Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
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Pretty well anyone who has ever gone to a service of worship at some time has heard the Beatitudes, taken from the Sermon on the Mount, in the Gospel of Matthew. It is a familiar, beautiful, and powerful text. But unfortunately, in our familiarity with Matthew’s Gospel, we have lost something of our ability to really listen to what it really says. Oh your heads will nod up and down, but will you really be thinking about what it says.
The actual Sermon on the Mount is a long passage, including sayings and parables. If you read the whole sermon, Jesus must have been on a real roll, and the disciples were propping their eyes up with whatever they could find. The Beatitudes is only one tiny excerpt from the whole thing. The entire Sermon on the Mount is parts of Chapters 5, 6 and 7 of Matthew. Only Matthew and Luke address parts of this sermon at all. Mark and John don’t.
Today, the lectionary text is the Matthew version of the Beatitudes - but I decided to go off lectionary, and use Luke. In the Hebrew prophetic tradition, which we can see in the book of Deuteronomy, blessings and curses, or blessings and woes were given together - and in Luke’s text, Jesus preaches in the very best of the Hebrew prophetic tradition. But we have to be careful that we don’t interpret the words “woes” or “curses” the way we might understand them today. I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. So let’s look at what Luke calls the “Sermon on the Plain”.
“Blessed are the poor, because God’s realm is yours. Blessed are those who are hungry now; because you will be filled. Blessed are those who are crying now, because you will laugh. Blessed are you when others hate you, exclude you, insult you and throw out your name as something evil because of the son of man. Rejoice in that day. Jump for joy! Because, listen - your reward in heaven will be greater; their ancestors did the same sorts of things to the prophets.
On the other hand, woe to you who are rich, because you have received every bit of your comfort. You are full now, but you will know hunger; you laugh now, but you will know mourning and sadness. When everyone says good things about you, talks well about you, you are in fact cursed; because that’s how their ancestors treated the false prophets."
Jesus paints two pictures. One is of a group of people who are poor, outcast, hungry, shunted aside, saddened. They are outsiders; everyone talks and thinks badly of them, if they think about them at all. Jesus looks at that group and says - you are blessed!
Then there are the other ones. They are rich, have full stomachs, happy and laughing, and everybody likes them because they’re easy to get along with. Jesus looks at them and says, “Wow. Gotta feel sorry for you guys.”
In fact, Jesus really does take everything we believe about the world and turns it completely upside down. And if we’re really reading it, it’s downright upsetting. It’s completely physical; no spiritualising of this one, no “poor in spirit” here. Not hungering for righteousness, only the physical hunger when you don’t have enough to eat. Then he says “Too bad for those of you who have enough. You missed the boat.”
Well, it’s harsh, no question. It’s Jesus doing what he always does in his parables and sermons and stories. He keeps hammering home that the last shall be first in God’s realm.
I think there’s yet another piece behind some of this. We know that Mark was the first Gospel written, quite some time after the death of Jesus; we know that Matthew and Luke used Mark as their basis; and we are pretty sure that some of the sayings attributed to Jesus came from a primitive body of literature, called the Q source, a “Sayings Gospel”. So are we to say that Matthew's "poor in spirit" is secondary to Luke's "poor". We *could* argue that, because Matthew tends to spiritualise, moralise and generalise. However, the expression "poor in spirit" is found in several places in the texts from Qumran and may have been the issue of the day.
There is no question that the Gospel authors were creative in their presentation of Jesus. But what is more helpful? An isolated saying of Jesus, completely historical, but completely out of context; or a creative "saying" of Jesus manufactured by the earliest Christian communities, developed through their knowledge of many sayings of Jesus and the interaction of his disciples with him over these sayings, transformed into a message for the needs of the church which grew out of the movement?
Here’s what I think is really important about this text, and the Matthew. They really highlight how absolutely revolutionary Jesus was and how revolutionary he calls us to be. They highlight Jesus as a man who sees things differently from the way the world sees them. These are not happy little platitudes that are designed to make us feel good. They are revolutionary statements that describe a people with values that are very different from those of the world around us and of which we are a part. They describe the people who live under God’s authority now and who will live in God’s realm. They are Jesus' affirmation of those who, perhaps not knowing it, already are part of the realm of God which he works for, and for which we are to be working.
Seems to me these sayings refer to these people:
- the poor, both in life and in spirit – those who wish to be close to God but somehow can’t; those who know there is something important missing from their lives.
- those who mourn, not only for loved ones who have died, but also those who feel deep sadness about the violence and injustice in our world and who want to do something about it. Those who mourn a life they cannot somehow grasp.
- the meek. We tend to misrepresent meekness as wishy-washy, meek people as useless and helpless. But that isn’t right. The word ‘meek’ is meant to indicate quiet strength of character. The meek do not show of themselves off, but are strong and firm in their values and their lives.
There are people who live God’s way rather than the way of self-centredness. They live for others: the compassionate, the pure in heart, those who work for peace.
And these people are then those who are persecuted, ridiculed and lied about if they live with commitment and integrity. Jesus’ implies that his disciples must expect to be persecuted: not for who they are or what they have or don’t have, but because of our commitment to a way of life that Jesus taught about. Really revolutionary Christians have always been ridiculed, pushed aside, ignored and opposed, just like the person we follow.
The world says, ‘Follow me and I will give you wealth, power and security.’ Jesus says, “Don’t follow the world. You may have lots to eat on the table, but in your life you will know real hunger. You may laugh now, but in your life you will know real and lasting grief.
So I don’t see Jesus as offering blessings to one group of people, and cursing another. I don’t see him drawing a line. I see him talking about attitudes to others, attitudes to life, attitudes to our circumstances.
St. Augustine said “Our whole business in life is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen.” I think maybe that’s what Jesus was talking about in the second part of this text - those whose hearts are so clouded they cannot see God clearly, if at all; those whose lives are, in fact, empty - despite what they have.
In the book “Eat, Pray, Love”, author Elizabeth Gilbert talks about the meaning of the word ‘guru’. She says “The word Guru is composed of two Sanskrit syllables. The first means ‘darkness’, the other means ‘light’. Out of the darkness and into the light.”
In this lesson today, Jesus’ function was that of a Guru - someone who helped those he was teaching to step out of the darkness and into the light. The second group - those who will know the woes - they haven’t yet seen the way. They are preoccupied with the things of this world - wealth, power and security. Jesus turns it all upside down.
A colleague of mine, in the Presbyterian Church USA, Rev. Thom Shuman - wrote this version of the Beatitudes for 2011. Thom is a man who has struggled all his life with what it means to find blessings where others would see nothing but heartache.
Blessed are the dog-walkers, for they will discover the streets of the kingdom.
Blessed are the asylum seekers, for they will be welcomed with open arms.
Blessed are those who read to children, for they will plant seeds that bear fruit.
Blessed are those who weep for the homeless, for they will be shawled in God's grace.
Blessed are those who stock food pantries, for they will taste God's hope.
Blessed are those who bring in the marginalized, for they shall be called bridge-builders.
Blessed are the faith-full foolish, for they shall be called the clowns of God.
May it be so.
Sources:
1. “The Other Beatitudes”—A Sermon from Luke 6:20-26 August 18, 2010 by Rev. Stephen Hovater, Pleasant Valley Church of Christ.
2. “An Upside-Down Man”, by Rev. Marion Latham Bellarine Linked Congregations, Uniting Church in Australia.
3. Midrash comments from Rev. Greg Chapman.
4. Beatitudes for 2011, by Rev. Thom Shuman, Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Cincinnatti, Ohio
5. Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth Gilbert. New York, NY. Penguin Books, 2006; p. 123.
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