Beatitude Adjustment

Jerimiah 11:5-10; Luke 6:17-26

In the summer of 2000 I had the opportunity to travel to the Middle East with my uncle, my brother, and cousin with a few people from my uncle’s church. The trip was great, I loved traveling with my brother and seeing the sites with him. We went to a few places in Egypt, also toured around Athens for a day, but most of the trip was centered on Israel and Palestine.

My uncle has spent, well, probably a total of 3 years or so there, over the course of many visits and sabbaticals over his lifetime. Having him with us on the trip was wonderful because, as we were walking through the old city in Jerusalem, he would see old friends from previous trips who would invite us into their shops to share stories over glasses of tea.

In my heart I weep for what has become of the area, personally I think it is a travesty that the Christian church as a whole isn’t more present in the situations, if nothing else to vie for the safety and preservation of the numerous religious sites. I’m not usually a person that puts too much stock in places holding a certain power, or buildings being worth the price of war, but there was absolutely something special about the places there in the “Holy” Land.

We visited Bethlehem, stood on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, and ate fish from that same sea, road a boat across the waters to Capernaum. We went to the garden in Gethsemane, and stood under a living olive tree that could be dated to the time of Christ. We stood on the mountain in Sinai and watched the sun rise. There is a presence, and a spirit to those places.

When I was reading the gospel lesson for today earlier this week, I was reminded that we stood on one of the hills surrounding the sea of Galilee where this famous sermon takes place. It’s a verdant idyllic place. Really, the message is one that is in stark contrast to the surroundings. The 5^th, 6^th and 7^th chapters of Mathew parallel our reading today, and are usually noted to be the “sermon on the mount,” but historically it was really more the sermon to the mount. My uncle showed us while we were there. While we all stood at on the middle and top of the hill, he made his way down to the waters edge. When he turned and spoke to us we were pretty surprised… it was a natural amphitheater. The water at his back and the hill’s rise made for a natural amplification of his voice.

This message was, and still is an enormously shocking passage. It completely turns on its head the values that we are taught by the world. I wonder sometimes where we get these ideas about money, about worth, about what is good in life. We could point to the media, to TV and every other source, constantly re-enforcing in us what is of worth in this world. I mean, Anna Nicole Smith passed away, surely that is cause for trump and pomp? Never mind the others dying in the world, focus on the famous. And why was she famous? For her enormous humanitarian efforts? You see where this is going.

Regardless though of where we get these ideas ingrained, Jesus in the beatitudes is here to turn every single one of them on their heads.

To begin, we must accept that Christ is, as ever, highly concerned with the position of a persons heart, of their soul. So, to that end we must see that the Beatitudes are talking about the poor, hungry and weeping people he is talking about those emotion in the SPIRITUAL sense only. The slums, the physically poor and impoverished and hungry are in no way pleasing to God.

So then, what is it to be poor in spirit? To be poor is to be in utter need. To not have the ability to function without the help of others. Spiritually then we need to understand that we can be utterly helpless before God. More than that though we must realize our lack of superiority in God’s eyes regardless of our station or achievement in this life. No matter the amount of fame, or fortune or power that have been given to us we must understand our helplessness when faced with walking alone in this life. When faced with walking without the Lord at our side.

And look at the warning to the rich! Stern indeed, it says, “Hey! Hope you had a great time while you were here! Cause that’s all you get!” Ego is the enemy here. Which can be created by material wealth, but could happen to any one. Wealth creates attachment to the world and the things in it. The more we have the more we want to keep it and attain even more. Are you saying, well, I’m certainly not rich… Rich could be defined as anyone who has more than they need for monthly expenses. Apply that to the spiritual life. You think you have more than enough to deal with this world? That’s dangerous thinking. Our job is to continually come to God and say, “I am nothing without you.”

A person who can be poor in spirit approaches life in humility, not as if the world owes us a living, but as though we owe life, and the Life giver our all. We approach life with the intention of contributing all we possibly can to the work of God out of loving appreciation. Then, we can be Blessed.

That’s the other thing I think we should understand about the Beatitudes. This kind of matched up with something we discussed in conformation class this past week; it’s that when Jesus says that these are the types of people who are blessed and these are the types that are not – he isn’t really doling out a punishment. Jesus doesn’t talk about God as if he is setting out these rules so that he can catch us in our failure and go, “Nyah Nyah! You screwed up! SMITE SMITE SMITE!” Jesus tells us instead the path that we can take in order to dwell in God’s blessing that he has already set out for us. As if the blessing was the best cut of meat, the finest steak. And Jesus knows just where to cut, just how to cook it so that it melts away in your mouth. It’s our choice weather or not to listen. And if we don’t, well. We get the gristle or life, something that is cooked into tasteless grey oblivion. Gross. That lump of meat wasn’t sent to us as punishment, it was the consequence of our inability to cook it the way Jesus told us.

