Jesus' Manifesto of Blessedness

Matthew 5:1-12

Throughout the Scriptures, God’s presence is frequently encountered up on mountains; prophets have exchanges and receive instructions from God on mountains. Ancient people believed that, since the heavens were the locus of God, they could be closer to God on a mountaintop than anywhere else on earth.

And so, it is of no great surprise that when Jesus wants to teach his disciples about the nature of God and the values of the kingdom of God, where does Jesus go? The mountain.

As Jesus leads his disciples up to that high place, we are reminded of the prophetic promise from Isaiah, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths…” (Isaiah 2:2-4).

And it seems that teaching is exactly what Jesus has planned as he leads us up this mountain.

The gospel today begins what we know of as the Sermon on the Mount which, in the gospel of Matthew, goes on for three chapters. I hope you’ll join us in Faith Connections beginning next week, as we look more deeply into this Sermon that Jesus delivers there on the mountain, but here, today, at the very beginning Jesus gives the fundamentals for walking a godly path – he opens with what we know of as the “Beatitudes.”

You may be familiar with The Beatitudes from having heard them over the years. Maybe you even had to memorize some of them when you were in Sunday School.

When we hear these teachings, we might hear the message simply as one of comfort. After all, through this sermon, Jesus delivers affirmation to those who are meek, who mourn, who are desperate for justice and we acknowledge that includes many in our world today. Perhaps we see these affirmations as belonging to us.

We might find consolation in the beatitudes for the blessed assurance they offer those who suffer that they will not be forgotten but will receive ultimate justice. In fact, Jesus goes a step or two beyond comfort. “They won’t just be comforted in the future, but they are blessed, NOW,” he says.

A close reading of the Beatitudes reveals not just a set of promises, but a totally different set of  values than we are used to. These values lead us to see God’s desire for the way we should engage in the welfare of our neighbor, conduct our affairs with the other’s welfare in mind, and see ourselves as inter-related children of God, created, valued and loved equally by our maker. The beatitudes call us to a way of life consistent with God’s values, taught by Jesus; shaped by the cross.

The prophet Micah sums up God’s position in our first reading this morning: 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?”

The problem is that we do a lousy job of walking humbly or doing justice. We forget God’s instructions to love kindness, given so that we might live in healthy relationships with God and with each other.

Instead, we create chaos and heartbreak, we perpetrate injustice and oppression by our action, and by our inaction.

To make clear the differences between what God values, and the worldly values under which we so often operate, we have an exercise this morning, for which I have a little help, using the framework of the Beatitudes.

I invite you to listen carefully as, to each point in the Beatitudes, there is a counterpoint, reflecting the worldly values that so often shape our real desires and behaviors. What you are about to hear are the Beatitudes as Jesus taught them, answered by corresponding “Meatitudes”, based on our common experience.

For instance, Jesus says:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

            The world responds:

Blessed are the rich, for they will control their own fate.

Jesus says:

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

            To which the world answers:

 

Blessed are those who never mourn, for they will have no need for comfort.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are the arrogant, for they will conquer the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are those who compromise their ideals, for they will never be disappointed.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Blessed are those who justifiably retaliate, for they will have no need to receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the psychologically aware, for they will find themselves.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are the warmakers, for they will be called defenders of peace, with justice for all.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who annihilate their attackers in the name of righteousness, for they will have prolonged their days on earth.

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.

Blessed are you when people accept you and honor you because of your willingness to conform to the status quo.  Take satisfaction in this, for in the same way the world has applauded its great people in the past.  [i]

          The point of reading these two, competing sets of values side by side is to illustrate that Jesus is teaching not just a theoretical lesson in niceness but a true way of life shaped by the love of God and the cross of Christ.

When we are so tied up in looking after ourselves first and controlling our own fate that we never mourn, or are arrogant, or compromise our ideals and the values Jesus teaches, we in fact fail to do what God has told us.

The truth is, we fail at these things all the time. Such is the weight of sin. It is what we confessed and sought forgiveness for at the beginning of our service this morning. We need God’s mercy and grace, and the constant reminder of Jesus, to cherish what God cherishes.  

          God does not desire lip-service, nor extraordinary acts of sacrifice and offering, as Micah points out.

          Rather, in Christ God has shown us, Beloved People, what is good:

To do justice,

to love kindness,

And to walk humbly with God.     

