BLESSINGS AND CURSES<\/strong><\/p>\nPeace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.<\/p>\n
The fall movie tradition is upon us, and this month is about the classics: Young Frankenstein, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Frankenstein: The Musical\u2026<\/em> but if you are typical, you probably watch a few horror films at this time of year. Today I want to discuss a horror film from a few years ago\u2014well, I want to talk about an essay that discusses said movie. \u00a0I won\u2019t go into details; I only want to point out that the essayist really enjoyed this film, which tells the story of a young woman who finds herself cursed. She seeks someone else to whom she can pass the curse. She walks, runs, drives crazy across the city trying to find a way to avoid the curse upon her.\u00a0 The essayist finished the article by saying that the film is a long study in this character\u2019s growing dread as she seeks to evade and escape what she\u2019s got coming, only to find that\u2014like all of us\u2014she cannot avoid her fate.<\/p>\nAs I finished the essay, I found myself nodding my head. We live life to avoid the curse! We live life to not lose, to not be diminished, to not expose ourselves, not to suffer. We work hard to insulate ourselves, inoculate ourselves, inure ourselves from what is out there. The essay writer described in detail how other characters around this woman reacted as the story progressed: some were disbelieving; some expressed sympathy; some gave advice; some began shunning; some blamed her for her predicament. Is this not us? We want to avoid the curses that seem to hang around in life\u2014we don\u2019t want poverty or grief, affliction, hunger or thirst, whether physical or for justice; we don\u2019t want to be at everyone\u2019s mercy; we don\u2019t want to stand out unless it\u2019s on our terms; we don\u2019t want to blamed. We don\u2019t want to be around those who clearly are cursed. We want to avoid our fate.<\/p>\n
But on this All Saints Sunday we hear our Lord\u2019s words: blessed are they… in all the circumstances that we try to avoid. Blessed. It\u2019s a funny word; we don\u2019t really have a good English word for it, but at its heart is a word the Psalmist knew well:\u00a0 awshar. <\/em>It is a Hebrew word that means \u201cto go straight, to walk correctly.\u201d Change it slightly and it is esher<\/em>\u2014blessed. Psalm 1:1 begins with \u201cEsher<\/em> is the one who does not limp in meandering ways, nor stands in the expressway of sin, nor sits with bigmouths that cough up destruction.\u201d In these pronouncements of blessing, Jesus points us to that same word: esher! He instructs us, calls us, invites us to begin walking toward blessing! Rather than frantically traversing the paths of our lives to avoid the curse, Jesus tells us walk the path that pursues blessing! And the straight path that leads to blessing is for you and me to go where Jesus is and participate in what he is doing! Do you know where he is? Do you know how to find him, where to seek him? Are you ready to walk that path that takes us right to him\u2014Jesus himself? It will mean that at times we will walk toward that\u2014toward those\u2014which the world sees as a curse. Paul wrote to the Galatians that on the cross Jesus became the curse. Christ redeemed us from our self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, \u201cCursed is everyone who hangs on a tree\u201d? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time undid the curse; he made it possible to experience blessedness in every circumstance of life. We need not be afraid, because Jesus Christ has us! We are not victims of impersonal fate; we are the beloved of the One who is free!<\/p>\nThe saints are not spiritual superheroes; we remember them because of who has them: Jesus Christ, the mighty Lord, the victorious one. We remember them because they walked with the Lord\u2014no more, no less. Let us today tell our hearts, tell our families, tell one another\u2014today, we are going to stop walking, running, driving crazy across this town trying to avoid curses. We are going to chase blessings.<\/p>\n
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
\u00a9David H. Brooks<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 Pr.Dave.Brooks@zoho.com<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 Durham, NC USA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Feast of All Saints | 2 Nov 25 (Observed) | A Sermon on Luke 6:20-31 | by The Rev. Dr. David H. Brooks | 20\u00a0And\u00a0he lifted up his eyes on his disciples,\u00a0and said: \u201cBlessed are you who are poor, for\u00a0yours is the kingdom of God. 21\u00a0\u201cBlessed are you who are hungry now, for you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,157,853,108,266,110,756,3,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-25563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lukas","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-david-h-brooks","category-engl","category-kapitel-06-chapter-06-lukas","category-nt","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25564,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25563\/revisions\/25564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25563"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=25563"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=25563"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=25563"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=25563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}