Matthew 5:1-12
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak and taught them saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
I’ve struggled with the beatitudes for a long time. I’ve never really liked them, actually, because I’ve always heard them in a negative light. They’ve sounded like an endorsement of suffering and for me that was illogical in light of who God is. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the hungry, the bereaved. Blessed? That doesn’t make sense. I wouldn’t consider those blessings. When I mourn or hunger or am in a spiritual desert, my first thought is not: “Boy! Look how God has blessed me!” Those are the times I pray God would bless me. I pray for something different, not for suffering.
To state it simply: the beatitudes aggravate me!
The beatitudes have always seemed to promote oppression and push for complacency about undesirable things. If the poor are blessed, then they should want to stay poor, and the rich should want to be poor. If the hungry are blessed, then we have no need to give them food. The beatitudes seem to subjugate the weak and free the strong from any responsibility in making a difference. I’m not ok with that. That’s not the Gospel I know. That’s not the freedom and equality I’ve heard Jesus preach.
So, as you can imagine, the thought of preaching them didn’t exactly thrill me. I’ve never heard this as a Gospel text of hope. But, as is often the case, as I dug into the passage—I was pleasantly surprised that I was wrong. As I studied and read, I realized the beatitudes don’t promote oppression
Now there’s a quirky thing about the Beatitudes. While I’ve learned they aren’t advocating oppression, as I’ve read into them, I’ve seen that those who live the beatitudes may be oppressed by society. To understand why, first we need a little background. Jesus’ culture was one of honor and shame. Everyone wanted honor and no one wanted shame. People fought for honor, and were cut off if they brought shame to their family. Your level of honor was an expression of worth. The more honor people showed you, the more important you were. Keeping honor was about maintaining, or improving status.
Honor/shame culture leads to a type of one for one. You hit me, I hit you back. Hitting back evens the score. An eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” If you did not respond in kind, you lost honor and brought shame upon yourself and your family. For offenses greater than a slap in the face, there were harsher consequences. The thief lost his hand. The adulteress was stoned. These were the norms and rules of the culture. Promote honor and shun shame.
And then Jesus came along and taught something radically different. Jesus said, “You hit me, I turn the other cheek.” You throw the first stone only if you are without sin. You forgive as you are forgiven. All of these notions were new and unthinkable in Jesus’ day. The Gospel responses didn’t restore honor, in some cases they even brought about more shame.
We may have heard these phrases and teachings 1000 times, but they were novel in Jesus’ day. We may be tempted to think that hearing them 1000 times means we actually live them, but don’t be so sure! How many times have we heard “Don’t get mad, get even”? Or returned in kind when somebody upset us? You leave the dishes in the sink? Fine. I won’t do the laundry. You were late for dinner with the Smith’s last week? I’ll just doddle a bit before we head out to the baseball game. Or the notorious cries from fighting children…. “She hit me first!!” “He started it!” They claim innocence since they didn’t instigate the fight, they only responded in kind. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. After all, it was only fair.
So what does honor/shame culture have to do with the beatitudes? Well, the blessings in the beatitudes are not those that would have brought honor. These virtues and values Jesus blesses didn’t fit with what people expected. It’d be like a football coach rallying the team before the big game with phrases like “Don’t hit ‘em hard, we don’t want anyone to get hurt. If they call a penalty against the other team we’re not going to take it. Guys, just play a nice slow easy game today and I’ll be proud of you.” Every player in the room would be dumbstruck and confused. “Is he kidding?” “Is he okay?” “He’s not serious, right?” “We can’t win like that.”
In a culture that promotes courage, strength, honor and pride, Jesus’ words cause a similar type of confusion. “Wait…what’d he say? He’s kidding, right? Blessed are the merciful? The meek? The pure in heart? No one’s going to respect us for that?! They’re going to think we’re a bunch of pansies.” God may bless the peacemakers and the poor in spirit, but the rest of us aren’t so sure.
Do you remember looking at Psalm 1—the righteous are like trees planted by the river? The righteous were those with their hand on their heart, aware that they are needy and dependent on God. Does that ring a bell? Those are the poor in spirit—the ones who recognize they need God.[1] Poverty of spirit is about our human brokenness—and when we recognize how poor we are—we need to seek God—just like the righteous planted by the river. But for many of us we didn’t want to be needy and dependent. Right? We raised our hands of independence and self-reliance high. We’re proud of our accomplishments and self-sufficiency. We too struggle to understand why God blesses the needy ones, it was independence we were supposed to achieve, wasn’t it? Not in God’s book. Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”—blessed are the needy ones.
The merciful weren’t honored and beloved either. The merciful were “tenderhearted and loved all [people] as themselves”.[2] We may think that’s all well and good, but the people of the day didn’t want to love all people. They didn’t want to be associated with the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the sinners. Sound familiar? Jesus broke the box here too. He was criticized for loving those who weren’t “worthy”. And, like I said, we may think that’s all well and good, but we all fall victim to this. It’s fine to be inclusive and loving and warm, unless it’s to “those illegals”, or “that whore”, or “that pervert”. We steer clear of skateboarders and gang members. We still create in-groups and out-groups and we still criticize those who “don’t get it” –those who insist on bringing “them” near to us. We liked the idea of the merciful, but not when the practice imposes on us.
We also like the idea of the peacemakers. We want peace. In theory anyway. I know I sound a little cynical here, but you’ve heard of “the bleeding hearts,” right? Those crazy do-gooders who think we should help every bum, crook, and thief? They’re just the spineless liberals who take up every cause as their own…Yeah, blessed are the peacemakers—they don’t have any standards or require discipline and they’re left penniless because they give it all away to help others.
Do you see how the beatitudes weren’t so agreeable? They challenge us, and we often resist those who live them fully. It’s not that God dis-honors these kingdom followers. It’s that we do. We like the sound of God’s kingdom—lions and lambs, peace and justice, love and happiness. I mean, who doesn’t want that?! But practically, culture still has different values than the Gospel. Culture promotes achievement, status, courage, honor, and clear separation of the “good” from the “bad”, the right and the wrong. On the other hand, the Gospel begs for peace, compassion, forgiveness, humility and second chances. There’s regularly a rub between these two. Cultural notions of independence and self-reliance stand against biblical notions of dependence on God and others. There’s a tension here and, as Christians, we choose to live in it.
Living by Christ’s rules remains essential if we want to live in God’s kingdom—living compassion, mercy, humility, and peace is the way we see glimpses of the kingdom here and now. And you should know that while the blessings for a life that follows the Beatitudes are countless and priceless, such a life still stands in stark contrast to what’s expected and desired by others around us. There’s a reason the Beatitudes end with: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me” (verse 11).
Living the life that God has called us to is not always popular. Loving our enemies is no easy feat. Including those who are felons is uncomfortable. Sharing a meal with those who are loud and obnoxious is trying. Forgiving the unforgivable is almost impossible. Living the Gospel is tough. But, despite the rejection or the scorn of others, God blesses those who live for peace and thirst for holiness, those who empathize and love all persons regardless of their background, their language, their sexuality, their habits, or their vices, and those who risk living a life radically different from the culture around us. Living for the kingdom comes at a cost. It may cost us our reputation. It may cost us our pride. But the reward far outweighs the cost—the reward is God’s blessings. The reward of joy, love, and grace is far greater than the battle for honor, status, and notoriety. May we be so bold as to live God’s principles and risk the reputation of the spineless bleeding hearts who include even the strangest of characters and give time and again so that all may know the abundance of God’s kingdom. Amen.
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