Last week, we looked at the set-up for
all of Jesus' ministry. He hears about
John the Baptist's arrest--his betrayal, his handing-over--and
instead of retaliating for John’s arrest, instead of calling down angels
of heaven to rescue his colleague, he withdraws to a different region,
and thus becomes the "man from Galilee." And he begins to preach the
same sermon as John: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!"
and that's as it should be, because in a sense, Jesus is the continuation and--more--the
fulfillment of John's prophetic line . . . and his calling of Peter and
Andrew and James and John was the illustration of repentance--turn from
your old ways, reorient yourselves to kingdom ways . . . in other
words, follow me . . . and as we
look at Jesus' teachings about what that means, we should always remember the context
that Matthew would have us know . . . namely that Jesus' teachings are a
continuance and fulfillment of the Hebrew teachings, that Jesus' reign
as King won't be like any violent, retributive king anyone had ever heard of,
and that hovering, lurking always in the background is Jesus' own betrayal his own
arrest, his own handing-over to be murdered on a cross.
Today we look at the beatitudes, the
first section of the Sermon on the Mount.
And before we start looking at them individually, it's important to
understand what they are--and also what they aren't. They are, as their name indicates,
beatitudes . . . blessings . . . a form that is not uncommon in the Bible and
other ancient literature. But here--unlike in other parts of scripture--they're
not moral exhortations, they aren't imperatives, they're not trying to
tell us what to do, or how to behave.
Many times, they're preached that way . . . God's people should be meek,
this logic goes, and if they are meek, then they get to inherit the
earth. God's people should show mercy to
others, and if they do, they will be blessed by God showing mercy to them. The beatitudes are preached as ideals, and if
you reach them, you get a blessing--like a doggie-treat--as a reward from
God. But note that Jesus doesn't say any
of this, he doesn't say see those grieving widows over there? Be like them and
you'll be comforted. He simply says, flat out, that those who grieve are
blessed, because they will be comforted. The beatitudes are pronouncements,
declarations about the way things are in the Kingdom of God . . .
the meek are blessed, whether it looks like it or not.
And why are they blessed? Because Jesus says
so. Jesus is last in a long line of prophets, remember? And it's the job of
prophets to be mouthpieces for God, to make God's pronouncements . . . and Jesus
is more than that, isn't he? He is somehow the ultimate prophet, the Son
of God himself, the fulfillment of all prophecy, and so not only are the
peacemakers blessed because Jesus says they are, they're blessed by the fact
that he says so. The action of Jesus saying it's so makes it so. Remember?
In the beginning was the Word? And Jesus both is and partakes of that
creative speech. And if this was clear to Matthew and his followers on the
other side of the resurrection, it should be even doubly clear to us on the
other side of the Trinity as well, where we proclaim that Jesus and God
are somehow one and the same.
Well.
Now that we know what a beatitude is--and what it isn't--the only thing
left is the word blessed itself--and if you look it up your Funk and
Wagnall's--Greek version--you'll see that the Greek word it translates has a
range of meanings, from "happy" to "fortunate" to
"privileged" . . . but the meaning here is almost certainly "to
be a recipient of divine favor."
It's no ordinary blessing, no ordinary warm-and-fuzzy like you might get
when you see a baby smile . . . this is the real deal, the ultimate special
edition . . . to be blessed is to have the favor of God laid on you.
And that simple fact is what makes the
beatitudes so radical . . . it's a list of conditions that God blesses in this
new Kingdom--which, you might recall, Jesus has proclaimed as being not too far
away. And these Kingdom conditions,
these attitudes and attributes of God's oncoming reign are pretty surprising,
especially to Matthew's readers in that day. Take the first one, for instance .
. . "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven." Blessed are the poor in
spirit . . . blessed are those who are not stuck on themselves, who aren't full
of self-confidence, full of attitude . . . blessed are those who know that
they're not the be all and end all of the universe, who know that it's
ultimately God who's in charge.
So much for the take-charge kind-of-guy, huh? Persons who are pronounced blessed are not
those with healthy egos and a strong sense of self worth, they're not those who
take pride in themselves . . . as Paul might say, they are those who boast only
in the Lord, who realize deep down that their only identity and security is in
God.
And of course, that wasn't exactly the
way of the world back then, any more than it is now . . . the strongly
self-confident got ahead then, just as they do now . . . "how to get ahead
in six-easy lessons" parchments floated around the first century world,
just as they do now, and the first step was be confident, look determined, take
pride in who you are. Nobody ever
made the big bucks, or climbed that ladder of power and success by having a
poor spirit . . . and even if you're literally poor, better not dress
like it for a job interview . . .
And what about that blessed are the meek
stuff? Meekness never bought baby a
new pair of shoes. Meekness never made
you second vice-president in charge of toadying up to the first vice-president. Meekness never brought democracy to the
Middle East, and are you starting to get the point? Are you starting to see a trend? Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven . . . blessed are
the meek, for they will inherit the earth . . . and who is the King of the
Kingdom of heaven? Who is the ultimate
ruler of this kingdom of God, which paradoxically will be on Earth? Of course, it's the one doing the preaching,
Jesus Christ himself . . . and if Jesus is the king, then it reverses all our
expectations of kingship, of ruler-hood, doesn't it? Those to whom the kingdom belongs--the meek,
the poor in spirit--are the emblems, the markers of that reversal . . . the
world thinks a ruler must be strong, must be confident, but in the kingdom—which
let us not forget is already here—the reverse is true. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth.
