181104 Sermon on Matthew 5:1-12 (All Saints' Day [observed]) November 4, 2018

181104 Sermon on Matthew 5:1-12 (All Saints' Day [observed]) November 4, 2018

The word “blessed” is a church word.  It is not used much outside of Church. The idea behind it is that God is the one who causes the good that a person is experiencing.  This way of looking at life, however, is unknown in society.  Instead of God being the decisive factor, a person’s every day life and its relative happiness or unhappiness is believed to be determined by other factors like hard work, strategy, research, technology, and so on.  At the bookstore you will find many resources that promise blessing if you will only manipulate these factors, but you won’t find very many on God blessing or cursing people.  People just don’t believe that kind of thing.  Most still believe in God, or an idea in their heads that they call “god,” but he doesn’t have much to do with the nuts and bolts of a person’s life.  He doesn’t bless and he doesn’t curse.  A person’s happiness is dependent upon other factors. 

And so when we come to the beatitudes, Jesus’s list of blessedness that we heard in our Gospel reading this morning, it is almost incomprehensible to most people.  A little help might be given by substituting the word “blessed” with “happy” or “successful,” since these words are more common.  Then it would read: “Successful are the poor in spirit…  Happy are those who mourn...” And we can learn something with these substitutions.  They bring out more clearly how Jesus is speaking contrary to our expectations.  How can someone who is poor be successful?  Aren’t those who are successful rich, by definition?  How can anyone who mourns be happy?  Aren’t mourning and happiness opposites?  Being blessed means that things are good and just how they should be.  Jesus lists many instances where a person experiences lack and emptiness, and he says that this is good.

How should we make sense of this?  Is this some alternate universe where empty is full and bad is good?  Just flip everything on its head?  No it’s not as simple or as silly as that.  But these words of wisdom do present a way of living that is different than how we naturally think.  Jesus assesses things differently than our reason would assess things.  Our reason is godless and unbelieving.  It believes that we are blessed quite apart from God, by manipulating the kinds of things that I mentioned earlier like hard work, strategy, technology, and so on.  All of the blessings that Jesus pronounces can only make sense if you understand that God is with the one who is being blessed, in spite of the hardship or lack that he or she is experiencing at the time.  Being blessed means, more than anything, that God is with you. 

With this understanding—that blessing is a matter of God being with you—let’s look more closely at what Jesus says.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  We could spend quite some time investigating what exactly Jesus means by saying “poor in spirit” rather than just “poor,” as he does in Luke’s Gospel.  That would be time well spent.  But for our purposes today we will focus on the main contrast that is involved: being “poor” here, but “rich” in the kingdom of heaven.  Being poor in this life is not the worst thing so long as you have faith in God, the great Giver.  If someone is poor and looks to God to open his hand and satisfy his or her desires, then he or she has more wealth with that faith than those who have billions and billions of dollars.  For when this short life is ended the billions must be left behind.  Then the burning question will not be about earthly possessions, but rather one’s standing before God.  Those with faith will inherit the kingdom of heaven.  Those without faith will receive the just punishment for their sins. 

Theoretically, it would be nice if we could be both rich in this life as well as in the next, but our idolatrous heart can’t handle it.  God often deprives those whom he loves, so that they must call out to him in their distress.  This is for their good—so that they are strengthened in their trust in him.  On the other hand, God might punish people with riches so that they will no longer call upon him, but rely upon their money instead.  Jesus means it when he says, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.”

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  This is a similar idea to what we have already talked about.  Who wants to mourn?  Who wants their loved ones taken away?  Who wants to be rejected by friends?  Nobody wants these things.  And yet those people are blessed who pour out their hearts to God with their anguish.  They shall be comforted.  They will be comforted in this life by faith while they endure the hardship, and they will be comforted completely in the next when Jesus will be their shepherd, guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

“Blessed are the meek, or the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.”  Pride is the queen of sins.  Pride leads people into believing that they are the ones who make things happen.  They are the ones who make the world go round with all their labor and smarts.  The humble put their trust, not in themselves, but in God.  It feels very good to feel good about yourself.  Humility hurts the Old Adam to no end.  There is nothing worse to the Old Adam than being humiliated.  But it is the meek, the gentle, the humble who shall be raised up by God while the mighty will be cast down from their thrones.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”  Those who hunger have no food.  Those who thirst have no drink.  And so hunger and thirsting for righteousness, means that a person doesn’t have righteousness with which to satisfy the ego.  It feels good to feel good about yourself.  Christians do not feel good about themselves and have pride in themselves.  They are always looking to Jesus for righteousness, because they have none on their own.  It is a painful thing to remain a sinner, living by the forgiveness of sins.  We’d rather not hunger and thirst.  But blessed are those who hunger and thirst, for they shall be forgiven by faith in Jesus in this life, and be fully purified in the next.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”  Being merciful flows out of having received mercy.  When you yourself have been a loser, then you can put yourself in some other loser’s shoes.  Remember what God has forgiven you for, and then forgive those who sin against you.  Embrace as your own the heart of God that the Holy Spirit has revealed to you—that he desires mercy, and not sacrifice.

