Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled“
This beautiful passage from the Gospel of Matthew that we call The Beatitudes is read at various occasions, even at weddings, so from a literary perspective it can stand alone. And yet it is actually the opening move of Jesus’ much longer “Sermon on the Mount.” It is beautiful and poetic and especially in these times it sounds good to me. In fact it sounds too good to be true that you get the Kingdom of Heaven if you’re poor in spirit, you inherit the earth if you are meek.
The people to whom Jesus is speaking aren’t the successful members of society, or even the religious elite. The crowds who follow Jesus are the downtrodden, poor and sick seeking healing or maybe some answers. To these losers Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” I’ve always said that Jesus would have undoubtedly flunked pastoral care in seminary. My pastoral care professor would say that Jesus should empathetically listen to these poor, sick people, and I think Jesus listens, but he doesn’t just listen. Jesus is there with a gospel that only the Son of God can offer. Jesus sees a world full of sickness and poverty and oppression, but he also sees forward to a new age called the Kingdom of God, where things are profoundly different. Jesus knows something that they don’t know. But I’m sure it sounds too good to be true. It would to me. I have a real mistrust for the approach to life where you live for the future alone. There’s lots of talk these days about the loss of the American Dream. I’ve never been a big believer in the American Dream. I remember years ago talking to a good friend who had struggled financially putting himself through college. He said “I remember when I finally got that college degree I thought, alright, now where’s my check for a million dollars?”
But it’s different when I hear Jesus’ words today, because they're not empty promises of
American dreams. It’s God incarnate in Jesus Christ. And the truth is I can’t trust this world
much because I don’t have much control over what happens, and terrible things do happen. But God doesn’t address these situations in our lives in a voice from heaven. God addresses them by coming into our world as a human in Jesus Christ and experiencing that same hunger, grief, and depression. God addresses them by walking toward a crucifixion, but God sees beyond the mere physical to the other side of the cross. God is so certain of it that amidst our crucifixions in life, our grief and sorrow, our depression, our money problems, our family problems, our anxiety about the country and the world, even to the point of our deaths, God sees so clearly that amidst all that, God says we are blessed. And what God sees is resurrection. And not just resurrection as an event that did or might happen in the past or the future, but resurrection as the power of God
to create life out of death and tragedy, here and now, today and tomorrow.
When we live into the promise of resurrection, we experience new life now as well as in the
future. I’m not saying to pretend we’re not suffering, but as we experience the suffering and anxiety of those crosses in our lives, if we can look beyond that cross to resurrection, then I believe God will empower us to move forward. That sounds like living with one foot in this world and one foot in the next. And in fact, that’s exactly what it is. A better image might be that we live fully with our hearts and minds in this world; not hiding our head in the sand but seeing tragedy, feeling it in our hearts. But then taking those hearts and minds and offering them up to God.
We’ve all looked back at experiences that at the time seem catastrophic. And later, we think “If only I had known it was all going to turn out alright, I wouldn’t have worried so much, and it wouldn’t have been such an anxious struggle. That’s the dynamic created when Jesus says Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. “
No, it wasn’t a weak pastoral response, It was the prophetic voice of God. And it’s the invitation that Jesus extends to the people in today’s Gospel, and it’s the invitation he extends to each person when we celebrate this Great Thanking meal. May God grant us the endurance to survive the trials of this life and the Grace to look beyond and celebrate Christ’s resurrection in our lives. AMEN.
The Rev. Dennis Campbell
