Matthew
5:1-12 Blessing the Cursed
The text tells us that Jesus saw the crowds, and
then he went up on the mountain. He sat
down and his disciples gathered around him and he began to teach them, what is
probably one of the most well known collections of teachings Jesus ever taught,
which is commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. I don’t know when but sometime during this
great “sermon” the crowd must have noticed that something was going on.
In my imagination, I see the people, who gathered
around Jesus that day, trickling in. One
notices the disciples gathered around Jesus and wants to know what is going
on. She tentatively walks a little
closer, standing just on the edge of hearing range, not wanting to disturb the
great teachers as he teaches his disciples. She is pulled in, step by step she
gets closer until she finds her self sitting down on the outside of the circle
of disciples. This type of scenario is repeated over and over again, with
individuals and small groups of people; all noticing the rabbi instructing his
disciples, who are then overcome with a want, a need to know what it is he is
saying. By the end of Jesus’ instruction there is a great crowd gathered around
Jesus, who are all astonished by his teaching and the authority with which he
taught.
I don’t know how many from outside the inner circle of
disciples had wandered over, when Jesus began this particular bit of
instruction, but I imagine that many have not yet realized that Jesus is
teaching, so the majority of the people who have gathered around Jesus are his
disciples and a handful of curious persons lingering on the very outer fringes.
Jesus saw the crowds that day and, for some unmentioned
reason, was compelled to go a little ways off. Then when his disciples had
gathered around him, he is moved to speak these words, “Blessed are the poor in
Spirit. . . Blessed are those who mourn. .
. the meek . . . those who hunger and thirst for righteousness . . . the
pure in heart . . . peacemakers . . . those who are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake.” It makes me wonder
what Jesus saw in the crowd which made him need to tell his disciples that
these people are blessed. We know at
another time Jesus looked at the crowd and had compassion on them and still
another, while in Jerusalem
It seems to me that Jesus’ heart broke when he looked
into the faces of the crowds which followed him everywhere he went, because he
saw into the heart of their very beings and knew more profoundly how deeply
hurting each of them were. When Jesus
looked into the crowd he did not see a mass of people clamoring to see and hear
the new teacher, he did not see a bunch of dirty, smelly, overly needy
people. Jesus saw a meek woman, being
walked all over by others in her life. He saw the young man mourning the loss
of his son. He saw the man who had tried so hard, and strived so long but no
matter how hard he scrapped and clawed he could not find his way spiritually
and all he had to show for his work and labor was emptiness, he was still poor
in spirit. He saw the one who worked to make peace everywhere she went. He saw
the man who had forgiven time-and-time-again, only to find his forgiveness was
needed once more, who stood in the crowd that day wondering if there should
ever be an end to his mercy. When Jesus
looked into that crowd that day he saw each and everyone one of these
individuals. He saw how hurt they were,
he saw how broken they were. He knew
they had been let down, beaten down, used and abused time-and-time-again, so he
turned away from them, waited for his disciples to gather around him and began
to teach them to see as he saw.
Most people, had they seen these same people in the
crowd, would see people who were hopeless, people who had nothing, and would
never have anything. They would see
people who were abandoned and perhaps even cursed by God. The common understanding of things was that
if you were at the bottom, there was a reason you were where you were. You had done something to deserve the lot in
life you in which you had found yourself. If you were poor, you were poor
because you did not work hard enough. If
you were broken and downtrodden, it was because you had not lived a life that
would enable you to be whole and well off.
What ever happened to you was a direct result of your actions and God
blessed you or cursed you to put you were you are based on what you
deserved. (To tell you the truth, I
don’t think that is too far off from the way many think today.)
Jesus did not think this way. Jesus did not see that any of these people
deserved to be where they were. Jesus
did not see people who had gotten what they had coming to them. When he looked out across the crowd that day he
did not see anyone who was cursed and rejected by God. Where most anyone else would have seen a
crowd full of wretched people, cursed by God, worthy only of our scorn and
distain, Jesus saw people who were blessed; blessed (not cursed) by God. Blessed but not in worldly ways, with worldly
things but blessed in ways, which can only come through God. Where the world
saw the cursed, Jesus saw the blessed.
These people were not people whom those who followed
Jesus should pull back from and avoid.
These people were not people to be avoided, they were people who were to
be embraced, they were people who should be gathered in, and included, instead
of scattered and excluded. They were
blessed!
Some of you of you are thinking, “But, Pastor they most
definitely were not blessed. Their lives
were sad, their lives were fragmented, they were harassed, they were despondent,
they were all the people everyone else distained. Unless, you are going to completely redefine
the meaning of blessed, Pastor, these people’s lives were anything but blessed.”
And I am with you on that. When you are among those who are seen by the
world as at the bottom of the heap; when you are pure in heart, you are lost in
this debased world. The reality too
often is, when you are merciful, your mercy is abused; when you are mourning, there
seems to be no comfort; when you are poor in spirit, it seems you will never be
rich in what truly matters; when you are hungry for righteousness and you live in
this world full of sin, there is nothing, which can fill you. When you are among these mentioned by Jesus
here, you are far too often at the bottom, being stepped on by the world and
you feel nothing but blessed. Yet, Jesus
says that is when you are blessed. So how can we argue with Jesus? If Jesus said it, it surely must be true. But, how can it be true, when their
lives are quite obviously not blessed in anyway we have ever come to think of
this world?
