I have found it very hard to get down to working on a
message this week considering what happened in Christchurch last Friday. As I
said in the prayer I wrote for today like many of us I’ve been wrestling with shock and grief, my
emotions have been going every which way. I’ve wrestled with wanting to show
care and compassion while still having to get all the things that need to get
done…done. Balancing tears with tearing
around like a mad thing… When really I just wanted to find a place of solace
and just process things…ask questions and wonder about where we are at as a
society, and what’s in our hearts and that
even more difficult question… what about my own heart? What about my own
attitudes?
I’m not
saying that today I will bring deep social analysis but It’s helpful that we are looking at JesusBeatitudes, using Scott McKnight’s framework
Threeblessings for the humble poor, which we looked at last week
Three
blessings for those who pursue righteousness, that we are looking at this week
And threeblessings on those who make peace, which we will look at next week.
Like last
week I feel what we are looking at today is relevant and important
As I said
last week 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 the blessing of seeking righteousness and mercy.
In the face
of Human brokenness 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 that ‘the kingdom of God has drawn near…’
Its
important
Because as
we’ve seen people’s response of compassion, care and consolation, support and
standing alongside, responding to evil with good, we glimpse a hunger and
thirst for righteousness, we see showing mercy, there is a hope of a pureness
of heart … maybe just a little taste of Jesus kingdom vision for humanity…
NT Wright introduces his section on the beatitudes in his
commentary “Matthew for everyone” by talking of an old black and white film
made about breaking the sound barrier.
In the film the test pilots risk their lives to go faster
than the speed of sound, about 756 mph, only to have their aircraft shudder and
become uncontrollable and dangerous and deadly. In the movie one pilot suggests
that by simply reversing how they use the controls, not pulling back to go up
or pushing forward to go down, they will
be able to correct the problem, (don’t ask me to explain the physics behind it
I can’t and after all it’s the movies) and of course in the movie this is what one
brave pilot does and it works…
When Chuck Yeager, the man who broke the sound barrier is
asked if this is how it happened, he insisted that it wasn’t. The plane
shuddered for a while but it all calmed down as he continued to accelerate. But
it does illustrate what Jesus is doing in the beatitudes. With the kingdom of
heaven drawing near everything has changed and how things work is totally
different, totally counter to our cultural expectations and
understandings… NT Wright sums it up by
saying in these apparently simple words “Jesus is taking the controls and
making them work backwards.”
We shouldn’t be surprised by this as Matthew tells us that Jesus
message was ‘repent, for the kingdom of Heaven has drawn near”. Repent means to
turn around, from our own ways to God’s ways.. and the beatitudes and the whole
sermon on the mount expound that turn around… they turn the world upside down
and show us a new way to live…in Christ, through Christ…or as we’ve been saying
in this series… It just maybe Jesus turns things right way up… The way they
should be… as we pray each week ‘thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven’
Let me just unpack these three blessing a little.
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, according to
Scott McKnight, are those whose appetite is focused on God’s love and seeing God’s
will and God’s justice which are expressions
of that love lived out. He says “their
appetites, instead of being sated by the pleasures of food, sensualities,
passions and lusts, are satisfied only in communion with God, knowing and doing
God’s will and seeking the welfare of others.”.
You can see this longing in Mary’s Magnificat and Zechariah’s hymn of
praise in the bringing of Luke, you see Moses learning it in the hard realities
of leading God’s people. It is there as you watch Peter and John and even
Matthew himself leave everything they have and follow Jesus, in Paul once he is
aware of who Jesus is finding his aspirations and hopes as a Jew now rooted and
fulfilled in Christ. That hunger and thirst says Jesus is blessed because they
will have their fill. They will find it in Christ.
This beatitude is also one of the ones that Luke uses in the
sermon on the plain, and again his is more immediate and focused on poverty and
suffering, he says blessed are those who hunger and thirst now for they will be
filled later. And we could think that Matthew is simply spiritualising it, but
again the blessing for both is the same they will find their fill in God’s
Kingdom. A future hope as they sit down to the marriage feast of the lamb, when
the kingdom is consummated, but also a now hope as that hunger and thirst for
righteousness is expressed in seeing God’s love and justice and mercy shown to
the least and the lost.
