Blessed Are

Matthew 5:1-12

They left Fort Worth Texas on October 26^th starting a 2,300 mile adventure, well really a pilgrimage walking day by day, making their way to Washington D.C. There are 19 to 24 depending on the day, who walk at a time and they are Vietnamese and Thai Buddhist monks from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center and they eat just one meal a day and they sleep under trees, literally. It is part of their spiritual practice to be and sleep outside. Over the walk they pass through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia.

They don’t have any demands. They aren’t carrying any signs. They don’t seem to be trying to prove anything. They don’t have luggage of the material or spiritual kind. They are not protesting, rather it seems to me they are protecting something, maybe a few things in fact. They are guarding our shared humanity, modeling what true power grounded in love and courage looks like. I have heard the walk of peace described as a Tudong, which is a Thai derivative of a Pali word (dhutanga) translating literally as ‘means of shaking off’; referring to the ancient ascetic practices allowed by the Buddha giving lessons to his disciples on maybe just that thing, how to shake it off. In the forests of Thailand, monks would go silently out onto the paths at night. Making a journey of the heart. Now in the USA in 2026, their bodies walking are the blessing and people have flocked to see them. Over 2 million people are following their walk on Facebook and about that many on Instagram. In small towns along their route thousands have come out to see them. 10,000 in places like High Point, North Carolina. In an interview, Bhikku Panna Kara, the spiritual leader of the peace walking monks said, “We walk not to protest, but to awaken the peace that already lives within us.” He said that the monks wanted the world to know that peace is not a destination but a practice, something that begins within, that it is about the heart and then extends outward.” It’s a lovingkindness meditation with the body.

I notice that this list we have from Jesus is a string of blessings, not curses, not a list of First Century “F U’s”. I think a list of curses would be easier. But that’s not what we read here. And the Aramaic word for blessing, translated into Greek as Makarios is more like happy and we get it 50 times in the Christian Scriptures. This seems a bit odd to think of this as happy. "Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 5:4 "Happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5:5 Happy are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Scholar Todd Lindberg contends that the agenda of Jesus and those gathered around him was organized by the pursuit of Makarios for a world in which the unvalued are last fully valued human beings…” As if it say, I know it seems ridiculous with the Empire at your back, but yes this is for you too, happy are those who… 

Marcia Riggs says that the Beatitudes is a commissioning that undergirds the necessary instruction Jesus is offering, telling them that in this world, happiness is for them too. Know that in this world, happiness is for all, these blessings are for you, yes you. Those who are hungry will be happy and those who are thirsty will be happy and those who are pure in heart will finally get the goodness they deserve. This is the world Jesus puts out, creates, builds, in the backdrop of Rome that says Happy are those that are rich and brandishing swords. No happy are the poor, we will be happy too. You get the blessings too. You create that for one another, you create that for each other. We live this out for one another and for the wider world. Blessed are, happy are, one step, practicing what we want, none of it are things we arrive at and then we are done, none of these are destinations, these practices, something that begins within, in our hearts and then we extend outward. Some of us walked and marched on Thursday for an interfaith peace walk. At one point one of the speakers offered lots of jokes about potlucks and how Lutherans are really good at that and part of the reason Minnesota is so organized is the Lutherans! Then a woman invited all of us to give out a primal screen, a big yell. It was powerful. It felt like Tudong, shaking it off, yelling in a crowd, transforming our anger into something powerful and peaceful.

And I think with time these aren’t really protests, but more peace walks to protect democracy and resist state sanctioned violence in our homes and our streets. The monks are showing us so miuch about how we are to bring more peace into this moment. And part of what is so clear is they are not giving attention to the dis-ease, the dis-stress, the dissolution of so many stories, no they are giving energy to and drawing attention to the simplicity of a clear mission, of peace. When people shout terrible things at them, the monks, listen to them, wish them peace and go on their way. What a beautiful model for us, of what to give our energy to in this time. I wonder if it’s time for us to shift from what we don’t want, to what we do want? What would it look like for us to give more energy to the world we do want? That we can awaken more peace within us and between us? As the poet Bee Love says, “waking up is stepping into the very depths of our soul, being in harmony with the beat of the nature’s drum, no longer living on top of the world, but living in it, a part of it.”

Happy are the peacemakers, each of us and all of us, this blessing is for you too. 

Under his signature, ordering the release of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos Judge Fred Biery wrote “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them for to such belongs the realm of God…” May we each bring peace, knowing that ripples out right from where we are. Let us give energy to more of what we want, building the world we know is possible, blessed are you, happy are you, may you create that for one another. May it be so. Amen.