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Please stand with me for the reading of the Scripture.

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Today's scripture is from the Gospel of Matthew,

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chapter five, verses three through 16.

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The good life belongs to the powerless.

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The kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

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The good life belongs to those who grieve,

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for they will be comforted.

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The good life belongs to the afflicted or unimportant.

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For they will inherit the land.

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The good life belongs to those who hunger and thirst

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for righteousness because they will be filled.

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The good life belongs to those who show mercy,

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because they will be shown mercy.

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The good life belongs to the pure in heart,

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because they will see God.

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The good life belongs to the peacemakers,

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for they will be called the children of God.

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The good life belongs to those who have been persecuted

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on account of doing what is right,

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because theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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How good is the life for you when people insult you

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and persecute you, and spread evil lies

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against you on account of me?

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Celebrate and shout for joy,

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because your reward is great in the skies.

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For this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.

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You are the salt of the earth, of the land.

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But if the salt becomes on salty,

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with what can it be made salty again?

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It's useful for nothing except to be thrown out

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and stepped on by humans.

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You are the light of the world, a city

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that is set up on a mountain isn't able to be hidden,

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and they don't light a candle and place it under a basket.

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Rather, upon a candle stand,

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it will shine on everyone in the house in the same way.

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Let your light shine before people so that they can see your good works,

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and so they can give honor to your father, who is in heaven.

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You may be seated. Thanks, John.

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Appreciate reading. You're going to notice each, week we're going to have a different reader.

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So I still need one reader.

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So if anybody wants to volunteer, I know everybody loves to volunteer

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for those things, but I have all different ages, so we're excited.

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Do you remember the first time you got an invitation to a party

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or a dinner or on a date or to someone's house?

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do you remember that feeling of either being super excited

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because you suddenly felt you were included

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into, like, a friend group, or are you included with some other people?

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like, you were really important to that person,

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or you might have been a bit wary because, well,

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you really didn't want to be important to that person.

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I remember in sixth grade, I was minding my own business in my living room,

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and my parents walked in and I knew something was a little up.

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They were a little, like, funny.

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And they said, hey, we got a phone call.

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And I was like, okay, you know,

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if you're a sixth grader using something you've done something wrong.

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And they're like, yes, this boy from your school called and asked if he

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if he could take you out on a date.

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He was so polite. He had this like he was from the UK.

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So he had an English accent and I was like, oh no.

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Oh no. You know, at first

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I was like, oh, that was really nice to be included in.

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But I was like, no way that will kill my friend.

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Like, I will not be cool anymore if I go out.

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You know, it's just like you're in sixth grade. This is how you react, right?

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Sometimes when invitations come our way, we usually have these mixed reactions.

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Do I want to attend or don't I?

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While I like being included, do I really want to commit

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and is it going to be fun or is it going to be boring?

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Well, today I want to invite you into our eight week

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series for the summer called The Beatitudes.

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Today's invitation starts with my invitation

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to you to embrace your notepad and pen.

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I know some of you walked in and thought, oops, is there a test?

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Well, if you didn't get one, you can raise your hand

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and Michelle will pass them out. So if you didn't get them, keep your hands raised until you get them.

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Well, at different points during the service, I'm going to invite you to respond by writing something down at the end of the service.

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You can rip out your own notes, whatever you've written,

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unless you really want to give somebody a surprise next week

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and just share all this stuff that you write down.

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But you can rip out your notes,

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and what you're going to do is you're just going to throw it back into the basket with a pen, so that next week

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you can pick up anybody's notebook and use it again.

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Now, some of you are so organized and really responsible

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and want to take that notebook home. That's fine too.

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But just remember it next week.

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now you might be thinking,

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this feels really exciting,

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or I'm very wary of what she's going to do with this or,

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I think this is going to be fun or I'm already bored.

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Whatever you do, whatever you think, like, however you respond to this invitation is okay.

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Just know that I want you to experience a blessing through this practice

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because today's message is entitled The Great Invitation of Blessing.

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Would you just pray with me? Lord, we thank you that you have already given us a time to be

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with you, to praise you, to celebrate your presence among us.

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We thank you that you put breath in our lungs

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and that we are here together to hear from your word, to hear what you're going to say to us,

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how you're constantly inviting us into a deeper relationship with you.

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And so, God, we give you this morning, we give you this time,

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and we ask that you open our ears and our hearts to your word this morning.

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Amen. Well, last week, Pastor Van preached on this, story

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from the Gospel of John, and he was talking about how the disciples

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had been called. And it was very personal to them.

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Well, those encounters with Jesus began actually with two disciples.

