Luke 6:17-26

All three Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – report this story we just read. Do you remember when you read the Beatitudes for the first time? What was your response? How did you feel? I was a high school student, when I first read the Beatitudes. My first response was: “How is it possible?” Blessed are the poor? Really? Most of us don’t really know what to do with the Beatitudes. I think we have been hearing them so long we have lost their shock value.

Yes, I was shocked first, and then, I don’t know exactly why but I really like the way it is written. They sound sort of sweet and familiar. “Blessed are the poor,” Jesus said. In Matthew’s Gospel, it is “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” but, in Mark and Luke’s Gospels, it is just “Blessed are the poor.” (period). Of course, as you know, Gospel according to Mark was written earlier than Matthew and Luke and when both of them wrote their Gospels they used Mark’s Gospel as a reference. Too make a long story short, scholars believe that what Jesus actually said is “Blessed are the poor.” (period). It is so shocking to listen that even Matthew tried to comprise with his audience: He wrote, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

Some years ago, an article entitled “How Do You Measure Up As A Man?” was published. This article stated that some extensive research had been conducted on the American standards for measuring a man. The criteria were quite interesting:

His ability to make and conserve money (Gee, this instantly lets me out. In fact, most people whom I know are out already. I wish my dad was not one of them, but he is out as well).

The cost, style and age of his car. (Did you know that I drove a 23-year-old Dodge Spirit before I moved to Darien? So, it lets me out again. But I like the next one).

How much hair he has. (Now you know why I like it. Thank you, dad, for your rich inheritance of lots of hair on my head).
(Next one is interesting). His strength and size.

The job he holds and how successful he is at it.

What sports he likes. (I don’t like aggressive sports. I like playing golf and tennis. I guess I am out again).

How many clubs he belongs to. (Well…, now, I feel depressed, because you know why).

His aggressiveness and reliability.

I can agree with reliability, but aggressiveness? I know aggressiveness in sport games, like football, is highly valued, but I never knew that it is a virtue of measuring up. My point is this: The Beatitudes are shocking because we all live in a society of which collective values are money, power; pride and aggressiveness.

Jesus did not say ‘Blessed are the rich.’ But we do, and our society wishes he did. We like the notion that it is actually Jesus who not only sees the rich as blessed, but even that Jesus was the one who blessed them with riches in the first place. But then we pick up our Bible and find Jesus saying, “Blessed are the poor.” “O Lord, you can’t be serious…” We wish.

It is interesting that some contemporary Bible versions have translated the Greek word makarios which we find at the beginning of each of Jesus’ Beatitudes not as “blessed,” but as “happy,” and that is a legitimate translation. This gives the Beatitudes a whole new meaning yet raises some troubling questions. Happy are the poor? Happy are the sad? Happy are the persecuted? How can that be? Happiness has to do with being rich and famous. Happiness means being well-fed and feeling good. Happiness is getting your own way. Where is happiness in poverty? How does one find happiness in sorrow and grief? How can a person who suffers or is persecuted find happiness?

Several different ways of understanding have been proposed. Some have taken Jesus’ declarations as ethical instructions, as if he tells people to shape up and live humbly and mercifully if they want to receive God’s gifts. Others see Jesus trying to expose where true contentment resides, not in self-preservation and striving for more, but ironically in a humble embrace of simplicity, scarcity, and humility.

The challenge is: Will you be happy in the world’s way or in Christ’s way? Jesus is saying that “If you set your heart and spend your energies to obtain the things the world values, you will get them. But, that’s all you will ever get.” So, here, Jesus proposes the inauguration of a new age, a new reign of God with his sermon on the mount.

A poet, James Merrell suggests that the Beatitudes may be more instructive when inverted or read backwards. “The way to Heaven is through poverty . . . the way to consolation is through genuine sorrow . . . the way to earthly possessions is through a gentle spirit that is neither stingy nor possessive . . . the way to satisfaction is through a hungering and thirsting for justice . . . the way to mercy is through mercy . . . the way to God is through the open, unobstructed, pure heart . . . the way to a full relationship with God is through the active practice of peace . . . the way to God’s realm or Kingdom is through the struggle for justice that leads through conflict, pain, and even death itself.”

If we take the Beatitudes from this perspective they become something other than a recipe for reward. They are instead, more like a road map for Christian journey. They are not so much a recipe for happiness or blessedness as they are a description of the Christian life. The Beatitudes can be described as what life in God’s Kingdom is like. They are ATTITUDES which believers share; attitudes that characterize the lives of God’s faithful people.

Last week, I read several sermons on this text. A Presbyterian pastor, Rev. Paul Petersen wrote on the beatitudes the following questions:
Are the beatitudes your attitudes? 
Do you live the simple, basic life of the poor, apart from the materialistic consumerism that rules our society? 
Do you mourn over the loss of God as the recognized guide for our society, not the intellectual mourning that judges and condemns society, but the heartfelt grieving of an empty spot in our life? 
Are you guided by clear vision God’s desire for you? 
Are you persecuted for righteousness sake? 
Do your life attitudes stand in such contradistinction from society’s attitudes that you are considered strange and subversive.
He concludes, “If not, why not?”

Before I conclude my sermon, I want to quote Eugene Peterson’s wonderful paraphrase: “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and [God’s] rule.”

Our Lord invites us to live the Kingdom of God…, HERE and NOW. The Kingdom of God is simply the place where God is King, where God controls, where God rules. Those who are “poor,” or who are at the end of their rope, in Eugene Peterson’s phrasing, are now in a position to experience God being in control of their lives in a way they never could when they were convinced that they themselves were in charge. 

This blessed experience of the kingdom is not something we set as a goal for ourselves. This is too unnatural, upside-down, inside-out. Instead, this will be purely and simply a gift of God’s grace. As Paul says, “Not I, but Christ in me.”

A blessed life, a happy life, is one which keeps things in proper perspective. This can be your mantra for the week – when you look in your morning mirror, get your day started as you look at the image and repeat, “God is God and I am not….” Perspective.

The beatitudes call us to look at our lives and accept the blessings God gives us as signs of God’s faithfulness to us and in return to live in such a way that we show by word and example, by our faithfulness and commitment to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ to others. Just showing forth such blessings in our lives will be a blessing for others. My brothers and sisters in Christ, let us go out and BE A BLESSING FOR OTHERS. Amen.   Photo by Jonny Swales on Unsplash