In today’s gospel reading for the 6th Sunday after Epiphany, we hear part of Jesus’s famous Sermon on the Mount. Without a doubt, it is Jesus’s most famous sermon, and most theologians agree it is probably his greatest teaching.
Let me set the scene for you: Jesus has become so popular that crowds of people are surrounding him. There weren’t, of course, microphones and speakers back then, so Jesus goes up to a mountain to be seen and to be heard. You know how voices echo – how they carry – at a higher elevation? That’s why it’s called the Sermon on the Mount.
I’ve told you before that mountains in the Bible are also highly symbolic. They represent a place of higher consciousness. From this place of higher consciousness, Jesus delivers a set of teachings known as the Beatitudes.
The word “beatitude” comes from the Latin word “beatus,” which means “happy” or “fortunate” or “blessed.” And, that may be confusing to you, because Jesus here is talking about the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, the meek, the persecuted: people we don’t normally associate with being happy or fortunate or blessed, do we?
So, what was Jesus getting at here in his most famous sermon?
Well, most theologians agree that while these teachings are Jesus’s greatest teachings, they were also the ones that would get him killed.
Father Richard Rohr, the contemporary Christian theologian, said: “Jesus was not killed by evil men – no, Jesus was put to death for daring to challenge the conventional wisdom of his day.”
The Beatitudes, my friends, so challenged the conventional wisdom of his day that Jesus had to be silenced for speaking them.
Two 20th Century prophets – Mahatma Gandhi and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – were also silenced for daring to challenge the conventional wisdom and the long-standing beliefs of their day.
And, not surprisingly, both of those great men cited Jesus’s Beatitudes as the primary inspiration behind their activism. Jesus’s Beatitudes inspired both those great men!
Dr. King, in fact, said the Beatitudes were the motivating force of the entire Civil Rights movement.
With the Beatitudes, Jesus spoke words of truth, and those words upset many people. And why? Because Jesus was challenging their long-held beliefs: beliefs that had been held and taught for centuries by their ancestors, religious leaders, scholars, and kings.
You see, people in Jesus’s day believed that your lot in life signified how much God favored you. If you held wealth, power and prestige, then it was believed that you were highly favored by God. You must be living life right, because look how God has rewarded you.
But, conversely, if you were poor, sick, hungry, persecuted, then you must have done something wrong…that God was punishing you, because you or your ancestors had sinned. You were not God’s highly favored ones.
That’s what the people believed.
With the Beatitudes, Jesus takes this long-held belief system and he not only declares it wrong, but he flips on its head.
He says, “Blessed are the poor,” “Blessed are the hungry,” “Blessed are the persecuted”… “The Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”
Daring words. Dangerous words to people in power, who want to maintain the status quo.
Jesus’s instructions for us are made very clear in the Sermon on the Mount: welcome the stranger, care for the poor, tend to the sick, and fight for the powerless…not for the powerful, but for the powerless, the “least” of these in our midst.
Pope Francis recently said: “We need to build up a society in light of the Beatitudes, walking towards the Kingdom with the least of these.”
Build up a society in light of the Beatitudes. Can you imagine if we actually did that? Built up a society in which the last are treated first? Where the least of these are given the most importance?
You know, from time-to-time in our country, we hear one Christian group or another who wants to have the “Ten Commandments” displayed in a public schools or city halls or in public courthouses.
This has been going on for several decades now.
Over 30 years ago, the award-winning American writer, Kurt Vonnegut, said: “For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.”
And, he’s right. I mean, I never hear any Christians advocating for the Beatitudes to be put on public display, do you?
Can you imagine in a government building if Jesus’s words from the Sermon on the Mount were posted on the wall: “Feed the hungry,” “Care for the sick,” “Lift up the poor,” “Serve the least of these in your midst.”
Can you imagine in a public courthouse if the words of Jesus were up on the wall: “Forgive one another’s debts,” “Set the captives free,” “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
How come they never want those words up in public places, for those are the words of Jesus?
In our Words of Integration this morning, we heard about the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar was a group of around 150 theologians and Biblical Scholars who worked together in the 1980’s and 90’s.
They discovered that all of the Aramaic bibles were destroyed in the 6th century, and so they worked to translate the Gospels back into their original Aramaic, which was the language that Jesus spoke, and they discovered that Jesus’s teachings take on a whole new meaning.
As we heard this morning, the word translated as “blessed” in the Bible, really means “Congratulations” in Aramaic.
So what Jesus was really saying in the Beatitudes: “Congratulations, poor people. Congratulations, hungry people. Congratulations, you marginalized and outcast.”
Why is he congratulating them? Because he’s letting them know that in his Kingdom, they are going to be first: the “least of these” are going to be the most important.
And, then after congratulating them with those Beatitudes, Jesus gives four woes or warnings to the rich and powerful.
As we just heard, he says: “Woe to you who are rich. Woe to you who are full. Who to you who are laughing…for you will mourn and weep.”
Jesus, my friends, was arrested and killed for saying things like these.
So, what does it the Beatitudes mean for us today?
Well, they’re a good opportunity for us to reflect on who we are in the story.
Are we like those who are more concerned with maintaining and protecting our own ‘status quo’ or are we like the ones who hunger and thirst for justice.
Maybe you’re feeling Poor in Spirit right now…disheartened about things. Maybe you weeping over the state of the world.
If you’re feeling disheartened and dissatisfied right now: Congratulations!
Congratulations! Rejoice and be glad!
That’s the point Jesus is making with the Beatitudes – that being dissatisfied with the status quo – with the state of the world – is a good thing. A blessed thing.
And, why is it a good thing? Because it’s waking us up! It’s motivating us to do the work of bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth, a just world for all people.
I would like to conclude by reading to you a Modern-Day version of the Beatitudes, which were written by John Pattison:
Here’s to the weak ones.
The outcasts.
The broken.
The peacemakers.
The ragamuffin royalty who will inherit a new world.
The ones who see God through open eyes and open hearts.
They don’t long for power.
And they have no respect for status.
You can insult them, spread lies about them,
disbelieve, vilify or persecute them.
About the only thing you can’t do is dishearten them.
They comfort. They show mercy. They heal.
They mourn with those who mourn. They love.
They are filled to overflowing with goodness.
And while some may see them as the weak ones,
I say they are blessed.