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it says the next day John was there again

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with his two disciples when he saw Jesus passing by.

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He said, look, the Lamb of God.

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So this is John the Baptist who is baptizing people.

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And he says this, hey, look, the Lamb of God.

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When the two disciples heard him say this, they follow Jesus

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turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, what do you want?

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They said, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying?

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Come. He replied, and you will see.

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So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him.

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Okay, so now I'm inviting you to open your notepad and take your pen,

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because I'd like you to respond to Jesus's question this morning.

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What do you want this morning?

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Now you might be coming to it saying, what do I want from Jesus

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right now?

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Why did I come here today?

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Thunderstorm. Rain. Muggy.

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Why did I come here today? What am I looking for?

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And just go ahead and jot something down.

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Nobody's going to look at it. Remember? You get to rip it out and take it home.

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So just jot something down. It doesn't have to be a essay. Just

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something quick.

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So I'm starting with this story because I think it's a great way

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to see how invitational Jesus was to those who came to him.

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But it's also a story of how Jesus challenged people to something new.

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I want to introduce, something, a matrix.

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It's, called the invitation challenge matrix.

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And it's going to help us throughout the summer

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to discern about God, what he's saying to us,

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what is he saying about ourselves, what is he saying about each other?

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And, I'm going to teach you this, and we'll go over it week after week.

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So don't worry if you don't get it the first time, it's totally fine.

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But when Jesus taught his disciples, he And he taught his crowd,

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he used certain linguistic styles.

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He tried to help the listener

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learn and understand and put into practice what he was saying.

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So some of Jesus's teaching, while,

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made their their followers feel like when he was teaching some of them,

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you know, they would fit into these different categories.

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So sometimes it would make a person feel really warm and fuzzy, like,

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oh, that felt really good to me. And sometimes it felt like,

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oh, that feels really stressful to me. Like, I don't know what he's saying.

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And that feels really hard. And sometimes people would be like that. That's really boring.

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And other times people are like, oh, I'm not sure is I feel cozy,

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I feel stressed, I think he wants me to do something and change something

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so we can put our reactions into these four quadrants.

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And the way it looks is that we have

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this high invitation and low challenge.

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So that one quadrant on that side up there,

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that side over there, my rate, I don't know my rate from my left

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sometimes, especially when I'm backwards here, this is like hard, but, high invitation and low challenge.

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High invitation is about being invited into relationship, being known.

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So, you know, remember that show?

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Some of you may know that show. Cheers. Where everybody knows your name.

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It's like if you go to the breakfast nook, you know,

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week after week after week and you walk in, it's the same people.

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You know them. Everybody says hi, the waitress knows you.

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High invitation, low challenge. Right.

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There's not much for you to do. You sit down, you eat your order breakfast.

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Okay. That's great. And lots of times it just feels cozy.

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It feels safe. It feels comfortable.

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now, sometimes what happens with humans, which is typical,

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is that you do something over and over and over and over again,

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and you start to drift into this section where it's

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low challenge, low invitation.

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Like, say, the breakfast suddenly has new people.

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the management changes. Nobody really knows you.

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And you're like, I'm really tired of this menu. And you get bored.

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And that's that lower quadrant where between low challenge and low invitation.

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Now sometimes what happens

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is that you get invited into something.

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Let's say Michelle comes to you and says, hey, you want to be a greeter?

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And you're like, oh, okay.

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Super stressful. Like high challenge, right? But

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after a couple of weeks, she walks up to you and you're super stressed because there's all these things to do.

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And the door didn't unlock. Right. And the coffee's broken and the chairs are all messed up, and you're like,

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And you go over to Michelle and you say, can you help me?

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And she goes, who are you? That would be low invitation, high challenge

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where you're super stressed because it's all about tasks.

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You just become a cog in a machine to do something.

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So that's at lower quadrant high challenge and low invitation.

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But Jesus did this remarkable thing when he taught.

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He calibrated high invitation and high challenge.

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He invited people into relationship.

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He invited them into what he was doing, come and see.

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What do you want? Come and see.

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What do you want? Come and see. There's this back and forth thing and he invited them in,

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but he didn't usually let anybody stay there.

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Right. The question what do you want in some ways is a challenge

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because you have to say to Jesus, oh, I just thought you were giving away free candy.

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right. But they weren't.

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They were disciples. They were looking for the Lamb of God

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so suddenly. What do you want?

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It's a challenge. And yet there's this invitation in.

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So that's high invitation. High challenge.

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we need both to grow.

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That's how we actually grow. That's how we change.

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That's how we're empowered to follow God.

