Hashtag Blessed

 Matthew 5:1-12 February 8, 2026

 

This is the first part of Jesus sermon

on the Mount, it’s called the Beatitudes.

or the Blessings.

 

What does it mean to be blessed?

The dictionary was no help.

But I think we know.

I think it means having God’s favor,

experiencing God’s grace,

feeling happiness, peace, and contentment.

It’s a great reminder that God is active in our lives.

 

But I think a lot of people confuse being

fortunate with being blessed.

I’ve had some people say to me,

“I was lucky,” then they remember that I

am a pastor and say, “oh no, I was blessed”

 

We say, we’re blessed with good health,

or wealth, or good looks, or a good spouse, or whatever.

Sometimes it’s things that we worked for,

and sometimes its come just because we’re lucky.

Blessed.

 

Actually ‘hashtag blessed’ is kind of a joke,

Because so many people -especially

social media influencers— use it for whatever

gain, or free thing, they’ve gotten.

 

When you look up hashtag blessed

on social media, you get some religious

comments, “blessed to have another day”

“blessed to be sober”, “blessed to be a blessing”.

 

But you also get a lot of people talking

about other things too:

I got these premium lulu Lemon leggings

for free. Best quarterly sales so far.

Hashtag blessed.

It’s used for college acceptances,  sports victories, vacations –

“We’re blessed to be able spend a week in Cabo

and see this sunset.”  - Hashtag blessed

“Someone was upgraded to first class on a flight”

hashtag blessed. 

 

Now, if saying you’re blessed is your thing,

I’m not trying to take it away,

I think it’s great to remind yourself

that everything comes from God

and we should be thankful for everything.

 

But I’m personally kind of uncomfortable

with the concept of saying I’m blessed

when I just feel fortunate or lucky.

It’s probably just Lutheran guilt,

but I feel like if I say that God has blessed me

because of what I have, then what about the people

who don’t have those things.

 

If I’m blessed with a house, or I’m blessed

with good health, what about the people

who don’t have a house or don’t have good health.

Is God’s blessing not for them too?

 

I’m probably thinking too hard about it.

But I guess that’s my job

to think too hard about this kind of thing.

 

In Jesus time, how fortunate you were,

or how many good things you had here on earth

(whether you were hashtag blessed in life or not)

was seen as an indicator of God’s favor.

 

Meaning that, whether you were rich or poor

healthy or sick, was taken as a direct sign

as to whether you had pleased God or

you had disappointed or angered God.

Or maybe if your parents or ancestors

had pleased or angered God.

 

 

They believed in what theologians call

“divine providence”. Which means that God

directs every iota of what happens in the

earthly realm.  To believe in “divine providence”

or determinism (which is just about the same, but

a little different) is a belief that everything that

happens in the world is determined by God,

and God uses the  things in life like money or health

as a blessing, or a trial, or as instruction, or as a punishment.

By that logic, we can see what God is

thinking just by seeing what happens in the world.

So if I got a free pair of Lulu Lemon Leggings,

then God must think I’m doing okay.

 

That might sound like good theology.

if you don’t think too hard,

But like I said, my job is to think too hard.

 

If you follow that logic, that would mean that every

billionaire who has money to waste on their seventh car and

their fourth yacht has really pleased God.

And conversely, God is angry at every person who doesn’t

have enough to eat, or is sick, or without a home.

 

This theology breaks down really quickly.

And It’s actually disturbing way to view God’s

work in the world. But somehow this “hashtag

blessed”  theology has prevailed

And it actually was the dominant Christian theology

throughout most of American history.

And Christian theology was very important in shaping

the world in the 18^th and 19^th century.

 

At the founding of the United States,

the European settlers believed in “Manifest Destiny”

Meaning that because of the superiority of

European/American culture and government,

God gave people a divine right to take over

the land in the US. Even if that meant

destroying Native Americans and taking their land.

 

White people thought it was Europeans’

divine right to take over land because it was

“Allotted by Providence” meaning

because they could they should.

And God made it possible.

In other words, they were blessed by God.

 

And “God’s providence” was the most prevalent

theological defense for American Slavery of

Africans in the US. If you read letters and sermons

from the time, there’s this circular logic used to justify Slavery

People basically said that it had to be ordained by God

because it wouldn’t have happened

if it wasn’t ordained by God.

 

So what you see in the world is exactly God’s will.

White people were blessed to be slave masters,

and God had cursed black people to be slaves.

 

It’s an absolutely disturbing and wrong way to understand

God’s work in the world when used in that way,

But it was the absolutely accepted way to

think about the happenings in the world at the time.

If you didn’t believe that, you looked strange and radical.

