January 30, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13 + 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 + Matthew 5:1-12
For people familiar with Bible images and language,
this scene has layers of nuance and familiarity.
To a mountain Matthew takes us,
and our first thoughts should be of Moses ascending Sinai.
There covenant tradition was established
for a people who have been seeking, longing, and hoping
for freedom for unity, and for a future with God.
Their past is marked by a long search
that led them to many other and lesser gods.
Their life style has been marked
by infidelity, violence, stealing and murder.
On that mountain with Moses as guide,
they are called away from all of that and offered a covenant
with the God of Abraham who asks of them a great deal,
but offers them even more.
What happens in Mathew’s Gospel is a shadow of all
that happened before. Israel did not get it right.
The old covenant brought them far, but not far enough.
It brought them power, but they abused it.
It brought them prosperity, but they abused that as well.
It brought them identity, but they would trade that
for less than God had promised.
But it also brought them Jesus.
Like another Moses, up the mountain he goes.
There he unfolds the conditions of the new covenant,
one that will be sealed in his blood.
Like the commandments which expressed the old covenant,
the Word Jesus speaks unfolds the conditions and promises
of the new covenant, and that is where we go today.
These Beatitudes are not pious hopes of what shall be.
They are not glowing prophecies of some future bliss.
They are exclamations of what is.
And it is not for some future world postponed, either.
It is a state into which the Christian should already have entered. The Beatitudes are a proclamation of what it means to know Jesus. They speak of joy that comes from walking in the presence of Jesus; a joy that nothing in this world can take away. They proclaim the conditions in which people of the Covenant live. So let us review them.
POVERTY does not mean that being poor is a good thing.
It does mean that helplessness is at least for those who put their trust in God. These are people who know that things mean nothing and God means everything.
MOURNING goes with poverty suggesting that while it is right to be detached from things, it is not right to be detached from people. When things go well, it is possible to live on the surface of things and never go deep—shallow lives.
Suffering drives us to the deep things in life, and when accepted rightly, a new strength begins. Nothing bonds people together like the sharing of suffering and pain.
GENTLE The gentle bless our lives with kindness, compassion, and patience. It simply means they are filled with respect: for themselves and for others.
RIGHTEOUSNESS Goodness is the issue here, complete goodness not partial goodness, not self-justifying judgments about others, but a kind of balance and wholeness that brings one close to God.
MERCIFUL Get into the skin of another – inside their lives, that’s what makes mercy. This is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. From that moment on, God knew what it was like to be human. Mercy springs from understanding what another experiences.
CLEAN OF HEART is the quality of simplicity – what you see is what you get, no agenda, no hidden motives, say what you mean, and mean what you say.
PEACE MAKERS are people who make this world a better place. They are not trouble makers, but rather, they are people in whose presence bitterness cannot live. They bridge the gulfs, heal the breaches and sweeten the bitterness. It is the work of God. To bring peace.
These are the conditions of the new covenant
expressed in Christian tradition.
Moses gave commandments. Jesus gave beatitudes.
While some fight and argue over displays of the commandments in public, the beatitudes go begging for attention.
The path Jesus provides for those who would follow him leads to the New Covenant and the conditions in which we shall live it:
Dependent upon God and nothing else,
Dependant upon people and not stuff
Gentle, Good, Merciful, Simple, and Peaceful.
This is the only way to live in covenant,
and the only way to follow Jesus