Blessed are the Cheesemakers

So, what’s on my mind?

I am writing this newsletter on Monday, August 17^th. And it just so happens that on this day in 1979, Monty Python’s Life of Brian was released in the United States. If you’ve never seen Life of Brian, it’s a comedy about an ordinary man born in Bethlehem who is repeatedly mistaken for the Messiah.

The movie is full of quotable one-liners, and one of my favorites comes during the Sermon on the Mount. As Jesus is delivering the sermon, somewhere in the crowd, someone says: “I think he said, ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers.’”

That line has always made me laugh. Maybe because it feels just believable enough. Have you ever been sitting somewhere listening to someone speak and suddenly realized that you have absolutely no idea what they just said? (Don’t answer that if that ‘someone’ is me.)

Of course you have. We’ve all been there. Sometimes we misunderstand because we aren’t paying attention. Sometimes we misunderstand because we are distracted. Sometimes we hear what we expect someone to say instead of what they actually said.

Well, we can do the same thing with Jesus, can’t we? We can become so familiar with the words of Scripture that we stop really listening to them. We know the Beatitudes. We know the Lord’s Prayer. We know “love your neighbor.” We know “do unto others.” We know that Jesus tells us to forgive, to serve, to care for the poor, to love our enemies. We’ve heard these things so many times that it can become easy to hear them without actually hearing them.

And every once in a while, Jesus says something that makes us stop and realize, “Wait…did he really say that?” Love your enemies? Really? Pray for the people who hurt you? Seriously? Forgive seventy times seven? He actually said that? Yep. He did.

Maybe one of the most important things we can do as followers of Jesus is to slow down and listen. Really listen. Occasionally we may discover that what we thought Jesus said isn’t quite what Jesus actually said. And it may not be “Blessed are the cheesemakers.” It may be something far more challenging. And far more beautiful.

May God hold you,
Rev Chris Hester