While the values of the kingdom life into which Jesus calls us reflect the goodness and kindness, generosity and self-giving capacity of God, the values of the world seek to not only preserve but to build up the self at all costs.

Through the beatitudes, Jesus reminds us what we are incapable of remembering for ourselves; the values of the kingdom, those counter-cultural, foolish, naïve values –the values that reflect the cross, which look nothing like our world.

Jesus showed us, by his associations, through his healing work, and by his teaching, that the least among us are among the most favored in the kingdom of God. Within God’s reign, those who have no hope are given hope.

Jesus’ values declare that every single life has value and should be honored, especially the lives of those who are the most at risk; these are the blessed. In ancient times, God names these in the Scriptures as the widow, the alien, and the orphan. Today we name them the poverty-stricken in every land, the disabled, the migrant, the refugee, the immigrant.

My friends, in his letter today, Paul reminds us that by the world’s standards we are fools to subscribe to Jesus’ teachings. We are ignorant to believe in a savior who teaches us that the way to eternal life is to follow the way of the cross. We are ridiculous to confess the name of Jesus Christ as Lord, and to declare that the light and life he gives, which are the hallmarks of his kingdom are worth more than any power the world can bestow.

In a world where power, wealth and status are the marks of success and must be preserved at all costs, Jesus calls foolish, ignorant, ridiculous believers blessed. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake, blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers.”

In the Beatitudes, Jesus calls blessed those who dare to speak out against the oppression, injustice and persecution that marks our world.

The Beatitudes are much more than the mushy, sentimental treatise that we have often made of them. Rather, they are Jesus’ own call, his manifesto, if you will, to revolution, to change the world, by doing justice, by loving kindness, and by walking humbly with God.

Jesus declares that in the deep-down hunger that we feel for the oppressed, for the disadvantaged, the ridiculed and spat upon, for the marginalized, for the despised, we who mourn will be comforted as they are comforted.

We will be comforted as we reach out and speak for the vulnerable, as we make phone calls and write letters to protest violations of human rights and dignity. The meek will be blessed as those who follow God’s will to do justice, And to love kindness, And to walk humbly with God seek security for the least of our sisters and brothers in the world. We will be comforted when we use our voices to combat oppression, abandonment, cruelty and injustice.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Settlement President Linda Hartke said, "It is deeply ingrained in our faith and our understanding of the Bible that we're called to welcome the stranger and love and serve our neighbors," says. "Not the neighbors that we choose, but the neighbors that God gives to us."

Meekness and mercy are lived out in every day acts of kindness. God empowers not the superheroes and gurus but the merciful. The beatitudes aren’t a job description of who’s allowed into the kingdom, rather they offer a description of those who are already here, working in the trenches, humbly serving the one who, emptied of power and dignity on the cross, is raised to new life for the sake of the whole world.

Amen.

---

[i] The “‘Me’ Attitudes” is by Robert R. Castle

Salt Shakers and Burning Lamps

        I found it interesting that these images of salt and light come to us out of the gospel today. Just this week many in our region were starkly reminded of the value and necessity of both of these elements in our world.

About the time that I began seriously contemplating the words of these texts, I was also reading headlines from the newspaper like, “Salt Stores Diminished,” and “Predicted Storm May Pack a Wallop, While Salt Supplies Dwindle.” Salt, this precious commodity, has been both bane and blessing for many of us recently. It was just a little over a week ago that I think I must have washed half of the Eastern Shore’s annual supply of salt off my car. Maybe you’ve had a similar experience lately, because it seems as though we’ve been surrounded by SALT these past few weeks. Salt on the roads, salt on our cars, salt being tracked through this building and our homes, salt sprinkled on sidewalks. A nutrient I usually like to simply enjoy in my food has become a valuable source of protection against snow and ice.

And so, as evidenced by the anxiety with which these dire predictions of a looming salt shortage were made this week, and the fact that winter may not yet done with us, this image of salt struck a certain chord this week.

If you’ve been placed on a salt-free diet or had salt inadvertently left out of your recipe, then you have another reason to acknowledge that salt is something we really don’t want to be without. Salt by itself is, well, just salt. But salt added to food brings out its flavors. Salt used as a preservative keeps meat and other foods from spoiling.

Yet, this element has held a different kind of meaning and power throughout history, particularly in Jesus’ time.

