Really?
Matthew 5: 1-12

February 2, 2014

I can see the scene in my mind’s eye:  Jesus has walked up the hillside and sits down to teach his disciples.  Others gather around and hear these words “…Blessed are the poor in spirit…those who mourn…the meek…”  Somehow, in the back row of the disciples, I can hear Thomas whispering to another, “Who does the think he is fooling?  Really…does he really believe that will work in a dog eat dog world where the Romans rule?”
Why do I believe this?  Very simply, because I have heard so many people say this in the modern era.  We really have trouble with the Sermon on the Mount in general and the Beatitudes in particular, don’t we?  Do we really think that Jesus intended for us to live by these?  These beatitudes may sound good, but they have nothing to do with the vicissitudes of real life.  They are too simplistic, too naive, and illogical.  The world looks at these and says:  “Poor in spirit?  Mourn? Meek?  Hunger and thirst for what is right?  Merciful?  Purity of heart?  Peacemakers?  Give me a break!  These are great for ministers and monks in monasteries, but not for the real world.  Anyone who follows the Sermon on the Mount today would be crushed at the bottom of the pile.  This is a dog-eat-dog world and one either eats or gets eaten.”
In light of what the world says is the way to live, someone has rewritten the Beatitudes:
Blessed are the rich in contract, for theirs is the kingdom of endorsements.
Blessed are the positive thinkers, for they shall have lots of sales.
Blessed are the haughty, for theirs shall be the kingdom of earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for money, for they shall be wealthy in mammon.
Blessed are the strong, for they shall conquer all.
Blessed are the opportunists without principle, for they shall always finish on top.
Blessed are the warriors with the latest weapons, for God will always seem to be on their side.
Blessed are those whose focus is winning awards, for they shall see their picture in the media.
Blessed are those who praise others in order to be praised, for they shall have multi-paged resumes.       
“Go for it all,” the world says.  “Cut every corner; cheat as long as you do not get caught or the penalty is not too great; go for the jugular whenever you get the chance.”
Is this really wisdom?  It all depends upon our perspective on life.  If life is one big game of “king of the mountain,” then anything goes.  However, if life is about community, character, and relationships, then there is entirely another narrative.  The narrative of Jesus is one that tells us that God is not about rewarding the biggest and the best, but about love and mercy, about hope for the hopeless, power for the powerless, and love for the loveless.  To the world the narrative of Jesus is about a powerless rabbi who got crucified one Friday on Golgotha.  It is a narrative about losing, dying, and being buried.  But to us the narrative of Jesus is about resurrection, about the eternal life of one who teaches us that life is not about king of the mountain, but about the Lord God of the Universe, the Holy One, and how we can know and live in a love-relationship with this God. 
If the narrative of Jesus is the true narrative of the world, then the question which faces us is simple:  What do these Beatitudes have to do with us and the life we live in the here and now? Though they appear to be illogical as they go against the face of common wisdom, I believe that the Beatitudes are quite understandable when perceived as indicators of life in the Kingdom of God.  They are signposts, markers as it were of the process of spiritual growth that occurs in our life as we mature in our relationship with Jesus Christ.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”  The word Matthew uses for poor here does not mean to be merely without money.  No, it is much deeper than that.  This word means “totally destitute,” i.e., completely bankrupt and on the bottom rung of any socio-economic ladder.  This is not only jobless, this is homeless, jobless, and hopeless—living from garbage dump to garbage dump in hopes of scrounging enough food to eat. 
There is only one condition that even approaches this spiritually — the experience of coming face to face with our limitations, our fallenness.  The “poor in spirit” are those who know their need for God and realize fully that their only hope comes from God.  This is where we all start on our journey with God: total dependency.  If we do not begin at this point, if we do not start with the understanding that we are sinners in need of the forgiveness which only God can bring — then we will never grow in our relationship with God.  Why?  It is only in our admission of spiritual bankruptcy that we will give up the façade of ability and listen to God.  As long as we think that we can do it on our own—as long as we think that we can be good enough, smart enough, even spiritual enough to please God then we will be full of the pride that keeps us from hearing and seeing God.  As long as we are full of ourselves there will be no room for God. 
“Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  Knowledge of our limitations leads us to mourning.  It is only when we see ourselves as God sees us that we fall to our knees in mourning and repentance.  Most of us are scared of repentance — we cannot tolerate the thought of it.  We think of people overwhelmed with emotion after committing the most heinous sins imaginable.  We need to repent of our way of thinking about repentance.  Repentance is seeing our sin and mourning both its presence and its consequences in our lives.  Repentance is realizing that there are sinful aspects of our lives that we cannot eradicate on our own, no matter how hard we try.  Repentance is saying to God, “Take control of my life and make of me what you will.”  Repentance is metanoia — turning around and going in the opposite direction.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Most of us do not like the idea of meekness, but only because we do not understand it.  Meekness is not about being a Casper Milquetoast, but about true humility.  Realizing our sinfulness and repenting of it should produce in us a life-long humility.  Rather than the braggadocio of a Donald Trump true humility acknowledges that without the providential hand of God in one’s life one would never be or do what one should. 
