Blessed Through Struggle

John Wesley's vision of social justice provides a framework for understanding Jesus's teachings in the Beatitudes and challenges us to transform personal faith into active compassion.

• Social justice defined as the belief in equal rights, opportunities and treatment for all people regardless of characteristics
• The Beatitudes begin with blessing those who seem least blessed—the poor in spirit, mourners, the meek
• Spiritual poverty, mourning and meekness often become moments when God can work most deeply in our lives
• The Beatitudes show a progression from spiritual emptiness to active faith strong enough to withstand persecution
• Wesley spoke of "social holiness" rather than just personal holiness, believing faith must lead to action
• Wesley actively fought against poverty, slavery, and advocated for prison reform
• Methodist social justice legacy includes founding the Salvation Army and championing various social causes
• The Social Principles document represents Methodism's ongoing commitment to address contemporary issues
• Unity amid disagreement and wrestling with difficult questions remains a core Methodist value

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Wesley and Social Justice
• 1:22 The Beatitudes and Unlikely Blessings
• 4:02 Finding God in Our Lowest Moments
• 9:47 Faith's Progression: From Weakness to Strength
• 14:10 Wesley's Social Justice Legacy
• 18:37 Methodist Social Principles Today

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, we've been talking about John Wesley and United Methodism for a couple of Sundays here, and so I'm still in that vein as we move forward. And today we're talking about John Wesley, the founder of United Methodism, by the way, the founder of Methodism and also the inspiration for any Wesleyan faith which there are a number of those too but today we're talking about social justice. Wesley had a big heart for social justice. So what do we mean by social justice? I thought it was important. We're going to have a definition, working definition for social justice, and I digged deep down into the bowels of Google and found you a simple definition Social justice is the belief that everyone should have equal rights, opportunities and treatment, regardless of their race, economic status, gender or other characteristics. So a working definition. Somewhat general, wesley believed in this, and this is him back in the 1700s, so there is that context that we probably ought to keep in mind. So, in trying to talk about social justice, I went to the Beatitudes, matthew 5, verses 1 through 12. I think I asked this at another time. Anybody have to memorize the Beatitudes ever. Yeah, all right, me and Becky, all right, that's right, linda. Not as many as I might have thought, though. See, I was trying to save money going to church camp, I had to memorize all of these Beatitudes. I don't know that I could do it again right now, but that was something that is kind of this tight package, this summary of some of Jesus' teachings, some of the key teachings, this summary of some of Jesus' teachings, some of the key teachings. So I landed on that because to me it spoke to that social justice, understanding the need that this world has. That Jesus would speak into.

Speaker 1: 2:24

Now, some of you know, in Matthew the gospel, chapters 5 through 7, is kind of a summary of a lot of Jesus's earthly teachings. If you're trying to understand a little bit more what Jesus actually tried to teach us about living in this world, that's a really good place to start. Matthew, chapter 5 through chapter 7, it really tight kind of puts it all together and it opens with these beatitudes and it's all these definitions about people who are blessed right, blessed people in this world. But what you'll probably notice, what I think you should notice, is that those first four categories should notice is that those first four categories they don't seem like people who are particularly blessed. Am I right? We don't think of the poor in spirit as being blessed. We don't feel very blessed when we are mourning, when we're feeling meek. We feel more frustrated than blessed when we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Now, if we're reading through this, the inclination would be to think oh okay, jesus is working with God, there's going to be some justice that gets meted out maybe not in this world, but in some other world, some judgment at some other time. Maybe that's what Jesus is talking about. The problem is there's not a lot of hope for people who are in this place here and in this world today. It doesn't help somebody who is poor in spirit to say, oh, don't worry, when you pass away and go on to be in God's next world, go on to be in heaven or what have you, you'll be fine. Then it doesn't carry much weight, right, it doesn't make you feel any better, really. And when I talk about feeling better or feeling hopeful about the world and things like that and this teaching that maybe some other time everything will even out.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Well, yeah, we're talking about the poor in spirit suffering, but don't all of us suffer in that context, when we're talking about our world and living in a place where not everybody is given the opportunity to kind of be who God wanted them to be, to be fully who God wanted them to be when God created that person. If we're in a place where they are suffering, they aren't blooming, they aren't offering the gifts that God gave them to share. Well, that's not just them suffering. Maybe they're getting the worst of it, but aren't we all suffering? The kingdom, to a certain extent, isn't fully what the kingdom is supposed to be, because a certain amount of us aren't given the space to be who God created. That's why this understanding that maybe God is going to fix things a little bit later doesn't carry enough weight for me. Bit later doesn't carry enough weight for me. I feel like there has to be a message here that is about this world. When he's talking about the poor in spirit being blessed, those who mourn being blessed, the meek being blessed, I feel like he's got to be talking about some lesson for here.

