This is Me
NL Year 1 • Sermon • Submitted
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On top of Disney my whole family also really enjoys musicals, whether on the stage or on film. One of those film musicals that we love is “The Greatest Showman”. It is about the life and career of P.T. Barnum and their creation of how all of that happened. During the film, as Barnum was trying to get more into mainstream society, he tried to distance himself publicly from the circus performers. As a result the performers are hurt and in true musical fashion they break out into song. The song is called, “This is Me”. The lyrics talk about being used to being in the dark, how they’ve been told to be ashamed of all their scars, and that no one will love them for who they are. But they have realized through their friendship with one another that they won’t be broken down anymore, that there is a place for each of them. They realize that they are who they are meant to be with everything that the world tries to put against them and then comes the phrase, “this is me”. The song goes on with even more powerful words about shame and reaching for the sun despite everything else going on in the world.
It really is a powerful song and I would even say ties into the message we heard last week, about not letting any voice in this world tell you that you are not good enough as who you are. It also fits really well into this famous passage about Jesus’ beatitudes, which is the majority of what we hear today when we hear Jesus saying all the “happy are people”. It fits because it talks about people who are in the margins, but that does not mean they are not worthy of love, acceptance and being fully embraced as people. In other translations we also hear the language of “blessed are” followed by the different categories of people. I will get back to the song and its importance to what we’re talking about in a bit, but first we need to understand more about this idea of being happy and blessed.
Unfortunately the idea of being blessed and happy has taken on a whole new meaning in today’s culture that this passage really loses it’s intended meaning and truly waters it down. I know this is really dumb but I was actually really happy when I came home this last week and I saw that Bekkah had put together the organizer for our sponges and soap for our kitchen counter. The whole area just looked nicer and I even told her it made my heart smile to see that there and organized. It made me happy. There are lots of little things that happen like that that make us happy and when something good happens we may even say we are blessed but it has nothing to do with God.
So what does this kind of happiness and blessedness actually mean in this stories context? One commentary describes the Biblical sense of happy or blessed as this: The word represents deep inner joy of those who have long awaited the salvation promised by God, and who are now beginning to experience it. So it is this sense of shifting from the expectation of salvation to experiencing salvation and this list shares all the types of people who are going through that transition. Those people include but are not limited to the hopeless, those who grieve, the humble, those seeking the righteousness of God, the pure of heart, those who make peace, those who are living out the righteousness of God, and who are living into what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. All of these people who seem to be in the margins. The people that see the world as it is and know that it isn’t the way that it should be and know that with God the world can become a better place.
Jesus makes a shift at the end when he goes from saying ‘happy are people’ to ‘happy are you’. He move from ambiguous to direct. Then he immediately shifts into a conversation about being salt and light. And how salt is salt, there isn’t anything else salt can be. By the way if salt really is salt, it can’t lose it’s saltiness. I’m not advocating you try some 50 year old salt, but if it is salt it’ll be just fine to taste and use. And the whole point of light is to provide light. There is no reason to make light and then make sure it can’t be seen. It is what it is. By the way salt and light were two extremely important parts of the ancient world. Having light in dark places and having salt which could do so many different things were essential.
Jesus tells us that that is who we are. Or in the words of the song I opened our time together with, “this is me”. No matter what the voices of the world say, no matter what things try to break us down, or hide us in the dark God has made us light and salt. God has brought us into this world as we are so that we can shine our light before others so that they can see the good things we do which brings praise and glory to our Father in heaven.
Since we are salt and we are light then we are also the ones who are happy and we are the ones who are blessed because we already know that the kingdom of heaven is breaking into this world. And since we are salt and light we are also the ones who can help others who are hopeless, who do grieve, who want righteousness and justice in this world, who work for peace so that they too will see God’s salvation at work in this world. That the kingdom of heaven is theirs and that they are children of God. That one day we can all look at these words of the beatitudes and salt and light, and boldly and joyfully proclaim ‘this is me’ a blessed child of God. Amen.