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Epiphany 4, 01/29/2017
True Wealth
Sermon on Matthew 5:1-12, by Kevin Martin
Wealth inequality is a big deal these days. It dominated the recent presidential election cycle in the United States and leaves us with the irony of a multi-billionaire tycoon who promised in his inaugural address to return “power to the people”, suggesting that he alone can redress the very inequalities which have favored him his entire life. It is natural, I suppose, given this irony, to be cynical about the inequalities of modern Western Society ever being redressed (well, at least until Jesus Returns). And it is tempting to let lose an Old Testament style Jeremiad on the situation, deploring hedge fund managers and the plutocrats of Wall Street and Silicon Valley (I have a pastor “friend” who is known to say “hedge fund manager” whenever “tax collector” comes up in the text, or “Silicon Valley Moguls” when “sinners” or “prostitutes” appear in the Story, enough so that his college age kids have imposed a moratorium on his use of the phrase “hedge fund manager” in sermons).
But going over the Beatitudes, I realized that such rantings are missing the point almost entirely; indeed, perhaps falling into the very kind of thinking and acting that we’re deploring here. Perhaps, when we rip on hedge fund managers, our own slip, our own greed and materialism is showing more than we’d like to admit? Jesus’ attitude toward the super-rich of His day seemed to be one of pity and love rather than hatred, jealousy, or rage. He loved the rich young ruler who couldn’t divest of his vast holdings and follow Jesus on the Messiah Road. He sighed that it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. And He says this wistfully (to my ear, at least); says it as One Who’s been known to squeeze out of some impossibly tight spots, Himself (like a stone-cold, sealed tomb!) and Who seems eager to try this very impossible thing on others as one of His signature moves…
The Beatitudes are so familiar, and they come up so much in the modern lectionary that it can be extraordinarily difficult to hear them fresh, to hear them as Jesus’ first hearers would have heard. But sometimes the cacophony of modern life conspires to get us to hear the old, familiar, in strange, unsettling ways. I confess that I groaned inwardly when I looked and saw the Beatitudes up again for this Sunday. (I preached three sermons on them in 2016 alone! I’m about out of things to say on them!). But listening to a replay of President Trump’s inaugural address and hearing the commentators gas on about the irony of a rich, loud, plutocrat claiming to be a champion of the downtrodden, and having just glanced at the Beatitudes again and wondering what to say about it, it hit me—that proverbial bolt-from-the-blue—that Jesus is doing nothing more and nothing less in these famous, familiar words than radically re-defining what it is to be rich.
Jesus says “blessed” or “happy” depending on your translation and we get the word “saintly” from the Greek μακαριος as well. But as modern Americans, “rich” and “happy” or “blessed” have all become synonymous for us, have they not? And we have all of us, (have we not?) to some extent, (I especially include myself here) come to think that if only we had more material wealth, we’d be happier and healthier people…
And this is the trap Jesus would free us from right now by His Beatitudes. Jesus has good news, tremendous news for you and for me: in every way that really matters we are already rich, and He will make us vastly and eternally more so by His Word and Sacraments. The bad news (well to my ear it sounds bad at first) is that this wealth Jesus bestows freely by grace through faith in Him alone comes only through poverty of spirit (and maybe just plain old material poverty as well?), comes only through being rich in sadness, rich in struggle, rich in persecutions and suffering (because we’ve become so meek we’ve divested of all weapons), hungry for righteousness and sad that it is so little found in our world, desperate to see God, forgiving of all enemies, pure in heart to the extent we “will just one thing—to see God face to face” and reviled and hated and hounded precisely for these outlandish dispositions!
I wondered last week, marveled at how/why Peter, Andrew, James, and John just dropped everything, their nets, abandoned ship, and followed Jesus into a completely new life and an unknown destination(!?). Why would they do that? Jesus promises them nothing but trouble, as we see today in the Beatitudes! Why would you want that?
But look ahead in the story. For three years they follow Him, and they have nothing, not even a backpack or an extra pair of sandals. They don’t have houses in which to sleep at night. They are cash poor and persecution rich. 12/13 of them die horribly, for Christ’s sake! And yet, and yet… have you ever seen anyone who seems happier than these 12 goofballs shambling down the Road after Jesus, often uncomprehending, spectacularly clueless most of the time, but happier than they ever imagined possible as long as they’re with Him?! The only thing that dents their joy is His ominous warning He’ll be leaving them for a while…
They look like hobos, or Beatniks shambling down the Road after Jesus, these 12. And they look like the happiest guys in the world. Nothing to do. Nowhere to be. A special little kind of free. One of my favorite films is “Gregory’s Girl” a slow-paced 80’s thing about an awkward, geeky Scottish kid who falls for the prettiest girl in school. As he’s professing devotion to her, she goes “Oh, Gregory. I don’t think going out with me would make you happy.” And he shoots back “Oh, I don’t want to be happy—I want to be with you!” So with the disciples and Jesus…
And so Jesus redefines wealth, health, happiness, blessedness, holiness all in 12 terse verses: if you’re poor in spirit, if you have no spiritual wealth of your own, you’ve found the Kingdom of Heaven because it comes only to beggars who rely on Jesus entirely. If you are mourning over your sins (and the world’s) you will be comforted because Jesus has shed those tears already for us all. If you are hungry and thirsty for real righteousness you can sink your teeth into, then you will be satisfied with the Holy Supper of the Lamb’s body and blood that alone delivers it. Since you are a charity case yourself, filled by Christ’s mercy, it can’t help but spill out of your life into others…
If you don’t want to be happy, but want only to be with Jesus, your heart is pure and you will see God. And seeing Him, you’ll be like Him and His peace will make peace all around you in the midst of strife. And when you are persecuted for being like this, reviled, hated, and nailed up on it yourself, rejoice and be glad—for so they treated Him(!) and so you and He have become indistinguishably one…
To have nothing but Jesus—this is what it is to be rich. To have lost all for Christ’s sake is to have found the secret—to be blessed. To be reviled as He was reviled for being a dreamer and a stranger on earth—well, as someone once said: “a good death is a treasure no one is too poor to buy”. And by the Cross of Jesus, a good death comes to you free; and with it, an endlessly joyful and eternal… Life.
It comes to you now by holy words, water, bread, wine. Blessed are you when nothing but this is your Peace, surpassing understanding, guarding heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.