Humility recognizes the roles that so many play in the process of life and that one’s own role is so limited and finite.  We get all caught up in Who’s Who and What’s What that we fail to look at the bigger picture and realize that even the best and brightest of us are but blips on the radar screen.  In perusing the book, Millennium, which purported to recount the first thousand years after Christ, I realized how few people it mentioned in comparison to the millions upon millions who lived and died. Humility — realizing that life is not about us — also causes us to face the reality that we cannot make this life what it ought to be.  Apart from the power and presence of Jesus Christ we are hopeless, no matter how bright we may be. 
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”  After we humble ourselves, realize who is God and who is not, then we desire to structure our world as God sees fit, not as humankind has done so.  Here the desire for justice/righteousness comes to the fore as  we look closely at our world and realize that this is not the way life should be.  People should not go to be hungry at night—not in America or in the world.  People should not be afraid to walk down city streets—or county roads.  We should not have to install burglar alarms, bolt locks, and live in virtual armed fortresses.  Religious groups should not wage war or seek to stomp out others due to their own insecurities and inabilities to admit their limitedness.  Each and every child should be able to grow up without fear or trauma — in a world of love and laughter, not drugs and violence.  If we stay with God long enough we will come to the place where we yearn, even crave, to see God’s way of peace and love prevail in and among us…all.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be given mercy.”  The drive for righteousness—and the reality of seeing it unfulfilled, will move us to mercy, every time.  We become aware that not everyone has an equal chance, no matter what our constitution may say.  We become aware that there are many of us for whom the path to success was a paved four-lane road with guardrails on all sides and an auto-pilot to lead us on.  However, no matter where we came from or how we arrived where we are, if we keep listening to God sooner or later we are overwhelmed with mercy for those whose way was blocked by rugged mountains with no path at all.  Our hearts are filled with compassion and we see these, not as dismal failures, but as those who need the mercy and grace of God.  We long to extend mercy to those caught in the webs of social pressures and stimuli.  We long to give forgiveness to those who stumble home every night, begging for just a chance to make life work.  At this stage we know that if life is to work then mercy must be a part of our social vocabulary.   Rather than “get what we deserve” we pray that we shall receive mercy — and so shall others.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  I have only known a few people in my life of whom I could say that they were totally pure in heart—and I only knew these from a distance.  To be pure in heart is to be of a simple heart, “to will one thing” as the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard put it.  This is the final stage of spiritual growth, where one can see God in the other: in the neighbor, in the friend, and even in the enemy.  To be pure in heart is to give up all desire for self, for family, for friends—and to seek only the presence of God and the doing of God’s will.  This is where, finally, once and for all, it is not about us…but about God and the other.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”  This is not so much a stage as a result.  If we move through these stages of growth then we will become a peacemaker in all the arenas of our lives.  Why?  It will take place naturally, for we will be so focused on others that all thoughts of self, of our rights and our privileges, will be foreign to us.  Peacemakers are those who are able to help adversaries see the others’ side and in so doing bring acceptance and accord to a situation.  Most conflict occurs because one or both sides believe that their rights have been abridged in one form or another.  If one is to be a peacemaker then one must give up one’s side and help others to see all the aspects of the problem.  This does not occur normally in life—it takes incredible personal and spiritual growth to come to the place where one can do this.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely on my account.”   Here is the immediate reward for spiritual growth — opposition, slander, and outright persecution.  This manner of living is antithetical to the way of the world.  We cannot tolerate for long those who march to this different drummer.  We never have — we remove them, we call them names, we ostracize them—and yes, it can and will happen to us.  If we get serious about God and God’s way in our life then we will come into conflict with those around us. 
All this calls into question the verb tenses of these beatitudes.  Jesus gives them as present realities— but we know that is not true.  The opposite is true in the present.  This is what as known as the “future present.”  In other words, the reality is yet to come, in the future, but we are to live as if it were so in the present.  And sometimes, just sometimes, our living it in the present results in its coming real, even if just for a moment, in our lives. 
Do you remember the movie/play Brigadoon?  Brigadoon is a mythical town in the highlands of Scotland that only comes to life for one day every one every hundred years or so.  Two men from New York are on a hunting trip when they stumble into Brigadoon and one man falls in love with one of the women in the town.  Suffice it to say, at the end of the day he and his friend leave and go home to New York where his fiancé awaits him.  However, he cannot stand the thought of living without his new love, so he returns to Scotland and to the place where he had experienced the town.  It is no longer there—it has vanished into the mystery of time for another hundred years.  He is overcome with sorrow when suddenly, out of the mists, appears his love and the town.  He queries the town leader how this could be and the answer comes simply: “There are times when love overcomes all.” 
So it is with God’s new world.  We know it will not come in fullness until the eschaton — yet we can see with the eyes of love this future breaking into our world every now and then and giving us a glimpse of life in the kingdom.  What, then, should we do?  Quite simply, we are to live in the present as if the future were already here — as if this were the Kingdom of God already.  That’s what Jesus meant for us to do — and yes, it seems like foolishness…it really does.  Yet, who knows—that Kingdom may show up when we least expect it.  Who will look foolish then?  Really…