Matthew 5.1-12

Epiphany 4 | 01/29/23 | Mt 5.1-12 | Pr. Richard O. Johnson |

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons^[a] of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness‘ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5.1-12 ESV)

When Lord Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington at Yorktown in 1781, it was a very formal occasion. On hand was the British army band, bedecked in their red coats. The tune they played had an ironic twist: it was a popular English song called “The World Turned Upside Down.” And indeed, it must have seemed that way to the British troops. His Majesty’s army, the greatest military force in the world, had been routed and was now surrendering to this ragamuffin band of continental soldiers.

“The World Turned Upside Down.” That could be the theme song for the Sermon on the Mount, and especially for this opening part we call the Beatitudes. It surely was a great reversal of the values and standards held by ordinary people in Jesus’ day; and, truth be told, after 2,000 years of Christianity, these Beatitudes still seem to turn everything on its head.

The miserable, gathered together

The context of this passage is a little unclear to us; in Matthew, it almost sounds as if Jesus is speaking only to the disciples. Luke, however, makes it clear that this message was delivered in the presence of a great crowd, and I think that is the way we usually envision it. Furthermore, the gospels tell us that when crowds gathered around Jesus, they usually weren’t looking to hear a sermon. Rather they wanted, many of them, for Jesus to help them. They wanted their sickness healed, or their sight restored, or their dead raised. As much as we sometimes like to think that those who sought Jesus were earnest people seeking wisdom from the great rabbi, the truth seems to be that he was continually being mobbed by needy people, troubled people, desperate people.

If we put these Beatitudes in that context, perhaps we see something rather different than we expect. Picture Jesus, looking out at those faces. What did he see?  Suffering, sorrow, anxiety, perhaps fear, pain, trouble. He saw people whose lives were a burden. He saw them in a way that we usually don’t. Helmut Thielicke has said that “normally, we never see the miserable gathered together in this way. Suffering and sorrow usually creep away and hide themselves. … [But] in some mysterious way, Jesus attracts the miserable. He draws the sinners and sufferers from their hiding places like a magnet.” [Life Can Begin Again, pp. 2-3]

These people blessed?

When we envision that crowd, that miserable crowd, that needy crowd, then Jesus’ words take on a startling meaning: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who mourn; blessed are the meek, and those who hunger for justice, and blessed are the persecuted. …” You see, he is not offering these statements as general prescriptions for wise living; he’s speaking to the meek, the sorrowful, the persecuted, and he’s telling them—telling these miserable, needy people—that they are blessed! “The world turned upside down!”

These people blessed? That’s not what was usually thought in Jesus’ day. Back then, the general idea was that the person who is blessed is the one who is successful, prosperous, healthy, and respected. Perhaps things haven’t changed much. When we say, today, “I’ve been richly blessed,” we generally mean that our lives are pretty full. We are loved, we are healthy, we have peaceful and quiet lives. But here, with Jesus, it’s the “world turned upside down.” The blessed are the persecuted, the sorrowful, the meek.

And you know, it doesn’t change much throughout the New Testament. Look at St. Paul—he comes right out and says it to the Corinthian church: “Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many powerful, not many were of noble birth. … [But] God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not,” the foolish and the weak. The same kind of people that gathered around Jesus and heard him saying, “You are blessed.”

He knows your need

Well, then, what did he mean? Two things, I think. He meant, first of all, that they were blessed precisely because they were gathered around him. He was there, with them.  That’s what scandalized the religious authorities so completely about Jesus. He spent his time with people that were off limits, people that no one else wanted to bother with. Who had the time or the stomach to deal with all those sick and needy and demon-possessed people? And who had the nerve to eat with sinners and tax collectors? But Jesus did. He ate with them, and touched them, and loved them. They were blessed because it was to them that he came, not to Caiaphas the high priest or Herod the King, and not to the wise and wealthy and powerful. He came to the needy, the little ones of the world, those of no account.

And he still does. We who gather to worship this morning are, for the most part, comfortable and respectable people. We are not exactly in the same boat as those who gathered around Jesus.  Yet in a very deep sense, we too are needy. Behind our security and our front of respectability, we are needy. You know your need this morning: You know the disease with which you struggle, or the sorrow, or the sin, or the failure, even if no one else does. You know your need. And this Jesus knows it as well. What is it like to hear Jesus say to you, in your struggling with your own troubles, “Blessed are you … ”?  “Blessed, indeed,” he says, “because I am with you.” That’s what he says us! Jesus draws us needy and suffering people to him because he himself has suffered. And when we come to him, when he gathers us to himself, then we are indeed blessed.

Rejoice and be glad!

But there is another reason for blessedness. He is present with us, to be sure, and that makes us blessed, but there is more. When he is with us, we are changed. We become something new. With all our neediness, all our sorrow, something happens to us.

It is that by his presence, we have been told that the kingdom of God is open to us. “Rejoice and be glad,” he says, “Yours is the kingdom of heaven.” The door is open, and we who sometimes wonder, in all our struggling with pain and sorrow and sin, whether there is a loving God, or if there is, whether he is for us—we who sometimes wonder that now have the answer. Yes, he is there. Yes, he is for us, because he is with us. Even if every door around us seems tightly closed, even if the circumstances of our lives seem to be a constant dead end, even if we seem to be getting nowhere fast, there is this promise: That Jesus has lived and died and been raised again “so that I may be his own, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness. …” You see, I am blessed. No one could ever hope for more.

And this means, too, that Jesus himself can take my sorrows, my troubles, my pains, and he can use them in a way that is truly wonderful.

Brokenness made beautiful

On Shelter Island, at the very tip of Long Island in New York, there is a little church with a fascinating stained-glass window. When you walk into the church, you are struck by its beauty. I don’t recall exactly what the scene depicted is—Jesus, the Good Shepherd, perhaps, or it may be a nautical theme like the stilling of the storm. But it is clearly the central feature in this church.

It is only when you look at it closely, and perhaps read the plaque below it, that you learn the truth. This stained-glass window is very special. It was made, not out of the glass from an artist’s studio, but out of garbage and other materials picked up on the beach. Look closely and you can see it—broken beer bottles, broken shells, pieces of driftwood—what St. Paul might have called “things that are not”—discarded things, useless things, broken things. But in the hands of the craftsman, these broken, useless things have become a splendid thing of beauty.

That’s what these beatitudes are about, you see—that when we are in the hands of Christ (and we are!), the brokenness, the sorrow, the poverty, the troubles of our lives can be taken and reworked and redeemed and made beautiful. And so those things which often seem so burdensome to us, those sorrows we’d like to have just taken away—Jesus looks at them, and he smiles: “Blessed are you,” he says. “Those very things, I can use them! Those very burdens, they can have a value! In my hands they can change, they can become beautiful! Blessed are you! And—by the way—you can rejoice and be glad! The kingdom of heaven is yours!

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Pr. Richard O. Johnson

Webster, NY

roj@nccn.net