The Beatitudes are the first words of
the sermon on the mount, And I think it’s important to understand a little
about what they are—and are not—before we look at what they say. First of all,
the scenes from Hollywood movies aside, they are not preached to a crowd. We
picture Jesus standing on a hill, eyes of Hollywood-blue, proclaiming to a vast
crowd . . . Well, there is
a crowd: Jesus had been running around Galilee, healing the sick, curing the
lame, driving out demons—you know, all those Jesus things—and as you can
imagine, he attracted quite a bunch of people. Some of them were looking for
someone to follow, others had ailments that needed healing, and some were what
my real-estate queen mother would call looky-lous, people who just wanted to
see a good show. (Police officers know these last folks well . . . They’re the
kind who slow down at accident scenes to gawk at the mayhem, clogging up the
works, making it difficult for emergency personnel to do their jobs.)
Though they had differing motives, all of
them had something in common: they would get on Jesus’ every last nerve, and he’d have to take
a break, usually, like this time, up on a mountain. But this time, he doesn’t
go by himself just to pray, he takes his disciples along with him. So the first
thing to understand about the Blesseds, as I like to call them, is that they
aren’t preached to a crowd, just to his followers. They—like the rest of the
sermon on the mount—are words spoken to insiders, those whom Jesus had called
to be his followers. In fact, the entire sermon in the mount would perhaps be
better called the Teaching on the Mount, which is especially interesting because the Greek word
we translate for some inexplicable reason as disciple
means literally “student.”
So. The Blesseds are private teachings
of a teacher to his students, a fact that warms the hearts of Gnostic types
everywhere, who believe that salvation is based on secret wisdom imparted at
the dark of the moon by a sage named Jesus using lots of code words and secret
handshakes and stuff. Which is partially true, of course: Jesus was, among
other things, a sage and the Beatitudes are
wisdom sayings, but they’re hardly secret: the verses here in Matthew are among
the most famous in any
Scripture, Christian or otherwise, and there’s another version for everyone to read over in
Luke.
And there are a couple of other things
to notice about the Blesseds: they are not
performative. In other words, when Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit”
that does not confer blessings on the poor in spirit. It does not, as Captain
Picard of Star Trek might say, make it so. But more important, is that the
sayings are not prescriptive. That is, they don’t prescribe behavior, they’re
not telling us what to do. Of course, they’re often used that way, as a kind of
a carrot for good behavior: “you’d better be pure in heart if you want to see
God!” Or “you won’t be filled if you don’t hunger and thirst for righteousness
. . .” But notice that he doesn’t say that, he doesn’t say that people who aren’t pure in heart won’t see God, just that those who are will.
Well. If the Blesseds don’t do anything, if they don’t
actively bless the meek, the pure in heart, etc., and if they aren’t a set of
rules we have to follow to get to heaven, then what are they? And perhaps more important, what good
do they do? Well, what they are are the opposite
of prescriptive, they are descriptive:
Jesus is describing how stuff is to his students, he’s telling them how it is.
That’s why I prefer other translations
of the Greek adjective macarios:
for example, in the Scholar’s Version it uses “congratulations,” as in
“Congratulations to the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” but that seems
to me just a little too much like a game-show prize to me—congratulations on
your new car!!
—and I prefer the more traditional, and perfectly acceptable, “happy,” as in
“happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” . . . It’s
a statement of fact: they’re happy, Jesus says, because the kingdom of heaven
(Matthew’s version of the kingdom of God) is theirs. And poor in spirit means
exactly what it says—they are poor in terms of spirit. They don’t have much
spirit . . . Contrast them to those who are rich in spirit: the supremely
confident, those who think they’re the be all and the end all of the known
universe, who think they’re
the ones in charge, instead of God, as the poor in spirit know. So much for the
take-charge kind of guy . . .
Happy as well are those who mourn, for
they’ll be comforted, and we—or at least I—always
think of those who’ve lost loved ones, and that’s appropriate on this All
Saints Sunday, as we remember those we’ve lost, but when you think about it,
there are many things we grieve . . . Our lost innocence, our lost sense of the
rightness of the world . . . The desolation we have wrought on our once edenic
world . . . Our cities, where it’s not safe for a woman to walk alone, not to
mention be in the same room with Harvey Weinstein. Happy are those who grieve
these things, Jesus tells us, for they shall be comforted.
