Sermon: 29 January 2023 Epiphany 4
Text: Matthew 5.1-12
Theme: The Beattitudes
Prayer: O Saviour Christ, in whose way of love lies the secret of all life and the hope of all people; we pray for quiet courage to match this hour! We did not choose to be born or to live in such an age, but let its problem challenge us; its discoveries exhilarate us; its injustices anger us; its possibilities inspire us; and its vigour renew us, for your Kingdom’s sake. Amen.
There are times when a preacher is faced with very difficult passages, where it is hard to find a single Gospel theme upon which to reflect, and then there are other weeks when one is overwhelmed and flooded with riches upon which to feast; where the problem is what to choose and what to leave out! Today is one of those Sundays where there are so many possibilities. From Paul’s message to the Corinthians that, “we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” We could spend time with the Hebrew Scripture passage from the prophet Micah, especially the last well-known last verse, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good: and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” We could even spend time looking at Psalm 15 and its ethical demands and ponder does anyone, but Christ live up to such standards. And then of course we have the Gospel – with the start of the Sermon on the Mount – the very well-known passage commonly referred to as the Beatitudes. And it is to this passage that I turn – you will have to wait three years until these passages come up again in the Lectionary cycle to hear me ponder the other treasures.
I have to say up front that I come to the Beatitudes with some ambivalence. Not because the opening words of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount are anything less than provocative and beautiful,
but because I’ve experienced firsthand the ways in which they can be misread and misused. So, let’s start there, by naming what the Beatitudes are NOT:
The Beatitudes are not to-do items. They are not suggestions, instructions, commandments, or quid pro quos. There is nothing transactional about them, nothing that smacks of a “should,” a “must,” or an “ought.” It is emphatically not the case that if I try very hard to be poorer, sadder, meeker, hungrier, thirstier, purer, more peaceable, and more persecuted than I am right now, God will like, love, reward, and appreciate me more than God already does.
The Beatitudes are not inducements to shame. The point is not to read Jesus’s litany of blessings for the poor and the disenfranchised, and walk away feeling like a spoiled, over-privileged wretch. The last thing Jesus’s Beatitudes should do is paralyse those who hear them.
The Beatitudes are not permission slips for passivity. To use Jesus’s teachings about sorrow, meekness, poverty, and persecution to keep oppressed people oppressed is to distort his words and render them monstrous. There is nothing in the Beatitudes that excuses injustice, nothing that pardons abuse, nothing that frees us to tell suffering people that their suffering is God-ordained and redemptive. Nothing.
The Beatitudes are not pie-in-the-sky. When Jesus promises his listeners the “kingdom of heaven,” he is not asking them to grit their teeth and wait patiently for death to come along and alleviate whatever hell they're living in.
He is not handing out the afterlife as an opiate, as if our messy, earthly, ordinary lives here and now don’t matter dearly. To possess the kingdom, to experience comfort, to inherit the earth, to be filled, to receive mercy, to see God, to be called the children of God, and to receive a reward in heaven — these are not just about life after death. They are about the kingdom that is already and not-yet, the realm of God that is present and coming, the reign of God’s perfect justice and mercy that is within us and ahead of us. The promise is not either-or. It’s a both-and. The kingdom is coming. And the kingdom is now.
Okay, the Beatitudes are not these things. So, what are they?
The Beatitudes are blessings. I know this sounds like a restating of the obvious, but it’s not. In fact, it's something we forget over and over again. The first words Jesus offers his commissioned disciples — the first words the Gospel of Matthew records from Jesus’s inaugural sermon — are words of blessing. Are we listening? Blessing comes first. We begin with blessing. Blessing, not judgment. Blessing, not terms and conditions. Blessing, not penance. Blessing, not altar calls.
Jesus starts his ministry by telling the disciples who and what they already are: they are blessed. Blessed, fortunate, privileged, favoured. Why? Because they are near and dear to God’s heart. Whatever else Jesus’s first followers go on to learn or accomplish in the future is merely the outgrowth of what is already their ground-of-being, their identity, their solid-as-a-rock foundation. God gifts their identities to them, without condition or measure. They are freely blessed, and so they're freed to bless others.
