January 29, 2023
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois
Micah 6:3-4, 6-8; Matthew 5:1-12[1]
I’ve heard it
said that the Bible is instructions for life. Now, I don’t believe that the Bible
is as simple as a list of do this, don’t do that, eat this, don’t eat that.
There is quite a lot more going on in there. But there are some simple instructions
to be found in the Bible. Love God, love your neighbor. Do justice, love
kindness, walk humbly with God. Maybe Jesus was, at least in part, trying to give
us some guidance for life.
Jesus has been
baptized, overcome temptation in the wilderness, and called his first
disciples. He is already famous for teaching and healing. The crowds have
gathered to hear what he has to say. And he begins with “Blessed are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:3). What is he trying to
tell us? That it is a good thing to be poor in spirit? What if I am rich in
spirit? What if I’m doing just fine?
He goes on.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (5:4). Well, that’s
nice. Widows and orphans deserve to be blessed, what with all they’ve been
through. Then things get a little strange. “Blessed are the meek, for they will
inherit the earth” (5:5). Well that just doesn’t make any sense, now, does it?
The bold and the strong, they’re the ones who will inherit the earth,
obviously. You can’t get ahead in this world if you’re meek. You have to take
what’s yours, and if you have to take it from someone weaker than you, too bad
for them.
“Blessed are
the peacemakers…” (5:9). There is a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian
(1979) in which people at the back of the crowd are too busy talking to hear
what Jesus is saying. “I think he said, ‘Blessed are the cheese-makers.’”
In our culture,
if you’re peaceful, you’re likely to be seen as unpatriotic, or un-American. If
you are merciful, you’re soft on crime. If you’re meek, you’re asking for
someone to push you around. In our culture, competition, power, and fear are
the driving forces. Even if you think the Beatitudes are a nice idea, it is all
too easy to see them as sentiment and not a practical guide for living.
But Jesus
wasn’t just saying how nice it would be if people were more kind. He wasn’t
saying that we should just get used to how things are, put up with oppression
and injustice, and wait for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus was giving
instructions, saying that we should live this way. Jesus was saying that we
should be meek, humble, merciful, peaceful, and that we should desire to live in
right relationship with God. And Jesus wasn’t just talking to the disciples; he
was taking to the crowd, and by extension, to us.
What if we
looked at the Beatitudes as a whole, with one thing leading to the next? What
if we took these blessings seriously, and not just metaphorically? Can we try
to understand the Beatitudes as a guide for living, a set of principles which
are an alternative to the way we usually view the world through the lens of our
competitive consumer culture? A theology professor named Charles Cook[2]
suggests that there are three principles for living that can be found in the
Beatitudes: simplicity, hopefulness, and compassion.
If we read the
words as they are, and not try to layer meaning on them, they point to a way of
life in which simplicity is valued. Those who are meek are humble. If you are
humble, you are open to the idea that you don’t know everything. You are open
to the idea that God has not yet revealed everything, and there is yet more
light and truth to be found. The humble ones know that they are only a part of
the bigger picture. It takes humility to understand that we don’t own this
world; it was given into our care by God. In caring for the earth, we care for
that which belongs to God.
In a world
filled with things that can cause us to fear, we need courage. If we hear what
Jesus has to say, if we live our lives with humility, peacefulness, and mercy,
we will be blessed with courage. In caring for others, we find that we have
strength. If we live within our means, rather than grasping for more and more,
we find that we have been blessed with abundance, with all that we need to live
and more. The way of simplicity can free us from our culture of greed.
Do you have
hope that things will get better? Many people no longer believe that. As the
gap between rich and poor grows wider, as the divide between those on the left
and right grows deeper, hope for the future seems to be getting lost, and is
replaced by cynicism. The mantra of cynicism is “That’s just the way it is, get
over it.” That way of thinking takes these words of Jesus, “For you always have
the poor with you” (26:11), and turns them into a pronouncement rather than a
call to always recognize and care for those among us who are poor.
Who are the
poor in spirit? In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus phrases the line a little differently,
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (6:20). When
you have next to nothing, faith in God can be the most important thing in your
life. But poor in spirit can also mean those whose spirits are broken. If you
lived in Roman occupied Galilee in the first century, your spirit as a nation
had been broken. You were, as a people, oppressed, downtrodden, and
brokenhearted. Yet, you are still God’s chosen people. Remember that, and it
can give you hope. Jesus echoed the promise of Isaiah: God sent him “to bring
good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1).
Hopefulness is
the second principle of living into the Beatitudes. Christ offers hope to the
hopeless. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
will be filled” (5:6). The day will come when right will win out over wrong.
When we live in hopefulness, we know that mercy, humility, peace, and love will
one day be the norm rather than the exception. When we face the world with
hope, we know that it is darkest just before the dawn, and that the dawn will
come. Because we live in Christ, we know that even though the road ahead leads
to the crucifixion, it will also lead to the resurrection.
Hopefulness is
what empowers us to believe that God’s kingdom is coming, and righteousness
will claim the victory. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:10). These words
inspire the kind of hope that moved the Pilgrims to set out for a new world,
even though some would not live to see it. This hope caused the revolutionaries
to set a course for independence, even though it would cost the colonies dearly
in blood and treasure. This spirit of hopefulness allowed the abolitionists to
keep fighting to end slavery against those who would use the same Bible to keep
the Africans in bondage. Hopefulness and faith in the kingdom of heaven
empowered women to demand the right to vote, the descendants of slaves to
demand an end to discrimination, and gay and lesbian people to demand the right
to marry the ones they love.
The most
powerful principle found in the Beatitudes, the key to walking in the steps of
Jesus, is compassion. Compassion is much more than pity. To pity another means
that you feel sorry for them. Compassion is more than sympathy. To be
sympathetic means that you share the feelings of another. To have compassion
means more. It means that what hurts you hurts me. Compassion means that when
you mourn, I mourn with you, and thus you may be comforted. We are in this
together. You share my humanity. You are part of my family.
Compassion is
the principle that led Jesus to break so many of the Laws of Moses. Compassion
led Jesus to heal the man with the withered hand on the sabbath (12:10).
Compassion led Jesus to touch the leper and heal him (8:2-3). Compassion led
Jesus to perform miracles, such as feeding the five-thousand (14:14-21).
Compassion gives us a hunger for justice and a thirst for righteousness. With
compassion we can be merciful, we can seek peace, we can see the other as an
extension of ourselves. With compassion we can love our neighbor as ourselves.
Compassion is
the principle that is motivated by love. It was love that gave us Jesus: “For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). It was love that
carried Jesus to the cross. It is compassion and love that can give us the
power to endure persecution for the sake of Christ. “Blessed are you when people
revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on
my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the
same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (5:11-12).
When we follow
these blessed instructions, when we allow simplicity, hopefulness, and
compassion to guide our lives, we will be able to bear all things, believe all
things, hope all things, endure all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). When we live in
love, we know that the kingdom of heaven is near. Amen.
[1] The
scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard
Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of
the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Charles
James Cook, "Pastoral Perspective on Matthew 5:1-12" in David L.
Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year
A, Volume 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 308-312. Cook is
Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Theology, Seminary of the Southwest, Austin,
Texas.
