"Do We Really Want to Be 'Blessed'?"

Here's an instant replay of what happened in worship:

We laughed about Bizarro World, a world where the "Shadow Superman" (Bizarro) lives with other Bizarro characters. Things on Bizarro World are backwards or the opposite of things on earth.
We thought about what we knew of the Beatitudes - the Blessed sayings in Matt 5:1-12. Sometimes we're tempted to romanticize them, making them seem sweet and quaint. In reality, when Jesus first spoke them, his listeners must have thought he was talking about Bizarro World. They believed, as we still do, that the "blessed" people are the ones who are wealthy and powerful and beautiful. How could Jesus be saying that the blessed people are the meek, the grieving, the persecuted?
We realized that, in a way, Jesus was talking about another place, but not Bizarro World. He was talking about a different Kingdom - the Kingdom of God. Even though we are all citizen of a certain country, a particular "kingdom", Jesus is inviting us to claim our citizenship in God's Kingdom. He is inviting us to bless the people God blesses. Whenever we do that, we see the Kingdom of God break into the world we know.
We prayed that we would claim our citizenship in this Kingdom of God.
We celebrated communion, sitting at the table with Jesus - another taste of God's Kingdom on earth.