Baptist Bookworm: Beatitudes not Platitudes

A Sermon for

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
22 January 2023, 11.00am

Mount of the Beatitudes, Galilee, 2022.

Micah 6.8

Matthew 5.1-12

In Monty Python's memorable take on the sermon on the mount,

in the film 'The Life of Brian',

we get to see the response to Jesus' preaching

by those stood at the back of the crowd,

barely able to hear the preacher on the hilltop in the distance,

and misunderstanding his words to great comic effect.

If you haven't seen it for a while,

your homework this week is to watch it with my blessing.

The exchange includes everything

from blessings on cheesemakers rather than peacemakers,

to a discovery that it's the meek and not the Greek who shall inherit the earth,

which, as Mrs BigNose points out,

‘is nice, isn't it, because the meek have a hell of a time’.

After a brief fight, the characters agree to head off to catch a stoning,

and as they leave one of the Jewish revolutionaries is heard to mutter,

'Well, blessed is just about everyone
with a vested interest in the status quo, as far as I can tell.'

To which his friend replies,

'Yeah. Well, what Jesus blatantly fails to appreciate
is that it's the meek who are the problem.'

And I suspect it was ever thus,

that those at the back of the crowd are ideologically, as well as geographically,

distant from the voices at the centre.

Of course, what the Python team have intuitively picked up on

in their version of the sermon on the mount,

is something that we see throughout Matthew's gospel:

which is that some people, just a few,

get the truth of the message that Jesus is proclaiming;

whereas others, the majority, are distant from him

and react badly to what they think they have heard.

This is almost certainly a reflection

of the situation facing the community that Matthew was writing for,

some fifty years after the time of Jesus,

where those in the small struggling congregations of Jesus-followers

were finding that most of those

with whom they were trying to share the good news of their faith

were disinterested at best,

and more often actively hostile to the challenge

that the message of Jesus brought to their world and worldview.

And so Matthew gives his readers the sermon on the mount,

with its memorable opening lines known now as the beatitudes,

to succinctly capture the force and energy of the preacher on the hilltop,

whose voice continued to echo down the decades to their own time,

offering comfort and challenge in equal measure

to any who would dare to take the time to listen.

And it has ever been thus.

Radical Jesus-following has always been a minority sport;

and I would suggest that those times where Christianity

has done a deal with power to get its message heard more widely

have always resulted in a dilution of the message

away from its radical core.

In any form of Christendom,

the beatitudes become a blessing, as Python put it,

on just about anyone with a vested interest in the status quo,

and the heart of it all gets lost once again.

And the problem is as real for us today

as it was for Matthew's community in the first century;

the beatitudes of Jesus are all too easily reduced to the platitudes of Jesus,

as statements of revolutionary challenge

become aphorisms of anodyne comfort.

Do you remember that the Bible reading at Donald Trump’s inauguration?

saw Revd Samuel Rodriguez read the Beatitudes

from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

It seemed to me to be almost beyond irony

that the inaugural speech of Jesus’ ministry

should be set in such stark contrast

with the inaugural presidential speech that followed it;

and yet I suspect for many of those listening,

who saw in their new president a voice

for their pro-life, religiously conservative agendas,

there was no irony at all.

The radical revolutionary message of Jesus

is all too easily domesticated to powerful agendas,

and we need to take care to hear it afresh,

lest we too miss the demands it makes on us and our own lives.

And what does this blessèd word ‘blessèd’ mean anyway?

I mean, it's all very well asserting that the meek and the mourning are blessed,

but one has to wonder what earthly use is that to the person crippled by grief,

or too timid to speak up or out?

A few years ago, in an attempt to get to the heart of the beatitudes,

I thought I'd have a go at re-rendering them.

The paraphrase I created is in the foyer,

and you may well have read it.

But I’d like to read it again for you now.

I want to make it clear that I'm not, here,

seeking to re-write the words of scripture;

rather I'm offering a reflection on the words of Jesus that Matthew gives us,

to help us engage with them in fresh ways.

Blessèd are those who refuse the lie that one life is worth more than any other,
for theirs is the future of humanity.

Blessèd are those who have stared long into the abyss,
for theirs is honesty beyond grief.

Blessèd are those who resist retaliation,
for the earth will never be won by force.

Blessèd are those who would rather die for truth than live with compromise,
for the truth will outlive all lies.

Blessèd are those who forgive the unforgivable,
for they have seen the darkness of their own souls.

