2-2-14: Sermon on the Mount, Part 1: The Beatitudes

Sermon on the Mount, Part 1: The Beatitudes

 

Matthew 5: 1-12 (NRSV)

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 heaven.

“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.”

 

If you’re familiar at all with contemporary Christian music, or if you listen to the radio station K-LOVE, like I do, then you might be familiar with an artist by the name of Nichole Nordeman, and you might be familiar with a song she released a few years back, called “Legacy”.

I heard this one a number of times when it was in K-LOVE’s regular circulation, but I didn’t have a strong appreciation for it until a few years ago, when I was a seminary intern and led my first “All Saints’ Day” service with my friend, Emily. As we remembered the saints among us and the saints gone before us that day, Emily shared that she heard this song played at the memorial service for a friend of hers, and that these lyrics are simply a powerful reminder to all of us of what it means to a person of faith to have a life well lived.

If you’re not familiar with this song, the first verse and refrain go like this:

 

I don't mind if you've got something nice to say about me
And I enjoy an accolade like the rest
You could take my picture and hang it in a gallery
Of all who's who and so-n-so's that used to be the best
At such'n'such ... it wouldn't matter much

I won't lie, it feels alright to see your name in lights
We all need an 'Atta boy' or 'Atta girl'
But in the end I'd like to hang my hat on more besides
The temporary trappings of this world

I want to leave a legacy
How will they remember me?
Did I choose to love? Did I point to You enough
To make a mark on things?
I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace who
blessed your name unapologetically
And leave that kind of legacy

 

From now until the season of Lent begins, the Revised Common Lectionary is taking us on a journey through the Gospel of Matthew, chapters five through seven—or, what our tradition calls Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount”. Our tradition has given great love and praise to the “Sermon on the Mount” in the millennia that have passed since Jesus spoke it and Matthew copied it down. The words you find preserved in these three chapters are by far the most well-known of all of Jesus’ teachings—and, by many, the most loved. My guess is that if we went around this room and we all shared a favorite saying or teaching of Jesus’, many of them would come from the Sermon on the Mount. “Love your enemy”, “turn the other cheek”, “you are the light of the world”, “do not judge, or you will be judged”, and even the Lord’s Prayer—all of these sayings come from the Sermon on the Mount.

Now, whether Jesus really sat down with his disciples and said all of these things in one afternoon, or whether Matthew recorded them all back to back out of his own authorship is a matter of debate, but the end result is the same—in the space of three chapters, Jesus teaches us nearly everything he had to say about life. So much so that I was taught when I was being confirmed that if I was ever struggling with anything, the first place in the Bible I should turn to for advice is Matthew chapters five through seven. I’m half a lifetime removed from my confirmation, but this advice is still serving me very well.

Our Sermon on the Mount begins with what are perhaps the most famous of Jesus’ words from those teachings—what we have called “the Beatitudes”.

I have a lot of places in my life from which to draw inspiration on how to live a good, faithful life—music, authors of the faith, friends, colleagues of the cloth, family, you all—but these verses, the Beatitudes, tend to be the first I turn to.

In these twelve verses Jesus says the things that Nichole Nordeman echoed, in her song I told you about before. The difference, of course, is that in our contemporary, post-Jesus world, we’re used to hearing these kinds of thoughts. We’ve been hearing words like these for two thousand years, and, although that may not make the words themselves any easier to live up to, we aren’t shocked at the lesson.

Jesus’ audience would have been. These words are incredibly subversive. Think about them—the poor in spirit will inherit the kingdom. The meek will inherit the earth. The peacemakers are the children of God. The pure in heart are the ones who can see God. The merciful will be treated in kind. Those who mourn are blessed. Those who are persecuted are blessed.

What kind of a world would that be? Certainly a very different one even from how we live, let alone from how Jesus’ first-Century disciples lived. What kind of a world is Jesus describing to us, where humility, gentleness, faith and love make you as strong as you can be? The world is the Kingdom of God—a kingdom Jesus came into this world to plant. A world that has never been fulfilled—but could be.

It’s a world that even Jesus himself would have heard about growing up as a devoutly Jewish young man. No one had ever put these words quite as eloquently as Jesus before, but he knew that he wasn’t the first to preach this message. Prophets of old—prophets of the Old Testament, who had gone centuries before him, prophets whose words Jesus and his audience would have found sacred and holy—those prophets also proclaimed that the way to God was through peace and love.

When you study at seminary and make your way through the process of becoming an ordained minister, you get asked lots of times, in lots of different ways, to explain what your theology is. You also get asked lots of times, and in lots of ways, to describe what calls you into Christian ministry. Eventually, those two questions get put together, and they turn into—describe what you think God wants us to do to better our world.

I was prompted with a question like this one not too long ago. And people will continue to ask me questions that sound like that one—not just the people who have the power to ordain me, but the people who are curious and want to know, what do I believe that is so compelling that I would devote my life to this work?

There’s lots of words I could say to those people, but Micah, the Old Testament prophet we heard from this morning, got it in one sentence: “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

May we all leave that kind of legacy. Amen.

“Legacy” was written and performed by Nichole Nordeman.