Do you consider yourself blessed?
How do you know you are?
Are you poor or mourning or are you persecuted?
No? Do you want to be?
Me either!
Maybe, then, this message is not for us. Maybe our means to be able to achieve our dreams makes us not blessed but cursed!
The thing is, I know poor people who are fulfilled in their simple lives of ministry and mission, who will never own a home, never have access to a car with air-conditioning who minister with people whose living conditions and prospects break their hearts on a daily basis. I also know people whose poverty is clearly self- inflicted yet they are bitter and place the blame for their circumstances with everyone else. I know rich people who daily use their prosperity as an opportunity to make someone else’s life a little better, and I know rich people who complain about the expense of every single little thing in their extravagant lives and wonder how they are ever going to get by.
So maybe blessedness has less to do with material wealth and more to do with your ‘b’-attitude’!
Rev. Michael Duke
Kingston Uniting Church