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And we will be talking about this each and every week.

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because my aim for every sermon is for helping us identify where we sit

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in cozy places, where we sit in bored places where we're very stressed,

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and where God is actually helping us move towards being empowered to follow him.

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So don't worry about it. I'll be doing this a couple of weeks as we go on, and you'll get it.

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But I want to return to the scripture that Don read today.

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These verses set up Jesus's teaching called the sermon on the Mount.

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The sermon on the Mount is a collection of teachings that Jesus did,

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and it's arranged in such a way to help us

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put into practice what Jesus is saying.

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So these beatitudes are like the introduction, by the way.

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This is what's coming, and that's sort of what it is.

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So the good life belongs to the powerless, to those who grieve, to the afflicted

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or unimportant, to those who are hungry and thirst for rightness,

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to those who show mercy, to the pure in heart, to the peacemakers,

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to those who have been persecuted on account of doing what is right.

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When people insult you and persecute you and spread evil lies against you

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on account of me. And then he says, you are the salt of the land.

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You are the light of the world.

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Now, first off it, some of you know the Beatitudes.

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You've memorized them, you've read Matthew five before,

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and you're saying that is not the version I'm used to.

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You're used to. Blessed are the poor in spirit.

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Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek.

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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness

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goes on and on. But in this series, I'm going to be using a different translation

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to help us discover these beatitudes in a new way.

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I know when I've read scripture since I was young,

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I come to it and I just read it like I've always read it.

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I almost don't even read it. I'm like, oh yeah, I know this one.

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You know you to go through it, right?

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But think about the first time you hear any scripture.

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Usually it pops out to you a little bit like it pops out to you.

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But the next time you remember how that scripture affected you the first time.

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So you might have read the Beatitudes multiple times.

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How did they affect you the first time you come in

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to reading that scripture with that mindset?

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But a new translation often throws you off and says, oh,

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I'm going to engage with this in another way.

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So again, love for you to take that notepad out

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and think about how you've heard these verses before.

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Did these verses feel very invitational to you the first time?

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Do they give you the warm and fuzzies?

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Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn.

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Did that give you the warm and fuzzy? Just.

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Did they feel really invitational or did it feel really challenging?

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Maybe it felt really stressful because you're like, what? Why?

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I don't get it right.

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Or did you have a little mix of both? Go ahead.

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You can jot something down quick if you want.

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and just keep that.

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But when we hear these scriptures differently, we also get a clearer picture

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of what Jesus is trying to say to his audience.

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Now take the word blessed.

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We know that word, right? For instance, when you hear that word, what does it mean to you?

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And what happy?

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What other things? More.

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Remember hashtag blessed.

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You know, hashtag blessed. Everybody say you're blessed. Have a blessed life.

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Blessed, right? Sometimes is a type of prayer we think of. It's a blessing.

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Like somebody praise it over somebody.

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Last night we think at this holy, you know, sacred things.

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Lots of times you say, oh, things are just going really well.

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We're blessed. We're blessed. We have a lot that might be.

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That's another way. It's an abundance.

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In Matthew, this word was translated from a Greek word, Makarios,

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and it means happy flourishing, blessed.

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But Makarios is a Greek word for the Hebrew word used in Jesus day.

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That Hebrew word is Ashura.

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Ashura can mean enriched,

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happy, delighted, blissful, content.

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It signifies this happiness, this prosperity,

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this abundant goodness, delight, sort of internally.

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It's also a way to talk about our relationship with God

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and our communion with God.

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So here are three examples. Have how writers have used the word Ashura, even though

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our English translations use the word blessed.

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Someone blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way

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that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,

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but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

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and who meditates on his law day and night.

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That person is like a tree planted with streams of water,

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which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither.

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Whatever they do, they prosper.

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So Ashura is someone who is delighting in the will of God.

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He or she is like a tree that is constantly bearing fruit

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no matter the season. Ash Ray is this sense of bliss,

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delight flourishing.

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Psalm two says, why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?

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The kings of the earth rise up, and the rulers band together

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against the Lord and against his holy and anointed, saying,

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let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.

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But the Lord laughs at the kings and says,

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I've installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.

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And then the psalm ends with this blessed are all those who take refuge in him.

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In this King of Zion. So ash Ray

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is about the people who take refuge in this king and God's king.

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And it's about protection, safety, and security.

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There's another point in the Bible where the Queen of Sheba comes to Solomon,

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who was the most wisest man that's probably ever lived.

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And she says to him as she looks over all of that he's done

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in the land of his palace, of the temple, of all of his people.

