2/1/2026 - Epiphany 4 - Life is short and we do not have much time

Micah 6:1–8
Matthew 5:1–12

The blessing I use at the end of services—is intentionally more of a summons—and carries deep weight for me. I want to share a wee bit about why I use it. 

It comes from the French philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel, my fuller translation of his words is:

“At our deathbed, the angel reveals itself. Do not wait to be just or compassionate, or to show ourselves to those we love, lest they—or we—be overtaken by illness or death’s shadow. Life is short, and we will never have enough time to gladden the hearts of those who make the dark journey with us. Be swift to love. Make haste to be kind.”

Nine and a half years ago, I received the most heartbreaking gift of my life: holding my best friend and younger brother’s hand as he took his last breath. As I blessed his beautiful body, this piece of writing–those words that had been simply a blessing–came alive for me in a new way. Etched itself in my bones. 

In it, I feel the years Sam held my hand while I tried to survive and rebuild my life after coming out.
I hear him teaching—by the shape of his life—the power of love, kindness, and compassion.
I see the years of drive, labor, and fierce commitment he poured into improving the lives of timed-out orphans with special needs in mainland China—work he committed to at twenty years old. One of the greatest gifts of my life has been witnessing that dream, that labor, that fight that changed a handful of lives.

After his death, the urgency in these words—to love, to be kind, to gladden hearts, to live justly—felt unavoidable. Death has a stupid way of clarifying what matters, stripping away whatever is ornamental or deferred. As Amiel says, at the deathbed the angel reveals itself—not with new information, but with unbearable clarity. We see what love has been asking of us all along.

Today, that clarity is what our scriptures are pressing us toward.

Micah imagines God calling the people into court—not to accuse them of forgetting religion, but of misunderstanding it. The people come prepared with offerings, sacrifices, extravagance.
And God responds: that is not what I asked for.
What I asked for: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God. 

It’s not performance. Not excess. But a way of life.

Pauli Murray heard this same divine insistence echoing through her own life. Writing as a queer, black, theologian, lawyer, priest—often at the margins of church and society—Murray refused any faith that separated spirituality from justice. For them, justice was not an optional extension of belief; it was its discipline. It was daily practice.

They warned that the church loses its soul when it spiritualizes justice instead of embodying it—when worship becomes detached from dignity, and belief is severed from solidarity. Murray understood, like Micah, that God is not impressed by religious display. God is revealed in lives oriented and actively moving toward mercy, humility, and repair.

Jesus carries this vision forward—swiftly and disruptively. Sitting down on the hillside, he begins blessing all the wrong people: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful, the persecuted. He does not tell them they will be blessed someday if they improve their circumstances. He declares that they are blessed now.

This is not spiritual consolation.
It is a redefinition of reality.

In both Micah and Matthew, blessing is not comfort—it is alignment. Blessing happens when a life is oriented toward God’s way, especially when that way runs against the grain of the world. 

The world tells us blessing looks like winning. God says it looks like faithfulness.
The world says blessing means being untouched by pain. God says blessing is present in the pain, in mourning, and when it opens us to compassion.
The world says blessing belongs to those who dominate. God says it belongs to those who refuse to.

Amiel names the urgency beneath this vision when he writes, “Life is short. We do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who take the dark journey with us. Be swift to love. Make haste to be kind.”
This is not gentle advice. It is a moral summons.

Micah and Jesus both insist that faith cannot be deferred. And we are living in a time when our faith cannot be deferred. There is not time to decide whether we will choose justice, mercy, or humility. Delay itself becomes a form of refusal.

Pauli Murray understood this urgency as embodied faith. They wrote that, The true community is one in which every person is accepted and valued – True community is based upon equality, mutuality, and reciprocity. It affirms the richness of individual diversity as well as the common human ties that bind us together. Murray was clear-eyed about how costly such communities are to build. Acceptance does not happen by accident or without work. It requires people willing to confront injustice—not only in society, but within themselves and their institutions.

That is the community Jesus is blessing into being on that hillside. Not a polite spiritual ideal, but a fierce insistence on dignity—especially where the world has denied it. Jesus blesses people not into approval by empire, but into belonging. Jesus blesses people into worth that is not earned or negotiated, but recognized.

This vision threatens every system built on hierarchy, scarcity, and fear. Empire depends on convincing us that worth must be earned and blessing accumulated. Jesus insists instead that blessing flows where love and mercy is practiced, where kindness interrupts harm, where people refuse to let suffering make them cruel.

And notice—neither Micah nor Jesus romanticizes suffering. They do not call poverty good or persecution holy. They name these realities truthfully. And they refuse to let them have the final word. God’s favor is not proof that the world is just; it is the promise that injustice does not get to decide who is seen, loved, or honored.

So when Jesus blesses the meek, he is not praising passivity—he is naming a strength that refuses violence.
When he blesses the peacemakers, he is not talking about avoidance—he is blessing those who step into conflict to heal it.
When he blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, he is blessing holy dissatisfaction—the refusal to accept a world that falls short of God’s dream.

The beauty is—God does not ask us to do anything God has not already done- that loving mercy and doing justice and humbly walking are possible with God, even when they feel impossible, too small, too insignificant. 

So beloveds, our life is short—may we

Bless the peacemakers and misfits

Bless the finished and unfinished work

Bless the heartbreak, doubts, the hard work of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Bless the healing. 

Bless the chaos and loud voices, 

Bless the quiet and peace, 

Bless endings and new beginnings. 

The laments, the joys, 

The agreements and disagreements - bless the learning. 

Bless the brave, the trusting and those not ready to trust yet.

Bless the creatives, the wanderers, 

Bless the wonderers.

Bless God who is in all things and works all through all things. Bless God who is in you, in us. Bless our hope, bless our love, bless our belief.