Preacher: Dorothea Oliver
Readings:
Micah 6, 1-8
1 Corinthians 1, 18-31
Matthew 5, 1-12
In the Monty Python film "Life of Brian" Jesus is seen
on the mountain side teaching the people. A huge crowd is gathered around him -
so huge that some of the people on the outer edge can’t hear his words and must
ask others what the master has said. As Jesus delivers what have become known
as the beatitudes - one of the characters - desperate to know what Jesus is
saying asks a man in front of him— "what’s he saying – what’s he
saying?" The man checks with a person in front of him, who in turn checks
with someone else and then the message is relayed back—the Master says -
"Blessed Are The Cheese Makers."
This is perhaps just an example of misunderstanding caused by
Chinese whispers; I appreciate that some Christians (maybe some of us here)
find this sort of thing offensive but I would argue that the God we worship,
the king of the universe, creator of all there is: seen & unseen is way
above being offended by such things & indeed a cynical sketch like this can
be used as a way of making us think.
Who are the blessed ones anyway?
TV evangelists and even some churches think they have the answer.
Those who succeed in life are the ones that God favours: - Those who
have money in their pockets, smiles on their faces, well behaved children and
who are never ill without being cured by a miraculous healing. These are the
blessed - while those who struggle with depression and despair, - who live in
poverty, who perform menial tasks each day - those who serve others rather than
living as their equals - and whose children are an embarrassment - these are
the cursed and the afflicted. But do we believe that’s true? Is this what Jesus
taught?
Thanks to our sound system we heard the Gospel reading clearly,
certainly we know it very well, but do we really understand it?
As
John Stott, formerly the Rector of All Souls, Langham Place said:
"The
Sermon on the Mount is probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus,
though arguably it is the least understood, and certainly it is the least
obeyed."
When
thinking about any Bible passage we would be wise to remember the much quoted,
but none the less honest, Mark Twain, who he said he was bothered more by the
parts of the Bible that he could
understand than by the parts he could not understand.
Perhaps,
we find a passage difficult to understand, and wish we knew with certainty
exactly what Jesus meant. But sometimes the words are so clear that we can have
no doubt about their meaning. Then the real dilemma comes, because we know what
a change they call for in our lives, and we hesitate to make that change. We
feel uneasy when we face a description of ourselves as God wants us to be.
But before we look at the content of our Gospel reading we
need to understand the context.
The
main reason Jesus had come to this earth was to preach the Good news. In fact,
it is even possible that one of the reasons he apparently sidelined his
successful healing ministry was precisely because he knew that this was the
kind of phenomenon that made people want to turn him into yet another political
icon. The people wanted a successful, charismatic leader to help end Roman
occupation and restore Israel to its former glory. And so they started to
follow Jesus in the hopes that they would be there when history was made as the
Romans were overthrown.
Perhaps
that prospect unsettled Jesus. Notice how the reading started? "When
he saw the crowds, he went up to a mountain and after he sat down his disciples came to him and he began
to teach them." To me it sounds as though the crowds are what drove him
into a private teaching session with the disciples. By the way, it is a
long-standing biblical debate as to who Jesus taught. Many scholars believe
that although some in the crowd may have overheard, it appears that Jesus
formed a circle around him of only the disciples and that he taught them.
(That point is important for another reason that I'll get to in a moment.)
We
could speculate that Jesus looked around him, saw that things were taking off
rapidly in the direction of a "successful" career in the worldly
sense, so he called a halt, retreated away from the multitude, and instructed
his disciples saying something like: "Hang on! We need to slow down long
enough for me to tell you what life in God’s kingdom is really like. Because if
we're not careful, people are going get the wrong end of the stick & think
I'm here to conduct business as usual when really I'm here to turn the world
upside-down."
Then,
to prove his point, he started to upset the social order. Despite the plans of
those who wanted a bold and brash political leader to take the world by storm,
he blessed those who look like they'll never accomplish anything. Contrary to
those who were hoping Jesus would rally the powerful and confident to his side,
he blessed the destitute and the quietly pious people huddled on the periphery.
Instead of promising swift liberation from Rome, Jesus blessed those who
mourned over things like the Roman occupation!
In
other words, Jesus made it very clear that he had not come to establish another
political kingdom in which the powerful win and the rich pull all the strings.
He had come to usher in a new order where the last are first and where the
truly exalted are the ones who get sneered at by the rest of the world.
So
even in the setting of the Beatitudes we are reminded not to get sucked in by
power or drama. Jesus came to reshape our hearts and minds. But it appears that
he said all this just to the inner circle of disciples. Recognizing this
suggests two things: the fact that these words were for the disciples
suggests to us that the Beatitudes are not entrance requirements for membership
of the Kingdom of Heaven but instead are a description of what life is like for
those who have already become members.
If
he had addressed the whole crowd, then we could read the Beatitudes as Jesus
telling us all that to get into Heaven we just need to: be nice, merciful, work
toward peace and only then will we be good enough, but I don’t think
that is how it is meant. Jesus had already called the disciples to follow him.