Blessèd are those who know themselves truly,
for they have seen themselves as God sees them.

Blessèd are those who are provocatively nonviolent,
for they are following the path of the son of God.

Blessèd are those who choose to receive violence but not to give it,
for the future is born out of such choices.

Blessèd are you when you stand up for truth
and hell itself decides to try and destroy you.
You're not the first and you won't be the last.

I'm telling you now, nothing makes any sense unless you learn see it differently,
and then choose to live that alternative into being.

So firstly, I wonder, what does it mean to be blessed?

It’s not a word we use a lot, really, is it; at least not in its archaic form

of two syllables with an accent over the second ‘e’ – bless-èd

It has resonances of Shakespeare and the King James Bible;

and it’s modern pronunciation of ‘blest’

has lost much of its depth of meaning in contemporary usage,

often reduced to a vague assertion of feeling fortunate.

As in, ‘I’m blest to have you has a friend’.

It’s further popular rendering as just ‘bless’ has robbed it of almost all meaning,

becoming little more than a patronising response to someone who has tried,

but failed, to achieve anything worthwhile.

As in, ‘Look at that drawing she’s done, Bless!’

Ugh.

Anyway, I wonder if we can find a way to bring it back to relevance,

to rediscover the force of what Jesus was doing by proclaiming a blessing

on the meek, the mournful, and the merciful.

In the Jewish religious context of the first century,

one of the great theological debates

was that of who was worthy to receive the blessing of God?

The Jews held that they were God’s chosen people,

called from among the nations,

and blessed by God with the gift of a ‘special relationship’ with him.

But within this general calling and blessing, there was a further level of disparity

between those who were regarded as blessed, and those who were not;

and there was much discussion as to what God’s blessing looked like.

If you think that the prosperity gospel of health and wealth is a new phenomenon,

and unique to Christianity,

then think again, because the ancient Jews got there first.

There was a school of thought that held that if you were obedient to the covenant,

you would experience the blessings of God as a reward for your faithfulness.

These blessings might be financial,

or related to health, or to family life, such as having lots of children.

It’s not quite, ‘touch the screen, and you’re gonna be healed’,

but it comes from a similar place,

in terms of seeing God’s blessings

as linked to human obedience and sacrifice.

Jesus wasn’t the first to challenge this idea,

and, for example, the book of Job is an extended piece of theological reflection

on why bad things happen to good people,

questioning where God is in the face of human suffering.

Again, these are not new questions…

The prophet Micah, who we heard from in our first reading this morning,

also questioned the nature of the sacrifice that God might require,

in order for his blessings to be dispensed.

He asked,

“Shall I come before him with burnt offerings?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"

And the answer that he hears to this question is radical:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice,
and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

It is in this tradition of Micah and Job,

that Jesus started proclaiming blessings

on those whom others would despise.

Many voices told people that their vulnerability was a curse;

Jesus, however, proclaimed it as a blessing.

And so…

Blessed are those who refuse the lie that one life is worth more than any other,
for theirs is the future of humanity.

This really is the great lie,

it is the great deceit of Satan.

Because the moment any one of us starts to believe

that one life is more precious to God than any other,

then the door is opened for all manner of evil to take root and flourish.

Against this, the radical message that Jesus proclaimed

was that the kingdom of heaven

belongs to those with a poverty of spirit;

to those with an un-inflated view of their own self-importance;

to those who know that any value they have in life comes from God,

and not from any achievement or status they may hold.

But so many of the messages of our society

fly in the face of true poverty of spirit.

From the advertisers’ mantra that ‘you’re worth it’

to fevered assertions of America, or indeed any nation, First,

and the nationalistic protectionism that comes

from a mindset of ‘my country right or wrong’.

Friends, we need to recover a Godly sense of our own value,

and to discover in that, the value of those others

whom we could otherwise so easily diminish.

And so the challenge continues:

Blessed are those who have stared long into the abyss,
for theirs is honesty beyond grief.

Bereavement can sap all hope, but there is hope here:

that those who have learned to live with great loss

may discover through their grief the brutal honesty of human mortality,

in ways that others will never grasp.

The comfort for those who mourn is not won easily, or quickly;

and it comes through pain and tears.

But in a world which despises weakness,

and which denies the transience of life,

the ability to out-stare death is a blessing known only to some;

and yet is a great gift that they bring to humanity.

