Sermon - Bank Holiday Beatitudes

Lost Destinations - Forton Services (wearedorothy.com)

A homily given at St Stephen's Rochester Row at Evensong on Sunday 29th August 2021 based on the gospel reading from Matthew 4.23 - 5.20.

You can hear an audio recording of this sermon at this link. 

With many choosing to holiday at home this year, the Bank Holiday getaway will mean even more people spending time on the motorway - and making a pit-stop at a motorway service station.

I remember being fascinated by these places as a child; all of human life seemed to be here. Whether you are travelling in a shiny black Bentley or a battered beige Cortina, everyone has to spend a penny in the same place! Inside the service station we find the bright flashing lights of the gambling arcades and shops selling sweets and toys you didn’t need, but whose hugely inflated prices seemed to make them even more enticing. Lorry drivers and travelling salesmen would be asleep in their vehicles in a “special” part of the car park, or in one of those often rather seedy looking motels. At the motorway service station every selfish human desire can be satisfied! 

Particularly fascinating were those service stations which were connected by a bridge across the motorway. You could walk from one set of buildings to another - almost identical set - but where people were travelling in the opposite direction! I remember starting to walk over one such bridge and getting severely reprimanded for going over to “the other side”. 

In our Gospel reading this Bank Holiday Sunday, Jesus invites us to make a pit-stop in the busy journey of our lives. We arrive at a special service station and climb the steps of the bridge over the motorway,  gathering around Jesus as he reminds us what it means to live as a child of God in his kingdom. 

Jesus’s words, what we now call the Beatitudes, would have seemed very familiar to the disciples who first heard them on the mountainside; proclamations that echo the commandments given by God to Moses. But while they sound familiar, the Beatitudes are also very different. They describe a way of living that goes far beyond obeying rules or keeping laws - a way of life that is difficult to live but that Christ modelled perfectly.

One writer has described the Beatitudes as strategies to help us in the battle between what is selfish and destructive in our lives and the force of ‘original goodness’ placed in the heart of each one of us by God since the time of creation, when we were all made in his image. 

To unlock that original goodness is to embody the Beatitudes - to live them - which often means changing our direction of travel. Living our lives focussed not on fulfilling our own desires, but serving others. 

So here we are, at that special motorway service station. Having arrived on one side, with the flashing lights of the arcade, the fast food restaurants and seedy motels; a place where every selfish desire can be satisfied - we’re now on the bridge over motorway gathered around Jesus, who is telling us what life is like on the other side.  Where things look and sound familiar -  identical perhaps, but where we find ourselves travelling in another direction. Living according to the Beatitudes - which means rediscovering and unlocking that original goodness - the love - inside the hearts of each one of us, which binds us to each other and to God. 

Travelling in this new direction we’ll discover the Blessed Peacemakers. Not those who just placate squabbles in the car by buying overpriced sweets and toys at the service station shop, but those who truly embody peace within themselves, where no amount of a squabbling unbalances the equilibrium within their hearts and minds; whose innate peace is infectious, putting an end to the very idea of discord amongst those around them.

Travelling in this new direction, we’ll discover the poor in spirit are blessed because rather than being full of themselves and their own selfish desires that they seek to fulfil through the fleeting satisfactions at the service station - they’ve discovered the eternal joy of making space for the spirit - the love - of others - in their lives.

Travelling in this new direction, we’ll discover that those who mourn are blessed. Not those who mourn out of self-pity because they can no longer have what or who they want when they want it - but those who truly mourn - because they realise that it is in the darkness that the light of Christ truly shines. 

Travelling in this new direction, we’ll discover that we are all blessed because we all have that original goodness - that love - in our hearts. Those who’ve made this rediscovery are the pure in heart; truly blessed because they are living up to the image in which they were made. 

Each of the beatitudes calls us to this rediscovery. To cross the bridge and travel in a new direction. Jesus doesn’t drag us there, but points the way. It’s up to us to cross.

The Beatitudes are complex - difficult to truly embody, to live by. As Jesus is speaking to us we may get the sense of deja vu - we’ve been here before. Perhaps we have crossed the bridge already - maybe several times, trying to live in a more Christ-like way, but we find ourselves right back here, standing with Jesus overlooking the motorway. He doesn’t judge us when he sees us here again. With a look of love, he simply points the way. 

Or perhaps the last time we were here we wanted to cross but something or someone called us back to our car, shouting “don’t go over to the other side”? The good news is you don’t have to wait long before the next chance to cross the bridge. In fact, we don’t have to travel anywhere at all. We’re at that special service station wherever we are. Jesus is waiting for us on that bridge over the motorway that is the journey of our lives, pointing the way to not only a Blessed Bank Holiday but to a life of eternal joy.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

Links
The book ‘Original Goodness’ by the American writer Eknath Easwaran was especially helpful and inspirational, as was the artist Nicholas Pope’s concept of the ‘Motorway Service Station of the Seven Deadly Sins’.

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