Speaker 1: 6:01

But then the question becomes how Because they sure don't seem blessed have you ever been in one of those low ebbs of life, those times where you're feeling pretty poor in spirit, pretty poor in spirit, like we're talking about our spirit being how we connect with God? You ever felt disconnected to God. That spirit thing seems to be absent. We're not truly sure if God exists or not. Or even if God does exist, does that even matter? We got a God. But I've known these times in my life.

Speaker 1: 6:58

For me, the way the question kind of rose up was less about whether God was present or even about whether God mattered. It was more about are people going to respond? Maybe God doesn't matter, because the people aren't listening, they're not following. So if we're not going to do what God is inviting us to do and be who God is inviting us to be, you know well, maybe God doesn't matter. Maybe God's waiting for us to help build that kingdom. For me, that was a time. Those are times of feeling poor in spirit, lacking the hope, lacking the faith.

Speaker 1: 7:47

Getting back to this list a little bit, have you ever mourned? I'm guessing yes, because life is life. Have you ever felt meek or been made to feel meek? Have you ever hungered and were thirsty for righteousness, wondered where the good and the just was in this world? To me, the irony is that it's in these times, these places, where we feel like we have the least hope, the least connection to God, the least faith. It's often in these times that God is our most blessed presence. God is able to work with us most intentionally. Why? Possibly because we got nowhere else to go. We're not finding hope, we're not finding faith.

Speaker 1: 9:01

I know in those tough times, for me it actually ended up being kind of a doubling down with God. Amidst the uncertainty of our world, the instability of our world, the instability of people, no matter how good intentioned, still broken in their own ways, amidst that uncertainty, god felt stable to me. I knew that God was love and that love was real. And even if I wasn't seeing it all the time, I had seen it. I might have only had faith because I couldn't find anything else to grab, but it was still faith, it was still trust in God and in that trust I gave God a chance to work inside of me, to help me find God's presence, not only inside but outside in the world, to find hope, to find context, to find comfort To me. I think this is really what Jesus was trying to get across when he talked about us being blessed despite these times where we felt poor in spirit.

Speaker 1: 10:34

I'm moving on to the list a little bit more. The next four on this list of blessed people. To me they feel a little bit more palatable things I might actually strive to be. I want to be merciful, I want to be pure in heart, I want to be a peacemaker. I want to be those who, if I'm going to be persecuted, it's going to be fighting for what's right. This part of that blessed list we might actually get a little excited about. In fact, if you look at it, and maybe when you get home, or if you pull it out of the pew and you look at it Matthew 5, you might see kind of a progression, a progression that Matthew creates out of Jesus' teachings, where it starts at the very lowest of the low, poor in spirit, where we feel like we have nothing to grab onto, and then it slowly begins to build. We're mourning to meek Until we're getting into some of these other things where we're having more confidence, we're getting more stable, we're getting more confident in God's presence, living that out until finally we get to that ultimate, ultimate depth of faith, so strong that we can take on the most difficult this world has to offer.

Speaker 1: 12:04

Look at this last verse, or at least verse 11, I should say Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely on my account. That one right there, that's going to take the deep faith. Am I right? Have you been that person getting persecuted for trying to do the right thing? That's the deep faith. That's MLK in the Birmingham jail kind of faith, right there. I have a suggestion for you, kind of a fun suggestion, but you might try this passage as a bit of a locker room inspirational. Go out for the second half kind of speech, because you could see it build and you can see it grow and you can see somebody getting built as they become deeper and deeper in their faith. If you want to have even a little bit more fun, imagine the preacher cadence of an african-american preacher, because those folks can bring it. I thought about trying but I thought no, you, you, you small white man, just just ride in your lane, but let yourself hear it at some point. Pull out that passage and let yourself hear the inspiration that can come from that.