And I have to wonder . . . how are the
grieving going to be comforted? Those who have lost loved ones can be
comforted—somewhat, at least—by the thought of their being in a better place,
but what about those who grieve our loss of safety? What about those who mourn
the terrible destruction of the environment, the galling loss of civility, or
the continuing inequity in the world? Seems to me that the only thing that will
help these folks are safe cities, environmental renewal, the abolishment of
Twitter (just kidding . . . I guess) and a sudden and equitable redistribution
of resources in the world.
Anyway, happy are the meek, Jesus
teaches, for they shall inherit the earth. Well, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be worth a whole lot, after the
exhaustion of all its resources—scientists say it’ll probably be sooner than
later—and the conversion of the biosphere into a garbage dump, but ok: the meek
are going to inherit it, whatever’s left of it. The meek—gentle, unassuming
people, kind and considerate—they’re going to inherit it all, and another
question is, from whom? Who’s owns it all now? Well, God, of course, God,
ultimately owns it—the earth is the lord’s all all that is in it, says the
psalm after all . . .
Happy are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they will be filled . . . satiated by righteousness,
overflowing with it like the jars at the Cana wedding were of wine . . . happy
are the merciful, for they’re going to get mercy in return, they’re going to
get what they give out—kinda karmic, isn’t it?—and happy are the pure in heart
‘cause they’re gonna see God. And it’s important to note that pure in heart
doesn’t mean pure overall, as in sinless . . . It means undivided, that their
heart—their will, their intention—is
not divided between God and anything else, that like the old hymn says, their
eyes are always turned upon Jesus, they’re always looking full on his wonderful
face.
Finally, happy are the peacemakers,
because they’ll be called children of God—doubtless through their association
with the Prince of Peace himself—and happy are those who are persecuted for
righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. And I don’t think it’s
a coincidence that the first characteristic in the list—happy are the poor in
spirit—and this one have the exact same consequent, the exact same “because”:
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Because it’s the kingdom of heaven—the kingdom
of God, as it’s called over in Luke—that we’re talking about here. And though
to Jesus’ students, it likely meant something yet to be fulfilled, maybe we
know that the kingdom is right here, within us, and all around us.
In a way, Jesus is describing an
alternate reality, it’s a reality that is present within us, that infuses us,
perfuses us, and yet, in a way, is still unfolding. And when Jesus talks about
the poor in spirit having the kingdom, is he speaking about being closer to realizing it, to actuating it in their lives?
After all, of your own spirit keeps getting the way, it’s heard to hear that
still, small voice within. And persecution, and the suffering that goes with
it, has a way of stripping away the trappings of ego and self-regard that block
access to the spirit, or at least that’s what Paul thought . . .
And now, after happy are those
persecuted for righteousness sake, the Beatitudes, the “happies,” are in a
sense over, the rhythm and patterns of the preceding verses end. And suddenly,
Jesus gets personal—instead of speaking in the third person—for they shall see
God—he he’s talking in the second,
directly to and about his students.
“Blessed are you,” he says, “when people revile you and
persecute you on my account”—And he is looking into their eyes, suddenly
gentle, suddenly serious, and they think they could fall into those eyes . . .
and were members of Matthew’s
congregation, fifty years after Jesus spoke these words, were they feeling
persecuted, were they being reviled by their fellow Jews? Did that resonate
especially strongly with them? Did that comfort them in their travails?
What resonates with you about the Blesseds? What
comforts you?.
Because that is
what the Beatitudes are there for, one of the things, anyway . . . Comfort,
comfort ye my people, said the prophet Isaiah, and that that is what the
Beatitudes delivers. Happy 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
sometimes—not always, but sometimes—comes crashing down around us. We mourn
what might have been and what never will be, we mourn the past, and our regrets
sometimes 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. So join us in a few
minutes as we acknowledge and remember the saints who have come before. Amen.
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