The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany ---- 2 February 2020

{Because of weather, the congregation was unusually small. The brief announcement time prior to the Confession & Forgiveness included a short discussion of today as Palindrome Sunday (02.02.2020) and Groundhog Day as a church festival in some places.(a.k.a. Grundsautag)

Matthew 5:1-12

1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.

2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5 "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

·        There are weeks when I sweat and strain to come up with a sermon to deliver on Sunday. Some of those days, I think that you and the Gospel would be better served by silence.

·        Then there’s days like today. I could preach on the passage from Micah: He has told you, O mortal, what is good… Or from Paul: but we proclaim Christ crucified… or "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." Or the Gospel which is Matthew’s telling of the Beatitudes. An embarrass-ment of riches, as the saying goes.

·        Let’s look at Matthew’s Beatitudes. “Beatitude” is derived from the Latin word for “Blessed” or “Happy.” The wording in English shows how that came about. Each of the “blessed” statements declares a group of people to be “happy” even though common wisdom would say the opposite.

·        How are the poor blessed? Does owning the Kingdom of Heaven put food on the table or clothes on their backs? How are the persecuted blessed? Or the mourning?

·        That doesn’t seem to be the point. Once again, Jesus is turning the common wisdom about God, God’s Kingdom, and grace on its ear. Everything is being turned upside down. Those who would most likely be pitied are being called blessed and happy. The turning turns everything around and it goes further beyond that.

·        The poor are not blessed because they are poor, but because they are part of the Kingdom of Heaven. Poverty itself is no blessing; in fact, in many ways it is a curse. Even those who voluntarily choose poverty as a way of life do not find it easy, even if they choose poverty to be aligned with the poor of the world. It’s still not easy.

·        The point of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is not to bless poverty or mourning or persecution, but to show that those who endure such things are no less the children of God than those who enjoy the material blessings that many have in this world. If fact, they are often the people who have a special place in the Kingdom.

·        This has been misused by a number of people in history to say that the poor will be blessed and their reward is in heaven, but they have to suffer here on earth. Some people have called this the “pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die” theology. That really doesn’t help anybody and it has been used as a tool of oppression.

·        Another point comes to light here. Jesus declares various people to be “blessed” or “happy”, even though we would be hard pressed to see them as such. If we look at the list of people declared blessed or happy, it appears that the circumstances noted there are things that each and every one of us goes through in some way or another during our lives.

·        Poor? Yes, some of us have been poor, but all of us – every last one of us – entered this world with nothing and will leave it with nothing. I may be taking it further than I should but we are all poor and all we have has been given to us, whether we think we’ve earned it by the sweat of our brow or not.

·        Mourning? Which one of us has not mourned the loss of a loved one, of a home, of something or someone that has influenced our lives? We all mourn and we are promised that we will all be comforted.

·        Meek? Meekness may not mean quietly accepting and never speaking up for ourselves. It can mean getting out of the way of another, restraining our own power to make room for others. We’ve all done that; every parent I know has done that.

·        Merciful? Where would any of us be without the mercy of someone else in our lives? Haven’t we all experienced the move toward mercy in our lives?

·        Pure of heart… peace making… persecuted “for righteousness sake”… hungering and thirsting for righteousness, a righteousness beyond ourselves… Jesus is offering a view of a blessing on every part of everyday life. He is calling for his disciples to take on a different mindset, one that searches for and rejoices in blessings in the everyday. That is what we are to share with each other as Christians.

·        As followers of Jesus, we take on a different outlook without sugar-coating anything. We can also come to know that the ordinary is far from ordinary, even if it is painful. Christ is with us in all these things. And so the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.

Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”