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And she says, Ashrae are your people

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who stand in your courts and hear your wisdom, like how delightful

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it must be to stand in Solomon's court and hear his wisdom.

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So in our context, we might say ashtray.

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Or those who live in Rhode Island during the summer months

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because they enjoy sand and sea and the sun and Del's lemonade.

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So if you read the Beatitudes with this in mind, you could get something

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like, oh, how enriched and full of great happiness

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are those who or how good is life for?

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Or the way we used it? The good life belongs to.

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To me, that picks way more of a punch than just that word.

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Blessed, because that word blessed has been translated

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so much into our culture and we've lost the meeting.

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So when you think about this and we're reading this,

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really think about the good life belongs to.

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Now, sometimes the Bible does use the Hebrew word Baruch, which is also translated as blessed.

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Sort of confusing. But the word Baruch appears frequently in context,

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where humans are blessing God by giving him praise.

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So in Genesis 926, praise be to the Lord,

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the God of Shem in 1420, and praise be to God Most High

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in 2427 praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham,

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who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master.

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That word, Baruch, also

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appears in context when God is blessing a person.

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His children like Abraham, Isaac, Samuel,

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David, Solomon, Boaz, Ruth goes on and on.

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God actually blesses people or Baruch people,

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and he's pronouncing blessing on them and it's is empowering

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with a divine favor for a specific purpose.

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So we get this, about Abraham in Genesis 12 two,

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I will make you a great nation and I will bless you.

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I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.

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Baruch is a blessing by God.

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God does the blessing. We can't make blessing happen to another person.

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Only God can do this. And it's defined by God.

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Now Asher describes as opposed to Baruch describes

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the state of a believer who how they are walking,

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what it looks like for them to be present in God's presence.

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So it's a noticeable, difference of how they walk.

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So the term is never used for God. It only applies to humans.

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So sometimes we would say ash Ray is a person who lives uprightly before God.

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Ash Ray sets his or her hopes in him.

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Ash Ray listens to peep to wisdom x ray are people who abstain

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from evil, receive forgiveness, act justly, take refuge, help the poor.

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Seek him with their whole heart, seek justice.

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The problem with ash Ray

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is it's defined by the bystander from his point of view.

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So let's say my husband and I are walking in our neighborhood

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and we we come across somebody who has abundance.

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They look like they are blessed, right?

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Their yard is perfect. Their dog is perfect, their car is perfect.

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Everything looks fine. And I would say, oh, ash Ray is this person

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because I envy this, I want this, I want what they have.

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It's this obvious abundance.

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And, like that they must be divinely, you know, empowered something.

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But by Jesus's day,

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the people of power and religious standings had defined Ashura

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by pointing at people of privilege for fortune

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adherence. How well you adhere to the law of the scriptures, or material blessings

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in abundance, and called that blessed ash ray.

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Just like if Dean and I are walking ash Ray

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because this looks so good, that's how it was ending up being defined.

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Ash Ray because obviously there's this stuff going on now.

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We are not too far from Jesus's day because we still do the same thing.

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We have this way of thinking about material goods, and we look at others

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and say, oh, how lucky, how blessed, how good is their life?

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Because. And it's usually followed with a description of their wealth

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or their standing or their experiences or their achievements.

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So imagine yourself in a Galilean countryside

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and amidst a crowd of everyday people

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like tax collectors, carpenters,

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stone masons, fishermen, farmers, prostitutes and the poor.

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And Jesus says the good life belongs

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to the powerless, the grieving,

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the afflicted and unimportant, those hungering and thirsting for rightness,

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those who show mercy to the pure in heart,

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to peacemakers, to the persecuted.

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You are the salt of the land.

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You are the light of the world.

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What? Nope. Jesus.

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I think you got that one wrong.

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Did Jesus not hear the religious leaders, the Romans?

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Do we not hear the Wall Street forecasters,

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our rulers, our mayors, those on Facebook who define those who are blessed,

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are those who have abundance, have riches, have clout,

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are important and powerful, have so many followers.

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See, the problem here is that Jesus, through these beatitudes,

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suddenly redefined what blessed meant.

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Astray are the people in front of Jesus,

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because the King of God's kingdom

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has come to them first.

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The world's definition is wrong,

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and the best part of this?

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It's an invitation to be in a position

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that you will be blessed because of that position.

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But the challenge is, is that you're not going to be asked to stay

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where you are because Jesus never wants us to stay with our own perspective.

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He wants us to move into his perspective.

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ESRI are

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the and for the world.

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Jesus is. Definition is antithetical to how we like to live.

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I mean show of hands. How many of you guys want to live perilously?

