Blessed (Matthew 5:1-12)

At the beginning of Rob Bell’s book Love Wins, the author describes this scene…

The church where he was a pastor was hosting an art show. One of the works on display included a quote by Mahatma Gandhi.

At some point, someone attached a piece of paper to the artwork, and on the piece of paper was written: Reality check; he’s in hell.

Rob Bell’s response to this was:

Really? We know this for certain? That a loving and just God would send someone as good as Gandhi to hell, simply because they never affirmed faith in Jesus Christ?

It’s true that Gandhi never considered himself a Christian. Yet Gandhi admired Jesus, and was greatly influenced by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount appears in Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7. The Beatitudes, these blessings, are just the beginning of it.

I’ve heard that Gandhi read the Sermon on the Mount, or portions of it, nearly every day of his life. And it’s easy to see how Gandhi lived out the teachings of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in his lifetime.

Yet, as I said, Gandhi didn’t consider himself a Christian. Gandhi didn’t agree with all the claims Christianity makes about Jesus. Even more so, Gandhi was bothered by the hypocrisy of so many Christians who don’t follow the teachings Jesus actually gave.

Like Gandhi, I am bothered by those who claim to follow Jesus, but who so flagrantly ignore his teachings; those who claim that they and they alone are going to heaven; yet they do not work for peace, they do not help the poor, they do not hunger or thirst for what is right. They turn their back on their neighbors, showing contempt especially to anyone who is not like them.

Nearly every instruction Jesus gives in the Sermon on the Mount, they ignore!

Therefore, it seems to me a good idea to spend some time reading and re-reading the Sermon on the Mount. The lectionary begins reading through the Sermon on the Mount, but not until the end of this month. And then it gets interrupted by Lent. 

So I’ve started us on it a few weeks early. 

I wanted us to have more time with the Sermon on the Mount before Lent. It is such a key part of the gospel. If someone has never read the Bible and wanted to know where to start, I’d tell them: start here. 

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***** The Sermon on the Mount focuses on what life is like in the kingdom of heaven. The sermon is filled with teachings about the kingdom.

And that’s true for Matthew’s gospel as a whole. When John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, he proclaimed: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

And then, when Jesus began his ministry, he also proclaimed: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Then, after making this proclamation, Jesus calls disciples to follow him, and he begins traveling throughout Galilee, healing people…

And then, with crowds following him, Jesus takes his disciples up a mountain, and—in the Sermon on the Mount—begins teaching them what the kingdom of heaven is like.

Reading through the Sermon on the Mount, it becomes clear that the kingdom is not some far-off, otherworldly realm. When Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven (or, the kingdom of God as the other gospels call it), he’s talking about the kingdom that dwells in the hearts and minds of all who follow God’s ways. It’s the world we live in, when we follow God’s ways. The world as God would have it be.

• In the kingdom of heaven, those who are poor in spirit are blessed. 

• In the kingdom of heaven, those who mourn are comforted. 

• In the kingdom of heaven, those who hunger and thirst for what is right are filled. 

• In the kingdom of heaven, the merciful receive mercy. 

• In the kingdom of heaven, those who make peace are called children of God. 

Amy-Jill Levine wrote that “These three chapters [in Matthew] tell us that the kingdom of heaven is not some abstract place with pearly gates and golden slippers, harp music, and a bunch of angels flapping their wings. The kingdom of heaven occurs when people take the words of Jesus in these chapters to heart and live into them.”

Let’s go through some of these blessings in this first section of the Sermon on the Mount.

***** “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” 

In Luke’s gospel, it’s just “blessed are the poor…” 

And some have used Matthew’s version to justify not helping the poor. Matthew’s version talks about the poor in spirit, which they say points to an other-worldly realm. They say Jesus was concerned about the spirit, not the body.

No!

The spirit and the body cannot be separated. If one is poor, one will also be poor in spirit. Without adequate food, shelter, and care, one’s spirit is brought down.

Jesus said to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, body, and mind. These things are all connected. They cannot be separated.

Modern science agrees. Last week, a study was released saying that exercise is just as good as medication or therapy when it comes to fighting depression. Physical health and mental health are connected… along with spiritual health.

When Jesus encountered people who were hungry… he fed them. 

And Matthew himself later says that when you feed the hungry, you do it unto Christ. 

In the kingdom of heaven, the hungry are fed. The kingdom belongs to those who are poor… and to those who are poor in spirit.

