking with on the phone just by the way I am talking.
Last year when we were in England, we would be out walking in the countryside and she would get my attention and say, “You’re doing it again.” “What am I doing?” I would ask. “You’re greeting everyone we meet with a bad British Halloooo.”
There’s actually a technical term for this. It’s called “accent convergence through speech accommodation.” It’s a form of linguistic mirroring that apparently has to do with how some people hear words. I actually had to research it because I wanted to know why the heck am I constantly doing this? It’s not mockery or performance. According to scientists, it’s reflex, and it has to do with how some people are neurologically attuned to process language.
But that still doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable. Because if you do it, no one really knows why you’re doing it. There could be many different interpretations of one’s motives for adopting, in the moment, someone’s way of speaking. A lot of them are offensive. Thank God that I often have Kerry with me to point it out when I am starting to pick up someone else’s accent.
And I think we have something like that happening in today’s Gospel reading. There’s a certain word we use, that if we’re not careful, we often adopt the way the world around us tends to speak it.
It’s the word, “Blessed.” Walk around here in the South for any length of time, and you will hear all kinds of ways this word is used.
“How are you today? I’m blessed and highly favored, thank you.”
“Hope you have a blessed day.”
My favorite is the popular slogan on coffee cups and bumper stickers: “Too blessed to be stressed.” I often see that, and think, “I’m not sure I’ve ever been that blessed because I can almost always find a way to be stressed.”
But most of the time when we use that term in our culture our accent falls on the same meaning. What we usually mean is “things are going well.” God is with us and things are well. But you don’t even really have to be particularly religious to have it in your vocabulary. In that broadly shared, wider sense of the word, to be blessed means being comfortable, successful, secure, in control, insulated from trouble.
There’s nothing wrong with that understanding. It’s very recognizable. In fact, the Bible often means something like that when we encounter the word “blessed” in the Scriptures.
But then here comes Jesus in today’s Gospel reading, standing on a hillside in Galilee, speaking it with a whole different accent, refusing to accommodate its popular narrowness, challenging us to be aware of getting too comfortable with everyone else’s way of speaking it.
Jesus says blessed are—”you are blessed”
not to the people who have everything figured out, but to the ones who are struggling just to stay upright. When we read down through that list, it’s easy to think, “He’s not using that term correctly. Something is off. Does he even know what that word means?”
I mean, just listen to a sample of who Jesus describes as blessed here.
- Blessed are the poor in spirit
(not the self-sufficient, but those who know they need help) - Blessed are those who mourn
(not those who’ve avoided grief or sorrow, but those who have loved deeply enough to not what it means to have the heart broken) - Blessed are the meek
(not the loud or dominant, those who want to be seen to always have it all together, but those who refuse to overpower others, those who don’t always have to sit at the front and be at the center.) - Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
(not those who are satisfied with the way things are)
The way I normally would apply that term, as would most of the culture around us, would be to describe people who are in situations just the opposite of how Jesus speaks this word here. Essentially, the beatitudes are like Kerry, getting my attention, saying: “You’re doing it again. You’re picking up the accent everyone is using.”
In the beatitudes, Jesus offers us a reorientation of its meaning. Being blessed doesn’t always mean being comfortable and at ease in this world. And having trouble, or going through hardship in this world doesn’t mean you are cursed or somehow not “blessed.”
Jesus does not call these people blessed after things get better. He calls them blessed right there.
And that’s the crucial reframe that this very familiar passage of Scripture invites us into.
Because many of us this week have not felt particularly strong or composed. Some of us have felt anxious, stretched thin, or unsure we were doing enough.
I’m guessing that many of us who lived through the trauma of Hurricane Helene’s impacts rediscovered this week just how vulnerable and powerless we felt as we have faced another major weather emergency unfolding.
I wasn’t okay. In fact, I was surprised at how not okay I was when once again faced with the words, “potential extended power outages.” And instead of getting any relief by looking out from what was happening here—whenever we turned on the news, it was violence and death and uncertainty about what’s going to happen in our country. Trauma compounded on top of trauma. Many of us have felt all this in our bodies and in our souls.
For all the many things I have felt this week, “blessed” was not at the top of my list. I’m guessing it wasn’t at the top of yours either.
In the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us that “blessed” is not about always being spared from pain, fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion.
It’s about not being abandoned in those things.
Jesus assures us: “God is with us even when our trajectory feels like it is taking us farther and farther away from God.”
God was with you this week, even when you felt too overwhelmed to be present to that. When you were scared, trapped and felt powerless.
God was with you when your heart was broken and you longed for peace. God was with you, even when you didn’t have it all together. Even when you weren’t sure you were safe.
Because God is closest to the places we often think disqualify us from God’s presence.
That’s not being sentimental—it’s just being truthful to the way Jesus uses this term.
The Beatitudes don’t ask us to become poor, grieving, or broken so we can be rewarded by God’s presence.
They ask us this: Can we be open to trusting that God is already near us where we are—not where we wish we were?
And perhaps in the midst of whatever uncertainty and confusion we are feeling today we could learn to mirror the accent Jesus is speaking here.
“Blessed are you—not because everything is fine but because God loving presence hasn’t gone anywhere.”
Amen