Monday, March 18, 2019

The Blessed probelm: The Humble Poor (Isaiah 55:1-5, 61:1-3, Matthew 5:3-5)


 In light of what happened in Christchurch on Firday… I really struggled to know what to say this morning… But I’ve decided to preach a modified version of what I had prepared. I pretty much finished it and jumped in my car to go and do something, turned on the radio and  heard that horrific news…

I’m going to speak of the Jesus first three beatitudes… remember we were going to explore Jesusbeatitudes using Scott McKnight framework in his commentary on “the sermon ion the Mount’

 Three blessings for the humble poor, which we will look at today,





It’s important we do that… its important

 that in the face of hatred and violence, we speak of Christ’s love and welcome.

 In the face of cursing the other so vilely  we speak of blessing the humble poor with such grace.

In the face of Human brokenness and depravity we speak of  God’s salvation and wholeness,

 in the face of sorrow and grief and disbelief we speak of  how faith can make a difference.

In the face of how could this happen in New Zealand, we say our hope is in God’s kingdom Come

In the face of evil we proclaim ‘ repent...the kingdom of God has drawn near…’  



Let me tell you a story… the story of ‘big John’… it’s not my story  Nikki Gumble the creator of the Alpha programme tells it, he said…

“‘Big John’ had been living on the streets of London for over ten years. Before that he had spent over nine years in prison. Most of his teeth were missing. He was addicted to methadone. His nickname on the streets of London was ‘Big John’ because he was a big guy who had once boxed for the Army.

‘Big John’ walked into the night shelter for the homeless at Holy Trinity Brompton. He came with his friend ‘Little John’. ‘Big John’ loved it and appreciated all the young people who cared for him. He started coming to church. He came on Alpha. He encountered Jesus. He was filled with the Holy Spirit on the Alpha Weekend. He came off the drugs. God turned his life right around – from despair to joy.

He started telling his friends on the streets about Jesus. Each week he would turn up at church with more friends. His nickname, on the streets, changed from ‘Big John’ to ‘John the Baptist’!

One of the guys he had met on the Alpha weekend was in the property business and found him accommodation. A dentist in the congregation volunteered to replace all his missing teeth. He has been reconciled with his mother and his daughter and he now has a relationship with his grandchildren, whom he had never met before.

Nicky Gumble finishes that story by saying…

“Following Jesus is life-changing. He constantly turns people’s lives around.

He turns despair into joy (Psalm 30:11).”



Blessed are the poor of spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted

Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the land



When you start looking at all the scholarship and commentaries round these beatitudes the questions that come up are what does it mean to be blessed? Is it a future hope that will only be realised when the Kingdom inaugurated…started, with Jesus will be consummated by Christ’s return? Or can we expect something in this world, in our time… with its inhumanity, poverty, pain and suffering… Then who are the poor of spirit? is Matthew spiritualising Luke’s blessed are the poor to make it more palatable? Who are those who mourn? Who are these meek or gentle people?  and how can we define what the blessing Jesus proclaims on them means… and you know they are good questions it’s good stuff, its challenging and its helpful… But one of the things I found most helpful was Scot McKnight’s reflection that the best way to understand who Jesus is talking about and what this blessing means is to look at the people who meet Jesus in the gospel narratives, and in the wider New Testament story.



We see an answer in who Jesus meets and how their lives are changed. Those ostracised and impoverished because of disability and ailment, are seen as individuals important to God, and Jesus brings healing and wholeness. Bartimaeus at the end of john’s gospel, by the roadside on the outskirts of Jericho, blind and begging, who the crowd tell not to bother Jesus. Who Jesus hears, stops to listen to, asks him ‘what do you want? And then in response speaks healing. The leper, unclean and isolated from human touch and only able to survive on the charity of others, whom Jesus touches, and makes well and restored to his community. Likewise the women with bleeding she is healed and reconciled to her community.  We see it in outcasts welcomed back… Matthew the tax collector…  The Samaritan women, who comes to the well in the middle of the day. Who Jesus asks to help him, who he converses with on a theological level. Who Jesus tells he has living water to give…Who then goes and is able to share that with her whole community? This week I received an email from a friend which was an article re-examining the story of the women at the well. In it the writer wondered if we hadn’t seen the Samaritan women through our own cultural bias, her having five husbands as a sign of a lose life. The article suggested it was more likely that her story was that she was unable to have children, and that as a women she would have needed to be married in her society, but when her inability to have children meant she was quickly divorced. She was shunned by the other women who feared that somehow her barrenness was contagious, she didn’t have children to send to the well... You know if that was the case isn’t it kingdom of heaven that the childless women in encountering Jesus would be like the mother of the church in Samaria. Even the centurion, the roman oppressor whose love for his servant leaves him devastated and is willing to humbly come to Jesus with great faith… is welcomed and blessed.



