February 3, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK
Zephania 2:3-12 + Psalm 146 + 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 + Matthew 5: 1-12
Most of us might easily point to these verses of Matthew’s Gospel as the most familiar part of his work. It is so familiar I suspect that with a little thought we could probably recite the whole list. We’re heard it and read that often! What Matthew unfolds here is list of the kind of people Jesus declares “happy”, and then he tells us what they can hope for. There is here a two-part message: qualifications for entering the Kingdom of heaven, and then what those who seek the kingdom might expect. Failure to keep the two parts together turns the first part into a set of rules: be poor, be merciful, be pure of heart, that sort of thing. If we do that, we miss the good part; the hopes that one might expect who is willing to be poor or merciful, or pure of heart.
This sermon is intended to stir up our hopes, give us something to look forward to, motivate us and urge on to practice the virtues it proposes.
Perhaps we would get the point and take the virtues more seriously if we thought more about them. The list we get here includes the kingdom of heaven, comfort and consolation, sharing in God’s reign, divine justice, divine mercy, seeing God, being children of God and perfect joy and happiness. Who wouldn’t want those things? What they all boil down to is simply the fullness of life in the presence of God. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our wildest dreams, our best hopes, our most fervent wishes are not only possible, but they are real.
The first part of each beatitude simply lists the character and the behavior of those who really do reach for fullness of life in the presence of God. These people are not economically deprived. They are poor meaning that stuff is not as important as God. They simply believe that if anything they have gets in the way of their relationship with God, it has to go. In short, they are compassionate, meek, merciful, sincere, honest, and people who make the world a better place. They are willing to be insulted and persecuted for their ideals and values.
But something whispers in the back of our minds that all this is mountain talk.
We all come down the mountain sooner or later; down to the flat land. We hit bottom again where poverty crushes all the way through, mourning has not comfort, persecution is victory for the persecutors, mercy is limited, peacemaking impossible, and meekness inherits nothing but it own refusal to fight back. For a moment there on the mountain, we had breath of mountain-fresh-air. Then we’re back to human pollution.