Mined out of the earth, the ancient SALT industry could make empires rich, as they rationed and taxed it. Control of salt stores could determine which side was victorious in war, and, at different points in history, salt has been the currency of commerce. In Jesus’ day, (as it is still today in some parts of the world), salt was necessary for the preservation of food—having it or not made the difference between life and death. While in the recent decades our society has over-dosed on sodium and many of us are now on low-sodium diets, both then and now, SALT is an essential ingredient of life, present in every cell of our bodies, and useful in so many ways.

And yet salt on its own is, as Cardinal Suhard once wrote, hopeless, unhandy, unmanageable, and inedible. “You can’t do anything with salt alone; in a time of famine, you cannot eat it; in a time of drought, you can’t drink it; it only would make things worse. Salt alone is no good; it makes the field unfertile, it kills life, it preserves death, it is heavy and useless. It becomes useful only when it is used as Jesus indicates in the text today, mixed up with other things, and he explains as well how we should mixed up. We are not salt, we are the salt of the earth, we should be mixed up with the reality around us.”

That other image named in our text, light, is another element whose value we can especially appreciate this week – especially when, amidst yet another winter storm and frigid temperatures over a million people throughout this region lost power. Last night over one hundred thousand of them spent their fourth night in the cold and dark last night, due to power outages from the storm. For many, no power meant no light, no heat, no plumbing. For utility crews, downed trees and wires brought urgency to the dangerous work that has kept them out working in miserable conditions for long days and nights, trying to restore electricity to customers throughout the region whose homes and lives are endangered by the loss of power and resultant lack of light.

So, while we might be focused on the issues of power and what it means to be without it, what does it mean when Jesus says, “You are the light of the world”?

In both cases in our text today, Jesus uses the plural “you” in this continuation of Jesus’ teachings from the Sermon on the Mount which we began last week. These words from the Gospel of Matthew beckon to us, they call and commission us as a community of Jesus’ disciples. The Sermon on the Mount comes from a section in Matthew’s gospel that serves as a sort of training manual for those who follow Jesus; through these words, we learn more about the ways of discipleship. And so, by use of the second person plural, Jesus is telling us that together, “Ya’ll are the salt of the earth. Ya’ll are the light of the world.” It is the value and promise of the community of disciples that is being lifted up.

These are words spoken not simply to individuals living on the fringe, but specifically addressed to a community shaped in identity and mission for the sake of Jesus Christ, through God’s gift of grace.

Last week we read the verses just before these, known as the beatitudes. You might remember that in those verses, blessings were declared upon the meek, the poor in spirit, those who mourn, and so on. By God’s blessing, saltiness and light - are already theirs by God’s grace. Despite the hostility of your world, you all are salt, you all are light.

And so I ask you, are you feeling particularly salty this morning? Is your light shining brightly? Jesus tells us, You are light, meant to shine, not to be hidden under a bushel, but meant to be seen by others.

Let us remember what salt and light meant to the people of Jesus’ time. Salt and light were both precious commodities; both sustain life, neither can be produced easily on one’s own, they are gifts of creation that require careful ingenuity to access and conserve, and they make all the difference for life.

In first century Palestine, the image of light was pregnant with meaning. Just think of how many times, especially in the past weeks, we have noted the images of light and life in our scriptures. Isaiah promised the “great light” that would shine in the darkness. And now Jesus is using these elements, salt and light – essential, life-sustaining elements, to convey something of extreme value to the people who surround him, those who are listening to his teaching.

Light in the Body of Christ is created and shared when God’s work is done and God’s love is shared. The Holy Spirit of God gives and sustains that light, by God’s grace. The light is meant to shine. It is meant to be seen through the words and deeds of Christ’s disciples, meant to be seen and witnessed in community. The words of verse 16 are spoken within the baptismal rite as one member of the community shares the light of Christ with the newest member of the Body of Christ: “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in Heaven.” I wonder if we shouldn’t change the way we say these words, to reflect the communal aspect of this light – it is borne I community; as children of God and members of the Body of Christ, we are never alone in shining or casting this light.

