SERMON: Peak Performance

 10:30 am, Sun, Jan 29, 2023 - J G White / FBCA

(Micah 6:1-8; 1 Cor 1:18-31; Mtt 5:1-12)

Jesus’ famous sermon gets named ‘The Sermon on the Mount,’ thanks to Matthew’s record of it, and the scene, upon a mountain, with crowds gathered all around. Today, I am calling this Jesus’ ‘peak performance’ – the big sermon of the greatest preacher, ever. And it is on a little mountain peak. 😉

When Luke tells the same sermon pieces, the scene is a plain, a flat field. Undoubtedly, Jesus spoke his pithy sayings and memorable stories more than once, all over the place as He travelled. The famous words have been repeated ever since, for the past two thousand years.

You are the salt of the earth.

Turn the other cheek.

Pray this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.

Do not worry about your life.

Consider the lilies of the field.

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.

Ask, and it will be given you.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

The wise man built his house on rock.

We will look at the first half of ‘the sermon’ over the next few weeks. Today is the beginning. Jesus does not start this sermon with a joke, or even a story. (What kind of car would Jesus drive? A Christler. Or perhaps a Honda, for it says, “they were all in one accord.”)

Jesus begins by giving the memorable list of blessings we call ‘The Beatitudes.’ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Does Jesus start with a prescription? Instructions on how you should live right to get what’s right? Many a Christian preacher (and study book) has explained how to be poor in spirit, how to mourn, how to be meek, how to suffer for what’s right, and so on. Probably thousands of people have gone away, secretly feeling the failure of not measuring up and thus not getting the blessings. Others surely went away honestly not wanting to mourn, or to become a peacemaker, or to be more merciful.

What else might Jesus be doing here? If He is not prescribing things to do or ways to be, what else? More than one Christian scholar has suggested there is another option here. A beatitude is, first and foremost a blessing promised by God to those people who already are what the beatitude describes. (Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa & Newsome, Texts for Preaching – Year A, 1995, p. 125) Dallas Willard founded much of his inspiring, 400 page book, The Divine Conspiracy, on the ‘Sermon on the Mount.’ Willard’s take on these beatitudes as good news descriptions, not prescriptions, have inspired me for years now. These phrases from Jesus are, essentially, declaring that even the spiritually poor, the mourners, those struggling for justice, and so forth, are blessed by the Kingdom of the Heavens. God’s world is available even to all these people. A Paul Simon song says:    Blessed are the sat upon, spat upon, ratted on.

Willard told of one time after I had spoken on the Beatitudes, a lady approached me expressing great relief at what she had heard. She told me her son had dropped his Christian identification and left church because of the Beatitudes. He was a strong, intelligent man who had made the military his profession. As often happens, he had been told that the Beatitudes—with its list of the poor and the sad, the weak and the mild—were a picture of the ideal Christian. He explained to his mother very simply: “That is not me. I can never be like that.” (The Divine Conspiracy, p. 99)

Jesus first line is Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens. Those many human spirits who have nothing going for them: Jesus declares God’s rule is open and ready for them. Remember what the summary of Jesus’ preaching was said to be? ‘Repent, the kingdom of heaven has come near.’

So, instead of this telling us we need to figure out how to be spiritually poor, what could it mean? Dallas Willard tells us to think about the crowd gathered on the hill. Standing around Jesus as he speaks are people with no spiritual qualifications or abilities at all. You would never call on them when “spiritual work” is to be done. There is nothing about them to suggest that the breath of God might move through their lives. They have no charisma, no religious glitter or clout.

They “don’t know their Bible.” …They are “mere laypeople,” who at best can fill a pew or perhaps an offering plate. No one calls on them to lead a service or even to lead in prayer, and they might faint if anyone did. (pp. 100, 101) Blest are they – theirs is the glorious kingdom. So said Jesus.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. This may not mean we all need to learn some way of mourning in order to get right with God. But this is true: the wonderful realm of Jesus is being given away to those who are saddened and hurt by the losses they’ve suffered.

