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Celebrate Eliot
Worship and the Arts: The Beatitudes
Texts: Micah 6; Matthew 5:1-12
We hear the Beatitudes so often that they start to sound like soothing pieties,
or nice inspirational thoughts that we should put up on plaques
or embroider on pillows.
But the beatitudes are really Jesus’ radical manifesto.
They don’t describe the world as it is, but the world as it could be.
Right after Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been arrested,
he stepped out into the public arena and began his ministry
by proclaiming “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Which is to say “Turn around, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
That was the heart of his message, the one sermon he kept repeating over and over again,
by his teaching, by his healing, by his encounters with the powers that be:
“Turn around, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
And the very first sermon that Jesus preaches to the crowds in Matthew’s gospel
begins with this manifesto, the Beatitudes.
He says “the Kingdom of Heaven has come near”, and then
begins to describe what life would look like, when the Kingdom has come near.
What is that kingdom like?
The last will be first, the least will be greatest, the meek will be mighty,
the mourners will laugh and dance again,
and the peacemakers and purehearted will be valued
more than the power-brokers and the deal-makers.
This is Jesus’ vision of the upside-down Kingdom,
when the world’s values and priorities are turned on their heads,
when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
I think Kurt Vonnegut captured the flavor of this radical reversal well when he wrote,
“For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes.
Some of them, often with tears in their eyes, demand that the Ten Commandments
be posted in public buildings.
And of course that's Moses, not Jesus.
I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount,
the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom?
"Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!”
To carry Vonnegut’s point further,
I’ll bet we can think up all sorts of wonderful places to post the Beatitudes.
How about “Blessed are the meek” in the bleacher seats of Fenway Park?
Or “Blessed are the poor in spirit” in the lobby of A.I.G.?
Or “Blessed are the pure in heart” in a conference room at the Massachusetts state house?
The beatitudes are truly counter-cultural.
They are Jesus dreaming us into the realm of what might be.
They are almost like Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha, tilting at windmills,
living out his vision of the world not as it is, but the world as it might be.
This week, when I heard President Obama’s powerful speech to the Muslim world,
then followed his visit to the concentration camp at Buchenwald,
and his commemorating the enormous sacrifices of D-Day,
I was reminded of a story about the end of World War Two.
When the allied forces liberated the city of Cologne in Germany,
they found a cellar where Jews had been hidden from the Nazis,
and on the wall of that cellar was scrawled a saying.
It’s was an affirmation that was also a manifesto
– not unlike what the Beatitudes must have been for those first followers of Jesus.
It said,
I believe.
I believe in the sun even when it is not shining;
I believe in love even when I cannot feel it;
I believe in God even when God is silent.
It’s important to remember that the beatitudes aren’t moral prescriptions,
or a list of virtues we “should” practice as Christians.
They’re blessings from God, blessings given to the last and the least and the lost.
God’s favor is granted to those whom society regards as the ones left behind:
the poor in spirit, the meek, the mourners, the merciful, those hungering for justice,
the purehearted, the makers of peace, those mistreated for the cause of justice.
On these Jesus pronounces God’s special favor
with these God identifies in Jesus,
to these comes the Good News of God’s healing embrace.
It may seem like many of these could be viewed as victims,
but the beatitudes deliver them from a victim mentality.
There is a difference between being victimized and regarding oneself as a victim.
By proclaiming a blessing on these, Jesus reminds them that God esteems them
and values them and cares for them, even when the world does not.
Even when God seems to be silent.
To be sure, we do not live in the perfect world, the kingdom world
where God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
But at the same time, we are the ones who give witness,
by our living, by our values and priorities, by our discipleship,
to what life in the kingdom can be like.
Sometimes, giving that witness is easy,
when we’re surrounded by a community of loving, like-minded saints.
But at other times, it’s very hard, very demanding to give witness,
to trust that poverty of spirit or purity of heart will truly be rewarded
in the face of a materialistic, success-oriented, cynical world,
or to speak out as a peacemaker or an advocate for mercy
in a suspicious, revenge oriented society.
To act on the beatitudes,
to live out the prayer “thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven”
sometimes takes courage, faith and hope as well as love.
But I don’t think there is any passage in the scriptures more consoling,
or more revealing of the great all-embracing love of God, than this one.
No matter what trials or tragedies life lays before us,
no matter what setbacks or indignities we face,
there is a blessing that can turn every trial into a triumph,
and every hunger into a halo.
That is the vision of the Upside Down Kingdom,
where the last will be first, the least will be greatest, the meek will be mighty,
those hungry for justice will be filled,
and the mourners will laugh and dance again.
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