***** Blessed are those who mourn.

In the kingdom of heaven, there is comfort for all who mourn… 

Many today are mourning the state of our world. I know that many of you feel the weight of all that is wrong with the world. We are filled with grief.

We grieve for the lack of humanity: 

• when we see the way people are treated, because of their skin color, or their immigration status; 

• or, the way they are treated, because of their gender identity; 

• or, the way they are treated, and the persecution they endure, because they refuse to abandon God’s vision of a world where every human is treated with compassion.

We grieve for the earth itself. A changing climate is leading to more destructive weather patterns. Species are going extinct. Once fertile lands are now incapable of supporting crops. How long civilization can survive this is anyone’s guess. And the fact that so many of our leaders just don’t care makes us mourn for the world.

If you are mourning the state of the world, feeling a heaviness and sorrow in your soul, Jesus says you are blessed. In the kingdom of heaven, you are blessed.. 

• You are blessed, because you have held on to your humanity. 

• You are blessed, because your heart is still in tune with God’s heart. 

• You are blessed, because you still love your neighbor, and you feel empathy with your neighbor who is being persecuted and oppressed and hunted. 

• You are blessed, because you refuse to give up the idea that every person bears within them the image of God, and thus to treat any person poorly is to treat God poorly.

• You are blessed, because you still recognize that this earth is God’s creation, sacred and full of beauty, and that we are called to be caretakers of creation.

***** Blessed are the meek

The meek are blessed, because they have not let the world harden them. Their gentleness is the antidote to the world’s harshness.

The kingdom of God is a place for those whose hearts are soft; those who weep with those who weep; those who sit silently with those who are oppressed, in solidarity, in love.

***** Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what is right.

I like phrasing it this way, because the word “righteousness” has become overloaded with meaning that I don’t think it originally had. In the kingdom of heaven, those who long for and yearn for what is right are blessed.

This is especially true in a world where so many don’t care about what is right. They don’t care about what is true. 

They only care about what is good for them, what they can profit from. 

But those who hunger and thirst for what is right are right with God, and so they are blessed. 

***** Blessed are the merciful…

You cannot live in the kingdom of God if you do not show mercy. You cannot rightfully call yourself a Christian, a follower of Jesus, if you do not show mercy. 

Mercy is love shown to those who most need love. Mercy is doing what is necessary so that others may thrive, that they may live lives of wholeness.

Those who deny others mercy say they don’t deserve it, or that they have to earn it. Yet in the book of James, it says that God’s judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy. 

None of us have earned or deserve the mercy of God—yet God bestows God’s mercy anyway.

In this, we are to be like God. We are to be merciful to others.

***** Blessed are the pure in heart.

The pure in heart have one single motive: to love others as Jesus would have us do. They do not love in order to receive, they do not love only if certain conditions are met. They do not love only those who love them, but they also love those who hate them. Their love is pure.

And they will see God, for God’s love is pure. 

***** Blessed are the peacemakers

This week, the Department of Homeland Security released a video that features images of ICE agents and soldiers firing weapons at people and breaking down doors and hauling people away in handcuffs. The song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” plays over the images, and, on the screen, the words Blessed are the peacemakers appear. 

The video glorifies war, and implies that aggressive force is how peace is achieved.

But the Greek word translated here as peacemaker implies nonviolent action. The true peacemakers are those who, as it says in Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; according to these Bible passages, true peace comes when nations refuse to lift up weapons or engage in war. 

In the first century, Caesar called himself the bringer of peace, the prince of peace, because he kept uprisings and wars from happening. But he did that through strict authoritarian rule and aggressive military intimidation and oppression.

So when Jesus showed the world a true, nonviolent form of peacemaking, his followers recognized him as the true prince of peace, because his peace was lasting, it was real, and it was built on ending oppression and establishing justice.

Those who work for peace the way Jesus worked for peace are blessed. They are called children of God.

***** Blessed are those who are persecuted and reviled; blessed are those who are spoken of falsely.

Those in power, who use Christ’s name in vain, claiming to be Christians but who withhold love and mercy, will speak lies about those who challenge them, and who call them to repentance. They will bear false witness and attach labels to them that are not true. They will even arrest and kill those who speak truth, and who practice the way of love.

Jesus points out that this is exactly how the prophets were treated, how all those who speak for truth have been treated throughout history. The powers that be will discredit them with their lies.

