God's People Surprise the World

God’s People Surprise the World
Matthew 5:38-48; Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-19; Psalm 119:33-40

Our four-week study of the first third of the Sermon on the Mount comes to an end today. The sermon is Jesus’ affirmation of his grand policy speach about what the realm of God’s rule looks like and what may be expected of those who are part of that realm – God’s people. They are generations of people like you and me. The language has changed, the geographical location has varied, and the clothing and culture has changed. If you don’t think so, just think about all the different clothing and hair styles that we have lived through in our lifetimes.

The core of Jesus’ manifesto of kingdom life has not changed over all the generations. In every age the people who best exemplified kingdom living have surprised, indeed shocked, the world. That’s what God’s people do. Building on a lifestyle that stands with the least, the last, and the lost — those who receive no honor and are often dishonored — God’s people have character. They are engaged with the world, and they play fair by being in a right relationship with God, with other people, with people of the other gender, in intimate relationships, and in fulfilling solemn promises. Often this deeper, fuller understanding of relationship — what Jesus labels as greater righteousness — runs counter to the ways of the world. Hence, God’s people continuously surprise the world with behaviors which are unexpected, and, admittedly, unwelcomed by the reigning powers of the world which either hide behind God-language or outwardly flout God.

In the preceding seventeen verses Jesus talked about murder, adultery, and taking oaths. As he wraps up this section of his sermon, he’ll talk about not resisting and about love, in other words, how we with our “greater righteousness” are to deal with enemies. If the world was surprised by the previous behaviors, it will be astounded by the response God’s people give to enemies and oppressors.

The “law of retaliation” (given three times in the Torah(1)) gave an injured party the right to inflict the same kind of pain or injury on the person who caused the original pain or injury. On one hand, this law sets limits on the amount of retaliation one can seek. If someone broke your finger, you couldn’t chop of his hand – or his head. On the other hand, the law turns the victim into the same kind of bully as the one who caused the injury. When we hit back at the person who hit us, we become like them. When we shout back at the one shouting at us, we become like them. When we shoot back at those shooting at us, we become like them.

Unfortunately, too often you and I don’t want to get even, we want to hit back harder or more times. We want to do worse to them than they did to us. Then we become worse than them – and we try to justify our actions. Even more than that, we have let “them” determine how we will act. When we let “them” control our feelings and actions, we are not living under heaven’s rule – letting “heaven” control our lives. Mahatma Gandhi pointed out the ultimate extension of this kind of behavior: “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” At some point someone has to stop getting even and poking out eyes.

The slap on the right cheek was not a Muhammad Ali left hook. The slap was most likely done by a right-handed person which means that the slap was with the back of the hand. That’s a sign of insult. Rather than insult back, turn the left cheek to the individual. And it can’t be slapped with the right hand. Their power has been removed from them. We don’t have to lower ourselves to their level.

The same approach seems to be the sense of the other images. If a person is willing to give up a coat – in essence, go naked – when someone sues to take a shirt, then the individual hasn’t let “them” – the suer – determine what they are going to do. By being willing to give even more than they want, their power is removed.

Warren Carter suggests that the coat is a metaphor for responding to a larger systemic oppression. He writes:

“Why strip oneself naked in court? This gesture represents the stripping away of land and property which the creditor is enacting. By standing naked before one’s creditor who has both garments in his hand, one shames and dishonors the creditor. Nakedness exposes, among other things, the greed and cruel effect of the creditor’s action and the unjust system the creditor represents. Removing clothing, along with all that it represents (status, social relations, power, gender, etc.), reveals the basic humanity which should unite the indebted and creditor. The act enables the poor to take some initiative against power that seems ultimate. The act protests by unmasking the powerful one’s heartless demands as inhuman, and the act offers the possibility of a different relationship, even reconciliation. A changed system is not guaranteed, but God’s reign has exposed the nature of the present system and pointed to an alternative.”(2)

God’s people surprise the world by responding not as the world responds but by responding in such a way as the sin, the evil, the greed, the heartlessness of living without God is exposed, brought to the light of God’s judgment to be seen for what it is by one and all. It is the perpetrator of evil who is ultimately stripped naked.

