“Bless You!”
January 20, 2008
Micah 6:8, Mt. 5:1-12

The Beatitudes are commonly thought of as lessons for life, or a prescription for success. From the New Interpreter’s Bible: “Christianity is not a scheme to reduce stress, lose weight, advance one’s career or preserve one from illness. Christian faith, instead, is a way of living based on the firm and sure hope that meekness is the way of God, that righteousness and peace will finally prevail, and that God’s future will be a time of mercy and not cruelty. So, blessed are those who live this life now, even when such a life seems foolish, for they will, in the end, be vindicated by God.”

Dr. Pinchas Lapide, scholar in Judaic Studies, in his book The Sermon on the Mount: Utopia or Program for Action?, writes that the Beatitudes are neither lesson nor lecture, but are Jesus’ concrete response to the needs of the people. In Isaiah 35:3-4 we read “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you."

Here Jesus begins his ministry by bringing good news to the poor and outcast. Giving courage to the poor is an essential prerequisite for his program of action that follows, for unless power is awarded to the powerless, hope to the despairing, and light to those who dwell on the shadow side of life, no effective collaboration in the saving of the world can be expected. The Beatitudes, then are the introduction to the sermon on Christian living to follow.

Jesus says to us, “Despite appearances to the contrary, your life has meaning and purpose. The reign of God is near. Help it to break through by remaining faithful and loyal to God and to God’s world, this world. The realm of heaven is near, if you will it.”

Scholar Martin Buber translated the word “Blessed” in this way: “Pay attention, for there is a secret good fortune, hidden by the hands of life itself, which counterbalances and outbalances all misfortune. You do not see it, but it is the true, indeed the only good fortune.”

On the face of it they make no sense at all. The thought of the meek inheriting the earth is as ludicrous now as it was then, and there is little happiness in mourning or joy in persecution. Here’s a common sense statistic for you, according to Harper's Magazine (3/96). The percentage of Americans earning less than $30,000 per year who believe that "the meek shall inherit the earth": 61%. The percentage of Americans earning more than $60,000 who believe this: 36%.

The Beatitudes speak to our community life, not merely personal piety. And they speak to our strengths, not our weaknesses:

• The poor in spirit have nothing but God.

• Those who mourn long to see the reign of God become real.

• The meek are not mousey, but those who have submitted to the divine will.

• To hunger and thirst for righteousness is “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God”

• Those experiencing divine mercy are capable of living merciful lives.

• The pure in heart are single-mindedly devoted to God.

• Peacemakers are actively engaged in the pursuit of peace.

• You may be persecuted, because true faith may be tough and costly.

Peter Gomes, Professor and Minister at Harvard University, reminds us that the beatitudes are not concerned with “Carrot Theology.” When he was a child he was always told to eat all of his carrots for they would improve his eyesight, and eat all of his beets for they would make his hair curly. “Every child knows he is expected to eat awful vegetables now for some postponed future happiness, and since most of us don’t believe it, we neither eat our carrots nor have our sight improved.”  The radical power of Jesus’ message is that now, in this moment, in your mourning, you have happiness, and in your persecution you have joy. Now, as you eat your carrots, you see.

The authority of the beatitudes rests not in what they say, but in who pronounces them. Jesus the God-Bearer proclaims the reign of God. Tomorrow has become today, the kingdom that is to come is already here; that which we seek, we have, that which we would be, we are! “The happiness of the gospel is not hope deferred but the consequence of hope experienced here and now by you and by me, and the wonder of it all is that this extraordinary message is for us ordinary people, who of ourselves can accomplish nothing, but who with Christ can indeed overcome the world.”

The gospel depends upon us to be made real in the world. It is not what we do but who we are that counts. It is not doing but being that matters. Being comes from within; the light shines out, not in. We are walking commercials for God, made in the image of God. When others see us, they get a glimpse of God. Bearers of light are ordinary people. If God is to be known, that knowledge will be in the lives of folks like us. “For better or for worse we are the good news.”

If you try to live by the precepts of Micah 6:8 and the Beatitudes, you are understandably incensed by the way the world perceives power. In their book, The 48 Laws of Power (Viking, 1998), Robert Greene and Joost Elffers take a look at the lives of history's most notorious power brokers and distill their nefarious ideas into stratagems of amoral wisdom.

• Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies.

• Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.

• Win through your actions, never through argument.

• Learn to keep people dependent on you.

• When you are asking for help, appeal to people's self-interest, never to their mercy or gratitude.

• Pose as a friend, work as a spy.

• Play a sucker to catch a sucker; seem dumber than your mark.

• Enter action boldly.

• Control the options; get others to play with the cards you deal.

• Discover each person's thumbscrew.

• Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.

• Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory learn when to stop. (Robert Greene and Joost Elffers, "The Laws of Power," Utne Reader, September-October, 1998, 78-84.)

In his book From Beirut to Jerusalem, Tom Friedman, a New York Times reporter, describes his ten years in the Middle East. His experience in Beirut, Lebanon, is particularly revealing. You recall that Beirut was a city split in half. East Beirut had basically been controlled by Christians, West Beirut by Muslims. In the middle was a burned-out, torn-out section of the city that is no one’s land. It was called the Green Line. And in the middle of the Green Line was located the Beirut National Museum, which houses priceless Egyptian statues, bas-reliefs, and stelae bearing early Phoenician writing. Because the Lebanese civil war jeopardized the museum’s safety, the aged director, Emir Maurice Chehab, had wooden frames built around the immovable pieces and then filled those frames with poured concrete that would repel any bullet or shell.

When Friedman entered the museum and the Gallery of Ramses on the ground floor, all he saw were huge square pillars of cement reaching up from the floor to various heights. Chehab, who knew every piece by heart, greeted him and began the tour. He pointed to a massive column of concrete and described in intricate detail a spectacular Egyptian statue found at Byblos. Then he walked to the next identical block of cement and identified the salient features of that object as well.

Friedman summarized his tour with these words: “After about an hour of this I started to believe I could actually see the objects he was describing.”

One of the primary purposes of the church, positioned between the garden of Eden and the Second Coming, is to describe the world as it was once intended by God and once more can be. The eyes of faith see hope in the midst of a fallen world.

God doesn't bless us just to make us happy; God blesses us to make us a blessing.