03/13/05

The Beatitudes You Never Knew

Micah 6:1-8
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Matthew 5:1-12

Over the centuries, Matthew’s has become the preferred version of the Beatitudes. You know, of course, that Luke has his version as well. But his are much more blunt than Matthew’s—spoken directly to those who had nothing, who were treated like dirt, and who were, quite literally, hungry and thirsty. Indeed, those were the people who flocked to Jesus and largely made up the believers of the early church—because God had a good word for them, and Jesus told them they were much closer to God’s heart than rich people. (Luke’s Beatitudes read, in part, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” and “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled,” and “Blessed are you who weep….” He also has Jesus say, “Woe to you who are rich…” (Luke 6:20, 21, 24).

Then we have Matthew’s Beatitudes that we read today. His approach seemed to be that church people were hungry and thirsty—but for “righteousness,” one of his favorite words. And they weren’t “poor,” but they were “poor in spirit.” It does seem to be true that as the church grew, it no longer consisted primarily of the literally poor, so Matthew’s “spiritualized” interpretation of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount made its blessings much more acceptable to more affluent Christians. It was—and is--way more comfortable to hear a blessing for you who have an undefiled heart than to hear that those living in cardboard boxes on the street are much dearer to God’s heart than you are.

We are so familiar with the phrases of Matthew’s Beatitudes and with hearing them as sweet and poetic, that they have become robbed of their true shock value, as a wake-up call in their own right to the followers of Jesus to whom he was speaking.

Now it is true that because Jesus Christ came as Good News to those who are poor, cast out, and untouchable, it has been Christians, like Mother Teresa, for instance, and her order of women religious who have been the ones who go into the streets to care for the lepers and beggars and other social rejects. But the majority of the rest of us find that we’d rather deal with spiritual poverty than the real thing.

And in Micah—Micah is sometimes called the “Hebrew Beatitudes”--in Micah 6 the Lord is reading the riot act to the chosen people for focusing on all kinds of other things than what God really wants. They are so consumed with offering the Lord a bunch of stuff--burnt meat, year-old calves, thousands of rams, vats of oil, even their first-born children--that they’ve forgotten what’s really important to the Lord: “…do justice,…love kindness,…walk humbly with your God.” God may love a cheerful giver, and God may bless people who are trying to be good and who don’t ruffle feathers, or who think only pure thoughts. But God is truly wild for church people who see God’s face in the poor, and who walk the talk, and who do…for “the least of these.”

Philip Yancy, in a book entitled The Jesus I Never Knew, tells the story of a friend who worked with the poorest of the poor in Chicago. The friend had had the following experience, and Yancy tells it in his friend’s words: “A wretched prostitute came to me—homeless, sick, couldn’t buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears she told me she had been renting out her daughter—two years old!—to men interested in…sex. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable—I’m required to report cases of child abuse. But I had no idea what to say to this woman. At last I asked her if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. ‘Church!’ she cried. ‘Why would I ever want to go there? I’m already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.’”

I guess we need to be reminded that in the Gospels, the prostitute fled to Jesus, not from him. It begs the question of whether the prostitute in Yancy’s story would have wanted to come to this church…. And also the question of how convicted we are of our faith: Are we spiritual lightweights who want our Beatitudes sugar-coated, or are we listening to God tell us to go out there and do justice, love unconditionally, and walk-it with Jesus, desiring God’s rule to be brought to bear with the passion of a beggar starving to death or a desert wanderer who’s run out of water? Are we ready to love those who violate our rights, who are against us, who are our mortal enemies? Or those who simply offend our sensibilities?

You know those WWJD bracelets that were so popular a while ago? WWJD stands for “What Would Jesus Do?” But when you think about it, what Jesus would do is hardly the issue. Better we should all wear WWJHMD bracelets: “What Would Jesus Have Me Do?” You may admire the music of a talented musician, but you’ll never play a note if you just listen to someone else. Only daily practice, exercises, and drills will make you a musician, too. And only showing, doing, and demonstrating will lift you out of the peanut gallery of nice, spiritual, Christian hearers of the Word to gutsy players who know how to plunk out the chords of peace-making, justice, kindness, and mercy—especially when it’s not popular to do so.

Luke bends down and lifts up the wretched of the earth in his beatitudes. Matthew, using the same sayings of Jesus, bends down and tells us we better not be satisfied with a wishy-washy spirituality that’s anything short of a life-or-death desire for right relationship with God and each other. He says we have to hunger and thirst for righteousness. By the way, the Hebrew word “righteousness” refers to a plumb line, a tool to make crooked walls straight. In other words, God’s rule is the standard to straighten out crooked lives. God’s rule demands right relations, both public and private. True righteousness--so often linked with justice in the Hebrew Bible--feeds the hungry, comforts the sorrowing, visits the prisoner, shelters the homeless, and provides healing for the sick. So, we must hear Jesus’ list of pronouncements in his Sermon on the Mount not as a throw-away list of bedtime benedictions, but as marching orders for the new world we crave.

In a part of the world where practicing Christianity is illegal, worship in an underground Christian house-church was interrupted one night by two soldiers with automatic weapons, who screamed, “Everyone up against the wall! If you are ready to renounce Jesus Christ you can go!” Several people slipped away. “This is your last chance!” the soldiers shouted. “Turn against your faith in Christ or suffer the consequences!” A few more snuck away into the night. No one else moved. Parents with small children trembling beside them looked down at them reassuringly. After a few minutes of silence, one of the soldiers closed the door looking over his shoulder at those who stood against the wall, and said, “Keep your hands up—and praise the Lord! We, too, are Christians. Several weeks ago we were sent to arrest a group of believers, but we were converted instead. We’ve learned, though, that unless you are willing to die for your faith, you can’t be fully trusted.”

Spiritual contentment can lead to deadening self-satisfaction. Dissatisfaction with the status quo opens the way to new life. Your deep desire to do things God’s way will change your life. It’s show, not tell. Demonstrate it. Practice it. A nice, mediocre spirituality does not save lives and is not blessed by Jesus. What would Jesus have us do?

You might want to come to lunch today and hear Peg Drisko from the Pine Street Inn tell us some things Jesus might have us do about the poor and the powerless—some things that a considerable group of gutsy Christians from this congregation have already heard as their marching orders. Blessed are they. Amen.

Rev. Beverly Latif Duncan
Pilgrim Church of Duxbury