We can put this into a different perspective. What kind of predicament would each of us be in if God decided to “get even” with us? We repeatedly turn away from God. We deny God daily with our words and our lives and our thoughts. We disobey God. We ignore God. For all we’ve done and haven’t done, God would have the right to “get even” and destroy us. That isn’t what God does. That isn’t what we are to do.

Thus we are to love our enemies, not get even with them. Nowhere in scripture does it say to hate the enemy. Nowhere. It probably became pseudo-scripture, because it seemed appropriate. If you can’t love someone, then you hate them. And hating someone means that it is easier to love the neighbor. Those who seek to become righteous by obedience to the law will find a way to make the law obeyable. Thus the law gets interpreted as loving some people and allowing hatred for others. That’s not what God intended, that’s not what Jesus now commands us.

We are to love our enemies. This love is not just an inner feeling. It means doing something for the benefit of the other person, doing something that helps the other person, regardless of one’s feelings for that person or what one has to do. We are not to demonize those we disagree whether it is politics or religion or child-rearing. When we make them into demons we permit ourselves to believe that it is all right to hate them. That is not Jesus’ way. As Christians, we should always be conscious of the fact that every person has been created by God. All of us are children of the same heavenly Father, who sends sun and rain, snow and drought on the righteous and unrighteous alike.

Thus Jesus says that God’s people are to be “complete” – perfect – as God is complete/perfect. This can be paraphrased: “You are to be all-embracing in your love, in imitation of God, whose love embraces all.”(3) Eugene Peterson in The Message puts the verse this way: “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”

To be “complete” or “perfect” means not dividing our love — extending it to some people and keeping it from others. It means whole-hearted love for all people — just as God has shown his whole-hearted love for all people — including us — by not getting revenge, but giving everything for us that makes for peace between God and us.

If that doesn’t surprise the world, nothing will.


(1) Exodus 21:24; Leviticus 24:19-20; Deuteronomy 19:21.
(2) Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2000), p 152.
(3) Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew (Interpretation Commentary Series) (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), p. 62.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 

Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

God's People Play Fair

God’s People Play Fair
Matthew 5:21-37; Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8

We are taking the month of February to look at the first of the three chapters which make up the section of Matthew’s gospel traditionally called “The Sermon on the Mount.” The opening chapter is essentially Jesus’ vision for the faithful community, the church.

Two weeks ago we looked at the opening verses, the “Beatitudes,” which define the character of the faithful of community. The first four beatitudes focused the nature of God’s rule as it happens for people who experience no honor. The second four beatitudes promise ultimate rewards for the people who live their lives in such ways as to benefit the those mentioned in the first four. Jesus changed the focus of the final beatitude from others to his hearers when they commit themselves to the righteousness and justice of those who lack them.

Last week we talked about Christ’s followers being particularly salt, and how the subtle ways of the world will rob believers of their saltiness, as desalination processes remove salt from sea water. Jesus called his hearers to a greater righteousness which we defined as fulfilling the Law and not just obeying it. Fulfilling the Law requires a relationship with the Law-giver, to know God’s intentions through the Law and what actions are right for each situation. That is the way in which God’s people in relationship with Christ, engage the world to flavor, challenge, and preserve so that God’s Law may be fulfilled.

So, God’s people have the character of righteousness and justice, and they are engaged with the world to flavor and challenge it. The way that they do that is that they play fair. You perhaps have heard it said about someone that they “play well with others.” That’s a great definition for Christians, for playing well with others is what showing mercy, having pure hearts, and making peace is all about.

The greater righteousness of Jesus centers on relationships. It is more than outward acts. Inner attitudes are also involved. When there is inner anger at another person, even if there are no outward actions, the relationship is destroyed. When there is inner lust in the heart, even if there are no outward actions, the relationship is cheapened. When there are acts of revenge or even feelings of wanting to get even, nothing is done to help build or re-establish the relationship. Playing fair is not a white-washed facade. Playing fair is more than skin deep. It goes to the very core of a believer’s being.

