Matthew 5:1-12
Toward the start of Fiddler on the Roof, there’s a scene
where the main character, Tevye the Milkman, is gathered around the table with
his wife and daughters as the Sabbath begins.
His wife lights the candles for the meal, signaling the Sabbath’s start,
and the first thing that Tevye does is pray for his children. The scene is a reflection of what goes on in
many Orthodox Jewish households on Friday evening, when fathers will
traditionally lay a hand on the head of each child, one by one, and along with
specific prayers for a son or daughter, will offer a blessing that is familiar
to us as well:
“The
Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make
his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift his countenance upon you and
give you peace.”
[Numbers 6:24-27]
Today is Fathers’ Day, and it’s also
the Sunday that I’m starting a sermon series on the Beatitudes: a collection of
Jesus’ sayings that appears at the start of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew
and again in a slightly different form in Luke.
We read them as our call to worship, and will do so all summer long as
we look at them one by one, taking them as if they were spoken by God the
Father to a whole line of children approaching him, as he looks at each and
sees both their need and the good in them and says,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit…
Blessed are those who mourn…
Blessed are the meek…
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness…
Blessed are the merciful…
Blessed are the pure in heart…
Blessed are the peacemakers…
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake…”
And
with each child, a special word of blessing that applies to each one is laid on
the child’s head. For today, though, let’s
just consider the first word that starts each saying: “Blessed”.
It’s a tricky word, “blessed”. There are a lot of good things in life which
are certainly blessings. Good health, a
decent job, friends, a loving family, to be alive in a time and place of peace
and freedom, a good education, even good weather – all of these can be
understood as blessings. And certainly
the letter of James reminds us,
“Every generous act of giving, with every
perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with
whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” [James 1:17]
The mistake is to think that having these things is the same as being
blessed, or to assume that if you don’t have them that you are not
blessed. That Joel Osteen lives in a house
worth $10.5 million does not necessarily mean that God had singled him out to
be unusually blessed. It might, in fact,
point out something he lacks – something other than cash.
When you’re a day late
and a dollar short, though, it might be hard to see things that way. Jesus’ announcement, “Blessed are those who…” is therefore all the more important to
hold onto. I’m sure you’ve seen that
bumper sticker that says, “Too Blessed to be Stressed” – but the Beatitudes
single out people who are stressed already.
Run through the list:
- the poor in spirit – How did they get that way? What have they been through or what are they going through that is robbing them of their confidence or their sense of worth?
- those who mourn – that’s pretty self-explanatory.
- the meek – What is it like to be at the end of the line all the time? What does it do to someone to be afraid to speak up for herself or himself?
- those who hunger and thirst for righteousness – How often have you seen the frustration that comes to someone who just wants the world to be a fair and decent place?
The passage continues on like that.
Jesus’ words are targeted, not for those who are too blessed to be
stressed, but for those who are too stressed to recognize the blessing.
The blessing may be in
the form of a promise. It might simply
be that there will be an end to the trouble.
(Those who mourn will be comforted.
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled.) It might be a promise that something
incredible will be done for them. (The
meek will inherit the earth. The pure in
heart will see God.) Those are wonderful
promises, and the source of great encouragement and hope.
Sometimes the blessing
involves an affirmation at the deepest level of who you are as a person. Peacemakers, you are children of God. You who are being persecuted for
righteousness’ sake, yours is the kingdom of heaven; not “will be”, but “is”. It’s already yours. Which again gets back to the notion of
blessing as something that we know here and now. Yes, we may be blessed later in some
particular way, but we are blessed right in this moment. “Blessed
are…” said Jesus.
Elizabeth Shively, who
teaches New Testament Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, describes
this aspect of the blessing that Jesus’ holds out this way:
“Jesus calls us to join a radical kingdom. He gives us a radical vision
to match, that the kingdom of heaven infiltrates our present. We can continue
fishing for people, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom at great cost to
ourselves, fighting oppressive powers in Jesus' name. We can suffer for the
sake of Jesus and the gospel, with the assurance that God has the last word.
When we see people receiving the word of God, and finding healing and freedom in
Jesus' name we can announce, ‘the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.’"[1]
The blessing is not earned somehow, but is
discovered in the course of faithful discipleship. It is revealed when, as God lays a fatherly
hand on his daughters and sons, the love comes through, with or without words,
and whether we are laughing or crying, being childlike or childish, that touch
itself conveys to us who and what we really are so that, as Paul says,
“When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with
our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be
glorified with him.” [Romans 8:15-17]
[1]
Elizabeth Shively, “Commentary on Matthew 5:1-12”, January 30, 2011. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=863
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