Sermon 4th Sunday after Epiphany

Sermon 4th Sunday after Epiphany, 2011

Text: Matthew 5:1-12

This text is the beginning of what is called in Matthew the Sermon on the Mount. It's too bad the sermon on the mount gets broken up in some regards and good that it does in others. The sermon on the mount starts here and goes all the way to Matthew 7.29. 3 chapters of material. That is a lot to cover, and to cover it all in a single go is difficult, but since we break it up we forget that it is one continuous sermon. And how the lectionary works, we miss part of it during Lent.

This section is called the Beatitudes, a word we all know. It is a collection of statements by Jesus, declaring blessings to those who are listening to him.

Jesus has just finished where we left him last week, he declares his intent in this ministry, to announce that the Kingdom of God has come near, and to repent. Telling people that they need to put their focus on God, not on human concerns. He sees a huge crowd, and like Moses in the old testament, he travels up a mountain, sits down, teaches and blesses them.

It is contrary to our normal understanding of the beatitudes to think of this as not individual situations that we may find ourselves in one day. David Lose, a professor at Luther Seminary, talks of this trap. “There is a trap hidden in the Beatitudes that I know I have fallen into countless times, and perhaps you have, too. The trap is a simple as it is subtle: believing that Jesus is setting up the conditions of blessing, rather than actually blessing his hearers.”

In the beatitudes Jesus is not simply stating that a group of unseen poor in spirit, or mourning, or meek, of hungry, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, the persecuted, those reviled is to be blessed later. Jesus is talking about the crowd that has followed him, the crowd that continues to follow him.

An author unfortunately named Eugene Boring, his writing is anything but, has this to say. “They do not describe nine different kinds of good people who get to go to heaven, but are nine declarations about the blessedness, contrary to all appearances, of the eschatological community living in anticipation of God's reign.”

The beatitudes are not prescription to follow to get into heaven, but a declaration that the people of Matthew, and indeed, all the followers of Christ, are amongst these groups. And they are blessed because of it. It is claim that they are blessed here and now, in this world. They are blessed just as they are, not after they lose their poorness, or stop being persecuted, or are not reviled. They are blessed directly because of this. And then because of their blessing they will receive.

We are also amongst those blessed. That is hard to understand, some may think, but I don't feel like I fit in to any of those categories, but simply gathering here in this place we do. Jesus is calling us to stand and declare our intentions to stand with the poorest, the outcast and the reviled. And through that we ourselves become one with those.

My friend Elly, who now lives in Jerusalem working for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land. And who I found out last time I mentioned her and the church she works for in a sermon and then posted it on my blog gets an email notification whenever the church name is posted, so Hi, Elly. Part of her work is what is referred to as accompaniment. It could also be described as walking with those you are with. One powerful example is crossing checkpoints. As a American Citizen she could show her passport and simply travel through the Israeli checkpoints within Palestine very easily. But, instead she walks through the same way the Palestinians do, some twice a day for work.

To get through the wall, which is indeed a wall, in some places 30 feet or more high with barbed wire and gun sights, dividing Palestinian neighborhoods, they must walk through one set of revolving gates into a fenced in walk-way, both sides and roof bars. And now they cannot retreat and back up, they must go forward. But, at the other end of this walk way is another revolving gate. Which the soldiers guarding it can take any time they want. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to get through, others an hour or more.

That is accompaniment, that is walking with those who are reviled, and persecuted, the outcast. It is things like this that Jesus calls us to do. To go and say that others beyond ourselves are blessed, we will be reviled at times for declaring what God has declared, that those who are blessed are not the powerful, but the outcast and the downtrodden, the poor in spirit, the reviled, the persecuted. We ourselves may be reviled when we declare that God will and has worked great things through those who we ourselves may revile and persecute.

When we walk with those in need. When we pray for those reviled then We are the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, those reviled. And when we are those, we hear Jesus is saying to us and to the whole world.

You are blessed.

When two or three gather, when we consider those in need, when we remember the call to service. Christ calls to us, and tells us.

You are blessed.

Do you hear that?

You .. are .. blessed. All the insecurities that you feel, all the disqualifications that you make up for yourself. They mean nothing, because you are blessed. Those insecurities and disqualifications are why we join together as a community. When we feel inadequate, overwhelmed, overcome, underused, disregarded, that is when we must gather, because that sense is not an individual things. Being poor in spirit is not an individual thing, it is a community thing. When we know that, then, then the kingdom of heaven can begin to come into this broken world.

This week a story was told on NPR. It spoke of a man from New York. He everyday gets off a exit early from his subway stop to eat at a diner. This last month something unusual happened.

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'"

Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.

"You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

"The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi," Diaz says. "The kid was like, 'You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'"

"No, I just eat here a lot," Diaz says he told the teen. "He says, 'But you're even nice to the dishwasher.'"

Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?"

"Yea, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way," the teen said.

Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. "He just had almost a sad face," Diaz says.

The teen couldn't answer Diaz — or he didn't want to.

When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, "Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you."

The teen "didn't even think about it" and returned the wallet, Diaz says. "I gave him $20 ... I figure maybe it'll help him. I don't know."

Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen's knife — "and he gave it to me."

Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, "You're the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch."

"I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."

Who is the one blessed in this story? Diaz, in his own way, not stating it has realized his own blessed state, and has shown another his own blessedness, his own worth. That is our call, to see our blessedness and proclaim to others their own worth.

Let us pray,

God of blessing.

Give to us your grace, mercy, and peace. When we are reviled because of you, hold us, when we are mourning, comfort us, when we are hungry, both physically and emotionally, feed us.

Amen