We who are disciples of the Master can see this pretty easily. We know the pain and trouble of the losses of life, and even many scripture stories that highlight how God is with those who mourn. But what about the next?

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Again, we are not being told we will be better off by being meek, shy, unassertive, intimidated. But good news for those who are: God gives the earth to them. To put it another way, God is their Shepherd, they shall want for nothing.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. I know some people who are real justice-seekers, and for good reason. For themselves, or usually for others, their heart cries out, all the time. These are the activists, some of them. These are also those with a gift for lamenting, for agitating, for complaining to God and their neighbours. They have the eyes to see wrong being done all over the place. Often this is because of how they themselves have been wronged.

And what do they (you?) thirst for most of all? For the right things finally to happen! What is so good about God’s Kingdom for them? Things will finally be made right.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. We could think at first, of mercy as a really good quality to have. It sure is. But it does not make good business sense in our world. And it puts one right in the way of being walked all over by others who are ruthless or opportunistic. But wherever God is in charge, merciful people will be given great mercy. They need not worry about being taken advantage of anymore.

Here's where I want to pause and peek at what we heard from Paul, writing to the Christians in Corinth. This Good News is foolishness to so many, but is the wisdom of God to those who trust Jesus. The letter even claims that God chose the most ordinary people, in the face of the worldly wise and the powerful and the noble. No one can boast in themselves, it says here. God is our source of life, in Christ Jesus.

And so, next in the list, Jesus says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ‘Pure in heart’ sounds like a perfect thing to be, yet Dallas Willard interpreted these as the perfectionists of this world. So, nothing satisfies them. Their food is never cooked right; their clothes and hair are always unsatisfactory; they can tell you what is wrong with everything. How miserable they are! (p. 118) What better promise in the Kingdom of Jesus to the perfectionist than to see God, the one and only Perfect One! Even the purists among us find an open door to the heavenly life.

We’re getting to the end. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. There can be a sense in which the everyday person who is always trying to make peace finds they can’t please everyone, or fix every relationship. Or if it is your work – a police officer in the midst of a domestic dispute – no one trusts you. Or maybe you see all the sides, and can’t decide or choose. This new realm Jesus preaches is for you: your relationships will be good: you’ll be children of God.

I must admit how my mind wanders, and hearing these Beatitudes I can’t help remembering the Sermon on the Mount scene from the Monty Python comedy film, ‘The Life of Brian.’ Far in the back of the crowd on that sunny day, some locals are struggling to hear what this new Teacher is preaching.

Man 1: “What did he say?”

Man 2: “I think it was blessed are the cheesemakers.”

Woman 1: “What's so special about the cheesemakers?

Man 1: “Well it's not to be taken literally, it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.”

A bit later, when someone thinks Jesus said, “blessed are the Greek”… Woman 2: “Oh it's the meek! Blessed are the meek. Oh that's nice, i'n it, I' glad they're getting’ something cause they have a [heck] of a time.”

Hearing these holy words is not always clear, in real life, is it? The point of the Preacher, and the power of the message take some time to be clear, and sink in. You will have noticed that the reading of Matthew 5 from the hymnbooks ends with: Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

But it does not include: Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

There may be a definite order to some of these words of blessing. It is once you respect the meek and week, the sad for so many reasons, the complainers about what’s wrong, the perfectionists, the spiritually slow, and all; and when you do your part to welcome them into Jesus family, that you will truly face opposition. We will face trouble for doing things Jesus’ way. This is Jesus’ warning to us, and a promise of blessing. We will get to walk in the Kingdom that is near as we remember all the people, not like us, who are named first in Jesus’ sermon. In the Realm of God, we get to be part of the blessing, we get to be part of the answer to our prayers.

Rejoice! Let us rejoice over every one whom Jesus welcomes. His welcome keeps getting bigger that ours.