We each of us, in our own way, one day,

will look death in the face,

and on that day we will need those who have seen that face before,

and learned to live with its reality.

And so the challenge continues:

Blessed are those who resist retaliation,
for the earth will never be won by force.

We can build walls and missiles to our heart’s content,

securing our borders with Mutually Assured Destruction,

and ever more stringent restrictions on movement.

We can make our pacts and alliances,

and stand in solidarity with countries of like-mind.

We can love NATO or hate it.

But, says Jesus, the earth does not belong to those with guns, or missiles,

it belongs to the meek;

it belongs to those who resist retaliation,

to those who will commit themselves

to alternatives to the spiralling violence

that generates strike after counter-strike.

The future belongs to those who will build bridges and not walls,

to those who turn swords into ploughshares

and guns into statues.

We will need creativity and courage

if we are to stand against the prevailing mind-set of retaliation.

But it is a fight that is worth the effort,

because all other paths lead to death.

And so the challenge continues:

Blessed are those who would rather die for truth than live with compromise,
for the truth will outlive all lies.

We live in a world of fake news,

and alternative facts.

We live in a post-truth world,

where the lie wins the argument if it’s said loud enough and often enough.

We are constantly invited and cajoled to abandon truth,

and follow the herd.

And yet where in this is righteousness,

where in this is truth?

The answer, to quote the X files, is that the truth is out there,

we just need to seek it out, and then speak it out.

And this is not easy – it is hard, thirsty work, seeking the springs of righteousness,

but we must not abandon the quest,

and we must resist compromise.

And so the challenge continues:

Blessed are those who forgive the unforgivable,
for they have seen the darkness of their own souls.

Many years ago I heard the late Jill Saward speak at Greenbelt,

you may remember her, she was a victim of the Ealing vicarage rape attack.

And the courage with which she faced the crime that had been done to her,

and her willingness to speak language of forgiveness as a path to wholeness,

had a profound effect on me.

And in my pastoral work I speak sometimes

with those who have been greatly wronged,

victims of abuse of all kinds,

and I have never found it appropriate to tell anyone

that they must forgive their abuser.

But when someone comes to the conclusion

that the path from victimhood

lies through the dark valley of forgiveness,

and when they realise that despite the wrong done to them

they share common humanity with those who do wrong to others,

something profound can shift,

and a moment of blessing can emerge.

But when we think of this on a global scale,

when we bring to mind the terrorist atrocities of all the years,

from Isis to the IRA and beyond,

and when we see the historical scars of un-forgiveness

written across whole societies and nations,

we can begin to see why mercy is a blessing that cuts both ways.

And so the challenge continues:

Blessed are those who know themselves truly,
for they have seen themselves as God sees them.

Socrates famously said

that ‘an unexamined life is not worth living’.

And I find myself wondering more and more

whether the journey of discipleship in Christ

is primarily a journey into the love of God,

which takes shape in our lives

as we learn to see ourselves not as we want to be seen,

and not as others see us,

but as God sees us.

The challenge here, is that God sees us with the unflinching gaze of love,

and we so resist the idea of being loved.

We live with such suppressed guilt, such internalised self-hatred,

that the idea of being loved, of being truly forgiven and accepted,

is as alien to us as our long lost childhoods.

And yet, and yet God loves us,

and forgives us,

and when we learn to see ourselves as God sees us,

we discover purity in place of pain,

and we find the face of God in the midst of our complex existence.

And so the challenge continues:

Blessed are those who are provocatively nonviolent,
for they are following the path of the son of God.

The path of peacemaking is not supposed to be straightforward.

It’s never just a passive pacifism that lays down and dies

when confronted with violent opposition.

Christ-like nonviolence is something far more creative,

something far more subversive.

Jim Gordon, former principal of the Scottish Baptist College,

wrote that the

Followers of the crucified Lord have a long tradition of resistance
through revolutionary love, bridge-building hope,
perseverance in peace, and joy in trumping injustice.[1]

And those of us who are watching with concern

as violence escalates on the international stage,

will need to be provocatively nonviolent

if we are to speak out a different, more Christ-like narrative,

for people to learn to live by.

And so the challenge continues:

Blessed are those who choose to receive violence but not to give it,
for the future is born out of such choices.

It is a truth that there are many places in the world

where the followers of Jesus face persecution

because they will not compromise on what they know to be right.

The temptation to turn an experience of persecution into a quest for vengeance

is ever before those who have been wronged,