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I don't know. How many of you want to be in constant grief.

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Yeah. How many of you want to be hunger and thirsting all the time for justice?

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The Beatitudes are constructed in such a way that the perspective of blessing comes in that first line.

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So Ashura, or the good life belongs

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to whatever it is, like the powerless.

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And the blessing comes in the second line, the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

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So how good is life if you're powerless because

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the good life belongs to you?

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000, how Ashura,

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the good life belongs to those who grieve because they will be comforted.

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Because you grieve the blessing as you will be comforted.

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Jesus inviting his audience and us to discover

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this new perspective, his perspective of how God sees the world,

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how God sees us, and what's important to him.

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This is Jesus is a way of inviting us

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into a conversation about what we believe,

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how we live, and what's really important in our lives.

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Then he challenges us not to stay there, but to move into his perspective.

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Over the next couple of weeks, we will be expanding our understanding

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of each one of these verses. Because lots of the words

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in these scriptures, we're like, we just say, oh, that must mean this.

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We have to uncover some new things in it to really hone in

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and what God is talking through.

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So let's put this on the matrix for you

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again. High invitation, low challenge.

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That's this cozy place, okay.

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When life is going really well, you have friends, good relationships,

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you have enough to eat, you have a stable life.

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Lots of times you say we're in a very cozy place.

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Most times we love to stay in this

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stable, safe, cozy place.

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Our small groups, our family units.

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the thing you always do at work,

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that you are the one that does it and nobody else bothers you.

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Yeah, though. That's your cozy place, right?

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So I'd like you to take a moment and figure out how this applies to you.

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We're in your life. Are you just cozy right now?

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And you can do it on anything. You guys, again, you can take this home and write more about it,

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but maybe it's with Jesus. How are you cozy with Jesus right now?

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How is your prayer life? Does that fit into cozy?

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what are the things you might think that feel like they could be in this quadrant?

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I'll give you a moment to go ahead and write something down.

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Now, the board called quadrant.

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The low challenge. Low invitation.

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Don't spend too much time. Maybe there's something in there.

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You're like, I'm just super bored with something.

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Go ahead. Honest. Be honest. Write it down. It's just for your eyes only.

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maybe your life is super stressful.

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Go ahead and think of the places that right now you feel stressed.

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It could be in your relationship with God. It could be in your relationship with how you read the scriptures

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or how you pray, or with church where the person or a family or your job.

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What are the places that feel like really stressful right now?

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Or maybe you feel like nobody cares,

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and that's where you are in that stressful quadrant.

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And then the high invitation, high challenge

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is where Jesus wants us to move all the stuff that we have

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and and have it reframed by him to be empowered

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because we feel invited in, but because it's an invitation,

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we are challenged to move out of our stress or our cozy spots.

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And so this goes back to the first question I asked,

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what do you want today?

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What is it that you want from Jesus?

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Where do you want him to move? Some of those things that you feel stressed about,

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that you feel maybe cozy about, that you feel bored about?

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What are the some of those things that you might want to say,

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I would love Jesus to work with me on this.

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This is what I need. So it's both a high invitation to be invited into a relationship with him.

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But it's also going to admit that you need to be challenged in that.

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So go ahead and write something down.

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You can take this home. You could do more work on it, but I'd like you to share it with one other person.

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I'd like you to. Maybe it's lunch today.

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Maybe it's in a small group. Maybe it's your sister, your brother, your friend, whoever.

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Just sit down with them or talk to them over the phone, or text them and say,

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hey, I just did this exercise. And I realized I'm really, really feel good about some things

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and I'm really stressful about others, or I really want something

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to change in my life. Go ahead and just share it.

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and just just so that it gets into your system and you know what to do as we go for it.

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I will be reviewing this, invitation challenge matrix,

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so don't worry if you didn't catch it right away, but, pay attention,

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because this summer we're going to do a lot of things

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that feel very invitational.

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Pay attention to your emails or the announcements because

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like the spread, it's a highly invitational thing.

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Come eat together, be together.

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It feels really good. And there's some other things that we're going to say,

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hey, we're going to challenge you. We're going to be challenging you to reach out

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and figure out what it means to impact refugees.

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We're going to be planning, to pack boxes or gather,

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you know, materials for boxes for refugees.

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And it may feel very challenging as we walk into that,

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but that's okay. We're going to try to calibrate both.

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So today I want you to leave with this this book, this blessing.

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May you receive God's invitation into the good life.

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May you be empowered to be challenged to change your perspective,

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what you value and what is important to you

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so you can see God's perspective.

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May you realize that you are invited already,