All
Saints' Observed – Matthew 5:1-11 – November 3rd and
4th, 2018
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
We
live in desperate times. There is desperation all over the place -
it's in the air, on the political signs and the telephone calls, in
the way we look at our families and friends, the way we look at
ourselves in the mirror. Desperation. We see change around us, and
often not for the better. We feel anxiety over money or race
relations or the health of our state or the violence all around us,
and that fear and anxiety boils up into desperation, and we want
something to fix it. And we get more agitated and short with each
other, we villainize each other, we self medicate ourselves – all
because we are desperate.
Now,
the part of me that is a historian wants to brush this desperation
off, sort of poo-poo it. I want to run to cold hard stats about
rates of violence, or run to narratives of the past – see, all this
desperation is just silly, why you've been through worse times
before. We have more wealth and more technology and less violence
and less global poverty than ever before, blah, blah blah, blah blah.
That's just how I self-medicate and deal with fear and anxiety – I
pretend to be above the fray... just like a duck, looking all nice
and calm while my own desperations paddle away just under the
surface. While I feel superior because my desperations aren't as bad
as other people's desperations.
Instead,
we ought to consider the truth. That there is some wisdom and sense
to the fear and anxiety we feel. There is plenty of wild and crazy
stuff going on out there, and frankly, a lot of it just is not under
our control. And the prevailing myth that has run our country and
western society for the past 200 years is that if we just keep
working and growing and improving, we will get a grip on this thing
called life, and we will control things, we will tame and fix the
world. And there's been great progress – progress we should be
thankful for. Just think for a second on medical advances – how
many of us in this room right now would have been dead if not for
medical technologies developed in the past 100 years? I'd have been.
We should be grateful to the moon over the advances in medicine...
but there's still an awful lot of fear and anxiety about it. That's
because, even with all this progress, we know it's not enough. That
sooner or later the doctor's going to say, “There's nothing more we
can do.” Or in other words, I can't control it.
And
that's just medicine. Every field of human study plays out the same
way. Governance, technology, agriculture, computing – so on and so
forth – we hit a point where the problems are still there and
there's nothing we can do. Where we can do everything right (at
least according to worldly standards), and things just go wrong.
This hits theology – how many hucksters are out there preaching
wealth and prosperity – “I declare this will be a good day” or
however the latest flavor of Name it and Claim It theology likes to
babble. It doesn't work. We are powerless. And we hate that. And
it rips us apart. And so we are desperate for something to fix the
problem, desperate for someone to blame, desperate for something to
numb the pain.
The
crowds Jesus saw in Matthew chapter 5 were desperate too. They were
a conquered people, oppressed by the Romans, facing terrible poverty.
Less power than we have, less prospects than us. And Jesus looks
over this crowd, and He does something that is so bizarre to us.
Jesus doesn't tell them how to fix things. He doesn't Dave Ramsey
them into better economic advice (fine as that is), nor does He tell
them to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps like Rush Limbaugh
might. Jesus doesn't take the liberal tact either – Jesus doesn't
start a community organization project or blame the 1 percent or the
Colonizing powers of Rome. He doesn't even do my historical thing of
comparing them to other time periods in the OT and telling them to
buck up. Jesus doesn't tell these desperate people how to fix
anything.
Instead,
Jesus says something utterly profound. You are blessed. 9 times.
Blessed are the fill in the blank. Do you realize how utterly insane
that sounds to the desperate world? Blessed are the poor in spirit –
think on that, if you are beat down and crushed by life in this
world, if you are downtrodden and spit upon and at the end of your
rope – Jesus says that you are blessed. Why? Not because he's got
the three easy steps to turn things around, not because the bad
people are going to be punished, not because the new rulers will
finally be the right rulers. No – Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Is.
Right now. Right now the Kingdom of heaven is yours... and it's
still yours if next year goes better or if it goes worse. It is
yours if there is sickness or health, richer or poorer, all those
variations. None of them change the fact that the Kingdom of Heaven
is yours. You belong to Christ Jesus, and He has given you the
Kingdom of Heaven – He has baptized you. You are an heir of
heaven, it is yours – and there's not a thing in this world that
can take that away from you. Christ Jesus has given Himself to you,
He has shed His blood for you to rescue you from sin and from death
and the devil, and His Kingdom is yours. Now.
