together
Epiphany 4A | Matthew 5:1-12
It may be a warm day in the Jerusalem market. A young woman is buying bread for dinner when she overhears something that tickles her thoughts. It’s a conversation about a man saying crazy things. The kinds of things you’re used to hearing from doomsday preachers and the politically connected. Change or die. That kind of thing. This young woman has never been taken in by this kind of talk. It is all conspiracy theories or the rants of lunatics — or worse, the politically expedient.
Something about this one gives her pause, however. It’s that she just heard something like this on her way into the market. And by the time she leaves, she’ll hear about it again. And it is that third time that leads her to follow the whispers out the city gates, into the wilderness near the Jordan, where she discovers she isn’t alone. She is following the lead that thousands of others are too, hearing a call away from the assumed safety of the city. Out to the river.
The message she hears mirrors Isaiah’s words: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” This is what was promised. She anticipates the Messiah’s arrival. And when he comes to be baptized! Then disappears! What is she supposed to do with herself now?
A New Word
Word comes to her again after six weeks of silence. The Messiah has been spotted with some fishermen. She tracks him down north of the city. And by this time she sees people bringing their sick parents and spouses and children and siblings and neighbors to him and she witnesses a miraculous healing and then another and another and by now she is following him and his followers like a small child chasing her older brother and just wants to be close to him. There is something strong and righteous in his eyes. She can see it.
When she looks at the man, she sees power. An actual future. For herself and all of her people. A future not overwhelmed by the Roman Empire, exploited by the Temple leaders. She sees hope. For once.
The man walks up the side of a mountain to get some distance, to create an amphitheater to project his voice. He has something to say and there are so many people now. She can’t wait. It is bound to be inspiring. Telling them about this future of freedom from occupation. When they will drive the evil occupiers out of their city.
He says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and she wonders where this could possibly be going. And the list is not uplifting.
“Blessed are those who mourn . . . the meek . . . who hunger and thirst for righteousness . . . the merciful . . . the pure in heart . . . the peacemakers . . . who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” And then he says that she is blessed, she and everyone else, when they are reviled and persecuted and people spit “all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” None of it was making any sense! And he continued “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
It sounded a lot like take one for the team.
The Team Leader
I know how we feel when we hear Jesus’s opening to the Sermon on the Mount. But how people must have heard it the first time! It must have sounded negative, backward; like the inverse of expectations. Blessings are good things, not bad things now for good things later. This, however, doesn’t tell the whole story.
The concept of blessing was already a theological dispute that went back centuries. A common understanding — that we are rewarded by God in this life for good behavior — was widespread and somewhat anchored in scripture. Similarly anchored in scripture was the counter that God absolutely does not do that. Precisely because such a depiction has nothing to offer the world with regards to the problem of evil. Absolutely nothing but wrongheadedness.
So when Jesus offers some baffling blessings at the beginning of the sermon, the wise shouldn’t be surprised because they would already know that God doesn’t reward us with wealth in this world, precisely because ancient teaching taught that wealth is an abomination to God and an exploitation of one’s neighbors. One cannot be blessed by God for the suffering of one’s neighbors. They would know that.
But perhaps this is why wealthy robber barons like Andrew Carnegie didn’t just subscribe to the idea that wealth is blessing, but promoted it with his Gospel of Wealth. He famously argued that his profound wealth proved his personal superiority: superior intelligence, wisdom, and morality. He argued that we should trust him over any of our neighbors for the simple fact that he is rich and therefore invested with superiority by God.
Blessing as Invitation
The Beatitudes reject such a cynical vision of creation. That our neighbors are lesser-thans who need to be subjugated, unworthy of responsibility, or entrusted with matters of value. In fact, Jesus will go on to suggest adults follow the wisdom of children. That is the polar opposite of Carnegie’s gospel of wealth as proof of superiority! Jesus seems to suggest Carnegie is the last person we should trust. Not because he is a bad guy but because wealth is not an indicator of moral superiority or blessing from God.
Blessing is invitation, revelation. It is a new light in dark times. It is a bottom-up surge in popular power that frightens tyrants and their wealthy benefactors. It is a reminder of our humanness and our common condition. It is joy and sadness, ease and toil. And because of this, blessing shows itself in our lives, not as reward or benefit or superiority over others, but as light, as wisdom, as opportunity.
When we step back from the beatitudes, we can see what they invite us into: love. By noticing what our neighbors are experiencing. And then allowing their pain to affect us. Their sorrow and meekness. Their suffering injustice and the accompanying desire for the scales to balance. We notice our common humanity. That they too have children, for example. Or, just as importantly, that they have children and we might not but we can sympathize with them anyway! Because we are willing to see our neighbors as human beings worthy of decency. To love them as we love ourselves, and we have a strong instinct for self-preservation.
Two Realities of Blessing
The young woman I invented to introduce the Beatitudes: how do you think she would have heard this? I think there are two things that are true at the same time.
- The prophesied Messiah was assumed to be a military general, leading the people out of military occupation. So I suspect his words would confuse such a view. And, perhaps, disappoint.
- Jesus’s words are liberating and speak directly to the material experience of the people. Part of the old problem was always that power leads to power and revolutions lead to new tyrannies. Jesus named the source of the problem: the unjust character of the powerful.
What we see is that Jesus’s following grows, even if they don’t fully comprehend what he is saying. And this is, in no small way similar to what we experience today. That people still believe in a gospel of wealth, even if they don’t admit to it. Mistaking the sense of blessing as some kind of reward for awesomeness.
It is also why people can love Jesus and cheer for the brutality of their neighbors. Or pick and choose which neighbors get to count as neighbors — with total indifference to the actual teachings of Jesus. And why some come up with excuses not to feel, not to notice, not to humanize or empathize or even demand respect for their neighbors, extending civil liberties and human rights to them, due process of law, even going so far as to to victimize entire cities, countries, or ethnic groups.
The Beatitudes Build
The Beatitudes build, Friends, from observing the pain of our neighbors to hungering and thirsting for righteousness, to stepping into the brink, standing between abusers and their victims, to accept the abuse that will come our way for it. There is a trajectory here that reveals something potent about Jesus’s Way of Love, about striving for the Dream of God. It shows that it takes courage. But not courage for the sake of power, but courage for the sake of the powerless.
Courage that starts out as something else. Poverty, sadness, meekness. It starts where we are. In a place of fear and intimidation. When we don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow or if there is anything worth looking forward to next week. It starts in that place of hopelessness precisely because Jesus is the way of hope, the light in the darkness. His name can inspire us with a whisper of it. He is the Word incarnate.
Blessing isn’t superiority! It is love! Compassion! Attunement to the pain of others. It is longing for more and striving to make it better. The supremacists all think they as individuals are smarter, better, greater — a master race. And Jesus says we should put the kids in charge instead. Follow their lead, not the wealthy or powerful or connected.
This is a message of hope. Of freedom. Freedom from tyranny, from the prison of supremacy, a prison we inherited and assumed was right. A prison that constantly tells us that we are not good enough, smart enough, strong enough, powerful enough. That we need a “daddy” to protect us. That we need kidnappings for safety. Violence for peace. Tyranny for freedom. Hate for love. And the lawless enforce the laws.
The opposite was always true. And we are blessed in seeing it. Blessed in seeing our neighbors, in connecting with them, loving them, crying with them, rejoicing with them. We are blessed because this is what the Kin-dom looks like, how the Kin-dom comes. It is how we are called to follow and it is how we understand our true strength. Being together. Like Jesus. Vulnerable. Like Jesus. Joyful. Like Jesus. Bringing the Good News to all of our neighbors. As disciples. Like Jesus.