Righteousness can be defined in several ways. One way is to say that righteousness is doing everything rightly. Perhaps it’s having a clear job description and doing everything on the list, or having 10 commandments or 300 commandments and obeying every one of them, or never driving over the speed limit, or having a personal code of ethics and living one’s life within those rules. This way of defining righteousness means doing what is right, obeying the law, acting according to the rules.

Righteousness can be defined also as a right relationship – a relationship not based on what you do, but who you are. It is loving and caring for others. It is being loved and cared for by others. It is trusting that the other will be faithful to the relationship. In biblical terms, this is righteousness by faith – or righteousness by trust. It has little relationship to the righteousness by law.

One way of describing righteousness by relationship is to look at the bond between parents and children. There is a promise and a commitment given. In the beginning, it is a promise only expressed by the parents to the children. “We will be your parents and you will be our child. We will love and care and sacrifice for you throughout your life.” An infant doesn’t know what’s going on, but without these promises from the parents and the parents carrying through on those promises, children would not survive. Parents care for children. Children grow up to love their parents. Children learn to get along with each other. These are models for the right relationship that God earnestly desires to have with us and that God in Christ invites believers to participate in.

Unrighteousness is all those acts, words, thoughts, and feelings that cheapen the relationship between people. Righteousness is all those acts, words, thoughts and feelings that maintain, establish, or re-establish good relationships between people.
The remainder of chapter five, the first third of the Sermon, is driven by Jesus saying, “You have heard that it was said..., but I say to you....” If we aren’t paying close attention, we will likely say that the original quotation must be from God. The original kernel of the thought might have come from God, but it has gone through interpretation between the original thought and the current understanding.

• “Don’t commit murder” is part of the law (Ex. 20:13; Deut. 5:17), but “all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment” is not scriptural.
• “Don’t commit adultery” is part of the law (Ex. 20:14; Deut. 5:18).
• “Don’t make a false solemn pledge, but you should follow through on what you have pledged to the Lord” has similarities to commands found in the Hebrew scriptures: “You shall not swear falsely by my name, desecrating your God’s name in doing so” (Lev. 19:12); “When a man makes a solemn promise to the Lord... he cannot break his word” (Num. 30:2); “When you make a promise to the Lord your God, don’t put off making good on it” (Deut. 23:21).

Jesus does not seem to be presenting a new law which opposes that Law that God had given to Moses. It seems more likely that Jesus is interpreting the Law in opposition to popular interpretations in his day. Jesus is filling up or fulfilling the law with his interpretation.

Fulfilling the law with true interpretation is a heavy task. Any preacher who seeks to be truly salt and light for the Christ community and the world is exceedingly conscious of the gravity of the work to which she or he is called. Preachers stand in a position of authority. We are on a raised dais high above. That’s for sight and hearing. But people raise us even higher. If a preacher says it, it must be true. I pray that I do correctly interpret Christ to you, and I pray just as earnestly that the Spirit enables you to hear what Christ says, even if I get it wrong.

We cannot manufacture righteousness. It is a gifts we receive through being in relationship with our Lord. Jesus simply rejects the question of how one can become righteous in God’s eyes. It all depends  on the human heart. The heart can be totally devoted to God and to righteousness only when it is genuinely devoted to others.

Jesus changes the location of authority. It is no longer in the written text or with those who interpret it. It is now located in Jesus. Remember, Jesus’ post-resurrection parting words, “I have received all authority in heaven and on earth.” If in the evangelist John’s terms, Jesus is the “Word” made flesh, then Jesus is his own interpreter.