Now the warning to the full is stern indeed. The full are the opposite of the hungry. The full are the ones who fill up on everything that the world has to offer, and therefore full of their own desires, their own cravings. If we did that we would have no room left for the Lord’s righteousness! In a way this is saying that if we are satisfied with the way the world is then we need to take another look at our hearts. If we go through life and say, “There’s not really much I wished would change,” then we could be in trouble. But if we instead live a life that says, “This is not right. This isn’t what the Lord wants for His family.” Then that is the life that is hungry for more, for something better that we know God and his Will can provide. Romans 1:29-31 is very explicit in pointing out what things the ones who do not hunger are filled with: “full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.” Past that, Paul goes on to say that even by approving of those who do those things we are just as guilty. Look at that list and watch any of 100 sitcoms available to us. “Be hungry for better things,” says Christ.

The last of the trio (which is what the beatitudes from Matthew get pared down into) is about weeping and laughing. And again, remember that Jesus is talking about spiritual weeping, or a weeping of the heart. I have no doubt in my mind that Jesus laughed regularly with his friends and followers, and under no account expects us not to enjoy our time here on earth. In a spoof on the church I saw it was said that “Christians aren’t allowed to have any fun, unless you are laughing at how dumb the devil is.” Spiritual weeping though is a weeping at our own sense of sin. The people who laugh are those who have no sorrow or regret over evil and suffering. Which sounds unbelievable when you say it but if we each think back I’m sure we could remember a time when we were guilty of this. It’s a time in which we put our pleasure ahead of the suffering of someone else. Allowing ourselves to be at ease while someone close suffers. It could even be the feeling of well being when we think that someone else gets “just what they deserve.” That’s not the calling that we have from Christ.

Look at Luke 18:13 sometime. “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'” That is weeping. That is crying out to God in full understand of the sin that should rest on our shoulders. And the reward promised is so great! The word used for joy in Greek is gel’asete -- which implies loud laughing and deep joy; seeing the end of sin and the shame that goes with it.

Jesus goes on to warn us that if we are living it up on the earth, then we are no better than the false prophets. The world tells us that we need esteem. We need position and place and honor and praise. We need applause. We speak well of the people that attain these things. Christ though says that the world speaks well of false prophets. He tells us that people will hate us and won’t have anything to do with us. He says people will insult us and say cruel things about us. And that these things should all make us happy! The CEV translation actually says, “Jump for Joy!” Because our reward is in the next kingdom.

Jeremiah is dealing with people of the world. People like any of us from time to time I would imagine. People that look at that life of suffering and say, you know what, heavenly reward might be great someday, but how about a little less insults thrown at us, and a little more with the happiness? Jeremiah gets a little note from God about that kind of thinking right? Cursed! God says. Suffering every curse that goes with that kind of action. A curse that we ourselves bring on us. Not to get too entrenched in Anna Nichole’s life this morning, but her son is a great example of the curse. Here was a young guy, good looking kid right? Had financial assets most of us couldn’t imagine. Had notoriety, mobility, could travel, do basically all he wanted in life. And how did he die? A prescription medication foul-up, but he was on three kind of anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. What in the world was he depressed about? Sadly his whole life had been constructed around the world. According to the world, that kid was a success, and really so was his mother. Fame, money, big house, notoriety, they lacked for nothing… and yet, tragedy.

So we live with this curse hanging over our heads. Bear the fruit of the world and bitterness will follow. What’s the way out? Christ. Our salvation. And even in Jeremiah God reminds us that he is the God of salvation by reminding his children of their exodus from Egypt. It is in God’s core heart to save his children. And so the Christ. And look at how the language of the Bible defines itself here. In Deuteronomy 21 it says “If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse…” Christ was cursed. To be specific he became the curse and broke the curse by hanging on the cross and by breaking death three days later. That’s our glory on earth. That’s our exit, that’s the source of our joy, enough to jump for it. There is a present joy that is possible. A peace and a wonderfulness of purpose that comes with following God’s will. That’s the little peace of the kingdom on earth we get to glimpse, and even that taste is so sweet it makes us wonder what the meal will be like.

So let the world rail at us. Let the people at work and at school say that they don’t understand, let them call us names behind our backs for not valuing the things of the world. Also cry for them. Let your heart break for them, seek them with love and not haughtiness. We are called to righteousness not self-righteousness. Because if life is hard as a Christian, we know we must be doing something right. And Christ is right here in our suffering and our hunger and our weeping for something better, telling us of the feast he has prepared for all of us on that day in heaven.