And in the kingdom of heaven, those who are persecuted and reviled and spoken of falsely are blessed even now, because they stand on the side of truth, and on the side of mercy, and on the side of love.

*****

The blessings of God that the beatitudes talk about aren’t necessarily blessings the way many understand them today. People get a new car or a new house, or they go on a vacation to some luxury resort, and say that they are blessed.

In the kingdom of God, those who are blessed are those who are on the side of God, those who are considered children of God, those who receive God’s mercy and love, those who find comfort and assurance.

Things in the world still may not go the way you want. Your heart may be heavy because of all that’s happening. 

But still, in the kingdom of heaven, you may rejoice, for the blessings are yours. And you, with your heart full of love and your life committed to what is right, get to dwell in the kingdom of heaven, now, and forever.

Sermon: "Blessed" (Matthew 5: 1-12)

My atheist friend hates it when people use the word “blessed.” He says that people who use the word “blessed” sound arrogant and presumptuous.

As he explained this to me, I realized that I agreed with him. People say things like, “God has blessed me with a nice house….God has blessed me with a nice family...God has blessed me by giving me that fancy sports car I always wanted… God has blessed America by giving us God-fearing leaders…”

They don’t say it … and maybe they don’t even mean it… sometimes it sounds like they are implying that, because they believe in Jesus and are a good person, God has blessed them this way. In other words, they are blessed with good things because they are a good person.

But I can’t help thinking of the countless millions of people in the world who are good people - some of them Christians - who struggle and suffer.

For example, I sometimes wonder how it is that I got to be born and live in California, clearly the best place to live in the world, a place where - as I mentioned in last week’s sermon - you can go to In-N-Out! How is it that I got to be born here, in the land of In-N-Out, instead of being born in poverty in some third-world country, in an area plagued by war or famine? Even as a child, I wondered: how is it that I got to be born close enough that my family could drive to Disneyland, spend the day, drive back home and go to sleep in our own beds.  I could have been born anywhere in the world, and look where I ended up!

I knew (even then) it wasn’t because I was any better than anyone else. I did think of myself as a good person, but not any better than countless others who lived in less desirable places under less desirable circumstances. Why would God bless me and not them?

Clearly, God’s blessings aren’t always distributed according to one’s worthiness.

Now, if you start reading the Bible, at first it may appear that God’s blessings do go to those who are faithful. You can read about Abraham, for example, who was blessed because he put his faith in God. He was blessed with property and descendants, all because he faithfully followed God’s call.

But then there’s Job. The Bible describes Job as the most blameless man on earth, yet he suffered terribly. In the end he was rewarded, but does that make up for all his suffering?

The writer of Ecclesiastes, who was very wise, wrote that there are fools who live in luxury, and wise people who live in pain and suffering. He asks: “Why have I been so very wise? What happens to the fool will happen to me also. The same fate befalls us all.”

Even Jesus was aware of this; Jesus observed that  the blessing of rain falls on the just and the unjust.

Today’s prosperity preachers ignore all this. According to the prosperity preachers, if you have faith, God will bless you. God will bless you materially if you have faith. God will give you wealth if you only believe.

That’s what the prosperity preachers say. It’s not what most scriptures say, but it’s what the prosperity preachers say. Maybe the prosperity preachers are more influenced by their own wealth than they are by the gospel. Maybe their mansions and their private jets and their invitations to participate in the inauguration of a billionaire president have led them to misinterpret scripture this way.

Jesus talked about being blessed. But he didn’t tell anyone they were blessed by wealth, or property, or descendants. Instead, he said, “you who are poor in spirit, you are blessed. You who are meek are blessed. You who are persecuted, you are blessed. You who work hard, long hours, tirelessly, for a kingdom of peace, justice, and righteousness… you are blessed.”

Jesus’ idea of what it means to be blessed is not what we think. By our definition of what it means to be blessed, it was the Roman officials and the corrupt religious leaders who were blessed in Jesus’ time. They were the ones who lived in palaces.  They were the ones who walked around in fine clothes. They were the ones who had tables full of rich food. They were the ones who were “blessed.”

The people did not feel blessed. They felt forgotten. They felt discouraged. They felt abused and oppressed by society. They were lied to by a government that promised them prosperity and the “peace of Rome.” But wealth at the top did NOT trickle down to them, just as it does not trickle down today. The people mourned loved ones who died due to lack of care, and they mourned the ideal kingdom, God’s kingdom, the kingdom of peace and justice that they had all but given up hoping for.