God’s people are to play fair in the ways we relate to each other in public and private, in relationships with individuals of the other gender, with intimate relationships, and with the fulfilling of solemn promises. While God’s people occasionally get caught with the first three, often very visible, forms of fracturing of relationships, the last is often unnoticed and expected. The lack of keeping one’s word slowly eats up a congregation’s vitality. The first three kinds of breaking relationships are not related to the “evil one” (v. 37). This one destroys the trust and community relationship that should be the visible witness of God’s people. If one can’t trust the word of God’s people, can the lack of trust in God’s word be far behind? Failure to keep our word conflicts with the certainty of God’s Word.

Jesus offers these as examples of the greater righteousness and of living under God’s rule. They are models to help us discover the ways we are to act under God’s rule, not hard and fast rules written in stone. The power of the Law can be so intense that it burrows deep into our lives to expose our sin and lead us to repentance and the forgiveness that Jesus came to bring us. Forgiven and freed from rote obedience, we can fulfill the law – live as Christ calls us to live – in relationship played fairly through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

God's People Are Engaged

God’s People Are Engaged
Matthew 5:13-20; Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 112; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16

Northern California is delighted to be getting significant rain fall this weekend, and snow in the higher elevations. Sure that makes the skiers happy, but it also makes the natural resource agencies and water agencies happy as well. Much of California has been experiencing prolonged drought. And the reservoirs are drying up. In other parts of the country, underground aquifers are being tapped out and wells are having to be drilled deeper. In our region people are concerned about the chemical spill into the water source for a major part of the population of West Virginia. Other folks are concerned about what fracking will do to ground water supplies.

When three-fourths of the earth’s surface is covered with water, it seems ironic that we have problems with water supplies. Of course the problem is that the bulk of the water that covers the planet is salt water. We will occasionally gargle with salt water for a sore throat. And nearly every IV drip in the hospital is a saline solution (also currently in shortened supply). We can’t drink salt water. After dips in the ocean we rinse the salt brine off of our bodies. So other than specialized uses, all that water is of no use.

Technology is advancing to make it easier to make fresh water out of salt water. A few years ago Singapore opened a desalination plant that can produce 36 million gallons of fresh water a day, a tenth of their need. That much water may help Singapore’s 5.4 million people, but would only be a drop in the bucket for California’s population that is more than seven times Singapore’s.

While salt can be removed from water, adding or removing salt from other things is not so easy. Who of us hasn’t had some food that was too salty? I suspect that there are not very many anchovy lovers here. A grain or two of salt can open a great flavor, a whole lot of salt will ruin a bowl of food. Since none of you ever met my mother, you needn’t take offense at one of her pet peeves, if it applies to you. My mother was a good cook who carefully seasoned food, but she was always upset by people who grabbed the salt shaker and applied it liberally before ever tasting the food presented.

There is a fine line between too little and too much salt.

We are used to pure salt. I once bought a box of store brand of salt and when I got home I was told that the only acceptable brand was Morton’s with the girl and the umbrella. We can’t imagine salt not being salty. Yet not everyone has access to pure salt. This was probably the case with people of Jesus’ time and place. When sodium chloride is found mixed with impurities, particularly in humid weather, the salt will leach out leaving behind the impurities. Then the stuff that was supposed to be salt won’t be salty. And there is no way of getting the saltiness back. The impure stuff has to be thrown away and replaced.

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth....You are the light of the world.” It is important to note that these are not imperatives: “Be salt!” “Be light!” They are indicatives, affirmations: “You (plural) are salt!” “You (plural) are light!” Jesus doesn’t ask us to be something we are not. He asks us to be what we are. His words are a warning against failing to be what we are.

If we are salt, how do we lose our taste? When the purity of our faith is adulterated, the pure “salt” may slowly slip away leaving us with a “tasteless” faith which may be impossible to restore to its pure form.

In a chemical desalination process, the sodium chloride molecules are induced to attach themselves to certain other compounds and leave the water behind. The same thing happens to some of Christ’s people. Ideas and attitudes are constantly floating around believers which can cause Christians to attach to other ideologies and saviors. That’s not to say that the world or culture is universally evil and that we should run for the hills or dig a subterranean bomb shelter. We do have to keep alert and distinguish foolishness from wisdom, and worldly acclaimed wisdom from God’s truth.

