The following sermon was preached on January 29, 2023 at St George’s Transcona. You can learn more about St George’s and find links to their YouTube channel by clicking here
Photo credit: Randy Tarampi on Unsplash
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight O God, for you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
In today’s sermon I will be relying heavily on insights from Paul Fromberg, Herb Kopp, and Mark Scandrette.
The lectionary has us hanging out in the book of Matthew for the next little while. Matthew opens his gospel by carefully introducing us to Jesus – giving us Jesus’ genealogy and telling us the stories of Christ’s birth, baptism, temptation and early ministry.
Now, in chapter 5 he shifts from telling us stories about Jesus, to recording Jesus’ words, with very little commentary. In this section of the gospel, Jesus will lay out his message, his mission, and his call to all of us as his disciples.
What was the world like at this time? It was a world that was anchored in politics and people’s lives were controlled by a political reality over which they had little or no control.
It was a world where politics, economics, and religion were all intertwined into a single system. It was a world dominated by the Roman Empire, an empire that viewed human beings as commodities.
This was a time marked by bad news. Poverty was rampant and people were hungering for good news and starving for literal food.
It is in this context that Jesus boldly proclaims the gospel, the good news, that there is a kingdom that is more powerful than Caesar’s. And not only that, but that kingdom, God’s kingdom is already here.
In Jesus’ time, as in ours, there are stories that dominate the way we think. Jesus came to say that the way we have always looked at the world and the way we have always done things is not the only way. In fact, there is a much better way. Jesus challenges the dominant narratives both of his day and of ours.
So one of the reasons we need to keep telling, and re-telling these gospel stories, is because we need to be reminded that we are a people who are part of a better and more beautiful story than the one the world is telling.
We need to tell the sacred stories again and again because they reinforce this better story and inspire us to dream bigger dreams and to think creatively about our lives and our choices. These sacred stories help us to remember that we are not subjects in Caesar’s empire, we are members of God’s Kingdom, a kingdom that is based on love, justice, mercy, and grace.
I don’t know about you, but I get tripped up by the word kingdom – kingdoms seem like something out of a fairy story or an ancient patriarchal system of government. I heard Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I have a dream speech” multiple times recently and I have found some resonance this week in thinking of God’s Kingdom as God’s dream coming true.
Our hope is not found in the political structures and systems of this world, our hope is found in God’s dream. Jesus is here to proclaim the good news that God’s dream isn’t just something we hope for in the future, it has already come true.
It has already come true. It is here, and it also isn’t here. This is one of those paradoxes that we are called to believe in the Christian faith. This is a faith that asks us to embrace mystery and the unknown.
In order for us to fully live into God’s dream, we’re going to have to make some changes. We’re going to have to repent – which literally means to turn away from our old narratives, our old habits, and our old ways of doing things. We are going to have to turn from those old stories and old habits in order to embrace something new.
We are going to be hearing a lot of Matthew in the coming months and we should all pay careful attention because Mathew has a lot to teach us about God. The message of the gospel is as simple as it is complex: God is love. God is good. God brings life into darkness, God brings life to the dead, God fulfills God’s promises, God keeps God’s word, God is the source of love, healing, compassion, mercy and forgiveness.
And God loves each one of us.
God’s dream is rooted and grounded in love. And not love as some wishy washy or sentimental feeling either. God’s dream is rooted and grounded in a love that has the power to change the world.
God’s dream for our world looks very different than our earthly political systems. It looks different than our empires. The point is not to make our earthly political systems look more like God’s dream by declaring we live in a Christian nation or insisting that politicians say “Merry Christmas,” AND the point is not to simply withdraw from all of the systems of the world and live separately waiting for Jesus to come again, the point is to recognize the signs of God’s dream and to work to help them flourish whenever we do.
Sound good? Should I just lay out all the signs of God’s dream for you all and then we can roll up our sleeves and get to work?
Well, to do that is to miss an essential step.
Because before we can get to work we need to know who we are and why we are doing this work. We need to start by remembering that we are God’s beloved, we need to remember that we have worth, and value, and dignity not because we think we do, not because other people think we do, but because the God who created the universe and each one of us declares that we do.
Remember that you are beloved.
Remember that you are beloved.
Remember that you are beloved and then we can start looking for signs of God’s kingdom.
Remember that you are beloved and then we can begin to know what is means to be called “blessed.”
Our text today is part of a larger passage commonly referred to as “The Sermon on the Mount” because Matthew begins this section by telling us that Jesus went up onto the mountainside and ends it with Jesus coming back down off the mountain.
Today’s gospel reading is commonly referred to as the “Beatitudes” It is a collection of eight poetic statements following a set literary form. A beatitude begins with the declaration of blessing, followed by the naming of a virtue, followed by an appropriate reward.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Beatitudes are found throughout the Old and New Testament and in all types of Biblical writings. There are beatitudes in Deuteronomy, in Psalms, and in Revelation.
