February 1, 2026 "God Begins with Blessing"

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Micah 6:1-8

Psalm 15

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Matthew 5:1-12

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

grace and peace to you from the one who richly blesses us. Amen

God begins with blessings.

This is the truth that Jesus points to

 as he begins teaching the disciples

and the crowds that have gathered around him

 in our gospel for today.

It is a truth that may not be so apparent in their lives.

Matthew tells us

that after he calls the disciples he goes

 “throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, people possessed by demons or having epilepsy or afflicted with paralysis, and he cured them.”

The crowds gathered around Jesus

are those who, except for his healing them,

 have experienced great suffering in their lives,

who maybe felt like they were cursed,

 or have even had it explained to them

that the reason for their suffering

was something they did.

 In the gospel of John

when the disciples encounter the man born blind

they ask “who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born this way?”

 It was the prevailing understanding of the day

 that suffering of any shape was caused by sin

 and furthermore that blessings were to be inherited

or earned through sacrifice and righteous living.

There should be a reason behind it all

 the good and the bad.

And yet when Jesus sits down to teach

about the kingdom of heaven that has come near,

the new Moses delivering teaching from a mountain,

 he begins with blessings,

 blessings that run contrary to the wisdom of the world,

even the religious world.

Blessed are the poor in spirit

Blessed are those who mourn

Blessed are the meek

Not the usual candidates for the category of most blessed,

 but that’s the point,

 things are turned upside down in the kingdom of God.

 But even if we accept that,

we still wonder a little about the blessings

because we’re still in the mindset

 that we have to do something or even be something

 to earn God’s blessing,

 thinking along the lines of  ‘I’d like God’s blessing, I guess I’d better go out and seek to be persecuted….seems a little harsh but if that what Jesus says it takes….’

 which still misses the point,

 with God blessings come first,

 Jesus’ beatitudes at the beginning of the sermon on the mount aren’t instructions,

 “the grammatical mood of Jesus’ language here is indicative, not imperative: he’s describing how the world actually is, not issuing instructions.” (https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/1/28/blessing-first-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-epiphany-4) 

These are words of consolation

 to those that don’t feel blessed,

 that the world has told aren’t favored by God.

 ‘No’ Jesus is saying,

 ‘you are blessed, God does love and care for you,

even with ___________going on in your life God is with you.’

 It’s a shift in perspective,

 one that makes all the difference

 in the experience of suffering,

 yes life will still be hard

 but they/we are blessed by God

which is cause for gratitude

and joy even,

 and such gratitude and joy

will turn us away from navel gazing

wondering what we did to deserve xyz,

and toward God

and wondering how we might live our lives toward God,

whatever the circumstances.

Jesus will go on to give instructions

on how they/we might do that in the rest of the sermon

but first Jesus begins with blessings.

This is nothing new for God,

if we look back

we realize that God always begins with blessings,

 instructions, rules come later.

 Even from the very beginning

God makes the Garden of Eden

 and gives it to the humans to take care of all their needs,

 only then does God give the one instruction,

which they broke

but God still treated them mercifully.

 With the Exodus,

God brought the people out of slavery into freedom,

blessing them,

before giving them instructions on how to live with one another,

the commandments

 the instructions are not how to earn God’s blessings

but rather live within the blessings that God has already given.

This is the prophet Micha’s beef with the people of his time,

 how they are living within the blessings God has already given them.

Micha lived in a time where the gap between the rich and the poor was increasing,

 the rich were using their freedom to get richer,

and worse they attributed their rise over the poor to God

 and kept offering sacrifices to God

 to try to increase their standing over the poor,

to increase their blessedness.

‘Is this really what you think God wants?’

ask the prophet incredulously,

 after naming several of God’s saving actions of the people.

No “he has told you, O mortal, what is good,

 and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” God has blessed you with salvation, with freedom, now live that freedom out with one another.

(you can hear the frustration in the prophet’s words)

 With God blessings come first

And of course God continued this pattern with Jesus,

 it’s how Jesus taught and how he lived,

 giving his life as a saving action for us,

 to bless us first.

And it makes no sense.

As Paul remarks in our second reading

the cross is foolishness because it runs contrary to the wisdom of the world: 

“For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are,  so that no one might boast in the presence of God. In contrast, God is why you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

God is why we are in Christ Jesus.

The blessing came first,

 then the instruction.

This is why we Lutherans are okay with

 even prefer infant baptism

 because it is a way of living out this truth,

that blessing comes first

 and then comes instruction,

 that the grace of God is active in our lives

without us doing anything to deserve it,

and then in grace, in joy, in gratitude,

we turn toward God and neighbor as Jesus commands.

And this blessing is always there for us to return to

Yes there are times according to the wisdom of the world

that we don’t feel particularly blessed,

 and in those times lament and even anger are appropriate responses,

 look at all the psalms,

but then God brings us back to the font

and reminds of who we are and whose we are

and then to the table to strengthen and forgive us

and with the droplets of blessing still damp on our foreheads,

the crumbs of blessing still between our teeth,

the taste of blessing lingering in our mouth

God turns us back toward God and one another

 to live in the blessing of God.

The blessing that always come first. Amen