You, people of Grace Lutheran Church, are salt and light. Through the cross of Christ, you have been made valuable, you are precious, you are powerful. And, like salt and light, you exist for the good of others. Like salt and like light, you are meant to be intermixed and intermingled with the world—you weren’t created to work alone, or to exist for your own well-being. Combined with other elements, salt preserves, adds flavor, melts, cleans, stabilizes…makes a difference. Combined with other elements, light illumines what was hidden, makes visible the unseen. But here’s the thing: Jesus says, right here and right now, you are salt, and you are light. And, yes, there are of course many ways you are still becoming the salt and light Jesus desires for you to be, but there are also many ways you are already salting and lighting our world. I see you, salt and light, being what you were created to be, when you gather on Sunday morning: sharing caring conversations with one another, reaching out to those going through tough times, offering words of welcome to those who are here for the first time, sharing tithes and offerings to support the ministry God is doing in and through this congregation.

As the Body of Christ, as community working together as salt and light, I see you providing meals for the lonely, providing clothing and essentials for migrant workers, offering the use of this building for groups from the community around us who need a place to meet, contributing to the Souper Bowl of Caring, providing meals and gifts for our poorer brothers and sisters in Easton during the holidays.

But here’s the really remarkable thing about salt and light: neither are controlled very well. You start shaking that salt shaker, and the salt particles land where they will, often ending up everywhere. Road salt melts the ice then clings to your car, your shoes, the floor, anywhere you don’t want it to be. A single candle lit on a dark night can be seen 30 miles away. No, salt and light are not easily contained…but, sometimes, that can be a very good thing.

You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. May it be so. Amen.

Blessed Are You

Matthew 5:1-12

I have moved around a bit in my life, and with each move, with each new situation and context, I have met new people, developed new relationships, and ultimately, formed new friendships. It’s not always an easy thing to do; for one thing, it takes time. It takes risking a certain amount of vulnerability all over again. I am an introvert, and as such, I am sometimes challenged to reach out and put myself out there, to connect in a deep and meaningful way with someone new. I wonder if it’s any different for you. Connection doesn’t happen instantaneously. You can’t force it. Friendships and relationships are organic. They grow and change and morph and as they do, there may be surprises – many of them (let’s hope most of them) delightful, along the way.

I wonder if you can think back to a time when you met someone new? How did the relationship come about? It’s likely you spent time with this person, that you listened to what they had to say, that you learned something about their story and as you did, you came to understand what was important to them, which in turn told you even more about who they were as a person. When you first met them, you probably exchanged the basic information; name, rank and serial number – or something like that, right? But as you became more familiar with one another, your understanding of the other deepened, broadened, and became more meaningful.

So it is with our relationship with God, now revealed through Jesus Christ. Led by the Spirit of God, this relationship also grows as we spend time with God, in the Word and in prayer.  We listen to what is important to God, and now, through the incarnation of God in Jesus, as we learn who and what Jesus values, we become more in touch with God’s subversive love come to fruition in the kingdom of heaven. As we come to know Jesus better, we also come to know about this kingdom of God that sets a new frame of reference for what blessedness is and what being blessed means.

We’ve been doing a lot of getting acquainted with God and God’s ways in the time since our we were introduced to Jesus at Christmas. In the past few weeks, guided by scriptures appointed for each week, we have moved from Jesus’ baptism to the early days of his ministry including the calling of Jesus’ first disciples and his early teaching, preaching and healing ministry. This movement now takes us to the Sermon on the Mount, and a picture of Jesus has begun to take shape. Like a flower that begins as a tightly closed bud and then gradually opens to reveal layers of intricately patterned blossom, we begin to see more and more clearly this Jesus of Nazareth, this God incarnate, and the new way of life he proclaims. Through Jesus’ ministry and teaching, God is revealed. In the ways this kingdom works, the way this household is run, in its values and priorities, God is made known.

In the gospel of Matthew up to this point, Jesus has been unveiling a new reality which he identifies as the “kingdom of heaven”, a kingdom of God that is packed with layers and textures that are frequently surprising, often unexpected, and destined to turn the status quo on its proverbial head.

“Kingdom of heaven” is a phrase that we will hear over and over again throughout the gospel of Matthew. Already, in the verses before these, Jesus has introduced us to it, as Jesus has called those who wish to follow him into discipleship. Discipleship is created as we come to know Jesus better through these texts, and we are introduced to a re-ordering of reality that was initiated with the inauguration of the kingdom of heaven at the coming of Christ. Discipleship is deepened as our relationship is deepened, as we come to know Jesus more fully, and introduce him to others as well.

