The Beatitudes in an Age of Outrage

(thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

This blog post is based on my sermon delivered on January 27, 2019, which in turn relies heavily and quotes extensively from Mary Hinkle Shore's article, "The Beatitudes in the Age of Trump," published in the Journal for Preachers, Lent 2019. This blog post is intended for reflection and discussion among the members and friends of the Katonah (NY) Presbyterian Church.

Mark is a member of a Lutheran congregation in North Carolina. By Bible Belt standards at any rate, the congregation is somewhat left-leaning. Most of the church members avoid talking openly about politics, but during the 2016 election Mark would proudly wear his "Basket of Deplorables" t-shirt to choir practice. Mark's pastor is quick to point out that Mark also regularly volunteers in the church and in the community.

Another member of that same congregation is Charlie, who sleeps with a loaded handgun in his nightstand. He is a retiree living in a modest house on a quiet street that has never seen a home invasion. Yet Charlie is vigilant. He comments to his pastor that if someone comes after him or his family he does not intend to go down without a fight. And he reports that since he decided to keep the gun close, he sleeps much better. Charlie volunteers in the church and with the local sheriff's department. Often throughout the year, you will find him spending his Saturday mornings helping to control traffic so that participants in bike rides or road runs in their picturesque, western North Carolina mountain town will be safe.

Still another member of that same congregation is Julie. Julie is on the Religious Affairs Committee for the local chapter of the NAACP. On her Facebook feed, you can keep up with the latest marches and meetings that she plans to attend. She is convening a group in her church to see how their congregation can be more involved in ministry on behalf of immigrants and refugees. These days she finds herself making a lot of snarky comments and raging at the television news, but she also takes time each week to talk to a man in the church who regularly sends right wing emails to her and about a dozen others.

Mary Hinkle Shore is a New Testament scholar who taught for 13 years at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Six years ago, she felt a strong sense of call to return to parish ministry, and she became the pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brevard, North Carolina. Mark, Charlie, and Julie are members of the congregation that she is privileged to serve.

As Mary Hinkle Shore observes,

Americans regularly hear that our culture is getting more and more divided into enclaves of people who think alike. Social media algorithims [tend to direct us toward opinions that more or less match our own]. And yet almost all of us who belong to a Christian congregation find ourselves in the same pew week after week with people that no algorithim would pair with us.

Each week we make a confession of sin and hear words of forgiveness. We share the Peace of Christ with one another. Christ nourishes us in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Mary Hinkle Shore writes that

just by worshipping together, [her congregation] resists the temptation to believe that if they only voted Mark off the island, or Julie, we would offer a better witness to the Gospel . . . The temptation of the present age is to believe that after just a little violence--the snarky joke, some deportations, the death penalty, or what the gun in the nightstand can do--we will be safe.

The Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5:1-12, make it clear that our safety lies elsewhere. The Beatitudes are the first extensive words spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. They are the opening words to the Sermon on the Mount.

Mount of the Beatitudes, near Tabgha, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee

And how does Jesus begin his most famous sermon? With words of blessing. This point cannot be emphasized enough. Jesus is NOT saying that we need to work even harder at being meek or pure in heart. Instead, Jesus is telling us that we are already blessed.

Many of the blessings mentioned in the Beatitudes would have been familiar to Jesus' original audience and to the congregation of mostly Jewish Christians in Antioch near the end of the first century, for whom the Gospel of Matthew was most likely written. Promises about the coming of the kingdom of heaven, seeing God, and being called children of God would have been familiar from the Psalms, the songbook of Ancient Israel.

The surprise, according to New Testament scholar Robert Smith, is that these promises were usually understood to be promises for the faithful in Israel, for those who excelled in righteousness, for the successful ones. But in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that these blessings are for the very ones who were the most insecure by the standards of the day, that is, people who lacked social standing, political power, or even spiritual power. (Robert Smith, as quoted in Mary Hinkle Shore's article in the Journal for Preachers).

The ones who are blessed are poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted, and the slandered. This is not a list of winners! Mary Hinkle Shore says that

we read down this list and wonder whether the blessing of God is not a consolation prize awarded to those who are too kind for politics, too passive for business, and too sensitive for ministry.

But about such people, Jesus says that they are blessed now--right now!--because they will in the future have the kingdom of heaven, be comforted, inherit the earth, be filled, have mercy, see God, become daughters and sons of God, have the kingdom of heaven (note that Jesus repeats this one twice!, and finally have a great reward.