What does this mean? It means we’re not God’s employees, working for blessing as our compensation. We don’t endeavour to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in order to earn God’s blessings. We do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly because we are always and already blessed.
What would happen, I wonder, if we who profess faith in Jesus actually followed his example, and made it our priority to bless others as we have been blessed? To lead with blessing? To make blessing our most visible and foundational gift to those around us? What would happen to our hearts, to the Church, to the world, if we offered blessings to our neighbours as generously as God offers blessings to us?
The Beatitudes are reversals. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes a universe turned on its head. A world where the usual might-makes-right, survival-of-the-fittest hierarchies, rules, and priorities just plain don’t apply. In the kingdom Jesus describes, the poor are the wealthiest of all. The mourners are the ones who receive comfort. The starving sit at laden tables.
Those who live meekly inherit everything. The peacemakers are God’s children. And the victims of persecution win choice rewards.
What Jesus bears witness to in the Beatitudes is God’s unwavering proximity to pain, suffering, sorrow, and loss. God is nearest to those who are lowly, oppressed, unwanted, and broken. God isn’t obsessed with the shiny and the impressive; God is too busy sticking close to what’s messy, chaotic, unruly, and unattractive.
This is important to remember, because the first thing I tend to ask when I’m hurting is, “Where is God? Why has God abandoned me?” The Beatitudes assure me that God doesn’t exit my life when I find myself in low places. If anything, God is most present in the shadows. Most attentive in the fire. God is always close to the destitute, the anguished, the lost, and the confused. God faithfully accompanies those who go days, weeks, months, and years, hungry for a sign, a word, a crumb, a drop. Our hunger is not indicative of God’s absence. Our hunger is the sign we seek. The blessing we chase resides in the darkness.
And so, the Beatitudes challenge me to look carefully at my own life, and to consider where and how my privilege keeps me from seeking God. I think what Jesus is saying in the Beatitudes is that I have something to learn about discipleship that my privileged life circumstances will not teach me. Something to grasp about the beauty, glory, and freedom of the Christian life that I will never grasp until God becomes my all, my go-to, my starting place, and my ending place. Something to recognise about the radical counter-intuitiveness of God’s priorities and promises. Something to notice about the power of plenty to blind me to my own emptiness. Something to gain from the humility that says, "Those people I think I'm superior to in every way? They have everything to teach me. Maybe it's time to shut up and pay attention."
The Beatitudes are a vocation. We make a grave mistake if we separate Jesus’s words from his actions. We diminish him —and ultimately diminish ourselves — if we try to interpret his teachings through any filter other than the filter of his own life and ministry.
Yes, Jesus pronounces blessings on the meek, the hungry, the impoverished, and the oppressed. But what does he do before and after this pronouncement? He empowers the meek, he feeds the hungry, he cares for the poor, and he demands justice for the oppressed.
Jesus spends every waking moment he has on earth alleviating suffering. He doesn’t tell the hungry to tighten their belts. He doesn’t ignore the cruelty of the religious elite and the politically powerful. He doesn’t turn a blind eye to the incarcerated, the colonised, the ostracized, and the demonised. He doesn’t leave the sick to die, he doesn’t abandon the dead to their graves, and he never, ever tells anyone to just "grin and bear" their pain because heaven's reprieve will fix things by and by.
Which is to say, Jesus acts. He doesn’t simply speak blessing. He lives it. He embodies it. He incarnates it. Through his words, his hands, his feet, his life, he brings about the very blessings he promises. Insisting that pain in and of itself is neither holy nor redemptive in the Christian story, Jesus works to bring healing, abundance, liberation, and joy to everyone who crosses his path.
This is the vocation we are called to. The work of the kingdom — the work of sharing the blessings we enjoy — is not the work of a fuzzy, distant someday. It is the work — and the joy — of the here and now. The Beatitudes remind us that blessing and justice are inextricably linked. If it's blessing, we want, then it's justice we must pursue.
So now we go. Let us become what we are, give away what we seek, bless what God blesses, and turn this world on its head. Rejoice and be glad, for we are God's children, and the kingdom of heaven is ours. The One who blesses us is near. The Lord be with you.