Another desalination process is osmosis. The salt water is run through a series of membranes and filters that strip off the salt molecules. Christians can lose their saltiness in a similar way. We linger too long at the water cooler. The idle talk, the off-color jokes, and a subtle shift in attitudes will grab our saltiness. We tango with idolatry in what we think are innocuous ways until one day we find that we have lost our Christ-salt and have become tasteless.

The traditional way of desalting water is to distill it. The water is brought to a boil and comes off as steam which is captured and allowed to cool. Since water and salt become gaseous at different temperatures, the salt stays behind. Christians as just as human as everyone else. When pressure mounts in our lives there has to be a release. We hit a boiling point and flip out. When confronted with brokenness we react with brokenness, and before we know it, rather than being the people of God’s world — people who flavor, challenge and preserve godly values and present a godly presence — we are just like everyone else in the people’s world.

If you remember that I said earlier that Jesus said, “You (plural) are the salt of the earth, ...the light of the world.” That’s ‘Y’all’ if you are of southern heritage. That means that we together are salt. So while each one of might think of ourselves as a grain of salt with little impact, together, as the church, we are a box of salt. That’s important. We need to work together to watch each other’s back, to guide each other when we are being attracted away from Christ, when we are being filtered away from Christ, when we are being distilled from Christ. Together we can maintain and protect our common saltiness for the glory of Christ and the sake of the world which God loved so much in him.

Thomas Long in his commentary on Matthew  titles the section on salt and light, “What Good Is the Church?” He begins his answer with: “The church that lives according to the vision expressed in the Beatitudes is a colony of the kingdom of heaven placed in the midst of an alien culture.” He concludes, “The point is that the church, like salt, has one purpose — to live the kingdom life in the world. Whenever the church loses sight of that mission and becomes something else — a social club or a theological debating society, for example — it becomes as worthless as salt would be if it weren’t salty.” (1)

The church — God’s people — are engaged in the world. Steven McKinley wrote, “This is how the Christian life is lived … in community. Sinful community? Yes. Imperfect community? You bet. But still lived in community, and I will not apologize for being part of that community, nor for inviting, encouraging, and urging others to be part of it.”(2) That’s the salt and light effect, flavoring and challenging the world.

God’s people have been doing this for centuries. Church people established religious colleges and created social service agencies, like the Welfare House and the Outreach Council. God’s people engage the world through ministering in prisons, nursing homes and hospitals. God’s people go to where the natural and human-made disasters happen and they stay after the first responders leave. God’s people were often the ones to spearhead the creation of shelters for orphans, battered women, runaway youth, and homeless veterans. It is a battered, bloody, and bedraggled world to which Christ came as savior, and Christians engage with it.

When Jesus calls his hearers — me, you, the church — to greater righteousness, that involves our “insides” matching our “outsides”. That’s the point of the rest of this chapter when Jesus reinterprets the law. If we are called to follow Jesus, who came to fulfill all righteousness, then we, too, need to seek to “fulfill all righteousness” or as Jesus will say later in the Sermon: “Desire first and foremost God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (6:33 CEB).

If “righteousness” is defined as “doing what God requires,” then the “greater righteousness” might be fulfilling the Law rather than just obeying the Law. Obedience to the Law only requires an understanding of the legal codes. Fulfillment of the Law requires a relationship with the Law-giver, in order to know God’s intentions through the Law and what actions are right for each situation.

God’s people, in relationship with Christ, engage the world to flavor, challenge, and preserve so that God’s Law, God’s rule may be fulfilled.

Thanks be to God.

(1) Thomas G. Long, Matthew (Westminster Bible Companion) (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), pp. 51-52.
(2) Quoted by Brian Stoffregen, “Gospel Notes for Next Sunday,” Matthew 5:13-20, February 9, 2014.

