Reflecting on the Beatitudes

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A few months ago when Chaplain Carlton sent out the preaching schedule I was happy to see that I had an opportunity to kick off the season of Lent and our series of teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. I was even happier to see that the section of the Gospel he had given me included verses 13-16 from Chapter 5, because the Beatitudes are always challenging to preach from and maybe this time around I would just go with salt and light. A few weeks later an updated schedule was sent out and all I had was the Beatitudes. So I reached in my drawer of pastoral care supplies and grabbed a straw so I could suck it up and learn something new while I got ready to share. Truth be told, I’m glad it changed and that this was my text. It’s been a blessing to study and reflect and learn as I got ready for this talk. “Blessed are those who wrestle with texts…God will open their hearts and share the Kin-dom of Heaven with them.”

Looking at the previous chapter sheds some light on the Sermon on the Mount and, more specifically, the Beatitudes.  In Matthew 4:18-22 Jesus calls his first Disciples (Simon Peter and Andrew and James and John…all four of them fishermen).  

In Matthew 4:23-25 Jesus is teaching throughout Galilee; he is curing disease and sickness, which causes his fame to spread and soon all manner of “needy” people are brought to him and now, what started as Jesus and four fishermen, is described as “great crowds” following him.

Take a moment and think about what it would be like to have great crowds of “needy” people following Jesus.  Matthew describes it like this: “they brought to him all the sick, and those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them.  And great crowds followed him…”

We were ready to go beyond merely serving the poor; we were stepping into the realm of being in ministry with the poor.  It’s a fine line between ministering TO and ministering WITH, and we were ready to take a step over that line.  One Sunday a woman showed up with her daughter and her son and during the joys and concerns she asked for prayers for her children’s father who was in prison. This was her first time worshiping with us, and you could feel the tension in the room after she voiced this need for prayer. After the service she introduced herself to me over a cup of coffee and shared with me that she was HIV positive. Again, this was her first time joining us for worship and fellowship. Monday morning my office phone rang, “Pastor, I’m just not sure how comfortable I am having children in the nursery who have a Daddy in prison and mother who is HIV positive.  The other children aren’t going to know how to relate. It’s going to scare them.” Opening ourselves to the lives of others in our community creates growing edges; we encounter situations we may not know how to relate to.  

And Jesus recognizes this as he looks at the crowds who follow him.  And Jesus recognizes this as he looks at the lives of those he has called to be his disciples. Here are people pulled together by their need for him; people pulled together by their need for grace and healing and wholeness, but they are from vastly different realities.  So Jesus steps away from the crowds and goes up the mountain (which I always take as a sign that he’s drawing near to God in prayer) and his disciples come to him and he teaches them by saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit…blessed are those who mourn…blessed are the meek…”

One translation says, “Happy are the people who are hopeless…happy are people who grieve…happy are people who are humble…”

In the book We Make the Road by Walking Brian McLaren reminds us that “In Jesus’ day, to say “Blessed are these people” is to say: “Pay attention: these are the people you should aspire to be like. This is the group you want to belong to.”

So Jesus is saying to his disciples, “Alight guys, listen up.  This is what the dream team looks like.” Or he’s just revealed his fantasy football team (I realize the season is over…but it works!) and I can imagine that the disciples are looking at the crowds of broken people and they get this confused dog tilt to their heads as he says, “Blessed are hopeless and the grieving and the humble.” 

Because in their heads the disciples are thinking, “Jesus I know you’re saying this is your Dream Team, but it looks more like the Bad News Bears or the Island of Misfit Toys!”

And as their confusion becomes evident, Jesus says, “Blessed, too, are those who are hungry from injustice and who are thirsty for righteousness; blessed, too are those who pour out mercy and those who have pure hearts and those who make peace with their neighbors!”

And maybe the confusion becomes more like discomfort because Jesus has just said that the hopeless and the hope-filled are meant to dwell side by side on his dream team…and the broken tangled masses (the people afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics and paralytics) are meant to sit side by side in Church with those of us who want to think we have our lives in order.