Those who show mercy, is almost totally self-evident, it is
those who have experienced God’s merciful love , who empathize with it and show
mercy to others. The ultimate example is Jesus, “father forgive them they no
not what they do” as he dies on a cross to pay the penalty for all we have done
wrong. But it is the good Samaritan in Jesus parable who interrupts his own
journey to care for the fellow traveller who had been robbed and beaten, again
we see that in Jesus life, and the gospel seems to be Jesus compassion and
mercy shown in interruption after glorious interruption. The blessing again is
that they will receive mercy. Ultimately
mercy from God, but also they will experience it and see it in even the
smallest of peoples caring actions, even amidst their own pain and suffering.
Finally, pure of heart, or single mindedness that will not be
put off its goal or purpose, by any distraction or discomfort, derogatory
remark or danger, not even the threat or presence of death. The writer in
Hebrews show us Jesus as the ultimate example of that ‘for the joy that was set
before him Jesus endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the
right hand of the throne of God.” Maybe we get it that old protest song and
spiritual “we will not be moved” rooted in the scriptures in the affirmation of
someone whose life is wholeheartedly focused on God and his word “like a tree
planted by the riverside”. We hear it in Jesus challenge to not be concerned by
what we eat and wear, but to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness’.
In Jesus day there were many who sought the righteousness of
God, the pharisees are an example of that and this beatitude speaks to their
religious observance to say that God was looking for something beyond just the
purity of the hands, outward observance… public display of piety and looking
for a change of heart… the pharisees pursuit lead to exclusion, seeing people
as outside and away from God’s love, the pure of heart embrace and welcome in…
That leads us to look at these three blessing through the
eye of Jesus news of welcome into the Kingdom and welcome because of the
Kingdom.
While it was easy to look at the first three beatitudes
through the lens of wonderful news… we can struggle with these three. It is
easy to slip into the frame work that we need to be like this to earn God’s
blessing…. We need to hunger and thirst for righteousness, then God will bless
us, we need to be merciful, then we will receive God’s mercy, we need to be
pure of heart, then we’ll see God, if we are not doing those things then we’ll
were outside God’s blessing… it’s the attitude that Henri Nouwen says will keep
us running Helter Skelter… that he describes as “the compulsiveness that keeps
us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder weather we are going
anywhere in the long run…” This he concludes… “is the way to spiritual
exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.”
We can forget that instead of the way of spiritual death,
Jesus blesses us with more hope than we could ever imagine. The wonderful news
that this blessing will happen because God will do them- they are gracious and
undeserved, it is the presence of God with us, in Christ, that means they have
already started to happen… in Christ God has shown us his love and mercy and
his justice and righteousness and in response to such love that love becomes
our focus, we hunger and thirst for is righteousness in and through us, God’s mercy
inspires us, everything else in life flows out of that love.
These three beatitudes also speak to our wider society, in a
timely way. One of the core values of western society is the pursuit of
happiness. It is enshrined in the American declaration of independence as an inalienable
right, ‘the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. That pursuit
of happiness was designed to cover basic ideals of justice and freedoms and
dignity. In Mcknight’s commentary he reflects on some of the ways that hs come
to be viewed in society… Happiness is a subjective feeling good about oneself
and one’s life and one’s situation. It is dependant on circumstance. It is the right to be happy and it is achievable
now, it’s about instant and constant gratification. The pursuit of happiness is
based on what we have and it can become a never ending ‘hedonistic treadmill’.
We find happiness in comparison with others, we are happy when we have more …
but this diminishes as we compare ourselves with those who have more
“comparison is actually the thief of Joy’… I also wonder if how detrimental it
is when one group compares themselves to another in what they do or do not
have… white supremist think there slice of the pie is being taken by other
minorities… It can be seen as genetic and medical, some have a disposition to
feel happy others struggle wrestle with a disposition more inclined to being
morose.
The focus of our society has become chasing the blessing, whereas
the beatitudes tell us that happiness is not about feeling good it is about
being good. It is based on the pursuit of righteousness and justice. Of course
in our very polarised society even how we think of those terms is diverse and
divisive. For Christians and our contribution to our society it is defined by
Jesus and shaped by that relationship with Jesus that we are welcomed into… It
does not relate to the observable condition of our life but rather love for
God, love for self and love for others.
The controls
kind of work backwards, we seek justice and righteousness and we reap true
happiness. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
will be satisfied Blessed are those who show mercy, for they will be shown
mercy
Blessed are
the pure of heart, for they will see God
An invite to find our fulfilment in responding
to God’s great love for us, to be captivated by God’s justice and mercy. The basis of blessing others is as we live that out in following Jesus, it is
how we over come evil with Good. 
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