God's People Have Character

God’s People Have Character
Matthew 5:1-12; Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

A number of Christmases ago Paula gave me a National Geographic globe. I hadn’t had a globe since I was in elementary school. In the geography of the 1960s, it seemed that nations changed every week. As a stamp collector I got to know the new countries as well as colonies and nations that no longer existed. We live in a diverse world.

When Paula and I visit Elizabeth and family, first in Chicago and now in Washington, DC, we find ourselves immersed in a sea of languages and cultures. It is a far different world than Pike County, Ohio. The 1890s flood of immigrants through Ellis Island – possibly some of our ancestors – didn’t see any use in learning English. The New York Times editorial board wrote in 1891 that there were districts in that city and others “in which a foreigner of almost any nationality can live without being subjected to much inconvenience through his ignorance of any language but his own.” Those languages receded with each succeeding generations: 84 percent of second generation immigrants spoke the native language, less than half passably, 12 percent of the third generation, and two percent of the fourth generation.(1)

The world is becoming flatter as the language of the world becomes digital. Google is able to translate text into another language. I get a note in one sermon group from a pastor who preaches in English and Spanish. If I happen to open the Spanish note, all I have to do is click the English tab and up comes a translation.

What a diverse world we live in. It is anything but homogenous. The wonders of DNA testing can now pinpoint exactly where our first ancestors lived and what path their genes traveled to get to us. Our genetic bloodlines will tell us that we are all mongrels of sorts. People in South Korea think of themselves a being culturally homogenous, which they hope will help with reunion with North Korea. Yet at the same time the country is host to immigrants from126 different countries and races. One South Korean professor points out that Koreans “are of the Han race and Han means sky, sky embraces everything, so the term ‘Han race’ is inclusive.”

While we pay a lot of attention to differences in culture, language, race, or which side of a human-drawn line people come from, God defines the world much differently than we do. That’s a key message that Matthew gives us. The ministry of Jesus is one of remaking the world in such a way that God’s people are defined by character and conduct more than their heritage.

Jesus starts the series of sayings we know as the “Sermon the Mount” with a description of the character of the realm of God’s rule. “The kingdom of heaven,” often used interchangeably with “kingdom of God,” is not just about geography. It is also about the nature of the rule that God lavishes on creation, ever more so as it inches closer to the divine reality envisioned from before day one of creation.

Jesus’ opening words describe God’s people. These words are called the “Beatitudes” because the first word in St. Jerome’s late 4th century Vulgate Latin translation is beati. The original Greek word is makarios, translated “happy” or “blessed.” Neither word fully captures the depth of the Greek. This was a culture which placed a great deal of weight on shame or honor. Those concepts have little to do with blessedness or happiness. One set of commentators suggest that a better translation for “happy/blessed” would be “how honorable...,” “how full of honor...,” “how honor bringing....” The “woe to you...” sayings later in Matthew would similarly be translated: “how shameless you are....”(2)

That makes sense. The first four sayings are about people who have experienced no honor. Mark Allan Powell of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, writes that the first four beatitudes do not “offer ‘entrance requirements for the kingdom of heaven’ but ... describe the nature of God’s rule, which characterizes the kingdom of heaven.” Powell continues:

 “The people who benefit when God rules, Jesus declares, are those who otherwise have no reason for hope or cause for joy, who have been denied their share of God’s blessings in this world and deprived of justice—in short, people for whom things have not been the way they ought to be. For such people, the coming of God’s kingdom is a blessing, because when God rules, all this will change and things will be set right.”(3)

“Those who are hopeless” – the “poor in spirit” – are not just impoverished economically, they also experience spiritual poverty. These are people who have no reason of hope in the world. Not only have they been denied access to a sufficient living, they also have no access to God, no experience of God in their lives. They are not in control of their lives and they don’t even know that they are dependent upon God.

