Epiphany 4
Matthew 5:1-12
Have you ever been talking to a fellow Christian, and, as they were telling you about something that had happened to them, you made the remark, “Wow, you’ve really been blessed”? What situation could occur that you would call another person “blessed”? Maybe if the Lord allowed a friend of yours to advance to high levels in his job, you would say, “the Lord has really blessed you; I’m happy for you.” If a person has a lot of friends, you might say, “the Lord has really blessed you by giving you such a winning personality.” If someone just came out of a health crisis, it would be easy to say, “the Lord has blessed you by taking away your suffering.” We usually think of “blessed” as equaling success. The way we often use the word blessed gives the impression that we think it means that God has shown his favor to us in some tangible, measurable way.
Surely anything that God gives us, like a job, like our traits, like our health, are blessings from a loving Lord, and he ought to be thanked for them. But in our text for this morning, Jesus gives us other things to thank God for…things which on the surface we might say “no thank you God” for. What Jesus does in these 12 verses is he takes the world’s definition of “blessed” and turns it upside down. To an unbeliever, and even to us Christians, we take a look at this list and say, “are these things really blessings?” There are a lot of strange religions out there, but by far, Christianity is the oddest. In fact, Christianity seems to make no sense to our human way of thinking. 1. It’s good to be poor and sad? 2. It’s good to be submissive and oppressed?
Part I
Jesus opens this nonsensical address, “blessed are the poor in spirit.” This has nothing to do with how much money we have. If it did, the poor among us would imagine that they were on God’s good side just because they didn’t have money. The wealthy would despair that their property might kick them out of heaven, and the middle class wouldn’t have any idea of if they were blessed or not. Jesus is talking about another poverty: spiritual poverty.
What an odd thing for him to say! I mean, I would think that Jesus would want us all to be spiritually rich, spiritually wealthy. Doesn’t that make sense? Christianity doesn’t make much sense. So let me tell you a story about a person in the Bible who thought of himself as spiritually rich. He went to church one day, and he told God just how rich in spirituality he was. He proudly told the Lord that he was so much wealthier in deeds than most. He talked about how big his offerings were, and basically said that God was pretty lucky to have him on his team. The irony is that God doesn’t need or want spiritually rich people like this on his team.
The next statement of Christ is also difficult to swallow: “blessed are those who mourn.” A man seeking a divorce once went to his pastor, and told him about how he and his wife just aren’t happy anymore. So they were looking to split up, for the husband reasoned, “well, God wouldn’t want me to be married for the rest of my life to this person who makes me unhappy, would he?” But Jesus here doesn’t say, “blessed are the happy,” rather, “blessed are those who mourn.” So does God want me to be sad? Yes! Let me tell you about another man who went to church the same day as that proud bragger. This second man knew he was spiritually poor. As he considered his past sins, sins that were still fresh in his mind after committing them not long before, he mourned over them. He knew he didn’t even belong in God’s house, and as he cried over his faults, he simply asked God for mercy.
Which one of those men received blessing? Was it the spiritually rich, happy and proud man, or the spiritually deficient, sad and shamed man? The Bible states that only the sad and crushed man went home justified before God.
It is good for you and I to be spiritually poor. It is not good to look at that confirmation certificate which was gained in 8th grade as if it gains some extra standing before God. It is not good to be proud over the pure doctrine taught in our church body and suppose that we are superior to Christians in other churches. It is downright hazardous to think that since your name appears on the roster of a Wisconsin Synod church, God must love you more than a Catholic, a Methodist, or one of those off-the-wall liberal Lutherans. Do you see how that proud Pharisee very subtly creeps into your mind and whispers to you how spiritually rich you must be compared to others who seem to have little to offer God?
The problem is, God doesn’t ask you to compare yourself with others. He asks you to compare yourself to him. And there we stand like the biggest fools in the world if we try to convince God that he’s just so lucky to have such swell Christians like us on his team. No, we need to mourn over our sins. “To mourn” doesn’t just mean to be sad. “Mourning” is closely associated with death. Would you ever be able to forgive yourself if something you did in a drunken state caused the death of your own child? How long would you mourn knowing that your sinful actions brought upon the death of someone you loved? The reality is that your sins did cause someone to die. Someone very dear to you: your brother, Jesus. Yes, it was you and your actions that killed Christ. And if there is little mourning in the heart over the sins that brought about this innocent death, there can be little comfort in that heart. Blessed are those who mourn over sins, for they will be comforted. Being spiritually poor is good, mourning is good, because then and only then are we led to appreciate forgiveness. Then we see grace as not something that can be thrown around and played with and taken back whenever we feel the need, but we see grace and mercy as something we need constantly, even more often than we need oxygen. Oh yes, it is good to be poor and sad.