We are comfortable with socially compartmentalized lives, in part because we are taught that there are people in this class and there are people in that class. Think about all the great stories built on social conflict. Romeo and Juliet have families at war with each other, which makes the two lovers star-crossed; many of us were required to read The Outsiders in high school, which reminded us of the conflict in social groups with the Greasers and the Socs. And who can forget that pivotal moment in a different story, when the letter jacket rides up from inside the wishing well and Troy shouts, “Andy, you Goonie!” The lists are plentiful and we are taught to believe, if we read these tales with frequency, that crossing social lines is doomed, at least fictionally speaking.

But this exists in reality as well. A few weeks ago, when Audrey was sharing about Gospel for Asia she touched on a people in India called the Dalit. Literally translated, Dalit means untouchable. If you are Dalit, you are Dalit; nothing can change that. If you are Dalit, you cannot draw your own water, nor can you ask someone to draw water for you. You rely on the initiative and charity of others. The belief is that the uncleanness of Dalit is somehow transferable, and that’s why Dalit are untouchable. To drink water, they use unfired mud cups that can be returned to the earth after drinking from it—because it can’t be reused or touched by anyone else after being touched by Dalit.

Jesus says, “Blessed are the untouchable…for the Kin-dom of Heaven belongs to them.”  Jesus says in this teaching, if the poor in spirit and the mourning and the humble happen to overhear, “There is room for you here in this movement of God!” And what a relief to know, that when no one else will take us, Jesus is there with open arms! And let me say that again, just in case you need to let it soak in, when no one else will take us, Jesus is there with open arms.

And then Jesus adds, the ones who show mercy to those who dwell on the other side of the tracks are also blessed, and to love with God’s love (to be pure in heart) is to be blessed, and to make peace and live side by side with those no one else will live by, that is to be blessed. When those who know they are blessed, choose to live in a way that shares that blessing with those who do not know they are blessed or those who feel they are not blessed, the Kin-dom of God expands.

After the decision was handed down in Ferguson and the protests erupted, signs popped up across the country and hashtags popped up on social media declaring: “Black Lives Matter.” And they do. The Beatitudes call the church to stand with those who declare this.

After two Police Officers were killed in their patrol car, signs popped up across the country, and hashtags popped up on social media declaring: “Cops’ Lives Matter.”  And they do. The Beatitudes call the church to stand with those who declare this.

And recently, with the execution of twenty-one Coptic Christians by ISIL, a new hashtag has popped up declaring, “Coptic Lives Matter.” And they do. The Beatitudes call the church to stand with those who declare this.

And in between all of this, there have been declarations that “All lives matter.” And they do. This is the message of the Beatitudes.

If there is no clearer declaration we can find in the Beatitudes, it is this: “Those who try to follow Jesus are blessed. They are blessed if they know it; they are blessed if they don’t. They are blessed if they believe it; they are blessed if they don’t.” All lives matter.

Jesus makes it clear: “If we want to be his disciples, we won’t be able to simply coast along and conform to the norms of society. We must choose a different model of success, a new identity with a new set of values.” 

But this new identity and new set of values, this non-conformity to the norms of society, may well come at a price…and that, too, brings a blessing:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for they will be called children of God.  Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.”

Do you feel the progression in this text? Jesus starts out by welcoming the unwelcome, by making a place for the untouchables; then he says that when we join him in that we are blessed by seeing his love change lives and hearts. And then he says, “And when nobody else gets what you’re doing, keep on keeping on, even when you’re persecuted, even when you’re hated…in fact, keep on keeping on and rejoice in the midst of it all because then you know the cross, you REALLY know the cross. And it’s only when you know the cross that you can know resurrection.”

At the end of it all maybe the Beatitudes is a model for the Church. The Church isn’t meant to be homogeneous—it’s certainly not meant to be the most segregated hour of the week; we aren’t meant to be “shiny happy people holding hands” or “people who are faking it till we make it.” We’re meant to be people in various stages of wholeness, and sometimes some of us are at the stage where wholeness feels like a pipe dream. And if that’s you, that’s okay; there is room for you in the Kin-dom. As you figure it out, we will be with you.