They have accepted his invitation and are already kingdom insiders.
So
how can we make sense of these Beatitudes? After all, why on earth is Jesus
blessing the depressed, the poor, and the mournful? Is he saying that if your
life is a wreck, you're automatically saved? Is he saying that it's really good
to be miserable? Does Jesus want us to be unhappy?
No,
I think there's something about being touched by God’s love that makes the
attitudes and actions described inevitable. Allowing Christ into our hearts is
going to make us look at the whole world in a new way. I will try to illustrate
what I mean by looking at a few specific Beatitudes.
"Blessed
are the poor in spirit." Why and how is that a blessing? Because when we
see just what God himself had to go through to salvage this wrecked world--when
we understand just what the incarnation and death of God's own Son means--then
we will be "poor in spirit" in the sense we will know that we could
never save this world ourselves. When it comes to salvation, we will be
properly humbled.
In
reality just one honest look at this world tells us that there is no way we
could save anyone or anything by ourselves. The world's problems are too big
and evil is too intractably rooted. We need help; we need a God who is strong
and good enough to do this. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," Jesus
says, "because they are the ones who are humble enough to acknowledge that
they need the kind of help only God can give and so are only too happy to
receive it”
Knowing
Jesus changes everything.
Let’s
consider: "Blessed are those who mourn." On one level we are assured
and comforted by the knowledge of the promise of eternal life, but I think this
is meant on a much deeper level too. Once we've been given a vision for God's
kingdom, we won't need to wait for tragedy to strike our own lives to feel like
crying. We really will mourn the destruction of God's beautiful creation; weep
over wars that take the lives of the innocent, shed tears over the poverty that
afflicts so many. The more we know how things ought to be, the more distressed
we'll be to see misalignments everywhere we look.
But
this insight will make us restless as we hunger and thirst for the good order
God established in the beginning. That's why we'll become peacemakers, which is
really a shalom-maker or a wholeness-maker. You may have noticed that this
beatitude typically gets quoted whenever a politician intervenes to stop a war,
and although it is a genuine illustration, I think it’s only a snapshot of what
Jesus was getting at.
To
be one who works towards shalom means not just ending conflict but nurturing
wholeness in all areas of life. It means working to maintain the integrity of
creation by protecting our environment, working to maintain the dignity of each
man and woman on the planet by fighting racism, by trying to end the poverty
that robs people of their self-worth. These peacemakers will be God's children
because they'll be doing exactly what He demands. That's a monumental task that
touches on every possible aspect of life. There's no end to the making of
shalom. And it must start with individuals like you and me. This is
particularly poignant today on international holocaust memorial day.
If,
as Jesus predicts, we get ridiculed and persecuted, part of the reason will be
because we're out of line with the world's agenda. We're going to challenge a
lot of conventional wisdom and shake up our peers and maybe even the powers
that be. On the other hand, though, the Beatitudes do not call us to shun the
world. We must not pretend that society or culture don't matter, that politics
is beneath our notice, that the environment can slide into a hell of pollution
because this world isn't our permanent home if we're destined for heaven.
No,
instead the Beatitudes make clear that we are to hunger and thirst for God's
righteousness not sometime in the future but here, now.
When
I first met my husband he had a poster on his wall bearing the legend
‘The
meek will inherit the Earth: if that’s
aright with the rest of you’?!
Now
I believe we are the meek, meekness and weakness are not the same. The Greek
word used for meek is translated as tamed, as in tamed by using a bridle in the
way a wild horse might be broken in, so all our pent up power and life-force is
harnessed and channelled by our master (God) to follow his will and, we are
promised to inherit the earth so we need to look after it.
Jesus
easily mixes up his talk about "the kingdom of heaven" with his talk
about this earth. Apparently in Jesus' mind there is no separation. We don't
have to choose between heaven and earth because in the end, the two are going
to merge.
In summary, we are blessed if we can see the
world the way Jesus sees it. If we already feel and act and live in these ways
it shows that when it comes to God's kingdom, we understand. We're poor in
spirit when it comes to salvation because we recognise how far short we fall.
We do our share of mourning because our eyes easily pick out those areas of the
world that have fallen away from the divine plan. We're meek and merciful
because we want to make an impact on the world the same way Jesus did: not
through strong-armed power-brokering or at the point of a sword, but through
loving service.
But
we are not downtrodden or unhappy with our lot.
St. Augustine said the beatitudes were the most
perfect expression of Christian life. They provide a composite picture of a
saint, a person who is blessed by God and is God’s blessing to others.
The Beatitudes are a challenge to all of us who
call oursleves Christians.
The sermon on the mount turns things upside down
showing us that the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven can’t be battered down by
legalism but that we can pass through those gates if we approach them humbly,
lovingly, and purified.
May Jesus’ sermon on the mount motivate us all to examine our own attitudes, to see if there is not room for improvement in our relationships with both God each other!
Amen