The Beatitudes

(A Strange Recipe for Happiness)

To the church in the diaspora[1]

& to the church of the unchurched

February 11, 2007, Sixth Sunday of the Year

Jeremiah 17: 5-8 I Corinthians 15:12, 16-20 Luke 6: 17, 20-26

Introduction

My first sermon

As a newly ordained priest still in seminary training, I preached my first sermon on the Feast of All Saints, November 1, 1951, fifty-six years ago. In those days you preached sermons, not homilies because the word homily hadn’t as yet been invented back in the early ‘50s. I preached the sermon that day not because I was well prepared for preaching and had something powerful to say, but because it was “my turn” in the newly ordained class of ‘51. In every profession you start out whether you’re well-prepared or not, and you practice your ignorance on others in hopes that, like good cheese, you’ll get better with age, or at least not worse.

The gospel for the Feast of All Saints that day was (as it still is today) the gospel of the Beatitudes from Matthew. Fearing that the terror of preaching my first sermon would impair my memory in lining up Matthew’s eight beatitudes, I wrote the initials of each Beatitude on my fingernails--four on one hand and four on the other. (A good preacher worth his salt never used notes in those days.) Then I proceeded to preach eight little sermons on the eight Beatitudes!

The two accounts differ in tone

The Beatitudes are those “blessed” sayings of Jesus, like blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed are those who mourn, etc. Those sayings were put together in a kind of litany form and were recorded for us both by Matthew and Luke (Mt 5: 1-12; Lk 6: 17-26).

Both accounts differ in tone. Luke’s beatitudes are more nitty-gritty, and Matthew’s are more spiritual.

Luke’s Jesus says, “Blessed are you poor, for the kingdom of God is yours” (Lk 6: 20)! His Jesus blesses those who never have any money in the bank, can’t afford health insurance or a decent car for going to work and are always skimping and struggling to pay bills and make ends meet. Luke’s nitty-gritty is even more pronounced in the “woe” part of his Beatitudes: “Woe to you who are rich now; you have had your easy life” (Lk 6: 24)!

Matthew, on the other hand, is more spiritual. His Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is yours” (Mt 5: 3)! Matthew’s Jesus spiritualizes poverty. He claims that those who have nice homes on Lake Drive and drive nice cars but also have a heart for people less fortunate than themselves are, indeed, poor in spirit. Matthew’s Jesus spiritualizes poverty. He claims that those who have a lot of nice things but also believe that the kind of person you are is far more important than the kind of things you possess are, indeed, poor in spirit. However, the whole of the New Testament makes it clear that the Christian’s spiritualization of poverty has its limits. It may not make poverty totally invisible. There is sense in which the spiritually poor must also have a visible poverty about them.

Again, Luke’s Beatitudes are nitty-gritty. His Jesus says, “Blessed are you who go hungry, for you will be filled” (Lk 6: 21)! His Jesus blesses Third World people who hold out their hands for bread and rice. Luke’s nitty-gritty is even more pronounced in the “woe” part of his beatitudes: “Woe to you who are full now; you will go hungry” (Lk 6: 25)! Matthew, on the other hand, is more spiritual. His Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, for you will be satisfied.” Or as another translation puts it, “Blessed are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires, for God will satisfy them fully” (Mt 5: 6)!

The two accounts differ in place

The two accounts of the Beatitudes differ also in place. Where did Jesus preach the Beatitudes? On a mount or down in a valley? Strange to say, the litany of beatitudes which we traditionally call The Sermon on the Mount in Luke’s gospel took place down in a valley. Luke writes, "Jesus came down from the mountain and stood on a large level plain and there began to preach saying, `Blessed are the poor….’” (Lk 6: 17). So it could well be called The Sermon in the Valley! Luke sees Jesus as down in the valley where real life is lived, and where, by following the spirit of the Beatitudes, we work out our salvation as we face poverty, hunger, sorrow and persecution (Lk 6: 20-23).

Matthew, on the other hand, says, “Jesus went up the mountain and there began to preach saying, `Blessed are the poor in spirit….’” (Mt 5:1). So we’ve traditionally called it “The Sermon on the Mount.” Matthew sees Jesus on a mountain like a second Moses. Just as Moses promulgated Old Testament Law from the lofty heights of Mt. Sinai, so now Jesus promulgates New Testament Law also from a lofty height. Just as Moses held in his hands tablets of stone with Ten Commandments carved on them, so now Jesus, the Lawgiver of the New Testament, bears in his arms tablets of stone with the Beatitudes carved on them.

The two accounts differ in number

The two accounts differ also in number. In Luke there are only four Beatitudes (Lk 6:24-26). In Matthew there are eight (Mt 5: 3-11). Whether four or eight the Beatitudes breathe but one message--a message of counterculture. The Beatitudes swim up stream against the current. They bless what the culture does not bless and even curses.