Part II
And, Christ says, it is good to be submissive and oppressed. “Blessed are the meek.” A few years ago the motto for the Orlando Magic was “Heart & Hustle.” I don’t think that you will see an NBA team with the motto, “blessed are the meek.” Meek basketball players don’t last very long. My grade school basketball coach always told me, “Peter, you’ve got to be more aggressive.” But I don’t know how long an NBA coach would last if he called Shaq aside on a timeout and said, “hey big fella, I want you to be a little more meek on the boards out there. You gotta get really submissive with your inside game.” Meek means weak! Meek people are ones who are last in line, they get pushed around in the workplace, they get stepped on as the ambitious climb the corporate ladder. Meek people are humble and gentle; they give up the right to seek revenge. And they don’t last in this world very long.
But Jesus calls them blessed, and on top of that he says that, “they will inherit the earth.” But we look are and it seems that the assertive people inherit the earth. But not really, says Jesus. Did you ever wonder why people are so aggressive in the world. It’s because they are afraid of losing their stuff. “If I don’t work hard and step on a few other people in the process, I’m not going to have the things I want,” the world says. But there is no peace there, because they never know when a harder worker will take their stuff from them. The meek are responsible and work hard, but don’t mind being pushed around, because they realize that everything the have is just a gift from God. The meek views himself as a guest staying overnight in a strange place, knowing that they are going to leave in the morning, so it’s no big deal how much or how little they get during this short stay on earth. They can enjoy what God gives them, in that way they inherit the earth, but they are ready to leave it all behind anytime the Lord asks them to do so.
Believers are also blessed when something else happens to them, “blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.” Again, this Jesus’ Christianity is sure a strange religion. It’s good to be poor and sad, it’s good to be oppressed and persecuted?
I always got a kick out of the old Star Trek series, whenever they would beam down to another planet. You ever notice that there would be the main characters like Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and then there would usually be another guy who you never saw before beam down with them. And when the hostile aliens down below fired on the group, it was always that nameless guy who got vaporized; Star Trek never killed off one of the main characters. And the guy who was killed, do you remember what color he always wore? Red. I’m told that there is a saying among trekkies who noticed this phenomenon, the saying being, “red means dead.”
As Christians, we often feel like there is a target on our backs. No, we probably aren’t going to get vaporized for our faith, but we are persecuted. When our faith and beliefs are made to be the butt of jokes. When acquaintances try to persuade us to join along with them in sinful behavior. When we are asked to look the other way in the name of tolerance, or risk being labeled as prejudiced. As you stand up for our beliefs, expect some abuse.
I’ve often wondered if I would have made it as an early Christian. Would I really stand up for my faith if my family and I could lose our lives if I were too bold? Jesus’ disciples wondered the same thing. They knew that the fate of Jesus could also be waiting for them. In Acts 5 they faced their first test. The 12 were ordered to shut up about Jesus, Peter basically said “no, we’re going to listen to God and not you,” then they were each whipped, and then that account ends, “The apostles left…rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. They never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”
It’s ok, whatever people do to you in this life because you’re a Christian. The world says, “stand up for yourself!” God says, “I’ll stand up with you so you’re never by yourself.” You tell me, which makes more sense?
Conclusion
If you count them up, there are 8 of these blessings. We’ve quickly skimmed over 4 of them: the first three and the last one. These aren’t describing 8 different types of Christians, for instance, there aren’t some meek Christians, there aren’t some merciful Christians, there aren’t some Christians who are peacemakers. Instead, these 8 blessings describe the ideal Christian. Of course, there was only one of those, Jesus, who was meek and merciful, pure, making peace but persecuted. This advice for living sounds foolish to the world, but for we, who have seen what Jesus has done for us, and have seen through our eyes of faith the benefits Christ won for us, it makes perfect sense that we would want to live like him. All our striving here on earth could only gain us a crumb. We trade that crumb for a crown. The crown of Christ’s righteousness which is ours by faith. Yes, Jesus had it right, and it makes perfect sense: “blessed are the poor in spirit…blessed are those who mourn…blessed are the meek…blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” We are blessed, and not merely in earthly ways. God has far deeper blessings for us, his dear children. Amen.
sdg
