When the rich say they’re “feeling blessed”, the poor lose a word that was meant for them. Here I take my stand as a preacher – outraged and hopeful that the word “blessed” might yet be given back to those Jesus called “blessed”. It’s All Saints Sunday. I’m at Napton in Warwickshire.
In Luke 6, Jesus stands among the poor, the hungry, the grieving, and the hated — and he calls them blessed. He doesn’t bless success or security; he blesses need, honesty, and hope.
This sermon began with a niggle about that phrase, “feeling blessed,” and grew into outrage that such a word — once full of mercy — has been stolen by privilege.
Here’s my attempt to give it back to Jesus, and to those he named as saints.
Last Sunday I said this, and it’s niggled me ever since:
It strikes me that the Pharisee, in his way,
is saying what we so often hear today —
“I’m feeling blessed.”
Blessed that life’s gone well,
blessed that I’m not struggling,
blessed that I’m not like those who’ve fallen on hard times.
But the tax collector doesn’t say that.
He doesn’t feel blessed —
he only feels the weight of mercy.
And yet he’s the one who goes home justified,
seen, forgiven, restored.
Maybe that’s what blessing really looks like —
not success, but mercy meeting us
when we’ve nothing left to boast about.
Having heard this back in conversation with Angie,
I don’t think I was quite right.
It is true that it bugs me when I hear the phrase “feeling blessed”,
or when I see it as a caption on social media
under someone’s post showing how well life is going.
But I want to dig a bit deeper into this.
Angie was telling me about a conversation she’d had,
and that she left that conversation “feeling blessed.”
That seemed an entirely appropriate thing to say,
because the person she’d spoken to had truly blessed her.
He’d listened, encouraged, lifted her.
Perhaps all of us have had moments like that —
moments when the poverty of our nature is met by grace,
when we’ve made ourselves vulnerable,
when we’ve needed help, to be heard, to be understood —
and someone has met us there with words or deeds
that feel like they’ve come straight from the heart of heaven.
Then, yes — we can say we’ve been blessed.
The story of the Pharisee and the tax collector
was the context for what I said last week.
The Pharisee put me in mind of those who say “feeling blessed,”
because when he prayed, he thanked God
that he wasn’t like other people —
robbers, evildoers, adulterers.
Jesus, in effect, posted on social media
a snapshot of the Pharisee “feeling blessed” —
“me tithing,” “me fasting,” “me succeeding.”
But the Pharisee wasn’t blessed by God.
The one blessed by God was the tax collector
who prayed in shame and hope —
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
So, those social media posts captioned “feeling blessed” —
what’s wrong with them is that they can seem boastful and proud.
They often show an exotic holiday, a trophy spouse, an obedient child.
It’s blessing as a lifestyle accessory.
But maybe there’s something deeper going on.
Maybe the word itself has been stolen.
Somewhere along the way, the word blessed slipped its moorings.
In the early Church, to be blessed was to be close to Christ in suffering —
to be touched by mercy in the midst of need.
By the Middle Ages, blessing had become
the Church’s way of naming holiness —
attached to the saints, the sacraments, the sacred.
Then, in the modern world —
especially in the language of empire, commerce, and the prosperity gospel —
blessing became confused with success.
The word that once described God’s nearness to the poor
was slowly recruited to congratulate the comfortable.
It drifted from the margins to the centre,
from the hungry to the well-fed,
from the grieving to the gratified.
And that’s why we need to give the word back —
to let it find its way home to mercy again.
[Four readers speak these “impact statements,” one by one — slowly and simply.]
1. I used to think I was blessed — until my job disappeared.
Now I know what it feels like to be forgotten while others boast of favour.
2. I pray for food and work and a home for my children,
while my feed is full of people posting pictures of dinners and holidays,
captioned “feeling blessed.”
It feels like the word was never meant for me.
3. I came here from another country,
fleeing violence and fear.
They call me an asylum seeker,
but I’m seeking only safety, belonging,
a place where I might be seen as blessed too.
4. I live with grief every day.
People avoid me because my sadness unsettles them.
But if Jesus is to be believed,
it’s people like me who are blessed —
the ones who weep now, and will laugh again someday.
Because when Jesus opens his mouth to bless,
he doesn’t bless the powerful.
He blesses the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated.
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you, insult you, reject your name as evil.
But woe to you who are rich…
woe to you who are well fed now…
woe to you who laugh now…
This is the same train of thought that sees the tax collector blessed
and the Pharisee left outside the circle of mercy.
When those who are rich, those who are well fed,
those who are having such a good time,
those receiving yet another honour —
when they say, like the Pharisee, “I’m feeling blessed,”
they are really rubbing salt into the wounds of the world.
What they should be saying is “I’m lucky,” not “blessed.”
Because it is the penitent sinner who is blessed.
It is the poor who are blessed because the kingdom of God works for them.
It is the hungry who are blessed — as in the feeding of the five thousand.
It is the heartbroken who are blessed.
It is the hated who are blessed —
the excluded, the insulted, the rejected,
the refugee and the asylum seeker.
They come first in the kingdom of God.
Please note: these are the only people Jesus calls blessed.
The proud, the self-satisfied, those who look good in their own eyes —
they should just count themselves lucky.
They put themselves first, better than all the rest —
but they come last in the kingdom of God,
because they give blessing a bad name.
They confuse blessing with comfort,
they preach a distorted prosperity gospel,
and in doing so they deprive the poor, the hungry, the heartbroken, and the hated
of the blessing that is rightfully theirs.
They exclude them, insult them,
and reject them from the realm of blessing,
pretending that the blessing is theirs alone.
So, today — on All Saints Sunday —
we remember not those who had it easy,
but those who kept faith when life was hard.
The saints are those who lived the Beatitudes —
the ones who gave the word blessed its meaning back
by how they lived.
And maybe that’s our calling too —
to speak and live in such a way
that the poor hear again that they are blessed,
that the hungry are satisfied,
that the grieving are comforted,
that the hated and the displaced are received as beloved.To give the word blessed back to Jesus —
and to those he never stopped blessing.
Luke 6:20-31
Looking at his disciples, Jesus said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.
‘Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
‘But to you who are listening I say: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Grits and Grains 