Blessed--as well--are those who mourn, in
this coming kingdom of God, for they shall be comforted . . . those who lament
the present condition of the earth, the desolation brought upon by over-use and
exploitation, the turning of our rivers into running sewers and our fisheries
into semi-arid deserts . . . the driving to extinction of thousands of species
of God's created creatures . . . those who mourn and lament this will be comforted . . . those who lament
the oppression of whole peoples, the exploitation of millions, the genocide and
the killing of thousands of innocent men, women and children for economic and
military security of the killers . . .
There are many of us in this category,
aren't there? Deeply wounded, saddened
by what we see in the world, by all the inequity and hunger that haunt the
earth . . . for us, this is a word of hope, a Gospel word, a good-news
word . . . and we can see that the beatitudes are not merely a collection, a list
of unrelated attributes, without any internal rhyme or reason . . . those who
mourn God's damaged creation, who lament the fighting and feuding and fussing
are likely to be the same people who hunger and thirst for righteousness, or at
least their kissing cousins . . . blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
right-relationships between all in the world, for they will have their
bellies filled and their thirst quenched . . .
And the same might be said for
peacemakers, no? What drives peacemakers is a hunger and thirst for
righteousness, it can't be material gain . . . the world certainly doesn't
reward peacemakers very well, does it?
Just the opposite . . . war fattens the coffers of our global economy .
. . corporations build the engines of war, they feed and equip the troops during the war, and they receive fat
contracts to clean up after the war.
Profits coming, during and going . . . no wonder war's so popular!
But not in the Kingdom of God . . . in
the kingdom of God it’s the peacemakers who are blessed . . . the ones who prevent wars are blessed, not those who profit from them. Blessed
are the reconcilers, who make peace between warring factions . . . who heal
conflict in churches, who get arguing parties to sit down at the table when all
seems to be lost . . . Blessed
are the merciful, Jesus tells us, for they will receive mercy. And Jesus uses the Greek word that refers to concrete acts of mercy rather than
simply a merciful attitude . . . maybe he's thinking here of acts of mercy like
that of his own earthly father who, against all the rules and norms and social
morés of his culture, refused to put Mary away . . . maybe he's referring to
those who forgive the debts and sins of others like God, whom Jesus called
Abba, who forgives theirs as well . . . it's in that prayer he taught us . . .
the merciful weren't necessarily well-regard in his day, and it's no different
today . . . oh, we get sappy stories on Oprah about how good it feels to
forgive the person who killed their daughter, as the killer's on the way to the
gas-chamber . . . forgiveness is OK as long as it's tempered by retribution . .
. but Jesus is the one who would not retaliate, would not use violence, to save
John's or even his own life.
But the way of the world is
retributive, it's the way of the world to reward arrogance, to reward ego, it's
the way of the world to reward war, it's the way of the world to reward the
forward, not the meek. It's the way of
the world to reward those who like the status quo, who are complacent, who
think that they can't do anything so why bother, instead of those who mourn and
lament the present, who hunger and thirst and work for righteousness.
But the kingdom . . . Ah! In the kingdom . . . it is all
different. And that's the ultimate point
of the beatitudes . . . each one adds to and reinforces a growing picture of
how it is in the kingdom of heaven, which has come near . . . kingdom
conditions are where the merciful are blessed, not stepped on, where
peacemakers are honored, not usurped and barely tolerated, where the
meek and the brokenhearted and those who are pure in heart, who keep their eyes
on God instead of their bank accounts are rewarded rather than reviled
and persecuted . . .
And by now you've probably figured out that
I was being a bit disingenuous when I said that the beatitudes are
pronouncements, declarations, not exhortations. You can probably see that even though it's
true, that they simply describe what the Kingdom is like, they do
cast something of a moral spell, and they make me feel a little guilty about
some of the ways I fall short . . . and that's good, because the beatitudes are
the set-up for the rest of the sermon on the Mount . . . they draw the picture
of what the kingdom is like, and the rest of the Sermon spins out the
consequences, what it means for the church which, after all, is supposed to be
the living embodiment of the coming and already-here kingdom.
But there’s one more word to be said
about the beatitudes . . . well, one
more word I’m going to say,
anyway. And that word is comfort. Comfort! Comfort, comfort ye my people, that is what
the prophet Isaiah said, that that is what the Beatitudes delivers. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall
be comforted. And we all mourn, don’t we? We mourn our lives the way we imagined them
to be, our image of ourselves, carefully nurtured fed over the years, which often—not
always, but often—comes crashing down around us. We mourn what might have been and what never
will be, we mourn the past, and our regrets that sometime seem to flow like
water, like a never-ending stream. We mourn the church, both individual congregations
and the Church in the world, as it and they change beyond recognition, as they
aren’t the way they used to be. And most
of all, perhaps, most of all we mourn
those who have gone before, and those whom we know will be here but a little
time more. Life slips away like the
withering of the grass, our loved ones gone, too soon, too soon. But there what remains, brothers and sisters,
what remains, is the Word of God, and
that Word today, is comfort. Amen.
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