To them, Jesus says: “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.” Your meekness, your spiritual longing, your commitment to peace and justice, your persecution,... the world needs to see these things. Take it to the streets! March through the city! Don’t hide, don’t be embarrassed or ashamed because you are poor in spirit. Don’t hide the fact that you aren’t powerful in the ways of the world, that you are vulnerable and subject to persecution. You have a light within that needs to shine.

The world shines its light on that other kind of blessedness. The world shines its light on those who prosper, those who have nice cars and houses, those who take frequent trips to far off lands, those who have power and authority. The people who always post pictures on social media - “hashtag ‘blessed’” - don’t worry about them. You have your own light. It comes from within you, and was put there by God. So let it shine. Let the world see you say “I am poor, and I am blessed.” Let the world see you say “I work for peace, and I am blessed.” Let the world see you say, “I have loved deeply, and now I mourn; and I am blessed.” Let the world see you say, “I am persecuted and ridiculed because I was willing to take a stand, and I am blessed.”

The people who are blessed are people who are empty. They lack spirit. They lack power. They live without peace, which is why they must work to make peace. They live in a land that is broken and fragmented, which is why they are hungry and thirsty for what is right and what is just. Jesus says: “Your blessedness does not depend on having all these things. Kings and emperors and corrupt high priests have all these things, and you think they are blessed, but they are not. You are the ones who God calls blessed.”

This is such a different idea of “blessed,” so don’t be surprised if it’s making your head spin. It’s kind of like we’ve entered an “opposite world,” where things mean the opposite of what we think they mean. But that’s often how it is with Jesus.

If you are still struggling to think of a blessed life as anything but a life of luxury and wealth, consider this. More and more people today are discovering the blessing of having less. They live in smaller houses, really small houses. By choice! They take public transportation instead of owning a car. They limit their wardrobe to what will fit in their tiny closet and they limit their possessions to just those things that make them truly happy. They only keep those possessions that truly bring them joy. Everything else they get rid of.

And they find freedom in that. Freedom in not having stuff. Freedom in not having to deal with all the upkeep and maintenance and expense. Freedom in not having to keep up with the Joneses. Freedom in not feeling trapped by the expectations of a society which is always, always trying to sell you something.

I recently watched a documentary on Netflix about two friends, Ryan and Josh, young adults trying to figure out how to live lives that are happy and blessed.

In the movie, Ryan talks about how he was “blessed” according to our traditional definition of blessed. He says: “I had everything I ever wanted. I had everything I was supposed to have. Everyone around me said, ‘you’re successful.’ But really, I was miserable. There was this gaping void in my life. So I tried to fill that void the same way many people do: with stuff. Lots of stuff. I was filling the void with consumer purchases. I was spending money faster than I was earning it, attempting to buy my way to happiness. I thought I’d get there one day. Happiness had to be somewhere just around the corner. I was living paycheck to paycheck, living for a paycheck, living for stuff. But I wasn’t living at all. It got to a point in my life where I didn’t know what was important anymore.

“Then at some point I noticed something different about my best friend Josh. He seemed happy. For the first time in a really long time. Truly happy. But I didn’t understand why. We had both worked at the same corporation, we had both wasted our 20s climbing the corporate ladder together, and he had been just as miserable as me. I asked him: ‘Why the hell are you so happy?’ He told me about this thing called minimalism…”

Here’s how his friend Josh explains it: “I had a lot of stuff. Hundreds, thousands of books. DVDs. Closets full of clothes...When I started letting things go I felt freer, happier, and lighter. And now, every possession serves a purpose or brings me joy. I have a bed, a chair, a radio, some furniture in my dining room, appliances in my kitchen…But I don’t have any EXCESS stuff. Everything I have adds value to my life. If it doesn’t, I have to be willing to let go.”

Is Josh living a “blessed” life? It depends on whose definition of “blessed” you are using. Josh is happy. Happier now than when he had lots of stuff. And so is Ryan, now that he is also living a minimalist lifestyle.

Are you living a “blessed” life? How do you define what it means to be “blessed?” If you’re not sure, go back and read the Beatitudes. Go back and read the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew, chapter 5. It just may be that all these things that you think are signs of a blessed life are really just clutter that gets in the way, and keeps you from discovering what it really means to be blessed.