Speaker 1: 13:39

It's a passage obviously about social justice, and when you're talking about John Wesley and his belief in social justice, he's living at a time and I would argue we're in a similar time where the theology, the understanding of God that comes up against social justice is often about personal holiness or personal piety, the argument being oh okay, well, if we have our faith right, that's what matters. That's what matters to God. You've got to get that straight. It doesn't necessarily matter what we bring to the world or how we change the world. For Wesley, this was absolutely not true.

Speaker 1: 14:21

For Wesley, he spoke not of personal holiness, but he talked about social holiness. He knew that our faith needed to be present in our action, or that we probably hadn't had much real faith at all If you didn't believe. Well, if you believed but it didn't lead to some action, was it really anything at all? Did you get inspired in any way? For him, faith and works were a little bit like breathing. That faith led to works and back to faith. I might say it a little more concretely An inward experience, an inward spiritual experience, leads to an outward spiritual experience, and vice versa, does it not? Does it not that inward taking in of all that God is makes you want to go out and do the good work and have that experience, and that experience out doing the good work makes you want to go get some more. Go back inside.

Speaker 1: 15:38

Now for Wesley some areas of social justice work that were important to him. He was always addressing poverty and hunger. That was hugely important for him. This another one that was important, especially considering the time abolition of slavery. He was definitely against slavery, the irony being we were split as United Methodists over the Civil War, so you can wrestle with that. He was also a big advocate of prison reform.

Speaker 1: 16:12

I can tell you too, there is significant social justice legacy that came from John Wesley. Wesleyan theology and teachings are the underpinnings for the Salvation Army Church. So they're out there and they're dinging their bells at Christmastime. Are the underpinnings for the Salvation Army Church, right? So they're out there and they're dinging their bells at Christmas time. You can know that the formation that led to them leading this ministry and really leading church grounded in that social justice came from Wesleyan thinking.

Speaker 1: 16:42

Here's another one. Do you know we were really active in prohibition, right? Some of you are really proud of that. Some of you really begrudge that Funny story. You know how we have grape juice for communion. You know the name of a famous Methodist Welch's Not an accident. You know you got to take advantage of opportunities. But I make jokes but at the same time. Part of why we do grape juice is to be in solidarity with people who have that, who wrestle with that. I'll call it a demon alcoholism. To be in solidarity with people who wrestle with that. Also, I'll mention what we call our social principles.

Speaker 1: 17:40

Social principles is this living document that we, as a denomination, own, and it is a document that we revisit periodically. We revisit every fourth year at our general conference, where you can submit suggestions for adjustments to this document. So it is a living document that we would come back and vote on, and what it is is. It's a gathering of our collective beliefs, or a statement around our beliefs, around some of the cultural issues of our time. We are not a creedal church, and what I mean by that there's not a set of beliefs that we mandate or that we invite you to say every single Sunday. There is an openness to some conversation, to the journey of faith amongst us, in that we can disagree to a certain extent, why we are not a creedal church. At the same time, time that we are a church who claims a social principles document that we do hold ourselves to.

Speaker 1: 18:53

I want you to know that, as you can probably guess, in 2025, it is flawed at best. The issues of the day are often provocative and challenging and not easy. So as you read through, there will be things you continue to wrestle with, but I think for me there's a certain amount of pride in that. That is something that we're willing to wrestle over. We're willing to own the fact that we're going to try our best to be relevant, to speak into relevant topics and to try to bring at least the United Methodist body together with some sort of unity, as best we're able.

Speaker 1: 19:38

But, like I said, it's 2025. Unity is not always a value we share in our culture these days, but at least, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr might argue, we are not so heavenly focused as to be no earthly good. We are out there doing our best to make the world better. So maybe the most important part of our social principles is that they are an important part of our being united Methodist, that the wrestling is as important as in anything we actually believe, and we'll talk about that a little bit more next week. But what I like to know is that we're being proactive about making the world better. It's a critical part of who we are and when we live it out. As we understand from Matthew 5, we are blessed, amen, amen.