Matthew 5:1-12
Living as Saints
James
Sledge November
1, 2020 – All Saints
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| The Sermon on the Mount Gary Bunt |
Such proverbial wisdom is generally meant to be self-evident. By that I mean that once you hear it, its truth will strike you. You will agree that while some people are smarter and more creative, hard work matters greatly. Either that or you will reject it as wisdom entirely.
People have sometimes approached the Sermon on the Mount, and especially its Beatitudes, as though they were pearls of wisdom to guide us on the path of success and well-being. Robert Schuller, of Crystal Cathedral fame, wrote a book back in the 1980s entitled, The Be (Happy) Attitudes: 8 Positive Attitudes That Can Transform Your Life. In it he says, “As we look upon the Beatitudes – The Be-Happy Attitudes – of Jesus Christ, you will discover our Lord’s key to joyful living.”[1]
Schuller sees each Beatitude as a wise saying that is a guide to happiness. The word translated “blessed” in our scripture can mean “happy,” but it is quite a stretch to speak of happiness being found in poverty of spirit, mourning, or being persecuted. And in fact, Schuller must get quite creative in explaining how Jesus’ blessings lead to happiness, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” becomes “I’m really hurting—but I’m going to bounce back!” And “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake” becomes, “I can choose to be happy—anyway!”[2]
This twisting of Jesus’ words is patently absurd, but Schuller’s bigger mistake is thinking that Jesus’ blessings are proverbs at all. They’re not. They are categorical statements about an unexpected reality not evident to the world. It is God’s view of things and so the shape of the new world that God is creating, the Kingdom that Jesus says has “come near.”
This reality is not self-evident. It is rooted in the character of God and is dependent on the trustworthiness of the one who speaks it, not anything we do. Jesus is describing something at odds with the world as we know it. No one listens to Jesus and nods in agreement saying, “O yes, yes, it is quite good and enjoyable to be persecuted or to weep and mourn.” Instead, Jesus speaks of a new reality that we are invited to become a part of.
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As a pastor, I’ve done my share of weddings over the years. Not infrequently, the couple had no connection to the church I served, or to any church for that matter. Such couples came to me because they liked the idea of church as a wedding venue, but also because I had the authority to marry them. When I said, “Therefore, I proclaim that you are now husband and wife,” they in fact were. Had the couple walked up to someone on the street and asked, “Will you marry us?” that person could have humored them and said the exact same vows and words that I had, but that would not have changed their marital status at all.
Jesus does something similar in the Beatitudes. As God’s Messiah, he has authority to say, “You live in a world that presumes blessedness, God’s favor, is to be found in riches, success, competing against and triumphing over others. But I tell you that this is not so.”
The blessedness Jesus speaks is the blessedness of God’s new day. Jesus’ words are not instructions to make our lives better, but, for those who are in Christ, they speak a reality that can already be experienced. And it is a reality that takes on flesh and becomes visible when we are the Church, the living body of Christ in the world.
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Today is All Saints. It’s too bad that the word “saint” has lost its biblical meaning. We tend to use the word either as a disparaging term for some goody two-shoes, or as a technical term for those declared saints by the Catholic Church, St. Francis for instance. But in the New Testament, the word is used quite differently. The Apostle Paul opens two of his letters this way. “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints…” and, “To the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi…”
The term really means “sanctified ones,” or “set-apart ones.” The idea is that when we are joined to Christ in baptism, when the Holy Spirit dwells within us, we become something different; we become something holy or set apart. We are joined to Christ and to his holiness, becoming part of his living body, each of us gifted in some way so that together we can show God’s love, and God’s coming new day, to the world.
And nowhere is this unexpected, counter-intuitive, reality of God more evident than in the resurrection. To those who witnessed the events of Good Friday and the cross, who saw Jesus tortured and executed because religious and government leaders feared he might turn the world upside down, it was plainly evident that Jesus had been stopped, had been defeated. His little band of followers would quickly disperse and it would not be long before he joined the ranks of countless troublemakers and revolutionaries whose name no one remembers.
But the reality, God’s reality, was quite different. Death could not stop it, cannot stop it. The counter-intuitive way of Jesus, a way that seems foolish to the world, that does not lead to the things the world holds dear, turns out to be The Way. And in our baptisms we are joined to Jesus, joined to the way of Christ. Even though we often prefer the world’s way over that of Jesus, God’s new reality lives within us, just waiting for us to embody it as together we become the body of Christ and let the world glimpse that reality through us.
And our baptisms not only join us to Christ and God’s new reality, they also join us one to another. We are part of the communion of saints, the saints who went before us, the saints who make up this community of faith, the saints all over the world, and the saints to come. And so we can remember the saints we’ve lost, knowing that they are still a part of that communion of saints, still joined to the love of God in Christ that is stronger even than death.
But the new reality Jesus speaks is much bigger than what happens to people after they die. This new reality is about nothing less than the transformation of the world. The Beatitudes are only the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. As it continues, Jesus says we are the light of the world. And he teaches his followers a model prayer. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The prayer does not ask God to take us to heaven. It implores God to bring heaven to earth, to bring the kingdom fully.
And we who can truly make this prayer, who have glimpsed and experienced God’s new reality through the Holy Spirit’s dwelling in us, can see the world differently, can take a long view of history. We can affirm, in the words of our opening hymn, “O, let me ne’er forget that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.”[3]
No matter what happens in this week’s election, no matter if raw power and greed seem so strong, no matter if authoritarian rulers appear to be on the rise around the world, that world still belongs to God. And our call, no matter who wins the election, remains the same. We are called to show the hope of God’s new reality, a reality where the poor are lifted up, love embraces even enemies, serving God matters more than wealth and possessions, and God’s will truly is done on earth. A reality where God’s power is seen in weakness, in a God who suffers, and who is, in a special way, to be found in the midst of those who are vulnerable, hurting, and persecuted, who show mercy, work for peace, and ache for a world set right.
The world does not see that reality, but we are called to show it, to be the light of the world. And oh, how the world needs our light. Oh, how the world needs us to take our place alongside the faithful saints of past, present, and future.
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