Powell writes that contemporary scholars understand that “those who grieve” – “those who mourn” – refers simply to people who are miserable or unhappy. It is not a characteristic one would seek. He says,

“If the poor in spirit are those who find no reason for hope in this life, then the ones who mourn are those who find no cause for joy. They are blessed because ‘they will be comforted,’ a divine passive that implies God will act, so they need mourn no more.”(4)

Eugene Boring in the New Interpreter’s Bible, notes that one of the characteristics of the true people of God is that they lament the present condition of God’s people and God’s program in the world.  He says, “This is the community that does not resign itself to the present condition of the world as final, but laments the fact that God’s kingdom has not yet come and that God’s will is not yet done.”(5)

“The humble” – “the meek” – may have a positive sense of humble or gentile. But the word can also have a negative sense: “humiliated,” “walked on,” “doormats,” or “powerless.” These people “inherit” their blessing. It is not a reward that they earn, but a gift for which they must wait. They have been shut out of the fullness of the world’s resources which God intended for all people.

The images of “hunger” and “thirst” not only depict desire, but also deprivation—those who do not have food and drink—the people who do not experience justice—the people who know that God’s will is not being done on earth.

In short, the first four beatitudes speak of reversal of circumstances for those who are unfortunate. These are not characteristics that people should exhibit if they want to earn God’s favor. Rather, these are undesirable conditions that characterize no one when God’s will is done.

The next four beatitudes may be interpreted as promising eschatological rewards to people who exhibit virtuous behavior. The virtues that earn blessings are ones exercised on behalf of the people mentioned in the first four sayings. In other words the people whom Jesus declares honored, happy, blessed in the second four sayings are those who help to bring to reality the blessings promised to others in the first four.

“People who show mercy” – the “merciful” – are healers, people who seek to put right that which has gone wrong. They favor the removal of everything that prevents life from being as God intends: poverty, ostracism, hunger, disease, demons, debt. Not only will they be treat mercifully at the judgment, they will see mercy prevail.

Those “who have pure hearts” – the “pure in heart” – are those who are truly pure as opposed to those who are only apparently so. Simply put, they have integrity. Commentator Boring describes it this way:

“ ‘Purity of heart’ is not merely the avoidance of ‘impure thoughts’ (e.g., sexual fantasies), but refers to the single-minded devotion to God appropriate to a monotheistic faith. Having an ‘undivided heart’ (Ps 86:11) is the corollary of monotheism, and requires that there be something big enough and good enough to merit one’s whole devotion.”(6)

“People who make for peace” – “peacemakers” – are those who work for the wholeness and well-being that God wills for a broken world. Peacemaking is part of “showing mercy” and doing it with a “pure heart”. It is acting for the sake of others with integrity and honest motivations – love for the neighbor without hidden, self-serving agendas.(7)

“Harassed” – “persecuted” – because they are righteous has to do with those who show mercy and who work to establish God’s shalom. They are examples of people committed to righteousness. If they are pure in heart, then their commitment will not falter in the face of persecution.

The first eight beatitudes all talked about people in the third person. The final one abruptly shifts to “you.” Suddenly the words aren’t about some faceless, nameless others, but about the hearers themselves, about the “me” who is listening. Why would I be reviled and persecuted and lied about? Because I am committed to righteousness and justice and because of this commitment, I will end up in the position of those who lack them — being unjustly persecuted. However, I – you – we – have already heard the blessings God has in store for such people. Will we believe those promises for ourselves or not? Will we believe that God will make all things right for us? If so, we can rejoice and be glad, knowing we have a great reward in heaven. We have the characteristics desired in God’s eternal people.

Thanks be to God.

(1) “Immigration and Language Diversity in the United States,” Rubén G. Rumbaut and Douglas S. Massey, Daedalus, Summer 2014; cited in The Wilson Quarterly, Fall 2013.
(2) Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, second edition (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 2002), p. 47.
(3) Mark Allan Powell, God With Us: A Pastoral Theology of Matthew’s Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1995), pp. 129-130.
(4) Powell, p. 135.
(5) Eugene Boring, “Matthew,” New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp. 178-179.
(6) Boring, p. 179.
(7) Brian Stoffregen, “Gospel Notes for Next Sunday” Matthew 5:1-12, February 2, 2014.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.