 

And it was the prevalent way to think

about God’s work through the 19^th century.

and even if it wasn’t overt, it still hung on

even through the first part of the of the 20^th century.

 

That is until people started to grasp the holocaust.

Then people could no longer look at the horrors

of human cruelty and say that God’s hand

had a part of that. Then people were forced to realize

that maybe everything that we saw in the world

was not an indicator of God’s will.

Since that time, God’s providence

has not been as dominant in

main-stream theology.

 

But it still lives today.

It lives in the prosperity Gospel that says

overtly that God rewards your righteousness

with cold hard cash and good health.

New Jerusalem
Dirk Walker

It lived every time Pat Robertson 

or Kenneth Copeland

told people why a hurricane hit 

Haiti or New Orleans.

That’s the overt. But the less overt way

it is still in the economy of this world.

 

I really think that is why we’re seeing

so many people who identify as

Christian advocating against any kind of government

services for the poor, or healthcare for everyone,

or debt relief, or emergency aid for foreign countries,

and have such toxic attitudes about immigrants.

I think it’s because some people feel like they have

a divine right to their privilege.

They believe they are hashtag  blessed above others

and they want to maintain that.

 

We’re living in a time where people are arguing

about who has a right to have basic rights,

who has a right to live and who doesn’t.

A few months ago, a guy on Fox news suggested that the

US should just euthanize anyone who is homeless.

 

We’re living in a time where the privileged are not just trying

to maintain their privilege, they want to prevent

those that they deem unworthy from getting anything themselves.

I mean if everyone had it, then we couldn’t tell

who was hashtag blessed. Who God favored, and who God didn’t.

 

There is a corner of Christianity that is dominating

politics right now that seems to relish in the fact

that some people are hashtag blessed, and other people are not.

 

They seem to want to maintain that.

And because of that they’ve built up a resentment

towards those that they don’t see as worthy of God’s favor,

those who share their privilege.

 

 

This is leading to resentment for immigrants,

for Haitians and Somalians and Latinos

for African Americans, and gay, lesbian, and transgender

and anyone who is not in the privileged classes,

but would have the nerve feel like they

might want also a part of the American dream.

 

I really think that what drives this competition

and resentment in American life against certain

groups is based on this idea that we can  

tell who is blessed by God and who isn’t

and people want to reserve those blessing for themselves.

 

We’re living in this economy of resentment

right now and it’s tearing our country apart.

It’s literally killing us right now.

 

And as usual, Jesus is trying to save us

from the stuff that is trying to kill us

 

In the Beatitudes, the blessings, Jesus makes

this alternate economy of blessings which probably

seemed really radical at the time.

In Jesus economy, blessings are not about how much

money you have or what comfort or privilege

or health you might have.

Blessings are really God’s grace and love.

And the more you need it the more you get it.

So the most needy among us become the most blessed.

 

In Jesus economy, God’s blessings do not demand anything of us.

Jesus says to that crowd, who seemed like some

of the least blessed people around at the time,

that they were already blessed.

 

You are blessed, just because you care.

Just because you’re poor in spirit,

just because you’ve lost hope or you’re suffering,

or your heart is breaking at the suffering

of another person, or you’re struggling to find

a reason to get up in the morning,

that is you being blessed.

Just because you mourn for losses, for your own

losses and for the loss of other people you might not even know.

You are blessed.

 

You are blessed just because you worked to make peace

instead of building up resentments and competition,

you are blessed.

Just because you want justice in this world.

Just because it bothers you to see people being treated unfairly.

You are blessed.

Just because you are persecuted, or talked bad about,

or even killed, you are blessed, because you stuck up for

someone else or defended them, or even put yourself

in harms way for them, you are blessed.

You don’t have to do it, but if you have yourself in that situation,

you are blessed.

 

In Jesus economy, these blessings

don’t belong to the ones with the earthly privilege

or the power, they don’t just belong to

the rich or the healthy, or the citizen in good standing.

No one is left out of God’s economy.

 

And you can’t tell by looking if someone is blessed or not.

Just because you have a nice house,

or a nice car, or nice healthcare, just because

you have free time, no debt and self determination

doesn’t mean that you’ve been blessed by God

more than someone who has none of those things.

Being blessed is a condition of the heart.

It is a condition of the soul.

 

Jesus was telling those people listening

and telling us now, that we can’t tell what

God is thinking based on someone’s state in life.

 

The message of the Beatitudes and the message of the cross

is that God does not cause suffering,

but God is present wherever there is suffering.

 

Jesus is telling us that God’s blessings

are here for everyone. It’s not just for the ones

with the first class upgrades, or a nice house.

Everyone is hashtag blessed.

 

What would it mean if even just the

Christians really believed in that message?

What would it mean if we truly believed

God’s blessings were for everyone?