“Blessed Are Those”
Matthew 5:1-12
30 January, 2005
the Rev. Todd R. Goddard, pastor
Zion West Walworth United Methodist Church

Matthew 5
1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Prayer.

The question I would like to pose to you today is “What is real?”

There was, a few years back, a media effort by one of our local colleges. I believe it was either St. John Fisher or the University of Rochester that placed billboards around the area and created television commercials based on the statement “We prepare you for the real world.” It was a cleaver idea, appealing to the perception that college life wasn't truly the real world, and that somehow the administration and faculty could do something a little different at their institution of higher education to make the student ready for a career in teaching, engineering, nursing, business, government, or law. Notably absent would be the arts, humanities, cultural affairs, or religion. After all, what can they possibly teach you?

One of the perceptions about mainline pastors in general, and me specifically, is that we don't live in the real world. Somehow when I abandoned my efforts to become an engineer at the end of my sophomore year, never put to use my undergraduate degree in mathematics, and chose to enter the seminary, that I had made the transition from what is real into the world of pipe dreams and promises, where one charges windmills in a surreal world of Shangri-La.

The popular assumption that was taught to us, and that have ended up teaching our children, is that the real world is one in which you can earn a living; where you can support yourself and your family. “How are you ever going to support yourself majoring in anthropology, or art history?” we cynically ask.

The criteria of success we've established is based on money. The more you make, the more successful you must be. The real world is defined by the capitalistic, competitive lens through which most Americans view the world.

“It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, Reverend,” I've heard it said, “if you aren't making a profit, then the market will quickly overwhelm you.” “If you don't take every possible dime from the consumer, then you've left money on the table.”

The media reinforces our notion of what is real. If you aren't earning 6 figures, driving a Mercedes, Lexus, or at least a BMW, then you're an underachiever, you aren't in the top echelon of the social strata. We're told that Coca~Cola is the real thing, that real men carry a handgun, that drug dealers and pedifiles are everywhere. We are to believe that punishment is the only solution to offenders and that capital punishment is necessary to maintain a law abiding society – especially for half-hearted suicidal people who would park their car in front of a speeding commuter train.

“In the real world, Pastor, we need the electric chair and armies, cops and strategic weapons, less we become a doormat for every thug and dictator.”

In the real world we believe the homeless exist because they are lazy, and people on social services are gold digging, Cadillac driving, pandering welfare queens. We are told that in the real world we need to have curfews and ban skateboarding, that all kids are juvenile delinquents in the making, and that simply teaching abstinence will make teenage pregnancy go away.

In reality, we tell ourselves, all taxes and government are bad, that Medicaid and Medicare are Social Security are broke and they need fixed, and that when mom or dad can't live on their own any longer, they should just go into a nursing home and keep quiet until they die. We don't stop for hitchhikers or for people who are broke down along the side of the road any more, because, well, someone is going to pull a knife or gun and take advantage of you. Lets face it, in the real world, Islam is the enemy and that all Arabs are terrorists.

“Get real, would you Reverend Goddard? I look into those eyes and I know that the word “liberal” is just barely under the surface. I have seen the look. I know the stare.

And then along comes a Gospel lesson like we have for today.

It knocks us right between the eyes, and we know that we'd better pay attention. The words of Jesus are a wake up call; and we know we'd better listen.

Every one of our assumptions about what is real in this world are turned on their heads when Jesus teaches to the crowd 3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3). Whether Jesus is talking about the poor, the homeless, the developmentally disabled, the retarded, the lost, the least, or the hopeless, suddenly Jesus is prepared to give them heaven! What is real, is that the Heavenly Father created each of these people in His image, and that it is God's will to give them the kingdom.

Jesus is telling the one who would visit the residents of Monroe Community Hospital, an ARC residence or program, the state penitentiary, or the Rochester Psychiatric Hospital - “This is what is real. These are the people who are authentic.”

Jesus draws us to the bed side of the nursing home resident who is bedridden, forgotten by their family, rolled periodically just to prevent bedsores, whose dementia has stripped them of their former identity, and He whispers into our ear, 5“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5) “But the earth belongs to sovereign nations, to people who hold deeds, to corporations that purchased mineral rights!” we stockholders protest.

Jesus takes us into the group home for unwed mothers. He leads us to the Battered Women's shelter. He brings us into the refugee resettlement camps. He points us to the killing fields of Rhuwanda, Auschwitz, and Cambodia. He insists that we accompany Him to Juvenal Hall. And He tells us, “to these people I leave the world, and the fullness thereof.”

Even my place on the lake and my nice new car?

Yes.

We think that having our stomachs full is something noble and true – even expected and ordinary. Yet Jesus tells us today that in His real world the hungry and thirsty are the ones who are filled. Those of us who might want to split hairs - “who hunger and thirst for righteousness” we say - might want to take note: it is starting to look like God's kingdom, that is, the real world, is a whole lot bigger than our sorrowful reality.

“Blessed are the merciful, ... the pure in heart, ... and the peacemakers,” (Matthew 5:7-9)Jesus tells us, “for they will receive mercy. They will see God. They will be adopted by God and called God's own children.” The real world isn't defined by the terrorists who straps plastic explosives to their vest any more than it is by the soldiers firing into a hostile crowd. God's reality is at the negotiating table, is working to unload food and supplies in Banda Aceh, is in every prayer said, every dollar given, every heart warmed in the global response to the Asian tsunami.

In God's reality bridges are built, physically and metaphorically. Walls are broken down and fences are destroyed. Arabs and Israelis are brought together, dialog between Islam and Christianity welcomes us to the same table, and the privileged are found to volunteer in soup kitchens or shelters.

If we insist in living in the old world reality, then we'd better be prepared to become really good at grief. “If this world is only a veil of tears, and life in this world is merely solitary, poor, brutish, and short, then there is no end to the mourning.” (William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resources, 1/30/05)

The Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the landscape Jesus paints for us today reveals to us that Jesus is leading us towards a whole new reality, a whole new kingdom and that it is up to us to follow. In a way, the Church serves as a point on the new beachhead; we are the first wave of God's effort to establish a whole new world. The new reality isn't coming like Noah's flood, to wipe the slate clean and to make a fresh start. The new reality is what we fervently pray for when we speak the words of the Lord's Prayer, that “Thy Kingdom may come, on earth as it is in heaven.” It is the establishment of God's kingdom, where time is eternal, where peace and justice become one, where Christ and His ways become what is real, and all the former things, “crying, and mourning, and pain will be past away.” (Revelations 21)

“What is real?” I ask you this morning.

“Where do you stand? Are you on the beachhead, the front lines of God's emerging Kingdom, as Jesus describes. Or are you desperately holed up on a sinking ship of the old reality?

Walking humbly with our God, as the prophet Micah, would phrase it, means that today is the first day of the rest of our lives. This is the day when we will take part in shifting the world from it's axis, and by taking our first steps into God's new kingdom, we will truly become the people God created us to be.

My beloved, our God is what is real.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

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