Blessing Those Close to the Kingdom
- Pastor Serena Rice
- 16 minutes ago
- 6 min read
A sermon on Matthew 5:1-12.
[for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Elsa Gonzalez on Unsplash.com]
It’s been a few years, so I am wondering if anyone here today remembers when we did a one-sitting reading of the whole Gospel of Matthew here at Abiding Peace?
(Don’t worry, I’m not going to quiz you about themes, or narrative structure or anything. I just wanted to jog your memory about why it might be important to sometimes take a couple of hours to read a gospel narrative beginning to end?)
Obviously, there are very good reasons why we read only short excerpts from a given gospel on Sunday morning… things like time, and attention spans, and the richness of really digging into a more manageable number of verses…. But it’s also important to remember that there is always some relevant context being left out in any given reading, because the bit we read is just one part of a continuous narrative that was crafted with repeating themes and intentional segues that add layers of meaning to any given scene.
In the case of today’s reading, these verses come at the beginning of The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’s most famous sermon.
It’s a logical starting point for a stand-alone reading. It’s famous for a reason. This part of the sermon even has its own title: “The Beatitudes.”
So, we might be tempted to think that, in this case, we don’t really need additional context…but I think good interpretation actually goes the other direction.
The more famous a text, the harder it can be to really let it sink in, and the more layers of outside interpretation have potentially obscured the original meaning.
Like, for instance, the idea that the Beatitudes (which means “blessings”) should be interpreted as the “be-attitudes” (the attitudes to adopt to gain God’s favor), which only even-linguistically works in English (which is not what Jesus spoke) and is just SUCH a bad take on the actual teaching.
I think that, when we hear these overly-familiar teachings, we need all the help we can get to hear these words in context… to try to understand clearly why Jesus chose to share these words, at the particular time and place that Matthew records.
We need to look for answers to questions like:
Why are there crowds gathered around Jesus?
What are they expecting from him?
What clues do we have about how Jesus understands what he is doing?
Well, the literary context does give us clues.
If we look back to chapter four, we learn a couple of important things about the start of Jesus’s ministry, defined by very specific actions and words.
The actions were all focused on healing the sick and afflicted.
That is why he had gathered a crowd – people wanted healing. They wanted Jesus to change their circumstances.
The words were simple, but a little less clear: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 4:17).
That’s his “why.” Jesus is calling people to change their thinking (that’s what the Greek translated as “repent” literally means); and his ministry proclaims the arrival of the kingdom of heaven, whatever that means.
So, the first time Jesus sits down to teach, there’s already two things in the front of our awareness:
The very concrete needs of the people in front of him;
And these questions about what he means by declaring the nearness of the kingdom of heaven and why that is a truth that requires people to change.
In this context a few things become more clear.
First, despite his call to repentance, Jesus doesn’t start his sermon by telling people to do anything different.
(That’s what’s so wrong with the “be-attitudes” interpretation. Jesus doesn’t tell people to try to be any of the groups he names.)
Instead, he just describes an unexpected reality: the groups widely recognized as lacking something of value are the ones who are blessed.
But this description does affect a change: because it reframes the condition of the people who have come to him for help
As the SALT commentary this week explains, “Jesus is preaching to crowds primarily constituted by the sick, the afflicted, and those who care for them. He’s saying, in effect, The world may not regard you as blessed (quite the contrary!), but the truth is, you are the blessed ones! God’s reign of heaven turns the world upside down — and that world-turning reign is at hand!”[1]
In other words, it really is peoples minds that Jesus wants them to change, and that change is necessary because God thinks differently than the way we are used to thinking.
Where we see disadvantage, God sees the blessed ones! Because God sees those who will welcome God’s work of turning the world upside down, which is what Jesus means by the nearness of the kingdom.
Blessed are those who are not attached to the status quo, because they will recognize the blessing in what God is turning upside down.
It’s a message that becomes clear in the specific context that Matthew provides…
But I think it’s also a message that translates powerfully into our context once we understand it for what it is.
Once we see this list of blessings not as a to-do list, but as a description of God’s perspective, it can become a guide for us of how we need to change our minds… the assumptions we need to release and the world-changing that we need to embrace.
And that feels to me like a very relevant message to explore on Reconciling in Christ Sunday.
The whole idea of “reconciling” is of mending something that has been broken.
It draws our attention to how the ways of the world have infiltrated and warped the message of Christ…
The ways that a message of expansive love has been boxed in and atrophied by rules about what identities are and are not acceptable…
The ways that subtle (or not so subtle) hierarchies of human value have replaced the deep truth of every person being made in the image of God…
The ways that Christian theologies have become less committed to servanthood and peace, and more openly enamored by power and violence
This results is a religious tradition that builds walls of exclusion and false expectations about who God blesses and, even worse, who God hates.
But the kingdom of heaven defies status quo expectations and invites us to not just recognize but celebrate the truth of God’s world-turning reign.
It announces blessing where we have been taught to pronounce curses, and in that boundary-breaking revelation it calls for a repentance that looks like reconciliation… like restoration of the world-changing gospel of love.
There are many ways for us to live into this reconciling work.
By living out a genuine and profound welcome for people of all genders, sexualities, skin colors, ethnicities, immigration statuses, and mental and physical abilities.
By deconstructing harmful teachings and proclaiming a repentance that changes minds.
By naming the harm that has been done and is being done to marginalized communities, and advocating for justice and peace for ALL.
These are all important actions of reconciliation.
And I think they all, ultimately, start where Jesus started in his teaching about repentance, and healing, and the nearness of God’s kingdom.
They start with celebrating the truth of what God’s world-changing reign looks like.
So, I want to offer an updated version of the Beatitudes for our time and place, a version that names the same surprising blessings that Jesus proclaims, but in language that I hope makes it easier for us to recognize and celebrate the ways of God’s kingdom here and now. Consider these beatitudes:
Blessed are those who lack access to resources, whether through disability, or skin color, or social barriers – for God’s reconciled kingdom belongs to them.
Blessed are those whose grief is treated as unimportant – for God sees their tears and promises compassion and healing.
Blessed are those who lack power or who are treated as expendable – for God will put them in charge.
Blessed are those who are desperate in the face of justice denied – for God’s justice will be fulfilled.
Blessed are those who respond to the needs of others as though they were their own – for God will treat their needs with the same importance.
Blessed are those who are free from corrupt motives and allegiances – for they already see things from God’s perspective.
Blessed are those who actively work for the positive peace that puts to right what is wrong – for God will celebrate and claim them.
Blessed are those who get targeted by others attached to the status quo because of the ways that their targets unsettle it – for God’s world-changing work is theirs.
And finally, blessed are you, Beloved Community, when you face attacks, and harassment, and lies because of your faithfulness to God’s boundary-breaking gospel of love – for those reactions mean you are on the right side.
Thanks be to God.
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