“Blessed are the pure or clean in heart, for they shall see God.”  There is an old hymn that says, “On my heart imprint thine image, blessed Jesus, King of Grace.”  Only those who have in their heart, “Jesus, crucified for me” can be pure or clean, for there is no forgiveness without the blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Another hymn, “O Sacred Head, now wounded,” contains a prayer to Jesus to be near when death is at my door—that he should be my consolation, my shield, when I must die; That I should be reminded of him on the cross when my last hour draws nigh.  These old hymns have supreme wisdom.  When you are dying, bring to mind how Christ has loved you and therefore suffered and died to wash away all your sins.  Then know that, in a very short time, you shall see Jesus—you shall see God—for he has made you pure in heart by his redemption on the cross.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”  The Old Adam enjoys a good fight.  He likes stinky gossip.  Peace is boring.  There isn’t a lot of glory in patching up and mending and smoothing over.  The glory is imagined to be in the conquering hero.  But peacemakers are like Jesus, the Son of God, who made peace between wretched, filthy sinners and righteous and holy God.  He is the mediator between God and Man and brought about harmony by the sweat of his brow.  Those who make peace shall be called sons of God, because they are like Jesus.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Here at the end of the list he says something similar to what he says at the beginning: “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  At the beginning he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Here at the end he says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 

The thinking is similar for both of these blessings.  Being poor means that you can’t take full advantage of all the pleasure that this world seem to have if only you can pay for it.  Being poor, lacking the good things in life, might seem to be not worth living.  Well, what about being persecuted?  That’s much worse.  You can be poor, and people will still leave you alone.  Being persecuted means that you are being hunted down.  People are looking for ways to bring about trouble upon you.

Why?  Why should people do this?  It’s for righteousness’ sake.  It’s for Jesus’s sake.  St. Paul says that the aroma of Christ is the smell of death to those who are perishing, while to those who are being saved it is the smell of life.  The devil, the world, and the Old Adam are hostile to Christ, and they always will be, until this old world is brought to an end. 

But how is it that this hostility actually comes about?  It happens by the preaching of the Gospel.  It comes about by Christians testifying to the truth in the midst of an evil and adulterous generation.  Christians say that Jesus is everything.  He is higher and more important than all the noble sounding, high ideals that the world is always chattering about.  All these sacred cows must be slaughtered and brought into subjection to Christ.  He is more important than progress, technology, democracy, and whatever else might be touted as being essential.  He alone is righteous.  He only is the Lord.  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry with you and break you in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

The world will put up with a kind of Christianity where it is set off to the side and just one option among others.  You can take it or leave it.  But the world will rise up and denounce those who say that Jesus is everything and there is no salvation except in him.  This is what the world calls fanaticism and bigotry and narrowmindedness and a return to the dark ages.

Jesus knows all of this and so he says further, “Blessed are you (notice he says, ‘blessed are you,’ not ‘blessed are those)… Blessed are you when others condemn you and persecute you and call you all kinds of names falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for that is how they also persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Rejoicing and being glad in such situations is impossible unless it be given by the Holy Spirit.  The natural impulse is to clam up, become sad, and go into hiding.  That is exactly what God’s enemies would like you to do too.  But go and read about how the Apostles reacted to being imprisoned and punished and otherwise mistreated for preaching the Gospel in the book of Acts.  They rejoiced that they were counted worthy of suffering on behalf of the name of Jesus.

This peculiar rejoicing has been neglected in our preaching and teaching and so it holds much in it that we can learn.  It’s very important for the proper understanding of Christian fellowship.  Christian fellowship is identifying and comforting and helping those whom the world says are fools, bigots, mean-spirited, and whatever else.  When all the world is telling you that you are harming people and making life unnecessarily difficult, it is so strengthening and comforting to hear from a fellow Christian that you are doing what is right, that you are following in the footsteps of the prophets who proclaimed the coming of the Messiah.  Reach out, therefore, to those who are called names for their testimony to Jesus and befriend them.  This helps you and them on your way to heaven.

St. Paul says that to enter into heaven we must bear many afflictions.  Jesus says that the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to eternal life.  Jesus’s beatitudes reflect the counter-cultural understanding that we embrace as Christians and are therefore looked down upon by unbelievers. 

On All Saints’ Day we are called upon to reflect upon the great tribulation that we are coming out of, and looking forward to being in those white robes, having been washed in the blood of the Lamb, and being before God.  And so we also acknowledge the grace of God in the lives of our fellow congregate[s] who were [was] called to their [his] eternal rest this past year: Ralph Kane, Eleanor Moore, Arlene Thiele [Donald Roepke].  May God also bring us at last to our heavenly home that with them [him] we may see him face to face in the joys of paradise.