How
often do we think on the fact that we are the Baptized? That we are
brothers and sisters of Christ the King, that heaven is ours come
hell or high water, because Christ Jesus has broken open the gates of
hell with His death and resurrection and has turned water into a
lavish washing away of sin in Holy Baptism? I went to my
grandmother's funeral (at a church of a denomination that will remain
nameless), and the pastor had done a lovely job of pointing out how
kind my grandmother had been, how even 6 years after she had moved to
Florida she was still loved and remembered up in Toledo, little
plastic canvas things she had made all over the place. It was a nice
start... but it just stopped. A wistful sigh of the past. Never
mentioned that she was Baptized. Never mentioned that even though
sin and death had ripped away her mind – I would have even taken
Alzheimer's as the villain – never mentioned that even though Emily
couldn't remember much towards the end and that while there was
nothing we could do – Christ Jesus remembered her, and the Kingdom
of heaven is hers. Instead, oh, she was good to us here and to her
family, why don't you be good too. A little holy homework, something
you can do.
Something
you can do. That's our old sinful flesh talking, thinking, running
things. Our old sinful flesh is desperate, desperate to have power
and control. That's really what sin is – it's me wanting to be in
control of everything. I will determine what is good and what is
bad, and I will by my own actions take the bull by the horns and
wrest of life what I can get out of it. And we try, until we push
ourselves to our wits ends – until we are finally poor in Spirit
and ready to listen again to God. Hi there, O baptized child of God
– Heaven is yours. Already. Always has been. You are blessed.
Hi
there mourner. You are blessed, because Christ Jesus has defeated
and destroyed death, and in the resurrection you will receive a
comfort far beyond anything you could try to cobble together. Jesus
has this all under His control for you.
Hi
there you who are meek, who are just tired of all the fighting and
want to lay down your arms. You are blessed, because you're going to
inherit the new heavens and the new earth. Jesus has done it –
it's His will and testament, sealed by His death upon the Cross, by
His blood shed there. He gives the proof, His very Body and Blood to
you in His Supper. You don't need to be the fighter – Jesus has
this all under His control for you.
Hi
there you who thirst and hunger for righteousness. You see that this
world is messed up – well, you'll never fix it to your
satisfaction. You'll never even progress yourself to your own
satisfaction. But, you are blessed, because Christ Jesus is
righteous, and He has poured His righteousness upon you, declared His
righteousness to be your righteousness. When it comes to
righteousness – Jesus has it all under His control for you.
Hi
there pure in heart. Yes, I'm talking to you – because you've been
baptized, you've been declared righteous. You've had your sin
forgiven over and over by Christ Jesus through His Word. You're
blessed, because no matter what you see come down the pike, Christ
Jesus your Lord will return and you will be raised to perfection, and
you will see God in your own flesh, your own eyes and not another's.
Jesus has it all under His control for you.
Hi
there peacemaker, you who proclaim Christ's peace and forgiveness to
others. They may not like it that much. They may blow you off and
run back to their own desperate plans. You understand that well
enough – you often run back to your own desperate plans. But
that's why God has sent people into your life to speak peace to you,
and why He has you speak peace to people as well. The peace of
Christ that He has won, the peace that He pours out through His
Spirit is what makes us sons of God. Again, Jesus has it all under
His control for you.
Oh,
and by the by peacemaker – proclaiming Christ Crucified for sinners
won't make you popular in the world. See, people in the world don't
want a God who makes for peace – people would much rather come up
with their own political or social or military solutions. People are
desperate to find the next greatest thing to fix the world... while
the world keeps on spinning. And when you point to Christ, when you
proclaim His peace and His righteousness – as opposed to the
violence and “rightness” of the latest cause or movement, you
will be persecuted. You will be ignored, or written off, or called a
traitor to the cause. You will be mocked, and reviled, and you will
have wicked, jealous things said of you. It doesn't change a thing
about who Jesus is and what He has done, nor does it change the fact
that Christ Jesus has died for you and risen for you and that He will
return for you to raise you from the dead and give you a new heaven
and a new earth, and so yes, rejoice, because you are blessed. Jesus
has it all under control for you.
My
dear friends, you who have been called out of darkness, even the
darkness of your own thoughts and whims and wishes, you who have been
called out of darkness into His marvelous light, blessed are you,
because Christ Jesus truly is your Lord and Savior, and nothing can
make Him waver in that. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit +