Sunday, January 30th, 2005
Epiphany 4
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Matthew 5:1-12
1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: 3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. 8‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Blending hope and blessing to sooth the aches and pains of those who are, by most worldly standards, the ones least likely to succeed: the poor in spirit, mourners, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for Christ’s sake. The beatitudes. They are the quintessential preaching points of the Christian faith.
There is, as always, a danger with a passage of scripture becoming too familiar to us. We tend to overlook things we wouldn’t otherwise. To begin with, there’s the unspoken question of the converse of the list – what happens to those who ARE rich in spirit, those who … rejoice, those would seem to be qualities that would be desirable, would they not? In a sense, the first two beatitudes are directed to people for whom we would all have some measure of compassion. The next group, though, would be less an object of compassion and perhaps more a cause for distress: the assertive, to not say aggressive, those who DO NOT hunger and thirst for righteousness, who see no need to get to know their softer side, as it were, those who are ruthless, those whose hearts are full of impure motives? It would seem to be self-evident that they would not be so blessed. So we can pack that point up and move on, can’t we? We can, unless we find ourselves counted among the second group rather than the first.
Where do we stand? Truth be told, none of us are permanently on one side or the other of these qualities. Human nature is changeable, and we sometimes find ourselves being rich in spirit and at other times poor, merciful and ruthless, meek and aggressive, hungering for righteousness one day and indifferent the next.
Jesus knew that. He knew who he was talking to, both then and now. That is what makes this Sermon on the Mount so dynamic. It moves with the time it is in. Regardless of when and where it is read, it applies. It speaks to the eternal nature of the word of God.
So do we leave it at that? At being a listing of those who are blessed, draw what comfort and strength we can from that, and move on? Or is there another way to read this, to apply this, to incorporate this into how we live out our faith?
Can we read the beatitudes as challenges? Can we reread the beatitudes as Jesus telling us how we should be, how we should act, how we should live? There’s a phrase you may have heard Leslie or me use at some point – “don’t should on yourself.” The resemblance to the … less than properly worded alternative is intentional. The parallel thought is assumed. There’s a point at which we hear that in Jesus’ words throughout the gospels. It’s the reason the word ‘sermon’ has acquired something of a negative connotation. In today’s popular culture, we tend to shy away from accountability. There’s an almost-immediate reaction against anyone telling us we should or should not be doing something. ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ is a phrase we would all at some point resoundingly affirm, regardless of who we heard it from.
Here’s where we get into the issue that is at the heart of the Christian faith: authority. You may have heard it referred to as the counterpoint of serving God and Mammon, or in contemporary language, being selfish versus being selfless. What it boils down to is this: if we as Christians claim Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives, that word, LORD has to mean something. Among other things, it means being subject, being accountable, being submissive to what the Lord requires of us. The passage from Micah is beautiful both in form and function:
There is, as always, a danger with a passage of scripture becoming too familiar to us. We tend to overlook things we wouldn’t otherwise. To begin with, there’s the unspoken question of the converse of the list – what happens to those who ARE rich in spirit, those who … rejoice, those would seem to be qualities that would be desirable, would they not? In a sense, the first two beatitudes are directed to people for whom we would all have some measure of compassion. The next group, though, would be less an object of compassion and perhaps more a cause for distress: the assertive, to not say aggressive, those who DO NOT hunger and thirst for righteousness, who see no need to get to know their softer side, as it were, those who are ruthless, those whose hearts are full of impure motives? It would seem to be self-evident that they would not be so blessed. So we can pack that point up and move on, can’t we? We can, unless we find ourselves counted among the second group rather than the first.
Where do we stand? Truth be told, none of us are permanently on one side or the other of these qualities. Human nature is changeable, and we sometimes find ourselves being rich in spirit and at other times poor, merciful and ruthless, meek and aggressive, hungering for righteousness one day and indifferent the next.
Jesus knew that. He knew who he was talking to, both then and now. That is what makes this Sermon on the Mount so dynamic. It moves with the time it is in. Regardless of when and where it is read, it applies. It speaks to the eternal nature of the word of God.
So do we leave it at that? At being a listing of those who are blessed, draw what comfort and strength we can from that, and move on? Or is there another way to read this, to apply this, to incorporate this into how we live out our faith?
Can we read the beatitudes as challenges? Can we reread the beatitudes as Jesus telling us how we should be, how we should act, how we should live? There’s a phrase you may have heard Leslie or me use at some point – “don’t should on yourself.” The resemblance to the … less than properly worded alternative is intentional. The parallel thought is assumed. There’s a point at which we hear that in Jesus’ words throughout the gospels. It’s the reason the word ‘sermon’ has acquired something of a negative connotation. In today’s popular culture, we tend to shy away from accountability. There’s an almost-immediate reaction against anyone telling us we should or should not be doing something. ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ is a phrase we would all at some point resoundingly affirm, regardless of who we heard it from.
Here’s where we get into the issue that is at the heart of the Christian faith: authority. You may have heard it referred to as the counterpoint of serving God and Mammon, or in contemporary language, being selfish versus being selfless. What it boils down to is this: if we as Christians claim Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives, that word, LORD has to mean something. Among other things, it means being subject, being accountable, being submissive to what the Lord requires of us. The passage from Micah is beautiful both in form and function:
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
We’d like to leave it at that, and in many ways we can, even as a Gospel people, reading the Old Testament through the lens of Easter, there is completeness in the Micah text that sums it up for us. That’s what we like about bumper stickers, isn’t it?
What Jesus is doing is fleshing that out. He gets into specifics. He fills in the blanks. He answers the question: What does that mean?
We would rather live in generalities, as a people, leaving the specifics to each individual. In fact, that is a hallmark of Baptist theology – we call it Soul Competency. Each individual has the capacity to sense, discern and respond to the movement of God in their lives through the Holy Spirit. The corollary to that tenet is that there is a … need … a requirement to know the source as well as possible in order to be able to do that discerning, that sensing … that … following … so we put a lot of emphasis on scripture. We believe Jesus did too. He was constantly quoting scripture – to his disciples, to the crowds that gathered, to the religious leaders of the time, and interpreting it for them in the way it should have been from the beginning. There’s that word again – SHOULD.
So we need to get over being told what to do. Not because we should accept anyone telling us what to do, but because of WHO is telling us. If we believe that Jesus is who he said he is, then we need to listen to what he is telling us. Who BETTER to do so?
The tricky part is, how do we distinguish the message from the messenger? I could step up to this pulpit with an agenda, a preset list of issues to discuss and present and might be capable of presenting the message in such a way as to convince you that the way I see it is what Jesus was saying. In some ways, that’s my job in preaching. As Pastor I am charged with the responsibility to care for the spiritual wellbeing of the congregation as a whole and as individuals. And I will confess to you that I am aware that I interpret the Gospel in a certain way by nature – in other words, I’m drawing from the Gospel what I see through the lens of MY life and experience. But I want it to be clear that if and when I present that … view, that version, as it were, it is an exercise in self-awareness. What I would hope is that it would not be, as it says in the blurb in the announcement about the messages being online, taken as dictation, but rather as the beginning of a conversation. That is a responsibility that I do not believe I am called to - to interpret FOR you, to delineate, to define for you what the Gospel means. That is a responsibility that we each carry as Children of God. It is in the conversation that we are opened to thoughts we might not have had, to ideas we might not have considered, to views we could not have held, had we not been in community, and in that context, had we not been sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
That is the reason for our congregational benediction – the part about “May God take your minds and think through them, may God take your lips and speak through them” is not JUST about being God’s presence in the world, but it is about being in dialogue within this family of faith. To not be afraid to risk something big, how we see, how we believe, how we live, and present it to our brothers and sisters for something good – a deeper understanding, an ‘aha!’ moment, an epiphany of ‘I never thought of it like that before’.
So, blessed are those who search and hunger for righteousness, who can be poor or rich in Spirit, who mourn and rejoice, who are meek and not so meek, who are reviled for HIS sake, who gather here. We are blessed, but we are called. We are challenged to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters, to lay them down for our Lord, to seek – to live – the way to the truth and the life. We are one and the same. And we are called to more, we are challenged to more, by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray.
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