Peter and John meet the cripple at the gate beautiful, looking for alms, expecting God’s people to be generous and Peter says ‘gold and silver have I none’ but in the name of Jesus be healed. The book of James, which is seen as a commentary on the sermon on the mount, where James tells the church not to show partiality to the rich and important, making the poor and those with low socio-economic status stand at the back… sort of like the  ‘go to the back of the bus’…  of American segregation.



We could go on to talk of the ‘big John’s and countless others who meet Christ and know that blessing. I watched a report about Kiwi’s on the mercy ships in Africa on Sunday Night. The reporter started by saying it was the most human of desires to help others, and told the story of a surgeon and a nurse and a young woman from New Zealand serving on the mercy ship. Helping the sick and impoverished In Guinea. Doing this amazing work then half way through as a patient was being prepped for surgery and the nurse prayed with her the reporter almost reluctantly said Oh and this is a Christian charity… but here again is an expression of the kingdom of heaven… blessing the humble poor.



Those who mourn. The widow at Nain in Luke 7, whose world emotionally and economically and socially was devastated by the death of her son. She is doing the thing a widow should do burying him with a service that would declare her trust in God, even when it was all falling apart. Jesus comes and raises her son to life. The widow who gave al she had two small coins, who Jesus held up as an example of faith, not pity.  Widows in the early church in Jerusalem some of whom were being discriminated against because of their Hellenistic background, they were Jews with a more Greek background, and the early church setting up a group to ensure that all were justly treated.



The meek is hard for us to understand so maybe a quick definition is essential, because we see it as weak or submissive, but it is not it a willingness to endure injustice, and deprivation with an alternative vision of the common God, and a just society, and won’t be put off that vision by adversity and opposition, and will not resort to the using the means of their oppressors to accomplish their vision. Jesus must have been mind-blowing for his disciple Simon the zealot, who was from a political faction that advocated armed rebellion against the Romans. Again an example of the wonderful welcome and transforming power of the kingdom. Into that meek mode step Simion and anna, who were poor and had suffered, but who longed for the Kingdom and rejoiced when they met Jesus as he was presented a week old in the temple. Mary as well a faithful poor Jewish Girl willing to go through the danger of being put aside and stigmatised or even killed, in obedience to God. Her song, the Magnificat picks up and is a prelude to the beatitudes in declaring the reversal and renewal and hope of God’s kingdom come near.



When you think of the meek inheriting the land, you get the idea of the nonviolent protests of Ghandi in India and the civil rights movement in the states. I couldn’t help but think of Martin Luther Kings jr final speech that echoes the meek inheriting the land… when he sees himself like Moses, that he had been to the mountain top and had looked over and seen the other side…  seen the land… seen the fulfilment of their quest for equality…”he may not get there with them but he said My eyes have beheld the glory of the coming of the Lord… the kingdom of heaven breaking into the unjust systems of his time and day. You over come evil with good…



You know in the end I could have simply finished after the story of ‘Big John’ as it speaks to us of the welcome of the kingdom of heaven for all who are the humble poor. That in Christ we can be meet at our point of need and be made whole. That is an offer open to all... 



But it also speaks to us about the fact that once welcomed in to God’s Kingdom we too become part of that warm welcome, the transformation and blessing that Jesus has for the humble poor. big John and we and the world around us experience that love that welcome and that blessing in the way we see other human beings and treat them as the people God loves and seeks to bless and we are prepared in our service and generosity, our care and witness, our prayer and our proclamation, our seeking of justice and righteousness… to be part of that blessing… in the power of the Holy Spirit.

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