NL 123: The Beatitudes

image: Sermon on the Mount by Laura James, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57891 [retrieved January 6, 2023]. Original source: Laura James, https://www.laurajamesart.com/collections/religious/

Matthew 5:1-20

Initial Thoughts

  • There is SO much in here - be careful and focused in your preaching and teaching

    • However, verses 13-20 are Inseparable from the Beatitudes - Expanding on the call to discipleship

  • The Beatitudes by the Life of Brian (explicit words warning)

  • One of the most well known and most confusing/misunderstood pieces of scripture

  • Warren Carter Interview- 10:51-12:02 includes “The beatitude is actually an intensification of poverty rather than a spiritualization. The poor in spirit are those who are literally poor and facing the devastating impact of poverty, not just externally, but in their very being.”

Matthew 5:1-12 Bible Study

  • “Beatitude” - Latin

  • Makarism (Greek) - happy, in a privileged circumstance, well-off, fortunate.

    • Religiously known as Blessed by God

  • “A statement in the indicative mood beginning with a form of the adjective makarios declaring certain people to be in a privileged, fortunate circumstance.”(W. Carter, NIB VIII)

  • Occurs in Jewish and pagan literature

  • “The theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Spicq) gets to the core of this word and its striking use in the beatitudes. After a long summary of the Greek understanding of what it means to be blessed (pretty much what average Americans think, namely, healthy, wealthy and wise), the Lexicon finally assesses Jesus' use: “It is impossible to insist too strongly on the meaning of this μακάριος …This is much more than contentment; it is an interior joy that becomes external, elation translated into shouts, songs, acclamations. …Secondly, the new faith implies a reversal of all human values; happiness is no longer attached to wealth, to having enough, to a good reputation, power, possessions of the goods of this world, but to poverty alone.”” (Rob Myallis, Lectionary Greek)

  • Happy or Blessed?

    • Not a subjective feeling of happiness but a declaration of an objective reality - hence “Blessed”

  • Marks of the Church - declaration of what is: indicative, not should be: imperative

    • Indicative - declaration of a simple fact or statement

    • Imperative - command

    • Read a great commentary on this by David Lose, “God Bless You”: “There is a trap hidden in the Beatitudes that I know I have fallen into countless times, and perhaps you have, too. The trap is a simple as it is subtle: believing that Jesus is setting up the conditions of blessing, rather than actually blessing his hearers.”

  • Richard Rohr, (adapted from Jesus’ Plan for the New World) - “The Eight Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3 - 12) offer us a more spacious world, a world where I do not have to explain everything, fix everything, or control anything beyond myself, a world where we can allow a Larger Mystery to work itself out through us and in us. These things are done to us more than anything we can do. The Beatitudes are about changing me, not changing other people. Wonderfully, it is not about being right anymore. Who can fully do the Beatitudes “right”? It is about being in right relationship, which is a very different agenda.”

  • Frederick Buechner on Beatitudes

  • Eight Blessings:

    1. Poor in spirit - is - kingdom of heaven

      • Literal poverty and a lack of arrogance and sense of one’s own need rather than endless desires

      • The poor in Spirit are those who find their identity in true relationship with God, not in material possession or self aggrandizing.

        • Cf Isaiah 66:2

    2. Mourn - will be - comforted

      • “Christians are never urged to seek suffering; they are, however, encouraged to recognize that suffering is an extraordinary teacher…Mourners endure suffering and the bless-ed ones among them experience the comfort of God.” Ken Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, p.70

        • See also Ecclesiastes 7:2-4

      • Not personal grief, but those who lament the current state of the world and how far we are from the fullness of God’s kingdom.

      • What does it mean to mourn and not suffer compassion fatigue? “It is easy to develop armor to protect ourselves from feeling the pain of others; and as that happens we cease to mourn for or with them.” Bailey, p. 71

        • Cf. Isaiah 61:1-11 and Matthew 9:15 (personal mourning is not a blessed characteristic)

    3. Meek - will - inherit the Earth

      • Right out of Psalm 37:9, 11

      • Not about being a holy doormat

      • When caught between the powerful (Rome, Herodians, etc) and the militaristic liberators (Zealots) it is neither, but the meek who are set to inherit the land.

      • Fascinating combination of the Hebrew word for meek, anav, and the Greek word, πράος.

        • Anav refers to obedience to God’s will and following God’s guidance

        • Πράος refers to “the one who becomes angry on the right grounds against the right person in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.” Bailey, p.73

      • Meekness identifies “those who are aware of their identity as the oppressed of God in the world, those who have renounced the violent methods of this-worldly power.” (W. Carter, NIB VIII)

    4. Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness - will be filled

      • Righteousness - actively doing the will of God

      • Not a foolish hope- their desire to see the Kingdom of God will be satisfied

    5. Merciful - will be - shown mercy

      • Mercy- eleamon refers to acts of mercy, not an attitude of mercy

      • Example of mercy includes 1:19- Joseph’s merciful act

    6. Pure in heart - will - see God

      • Psalm 24:3-4

      • Purity of heart is not in response to being impure, but rather pure as in refined and focused and undiluted - single minded devotion to God

    7. Peacemakers - will be - children of God

      • Peacemaker and Son of God was given to Roman Emperors who established the “pax romana” through brute force and domination

      • This is a new peacemaker and son of God who works through acts of mercy, devotion to God and anticipation of the Kingdom for acts of reconciling justice and grace.