Perhaps it would be good to look at how it is they are
blessed. Jesus tells us they are blessed,
by God. But how? How are they blessed,
through what means? This answer can be
found in understanding to whom it was Jesus was addressing, when he began to
teach in this manner. It seems he said
these things in response to those whom he saw amongst the crowd that day, but
he spoke these words to his disciples when they gathered around him on the
mountain. He wanted his disciples to
know that these people are blessed, so they, through his disciples, could
be blessed.
The blessing these people receive is not found in
simply being the desperate people they are, it is not found in being blessed by
those who have chosen to associate themselves with Jesus. It is found in those
who listen to the words of Jesus, learn the lessons he is teaching them and
live in the ways Jesus is calling for them to live. Jesus came to bring the kingdom of Heaven
As Christians we are called to live as if God was the
authority and the rule maker here. Our
goal is to bring the goodness and the greatness of the kingdom of God
We are called to live Godly lives, to live by the rules
of God so that in doing so we can bring the goodness, the kindness the grace of
God to the people around us. It is in
this way that the blessings of God are brought to this world.
Jesus called disciples who choose to follow him and
learn as he taught. Jesus taught his
disciples what it meant to live kingdom living that is living by the way God
would want them to live in this world.
Sin has destroyed our world. Sin
and the consequences of sin are innumerable.
It separates us from God. It
separates us one from another. It tears
people lives apart. It ruins our
families. It corrodes our
marriages. It pulls us away from our
children; it puts divides between us and our parents. It causes us to fail one another. It causes pain and hardship in. It brings us nothing but sorrow. But Jesus
came to change all that.
Jesus came to bring the kingdom of God kingdom of God Kingdom of Heaven kingdom of God kingdom
of Heaven
The blessing of those who are the least, those who are
at the bottom is twofold. First, of all
they are blessed by God. God has a word
for these that are scrapping and clamoring just to make it by physically,
emotionally or spiritually. God sees
your pain, your sorrow, the peace you make, the mercy you give. God sees it all and pronounces blessing upon
you. God blesses you, should you choose
to accept God’s blessing, first by reaching out and restoring relationship with
you, but also by blessing you with strength where you are weak, healing where
you are hurting, giving comfort where you sorrow. God will stand in the gap and give to you
what you truly need where you are the weakest and most venerable.
But the blessing does not end with the blessings of God
but God continues to bless those most vulnerable, those most hurting, those
most in need by allowing them to be blessed by those who have chosen to live
the kingdom of God in their lives and therefore bless as God blesses.
Those of us who would call ourselves Christians, we are
disciples; we are choosing to follow Jesus.
We too are learning to be kingdom people, learning how to live as if the
kingdom of God has come to earth, because it has, in Jesus Christ, and it
continues to come to earth each and every time we choose to live as Christ
calls for us to live instead of living as the world around us would have us
live.
Our world tells us that certain people are at the
bottom. It tells us that some people it are less than worthy. We are told that some people, for any number
of reasons are in essence cursed. Too
many times we buy into it. We come to
believe that some people have chosen their lot; they deserve the pain and
hardship in their lives that somehow, in someway they have brought it upon
themselves. It is their own fault. We see the meek and wonder why they don’t
stick up for themselves. We see the poor
in spirit and simply expect them to be spiritual giants. We see those who mourn and wonder why they
can’t just get over it. We see those who
are hungering and thirsting for righteousness and can’t understand why they are
starving. We see those who call for
peace and think that they are looking for something unobtainable. We look at these people and we know what they
need to do to make their lives better.
We see them as weak. We alongside
of all those in the world around us see these people as less than worthy. We are told in many spoken and unspoken ways that
some deserve censure at worst and pity at best, but God tells us, that they are blessed.
On one level Jesus as he spoke that day wanted those
hurting people he saw in the crowd to know that where they felt nothing but
cursing, where they were despised by the society around them that this was not
the way it was with God. God saw who
they were, God saw that they were hurting, broken and beat down by those around
them and Jesus wanted them to know, with God there is blessing where the world
would curse. God brings strength to our
weakness and fullness to our emptiness.
But Jesus’ teaching went beyond that, he also told his
disciples to live as he lived, to see the world as he saw the world and to love
as he loved. When Jesus saw the crowd
his was moved to teach his disciples a different way to see the people around
him. He wanted them to see blessing
where the world saw cursing. He wanted
those who followed him to see people the way he saw people. And begin to bless where he blessed.
This passage does two things. It gives hope to the hurting and calls for
all those who choose to follow Christ to live a life of blessing; to bless the
least, the lowliest; to love the unloved, to reach out and give the hope of
Christ to the hopeless, to support the falling. To be the blessing which Christ
pronounces in this world.