It is significant that the Sermon on the Mount opens with beatitudes. These blessings are grounded in God’s dream for the world which runs counter to the ways of this world. These blessings set the stage for Jesus’ message that he has come to bring about a new way of being in the world. One that is both here, and not yet here. Jesus, by speaking these words of blessing is setting the stage for a new way of seeing things, for a new way of being in the world.
The beatitudes name our aches and longings and let us know that God meets us in the struggles of our lives. Remember the original context in which Jesus was speaking – Israel was occupied by Rome and it was a very difficult time filled with political upheaval, with conflict, and with economic uncertainly. People were uncertain of how to respond to an occupying government that did not seem to have their best interests at heart, many of them were afraid, many of them were discouraged, and many of them were angry. Sound familiar?
And it is into that context that Jesus speaks these blessings. Jesus is saying – no one is left out of God’s blessing, no matter who you are or what you have done.
The beatitudes name the illusions and distortions that multiply pain in our lives – the broken systems and structures that are built on these deceptions. We do not live in a world that is characterized by peace and agape love, rather we live in a world that tends to be characterized by greed, selfishness, arrogance and individualism.
Or do we?
Jesus speaks into our reality saying “You think you live in a world of scarcity where you have to be greedy and miserly with your possessions but you don’t, you live in a world of abundance.
You think you live in a world where pain is too hard to face and so you have to run away from it and Jesus is saying no, I will meet you in the pain and if you sit with it you’ll find the care and comfort that you need.”
Jesus challenges the reigning assumptions most of us hold. Jesus is saying, there is a different way of seeing things, and if you learn to see the world the way I see it, you will learn to respond to those situations in a different way. You will learn to live into my dream for the world. A dream that has already and is continuing to come true each day.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Poverty means not having enough – not having the things you need to survive. Throughout scripture, we see that God has a soft spot for people who are materially poor, people who lack the basics things required for survival. In this verse, however, Jesus also tells us that, in addition to care for those who experience material poverty, God also cares for those who experience poverty of spirit.
Where in your life do you feel like you don’t have enough or you are not enough? Is it in your bank balance? Do you fear you don’t have enough money to both survive and share generously with others? Is it in your relationships? Do you fear that if people knew who you really are you’d face rejection? Is it in your sense of political advocacy? Are you feeling discouraged by current events while also feeling powerless to do anything about them?
When we don’t feel like we have enough, our tendency is to shut down and close ourselves off from other people. To hoard what we have. Our sense of not having enough can lead us to be fearful, greedy, and anxious.
But with this beatitude Jesus is asking us to embrace the truth that we are cared for by an abundant provider. To unclench our hands, to take the bars off our hearts, and to lean into a new way of thinking that says, “I am beloved. I have enough and I am enough.”
To believe this requires that we let go of control, it requires us to trust. It is not an easy thing to do. For most of us it’s not something we can do instantly either. Our old patterns and ways of seeing things are deeply entrenched. Many of us have good reasons to be fearful, to believe in scarcity, and to resist the idea of letting go of control in order to trust in God. And that’s OK, we need to be gentle with ourselves and with others and we need to be honest about our reasons and our fears because it we don’t, any change we make won’t be authentic.
You may not be ready to make a complete 180 degree turn right now, but perhaps you can lean slightly in this new direction.
Jesus declares, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Lord, help us lean into postures of trust and abundance.
The beatitudes are meant to challenge us and encourage us, to comfort us and convict us. They show us the paradox of living in two worlds at the same time and they show us that whenever we pray – as we do here each week in the Lord’s Prayer, “your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven,” just what that should look like.
The beatitudes encourage us to trust in God’s love and the future God has prepared for us but they also challenge us to be careful not to create that future in our own image. What we think is best, what we are most comfortable for us may not be what God has in mind. God’s plan will be a good and loving plan, but it may also cause us to have to let go of our own ideas, and to sit in the discomfort of uncertainty for a time.
Malcolm Guite describes the beatitudes as a lifting of the veil between this world and the world Christ came to bring. So let’s close by listening to the words of his poem Beatitudes:
We bless you, who have spelt your blessings out,
And set this lovely lantern on a hill
Lightening darkness and dispelling doubt
By lifting for a little while the veil.
For longing is the veil of satisfaction
And grief the veil of future happiness
We glimpse beneath the veil of persecution
The coming kingdom’s overflowing bliss
Oh make us pure of heart and help us see
Amongst the shadows and amidst the mourning
The promised Comforter, alive and free,
The kingdom coming and the Son returning,
That even in this pre-dawn dark we might
At once reveal and revel in your light.
Amen.