The text from Gospel of Matthew that we read today opens a discourse by Jesus known as the Sermon on the Mount. We’ll become familiar with Jesus’ teaching through this discourse in the next couple of weeks, but for today, we are reminded of these introductory words, sometimes called the “blessed bes”, otherwise known as the beatitudes. While these beatitudes may read like a laundry list of those who are blessed, it is a scripture passage that reminds us that God’s economy is not like our economy. Being “blessed” does not depend on health, wealth, status or happiness, as we define happiness. It doesn’t depend on self-satisfaction and is not measured by levels of success or power. It is not reward for a job well done or for being correct, or for fulfilling all righteousness or duty.

Blessedness, instead, is a gift. It comes to us as grace. To the people for whom these words were originally spoken and recorded, the reign of God, preached to a largely Jewish audience of peasants who were oppressed by the Roman system of taxes and tributes and suffering under the demands of the tithes and offerings demanded by the Jerusalem temple, they are words of balm for the desperate ones who live on the edge: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven!”

Mary Hinkle Shore writes: “The word of grace is that blessings as Jesus describes them here are a surprising glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. They are a statement of a world turned upside down. They include those who mourn; those ones are comforted. They include those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; they are satisfied, not ignored, ridiculed or further burdened, where the meek inherit the earth rather than being ground into the dust.”

But, while that good balmy news may in fact be great news for some, it may be troubling news for others. As Scott Tunseth, General Editor of Fortress Press points out “Being poor of spirit may sound pitiful to those puffed up by their own knowledge. Being merciful might sound horribly weak to those bent of revenge. But for those who mourn, the promise of God’s comfort is an oasis of peace. For those who are pure of heart, God will surely be near.”

The beatitudes concern not just the way these words make us feel emotionally, though we may feel a deep emotional response inside; neither do they simply highlight personal qualities of those whom we may call “blessed”. Rather, the Beatitudes function to reveal God’s favor for certain human conditions, for particular human actions, and situations. Regardless of where we find ourselves, we are assured that God will act – in hopelessness and suffering, through pain and turmoil, and God’s reign will find ultimate satisfaction in the lifting up of every single one of the afflicted, and raising them to new heights.

Yet, I think there are two things we need to note about these beatitudes. The first is that while they apply to the “ones” who are poor in spirit, or mourn, or are in dire straights, they also call disciples of Christ into community and into action, where we are both blessing and blessed for one another. As we traverse the landscape of Matthew’s gospel this year, we will find that a prime objective of Matthew’s is to call up disciples of Christ. Discipleship for Matthew is found in community. It is the same today and these words can help us to define the community response to the kingdom of God as revealed through the life and ministry of Christ and those he initially invited to follow.

This revelation of God’s life is an invitation that calls for a response. By following Jesus into God’s abundant life, we will conform to the way this kingdom works, its values and priorities. We are born and reborn into new relationship with God, each other and creation. Jesus invites us: we respond. Always first, the invitation; always, the blessing; always, God reaching out acting first; always, God creating ways of new life, always, where and how we least expect it. Always!

Kingdom life is a responsive life, always seeking, always moving. Discipleship leads to community and the beatitudes call us to a hope filled community focused on God, blessed to seek connectedness through relationship to God and to one another, and embracing what God promises for the future.

Theologian James Bailey writes, “the cumulative effect of the beatitudes puts divine imprint on the community – how the community understands itself and views what God values and whom God honors.”

How poetic! What a beautiful way to describe the way that God is revealed here at Grace and anywhere God’s work is done. We bear the divine imprint as the body of Christ, community alive for the kingdom of heaven!

Henri Nouwen puts it another way:

“I am increasingly aware of how much we fearful, anxious, insecure human beings are in need of a blessing. Children need to be blessed by their parents and parents by their children. We all need each other’s blessings masters and disciples, rabbis and students, bishops and priests, doctors and patients.”

“I must tell you that claiming your own blessedness always leads to a deep desire to bless others. The characteristic of the blessed ones is that, wherever they go, they always speak words of blessing.”

It is a wonderful reminder on a day when we raise up God’s grace that blesses us through the radical nature of the kingdom of heaven, as we welcome into the Body of Christ our new sister through baptism, Lisa Buescher. We are reminded that God’s promise is for grace upon grace upon grace, as gift that is governed by the promise of God’s abundant life. As both blessing and blessed, may we each, as disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, understand that all human beings are blessed by God and worthy of our love and care.

In closing I would like to remind us how Micah instructs us in bearing the divine imprint in our first scripture reading today: “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 our God?”

Amen.