Thus, the Beatitudes are present blessings based on a future promise. Why would Jesus speak in this way? Well, when does it help to know the end of a story at its beginning? Answer: when the story is going to get scary in the middle. As Mary Hinkle Shore observes,

if, in the scariest parts of the story, we are to reject trying to get safe by violence, hatred of enemies, laying up treasures on earth, then we must know something about the nature of God and our destination. We must know that ultimately we are held in the love and justice of God. When we know that this is the end of the story, our imaginations and our lives change. Jesus' promises have the effect of pulling the future they describe into the present "ahead of time." 

Another scholar and former pastor, Richard Lischer, describes it this way:

If I am out of work and on relief, and the owner of the local grocery store promises me a job in two weeks, whether or not I now adopt a stance of hope in the world depends on the character of the one who promises. (Richard Lischer, as quoted by Mary Hinkle Shore).

Is the grocery store owner trustworthy? Does he keep promises? If so, then my life has already changed.

Now, does Lischer's would-be grocery store worker have a job yet? Technically, no. He will have a job in two weeks; even so, this afternoon he twirls his wife around the kitchen when he arrives home. Tonight he sleeps without the usual interval in the wee hours spent staring at the ceiling, wide awake. Next week, he makes sure he has something in which to pack his lunch to work each day. The day before the job starts, he lays out his work clothes. His life has already changed. All of these observable actions flow from a promise made by a trustworthy grocery store owner. (Mary Hinkle Shore).

If the word of a trustworthy grocery store owner can have that kind of impact, then how much more powerful would a word of promise be from Jesus? Jesus speaks with authority, and he speaks to our fears.

It may seem that the goal of political rhetoric nowadays is to keep everyone angry, but underneath anger is almost always fear. We are afraid of many things. Some of us fear that there is no longer a meaningful distinction between truth and falsehood; some fear that our "American way of life" os about to be lost. We fear the other, the bully, the loser, the rich, the poor. We are afraid of getting old, getting cancer, being irrelevant, being in the minority. We are afraid of dying. All this fear makes us hunger and thirst for security. (Mary Hinkle Shore).

 The Beatitudes take us in a different direction. To those who have always been utterly vulnerable Jesus speaks promises of present and eternal security. From that place of ultimate safety, the followers of Jesus are free to risk living in the ways that Jesus describes in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.

We may risk loving those who call us deplorable, praying for our persecutors, not shouting "You fool!" at the television set [no matter how tempting that might be!]. and greeting with joy the powerful resistance that our actions will call forth from the rulers of this age. (Mary Hinkle Shore).

As we risk living such a life, followers of Jesus inhabit an alternative universe right here in the middle of this one that seems so often characterized by mean-spiritedness and the dehumanization and exploitation of others. Indeed, living into the values Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount has the power to transform our current realities.

Will Willimon is a retired United Methodist bishop and the former chaplain and preacher at Duke University. He remembers one Methodist congregation that was torn apart by conflict and turmoil. Pastor after pastor left, declaring that this was the meanest church they had ever served.

Today, though, that same congregation is an example of how the church can be a beacon of hope. What happened? Well, that congregation set up a safe home for women and children who were experiencing domestic violence. That ministry, welcoming outsiders, extending hospitality to strangers, helped the church members to get over themselves. 

One lay leader said, "The women and children taught us lessons in courage, faith, and love. We needed to get outside of church to learn how to be the church." (from an article by Beth Johnson, "Hospitality to Strangers," in The Journal for Preachers, Lent 2019).

We needed to get outside of church to learn how to be the church.

Hold on to that phrase for the next several weeks. Let's brainstorm together about what that might mean in our context, in our ministry to and with the community.

For the next two Sundays we will continue to explore Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. You can read the Sermon on the Mount by reading Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. I invite you to read it at home or on your mobile devices on the train during your morning or afternoon commute. Read through the Sermon on the Mount slowly. Let the words soak in.

In what ways do you see signs that the alternative reality to which Jesus points is already taking hold in our world?

In what ways has our congregation, Katonah Presbyterian Church, already embraced the values espoused in the Sermon on the Mount?

And in what ways might we move beyond our remaining fears and more fully embrace the promises that Jesus has already made?

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

Please feel free to use the comments section to this blog post as an opportunity for questions and reflection . . .