January 31, 2010 Sermon

Upside-down Blessings
Matthew 5:1-12

Detroit fans pour into the streets to celebrate the Lions winning the Super Bowl. Soldiers thank their enemies for wounding them severely and throwing them into prisoner of war camps. Pat Robertson says Haitians ought to thank God for sending them an earthquake, obviously (to Robertson) a sign of God's approval of their practice of voodoo. Three impossible scenarios (well, okay, only the Lions winning the Super Bowl is truly impossible), these imaginary headlines illustrate the topsy-turvy nature of Jesus' preaching in the Beatitudes. Again and again, he congratulates those whom we might least likely see as “blessed”. What could he mean? 

We start with definitions. “Beatitude” is Latin for a state of total bliss. The old Latin translations of Matthew 5 start verses three through eleven with the word “beati”. Jesus calls various groups of people we would label as afflicted “beati”, totally blissful. The word Jesus spoke in his native Aramaic, “makarioi”, means exactly the same thing. We see a contradiction between the label (totally blissful) and the realities Jesus describes (poverty, grief, the persecuted, etc.). Learning the deeper meaning of word used in the Bible does not resolve the contradiction. It only deepens it. Jesus did in fact label afflicted people as incredibly happy, blissful. And he did so at the very start of his ministry. The Beatitudes kick off his Sermon on the Mount, which in turn kicks off Jesus' entire public ministry. Why did he do this?

A church called me out of seminary to become its first-ever youth pastor. The senior pastor of that church had started his service there about a year earlier. The congregation had over 2,000 members, making it the largest Presbyterian Church in the state. The pressure was on, but both he and I knew we could do the job. At my ordination service he preached from the Beatitudes. He correctly defined the state of bliss that Jesus described for the afflicted. And during that sermon he publicly told me to shake things up as Jesus did. Privately, he told me the advice older, wiser heads had given him: start his ministry in that church slowly. Do lots of listening. Learn the lay of the land. Don't change too much too soon. But, he said, he had decided to do precisely the opposite. His reading and certain preachers at other big churches had informed him the change was never easier than at the start. He had already introduced profound changes. And he gave me a list of additional changes he expected me to implement in the youth ministry. He told me to get going. Don't worry about opposition, he said, he would stand with me.

It did not turn out as peacefully as he predicted. Yes, we broke open a tight-knit but tiny group. We went from a confirmation class of 11 the year I arrived to an average of 45 for the next five years. We traveled for mission and fun. We involved men as mentors. We started a Friday night lock-down event for middle-schoolers that attracted hundreds every week with loud dance music, heavy chaperoning and testimonies from professional athletes and television personalities. Yet not all was bliss. That original, tight group faded away. Our focus on youth group hurt the Sunday school program. And the drive-drive-drive! personalities of the senior and youth pastors ran roughshod over youth and their parents. The members of that church were successful in their careers and accustomed to getting what they wanted. Some of them fought us tooth and nail.

On the surface we did ministry effectively with a lot of youth and families. We hurt a lot of others. If only I had truly understood what Jesus had to say in the Beatitudes I might have done better. We might have created a go-getting program that at the same time brought the power of Christ's healing Spirit to bear on kids and their parents who did not feel included, happy, blessed.

Jesus preached the Beatitudes at the start of his ministry because they form a theme statement of his purpose. He became one of us specifically in order to bring the blessings of God to bear on broken, hurting humanity.   He came to bless us though we are often unhappy, angry, frustrated, and fearful. He came to show us that His Spirit can bring us hope even when we mourn, when the credit card bill brings us to tears each month, when we feel like the world runs over us. He preached the Beatitudes to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near but has not yet fully entered into this world. We can find blessedness in the midst of the sorrow. We can find happiness in the middle of the fear. We can find Jesus in this fallen world. Find your blessedness in Jesus.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus preached. But would the “poor in spirit” not lack the spiritual maturity to have a saving relationship with Christ?  How can Jesus say this?  He can say it for at least two reasons. First, true spiritual maturity requires modesty. People who consider themselves poor in spirit have taken the necessary first step toward Jesus: they have realized they cannot reach him on their own strength but must rely on his. Second, Jesus’ entire purpose was and is to bring us not only to himself, but to the kingdom of heaven. He opens his opening sermon with an emphasis on the kingdom.