    8. Persecuted for righteousness - is - kingdom of Heaven

      • What about vs. 11-12? Not considered a separate blessing but a commentary on the eighth beatitude

  • Eschatological:

  • “It is first and foremost a blessing promised by God to those people who already are what the beatitude describes. The meek, the mourning, the merciful hear the text as a word of encouragement and reassurance… The blessings are eschatological, and yet in terms of the eschatological perspective of Matthew, they are not entirely future.” (Charles Cousar, Texts for Preaching, Year A. p. 125)

  • The first and last of the beatitudes are historical declarations of the culminating, emerging kingdom of God - the middle six are eschatological vision of what that Kingdom will (not could, but will) be.

  • The Beatitudes “do not describe nine different kinds of good people who go to heaven, but are nine declarations of blessedness, contrary to all appearances, of the eschatological community living in anticipation of God’s reign. Like all else in Matthew, they are oriented to life together in the community of discipleship, not to individual ethics.” (W. Carter, NIB VIII, emphasis added)

Matthew 13-20 Bible Study

  • Following Jesus means living in contrast to the status quo of the world

  • Declarations:

    • You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

    • No precondition

    • Salt cannot lose its saltiness nor can a light be put under a bushel without being snuffed out, perhaps this is a threat or perhaps this is, like the Beatitudes, stating the way the world is the poor are blessed, you are the salt of the earth and light of the world.

  • Salt

    • To lose flavor, moraino can also mean to be made fools (Rob Myallis)

    • Think 1 Corinthians 1:20 and the last Beatitude - perhaps we are not meant to “preserve” the status quo like salt, but to be foolish for the sake of the Gospel

    • “Jesus warns that salt can lose its capacity to season. It can fail to do what it is intended to do; it can become useless; it can be cast aside. Disciples, whether ancient or modern, hear in the image a warning to take seriously the call to mission, to the task of being the church in the world.” (Charles Cousar, Texts for Preaching, Year A, p. 134)

  • Lamp on a stand

  • Law

    • Law is no longer the requirement to live in the Kingdom of Heaven

    • Those who do not follow the law will enter the Kingdom of Heaven

    • Some who follow the law will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven

  • Righteousness

    • True righteousness is not following the letter of the law, but the Spirit of the law

    • Not to abolish for the Kingdom of Heaven is rooted in the Law, but to fulfill is to interpret the law for contemporary practice ("You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times ... but I say to you." E. Powery, WorkingPreacher.com)

    • “The demands of discipleship in the new age prove to be more pervasive and radical, calling for a new understanding of the divine will and a higher righteousness.” (Cousar, p. 135)

Thoughts and Questions

  • Who in your congregation needs to hear that they are blessed when all else seems to declare them cursed?

  • Many of us find ourselves on the endless treadmill of “should”. The Beatitudes are not a list of should but a declaration to be responded to - not how can I be a peacemaker, how can I become poor in spirit, but rather- what does it mean if the true reality of the world is a place where those who mourn are blessed? Where those who are meek inherit the earth? How does that change my view of the world given these 8 statements of fact?

  • Clear rejection of the prosperity gospel. Note the verbs: are and will be. Those who are living in Christian community (poor in spirit, focused on God, anticipating the kingdom, working for reconciliation, showing mercy) will receive vindication eventually, but not now.

  • Salt cannot lose its saltiness nor light its shine without devolving into something else. If we are to be disciples of Christ we either season the world with love and illuminate it with grace or we cease to be a disciple of Christ.

  • Salt is a preservative- Jesus is not interested in preserving but in sharing the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, perhaps we should lose our taste for the status quo and be scattered and trampled for the sake of the Gospel (“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you”). Jesus’ other commands - to be a city on a hill and a light to the world are about reaching out beyond oneself - like being scattered.

  • Or could it be both? Perhaps we need to preserve the gifts of the past and illuminate a new way forward?

  • According to Psychological studied children need to hear 10 affirmations for every negative comment. 

  • David Lose (workingpreacher.com)“Children, to put it another way, become what they are named. Call a child bad long enough, and he or she will believe you and act bad. Call a child (or teen or adult for that matter) worthless or unlovable or shameful, and eventually he or she -- all of us! -- will live into the name we've been assigned. In the same way, call us good or useful, dependable, helpful, or worthwhile, and we will grow into that identity and behavior as well.”

Year 1Eric FistlerMatthewComment