When Anke and I first started out as pastors 32 years ago, all we had were books. That’s what we had when it came to sermon preparation. We still have them and they’re called “commentaries”. Typically, the author first does a scholarly study of the translation, then explores what it meant for the original hearers, and lastly identifies what we might call the universal themes of the specific reading. But here’s the thing about commentaries. They’re expensive. They’re created for a very niche audience in limited numbers, so the publisher can’t make any money off of them in volume. Just a quick show of hands, how many of you own a copy of Douglas Hare’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew from the Interpretation series? See what I mean.
But then came the internet!! And along with Wikipedia, “Charlie bit my finger”, and endless cat videos, we also got access to an entirely new world of biblical commentaries and people’s commentaries on commentaries.
Jesus’ sermon on the mount begins with our reading for today, which we commonly refer to as “the beatitudes” and serves as the thesis statement for Jesus’ entire ministry. It’s the assigned reading for All Saints Day, so they must be about what it means to be a saint, right? But I’ve always kind of struggled with them. I mean, don’t get me wrong. They’re great! Jesus is great! Looove Jesus.
It’s those first several blesseds. It’s important to remember that the term “blessed” doesn’t mean happy. In this context it means something more like “favored by God”. But still, blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek… It always seemed like a real stretch to me. Even the commentaries I read on it always seemed to have to do some gymnastics to help it make sense. The things that follow after that? Much easier to wrap my head around. They just seem to make a little more sense logically.
Mark Allan Powell, a now-retired professor of New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary helped me to totally reframe how I view this text. Most scholars tend to view the beatitudes essentially as a single stanza, eight-line poem with each line espousing a virtue towards which we are to strive. Instead, Powell says that it’s actually a two stanza poem with four lines each. And those two stanzas come from different perspectives and serve different purposes. The first four lines quite simply describe the plight of the suffering. They are not the kinds of things for which we are to strive. The second four lines, then, describe the faithful response in the forms of advocacy and solidarity for those who are described in the first four lines. When I read that analysis, the whole thing clicked together for me in a way that I’d never experienced before. For me this seemingly odd pairing, now makes much more sense.
So, what kind of a new understanding can this lead us to, with regard to what Jesus is saying here?
Blessed are the poor in spirit. These are the people who’ve been spiritually broken. These are the people for whom life has been so difficult, so challenging, so tenuous, that they’re simply unable to see any sign of God in their lives. I immediately think of a story I heard in the news earlier this week, of a woman in Utah, named Juana Puga, whose house was flooded back in August. She and her family were in their house all of 22 days before it was flooded once more, Thursday a week ago, and the only thing she could think to herself as she stood in her house in brown ankle-deep water was, “Why again?”
These are the people like our LGBTQ siblings who were for so long reviled and rejected by the church, that they feel they have no spiritual home.
These are the people who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of clergy or other church workers. How do you trust again an institution that ripped trust apart like that?
Blessed are those who mourn. These are the people who no longer have the capacity to find joy in their lives because of what they have suffered. I think of my friend, Brian, who lost his wife three years ago, and still experiences moments of deep debilitating grief.
But it’s also the people who have experienced the horrors of war or surviving a major natural disaster. People who have experienced exploitation. People who live in extreme poverty.
Blessed are the meek. These are the weak, vulnerable, humiliated, and dispossessed. Matthew’s wording echoes Psalm 37:11 in the Hebrew Scripture, where the meek inherit the land. In Israel, land was inheritance, livelihood, and a tangible sign of belonging. Those deprived of land and stability know humiliation. Today we might think of those experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity. The people hidden away, living under an off-ramp. Refugees who have no place to call home.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is not a blessing for those who seek to advocate on behalf of others. Rather it’s a blessing for those who are starving for justice and righteousness. Hunger and thirst are pressing, urgent needs. Powell sees these people as victims of injustice, yearning to be treated rightly. Think people who’ve been unjustly prosecuted or those who’ve been freed from death row by DNA evidence.
The first four beatitudes are for those severely lacking privilege, who have been disempowered. Jesus’ promise to the broken is that the kingdom is theirs, they will be comforted, they will inherit, they will be filled. But there’s that painful gap between their lived reality and the promise that lies ahead. 1 John reminds us that“we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Because we are God’s children, we to embody the life and ministry of Jesus, empowered by the Spirit. And so, God calls those of us who have some privilege and power, to leverage ourselves, our resources and our status to work with the people I just mentioned helping them to move towards Jesus’ promises. We bridge that gap, between the suffering they experience now and the relief that Jesus promises. It means standing with Juana in her water-logged home, assuring her that we’re there to help her. It means sitting with Brian and being truly present with him, as he once again pours out to you the pain that fills his heart.
Blessed are the merciful. To be merciful is to embody the compassion of Jesus. We use whatever power we possess to restore rather than discard another person. We show mercy to the same people to whom Jesus showed mercy. Mercy says that the vulnerable person’s life still has value. It means resisting the impulse to write off the poor, imprisoned, indebted, defeated, or marginalized.
Blessed are the pure in heart. This means having motives that are sincere and unselfish. In other words, this is about integrity. We help people for the sake of helping people who need that help, not to gain influence, or prestige, or to be seen as righteous in the eyes of others. In other words, it’s about having a genuine motive to serve God, seeing God’s image in others.
Blessed are the peacemakers. Peacemaking is removing the causes of conflict not just the conflict itself. Jesus would have used the word “shalom”, which means wholeness, justice, and relationships being made right. The silencing of conflict is not the peace Jesus desires for us. Powell puts for the following analogy. Picture wounded people floating downstream. Mercy pulls them from the water. Peacemaking goes upstream to address what keeps wounding and throwing people in. Only God can fully restore creation, but there’s no excuse to simply stand on the riverbank.
Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness. These are the people who pay a price for pursuing justice and challenging a social order that runs counter to the way God wants things to be. Advocating for the disadvantaged may threaten powerful interests or friendships. Ironically, the helpers may find themselves counted among the broken. But Jesus promises the kingdom to those who suffer because they stand for what is right in his sight.
And then there’s what we might call the “Bonus Beatitude”! Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Jesus talks directly to his disciples. When people insult, persecute, and falsely accuse you on his account, rejoice in the promise of God’s kingdom.
Even the simple public announcement that God favors those society has written off can put the messenger at risk. Those who defend the humiliated can be humiliated themselves. Those who protect the excluded can be excluded. Those who stand with people who have lost everything can lose their own security.
Following Christ in word and deed, proclaiming the Gospel, and living in obedience to Christ’s commands, can cost us the security we thought made life possible. All Saints Day does not celebrate suffering as though suffering was good, but rather that God holds us in all circumstances. It remembers those whom God has held through suffering and those who have borne costly witness. The saints are those who suffer. And the saints are those who stand with them in their suffering.
The Beatitudes begin by announcing God’s favor to the miserable and end by calling others to risk themselves for them just as Christ has done. So, we refuse to abandon the people that the world has cast aside. And even when we fail to be obedient to these commands, we know that all is not lost. Because Christ’s death swallows up our failures, too. Jesus does not bless the forces that break people. He blesses the broken and those who risk becoming broken themselves by standing beside them. AMEN