When we confess our spiritual poverty to God, at the same time we automatically ask God to strengthen our spirits. Think about it. When we confess our spiritual poverty we ask for help. Later in this Sermon on the Mount Jesus will ask, “Which one of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?”  He will conclude that if we sinners care for our children as we do, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”  Ask God. Pray. Pray something along the lines of, “Father, I know I have a poor spiritual life. Please, strengthen me spiritually.”  God will reward that prayer every time. Blessed, truly, are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven comes to them.

“Blessed are the meek,” Jesus preached, “for they shall inherit the earth.”  How can Jesus say this?  The meek inherit precious little in this world. Some years ago I watched an audition at the Old Town Playhouse for a children’s theater production. Perhaps fifty or sixty children were there, talking and moving around while the director patiently put them through a song and a few dance steps. One mom caught my attention. While the rest of us parents sat scattered around the darkened auditorium, she stood in front of the first row and kept up a steady stream of hissed instructions to her daughter. I do not remember her precise words, but they went along the lines of, “Stand straight!  Smile!  Sing out!”  But the mom’s number one command, which she gave repeatedly, was something like, “Don’t let anybody get in front of you!” 

From birth we get taught not to let anybody get in front of us. I have seen fathers (including the one doing all the talking just now) and mothers, teachers and coaches, and yes even preachers advocate not letting anybody get in front of us. But Jesus blessed the meek. Jesus told the meek they would become incredibly happy. This raises a second important theme of his ministry: the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. When the kingdom of heaven arrives those who lord it over others now will find themselves at a decided disadvantage. Meanwhile, those who stand in back will move to the front of the line. This is not revenge.  This is not spite. This is God telling us to hang on, to trust, to hope against hope that if we behave lovingly we will enter into His loving presence. Stay meek. Turn the other cheek. We do not have to permit the world to run us over, yet neither do we have to fight for the limelight. If we stay humbly by Christ’s side we will know Him: now and forever.

“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account,” Jesus preached. This time he really went overboard. We all know that the playground saying, if it were true to life, would actually go, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names cut me down to the bone.”  What can Jesus mean with this beatitude?  Again, we put this in kingdom perspective. Jesus does not mean that spiritual poverty, meekness and persecution are blessings in and of themselves. He means, instead, that these things show us we have drawn closer to the kingdom. Note that he said the blessing comes when we become targets “on my account”. When we stick with Jesus the world does not always respond terribly well. But in the end this shows that we’re sticking with Jesus.

The values and the purposes of God differ from those of this world. This world chases wealth. God wants us to pursue spiritual wealth. This world chases power. God wants us to pursue humility. This world chases celebrity. God wants us to pursue purity. When we seek the kingdom we begin to experience blessedness. It comes to us in the midst of the afflictions of this world, but it comes to us. That first summer I worked as a youth pastor we had an intern on staff. He was the heir to the Weyerhauser paper fortune. He drove an amazing sports car with a stereo system that would make even Matt Rosenberg jealous. He was an accomplished magician. He had a wide circle of friends. And, he told our youth repeatedly, he was miserable until he put himself at Jesus’ feet. If this sounds like a typical canned testimony I can only say that the better I came to know him, the more I believed him. He had something, something deep, something spiritual going for him. It dripped off of him. It was bliss. It was contentment. It was peace. It was Jesus.

Turn to Jesus in prayer, and in your participation in his body, the church. Stay meek. Endure the insults of the world without responding in kind. Find your blessedness in Jesus. It will change your experience of this life, with all its sorrows. It will give you a taste of bliss.