A counter-cultural eye

One day Jesus and the apostles were in the temple near the treasury. The apostles were feasting their eyes on the rich and famous tossing in their huge donations. But the eyes of Jesus lighted upon a poor little widow dropping in her two copper coins. Jesus called over to the others saying, "Come here and feast your eyes on this. This little lady gave more than all the others put together" (Mk 12: 38-44).

Our culture with its mighty mass media has our kids and us feasting our eyes upon the very rich and famous or upon movie stars and sport stars whom we overrate and overpay. Jesus feasts his eyes upon a poor widow casting in two copper coins into the temple treasury and calls over to us to feast our eyes upon her as well. The eyes of Jesus were countercultural. They swam up stream. They saw what other eyes did not see. Blessed are those whose eyes are countercultural!

A countercultural Samaritan

Jesus who had a countercultural eye told a parable about a countercultural Samaritan. One day a Jew was going from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell in with robbers who left him half-dead. Along came a Jewish priest who saw the poor man and passed him by. Along came a Levite (the priest’s helper) who also passed him by. Then along came a “bad” Samaritan. (Jews, you know, traditionally hate Samaritans, and Samaritans traditionally hate Jews.) The Samaritan stopped and poured the oil of compassion into the poor Jew’s wounds, then hoisted him onto his beast of burden and hastened him off to the nearest inn where he provided for his care and cure (Lk l0: 25-37).

Jesus was countercultural when he, a Jew, told a good story about a “bad” Samaritan. The Good Samaritan was also countercultural when he stopped to pour the oil of compassion into the wounds of a “bad” Jew. Blessed are those whose hearts are countercultural!

A counter-cultural CEO

When CEO Aaron Feuerstein’s fabric mill burned down in December of 1995, he didn’t take the insurance money and run. Instead he stuck with his 2400 employees and continued to pay his employees in full, at a cost of 1 ½ million dollars a week and at an average of 12 ½ dollars an hour. In a culture that spawns the mountainous corporate greed of Enron, Aaron is a countercultural superstar. Even Corporate America was stunned by the fiscal insanity of such a superstar. It couldn’t resist the temptation to name him “CEO of the Year.” Blessed is a rich CEO who is poor in spirit!

A counter-cultural consumer

A few years ago Jerry Quinn broke into the news recently. He was 52 years young, owner of a bar and restaurant in Boston. Reading the newspaper one morning, he came upon a brief item about Franklin Piedra, an Ecuadorian, 33 years old, suffering from chronic kidney failure. His mother wanted to give him one of her kidneys. The transplants would have cost at least 100,000 dollars, and she had no health insurance. The Ecuadorian Consulate suggested that he go home and die. Quinn had a better idea. He had been saving his money for a major down-payment on a two-bedroom apartment in a suburban part of Boston with a river view and all. He decided to forfeit a brand new home in order to pay for the $100,000 kidney transplant. “I’m not a very wealthy guy,” he said. “I’m comfortably off, but I got this thing in my life—you can use only one car, you can use only one kitchen, you can use only one bathroom, you can only eat so much. That’s my theory of life. So what more do we need?”

In a culture which leads our kids and us down the path of wild consumerism in which we buy not only the things we need but also all the things we want and all the things we don’t need, Quinn is a counter-cultural superstar. Yes, he owns a bar and a restaurant, but he is blessed because he is, indeed, poor in spirit.

Our culture keeps telling us, “If you like it, do it. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. If it takes efforts, avoid it. If it’s painful, it’s bad. If you want it, don’t wait for it.” In such a culture it is difficult to make much sense out of the Beatitudes which declare blessed a poverty we should never want to eradicate, a hunger and thirst we should never want to quench, and tears we should never want to dry up. In a culture which feasts its eyes upon the rich and the famous and all the superstars of Super Bowl XLI, it is difficult to cultivate countercultural eyes which feast upon a poor widow casting her copper coins in the temple treasury or upon a Samaritan being good to a Jew or upon a rich CEO like Aaron Feuerstein or a rich entrepreneur like Jerry Quinn who are poor in spirit.

Conclusion

A strange recipe for happiness

Well, it’s been fifty-six long years since my first big preaching production when I needed eight fingernails upon which to write eight Beatitudes, and when I proceeded to preach eight little sermons. Since then I’ve grown wiser. I now preach only one sermon at a time! It might not be brief, but it is certainly only one sermon.

Whether the Beatitudes are four or eight or even eighty in number, they bear but one message: Go countercultural! Go and bless what the world doesn’t bless and even curses. Do that for your own sake first, and then do that for the sake of your children who will never go countercultural if you don’t go there first. Go countercultural. The Beatitudes are a strange recipe for happiness. They take you down the road that leads to Jericho, and there you meet people like the Samaritan who was good to a Jew and like CEO Aaron Feuerstein and well-off Jerry Quinn who are poor in spirit and strangely happy.

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[1] Diaspora is a Greek word meaning dispersion. Originally it referred to the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile. It’s now come to mean the migration or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland or parish!