“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 be shown 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 because
of righteousness,
for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. ~ Matthew 5:3-12
I’d like to begin this sermon with an anti-story, a non-Beatitude look at the world, a corrosive spirituality that nevertheless appears to tarnish many of us within the church. This story happened on the Evening News. A reporter was covering a local chapter of Scientology that had recently begun a literacy program in the local prison. In what was intended as a “gotcha moment” the nodding and affable reporter suddenly squinted his eyes, leaned forward, and in his best Tom Brokaw voice asked, “But isn’t all this work merely trying to proselytize in the prison to make converts for Scientology?” Without skipping a beat the Scientologist appeared surprised and said, “O my gosh! Why, no. Why would we want prisoners in Scientology?”
And before we start judging – because, yes, I feel you judging – there is something quintessentially true about that surprising question. Why?, indeed! How could anyone create a successful church, an attractive movement, from the likes of prisoners? And as we ask that question in walks Jesus. And as he speaks, the preacher Lucy Lind Hogan asks, “When did the nodding stop?”
Was it in hearing that God chooses the destitute, the depressed, the desperate?
Was it in hearing about hungering for justice or showing mercy or making peace in order to receive reward?
Was it in learning that you had to wait, that your good might end in nothing more than pain and persecution in this life?
When did the nodding stop?
Happiness and success find themselves on the chopping block. Instant gratification finds itself running for the door. And “blessing” becomes something that we now quietly think twice about. But as we listen carefully and desperately listen – certain blessings awaken and emerge:
Blessed are the ones who recognize they are “fragile and frail.”
The place of blessing, Jesus says, the place of God’s choosing, is found in our humanity. Jesus starts his sermon not by ascending some heroic heights but by straight up acknowledging the reality of our human frailty. This is not “stiff upper lip spirituality” or “how to win friends and influence people religion.” One of my own many repeated theological pillars comes from Reinhold Neihbuhr that helps explain Jesus’ point: the originating sin of Adam and Eve was their refusal to be human. They ate of the fruit because they were unable to remain “fragile and frail” but wanted to be gods. I truly believe that so much of the pain of this world comes not from our humanity, as if sinful and human were somehow synonymous, but from our inability to be downhearted, downtrodden, and desperate. It happens when we use spirituality to try and play God, control others, or manipulate our circumstances. So the beatitudes begin by honoring our struggle, by helping us name our lives, by allowing us to weep and recognize that we all are prisoners in need of proselytizing. That we need to proselytized by Jesus to acknowledge our need.
How different a real spiritual life looks like if I can mourn. How different a Jesus-centered spiritual life looks like if I can be poor, desperate, vulnerable, and depressed. How different a true spiritual life looks like if I can be teachable and humble rather than know-it-all or be a success. It means that I can lead with need. We can shout from our homes, our pews, our workplaces: “I feel the need . . . the need for need.”
That means that Jesus is saying that I can be undone and find myself in God’s blessing. I sense that best summation of the first three beatitudes and the beginning of Jesus’ sermon comes this week from Rachael Anderson who shared in our Centering Prayer group: “The spiritual life is in the undoing, not in the trying.”
? are the . . .
We should probably take a moment and talk about this incredibly hard word to translate – “Blessed.” Many translators have offered possibilities: “How blest”, “How happy”, “Fortunate”, “Blissful”, “Congratulations.” And each choice powerfully frames what the beatitudes are – psychological states, ethical rewards, divine gifts/promises, etc. It seems that one’s interpretation rises or falls with that one word. And there is a tension here between two dominant poles of thinking/interpreting what the Beatitudes are trying to do: ethical and eschatological. The Beatitudes as ethical commands point us to actions that human beings must do, in the present, as God’s moral agents. This is an important pole and certainly frames significant elements like “Blessed are the merciful . . . Blessed are the peacemakers . . .” These are clearly moral actions that Jesus wants his disciples to engage faithfully in the world - now. However, ethics and moral action can’t entirely frame what the Beatitudes are doing. Other interpreters who challenge a simple ethical read have pointed out that the Beatitudes are primarily eschatological, which is a fancy but very important word referring to “last things” and God’s promise and ability to bring about our redemption, sanctification and a new creation. An eschatological focus thus places the emphasis upon God as the main actor who brings about his, often surprising, purposes through broken people. This helps makes sense then of “Blessed are the poor in Spirit . . . Blessed are those who mourn” which don’t seem so much like actions that we are invited to perform but down and out people who otherwise you wouldn’t expect to be blessed who are drawn in by God’s action. Of course, eschatological interpreters would also point that within the Beatitudes we have the oft repeated “will” in the future tense that suggests that the impact and reward of actions, like peacemaking, are in the future and not the present and result from God’s recognition and reward rather than present, positive change. So whatever word we use must capture both of these polls along with a sense of gift, reward, agency, promise, presence, recognition, future, choosing, surprise, even a God who is seen and unseen. I almost want to use the word: “awakened” or the phrase “Divinely surprised.” The point is that this is not wisdom literature: a simple declaration of “do this . . . get this.” So where does that leave us? Well, I tend to think that both ethical and eschatological are important but would place the accent on eschatological, on the divine work of God to bring about God’s own purposes in the end through broken, messed up people. However, eschatological certainly overlaps with ethical. God always gives broken people things to do that are hardly insignificant like mercy and peacemaking. God will not like us entering into the next life claiming that we sat idly by while people suffered under unmerciful and violent conditions. So we need to carefully thread the needle which neither has us imagining that we can retranslate “Blessed” to “Deserved” believing that our actions determine everything; nor can we retranslate “Blessed” to “Do-nothing” believing that we can sit idly without acting out those future traits of God’s kingdom that we are citizens of now, in the present. This very tension is expressed by the first and last Beatitude (5:3 & 5:10) which use the present tense to sandwich around the other 6 ones which speak of the future.
How are we to live?
Acknowledge fragility in yourself and others as a place for blessing. How do you do that? You must learn to cultivate an appropriate vulnerability. Learn to recognize your own frailty. You won’t be able to properly live out the sermon on the mount if you start with the grandeur of saintly success. You don’t have to pretend to yourself, others, or God that you have it all together. In fact, what marks us as a community is that we are called to be a fiercely realistic people capable of naming all our flaws and faults as fertile ground for kingdom fruit. So we must practice confession, forgiveness, non-judgment, teachability, and other inherently “poor places” as spaces rich for blessing. We must walk through this world saying of everyone, “frail and fragile” and recognize our own fragility as a place of blessing.
With great hope, don’t let your fragility or brokenness keep you from following Jesus because God is at work. As we seek to live the Beatitudes we must do so as a broken people who have placed our trust in a God who will enable us together to be justice hungry, merciful peacemakers, reward kingdom efforts and make right all that is wrong with the world in the end. The Beatitudes are therefore a spirituality that allow us to acknowledge our need while at the same time, alongside that need, engaging our world in ways that have the blessing of God upon them. This means that we can always celebrate even haphazard acts of kingdom living, like mercy giving and peace-making, recognizing that what is asked of us is not so much effectiveness but faithfulness. So one of the ways to summarize the Beatitudes is by saying, “Blessed are the faithful rather than effective.” We need not engage elements of justice with the burden of getting them exactly right or even by measurements of success. We do them, and are persecuted for them, Jesus says, “because of me” (5:11). God chooses, intiates, works, ensures, and determines the end. Work with that!
So be vulnerable, delightfully surprised, and join God. The kingdom is yours! If you'd like to finish with an excellent song of praise about God's Kingdom listen to THIS
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