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God's Psychiatry |
Matthew 5: 1-12
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© John Ewing Roberts |
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INTRODUCTION Last week we heard how the disciples were called, and how we are called: Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore. Now that they and we are called, we hear what is expected of them and of us. The beatitudes are for people who have heard and decided to obey Jesus when he said, "Repent" and "Follow me."[1] PARENTHESIS FOR "SUPER SUNDAY" By the way, last week we heard we were to be fishers of men and women, finding the right bait to attract people. This afternoon in the spirit of the Apostle Paul who became all things to all people that he might win some,[2] we are having two very different events, both attractive in themselves to some people, but both designed as occasions for you to invite people to come into your church and to meet some Woodbrook people. You can invite people who find church services off putting. They won't be coming to a service but to hear some Beethoven or to watch the game. In a non-threatening setting they can find out in some degree where we are and who we are. One member pointed out to me that one event is "high culture," the other "low culture." I mentioned this yesterday in the Future of the Church Committee and was asked, "Which is which?" (Since Cher is singing the national anthem before the Super Bowl, I assume that it is the "high culture" event!) Both the concert and the game can be dismissed as secular, or even immoral. After all, Beethoven apparently died of a sexually transmitted disease, and the NFL is for many virtually a synonym for violence and greed. But we will not call off the concert even though Beethoven is on the program, nor we will cancel the Super Bowl viewing. Instead, let us remember Paul, whose love of Greek athletics from racing to boxing and wrestling is evident from his frequent use of athletic images in the Bible.[3] Let us remember that while these athletic events may not have been as commercial as the Super Bowl, they were far more pagan in that they were closely associated with the worship of what Paul knew to be false gods. Still, the Holy Spirit inspired him to write books of our Bible with metaphors and similes from these very games. By the way, there is one point at which today's athletes are very different from those that ran before the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12: 1-2. Greek athletes competed in the nude - our word "gymnasium" comes from the Greek word gymnos, which means "nude" or "naked." I can assure you that if any Broncos or Falcons start to take off their uniform, the picture will be turned off! Anyway, we are supposed to be in the business of reclaiming the secular for the sake of the sacred, and I can think of no better exercise than taking our culture, be it high or low, musical or athletic, and transforming it into a time of leisure and delight, friendship and fellowship, gentle outreach and good company. Meanwhile, back at the Sermon on the Mount... We have heard so many sermons on this sermon of sermons, and sat through so many Sunday School lessons and Bible studies on the beatitudes that without meaning to do so or realizing that it is happening, we tend to glaze over and miss the impact of these verses. I offer you as a corrective a few minutes of the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian,[4] to show what would happen if not everybody could hear Jesus, if not everybody could understand Jesus. What if Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," but from your distant vantage point it sounded like "Blessed are the cheese makers?" What if "Blessed are the meek," sounded like "Blessed are the Greeks?" What if in their efforts to hear, people began fighting with people who are making noise by asking what Jesus said? Compensate for the cockney accents, and enjoy. WHEN HE HAD SAT DOWN As soon as the film clip began, you surely spotted the first error. Jesus was giving the beatitudes as he stood on the top of a mountain. Sitting was the official teaching position of a rabbi. We still speak of a professor's chair, and the Pope speaks ex cathedra, from his seat.[5] Jesus primarily was a teacher. It is true that he went about preaching, teaching and healing, but a check of the gospels reveals that the words teach, teacher and teaching are more associated with Jesus than preaching or healing.[6] If someone says of a pastor, "He is more of a teacher than a preacher," you have paid that pastor a great compliment however the remark may have been intended. BLESSED The word blessed also means "happy," and it's good to know that, but remember, no one who sets out to be happy is always happy. Happiness is a by-product of some deep passion for something or someone or some cause outside of yourself. A counselor once advised that no one will be happy until he or she is divorced from himself or herself. It's God's psychiatry to teach us that the way to happiness or blessedness comes by getting outside of ourselves and into the Kingdom of Heaven. The medical model for understanding the beatitudes was put this way by a Georgia farmer with a Ph. D. in New Testament. Clarence Jordan wrote: 1. Blessed are they who face up to their illness, for theirs is health. 2. Blessed are they who go to the doctor, for they shall be helped. 3. Blessed are they who take his or her prescription, for they shall inherit the benefit of his knowledge.[7] Dale Bruner translates "Blessed" as "God bless" because he wants to capture all three standard interpretations of "blessed." It means a communication, a pronouncement that conveys a blessing. It means an exhortation to live a certain way. It means a congratulation because of a certain condition.[8] Jesus' beatitudes turn upside down (remember upside down for the end of the sermon) and explode the traditional wisdom of his world and ours. We expect to hear good, dull, obvious, bland beatitudes like, "Blessed is the man who has a loving wife, obedient children, prosperity and long life" (not that that's bad!), but Jesus offers an eruption of a new consciousness.[9] Jesus begins with a blessing rather than waiting for us to do something for which we are to be blessed. This is grace - they blessings precede the works. The blessings produce the ethics. I like the one sentence summary of the beatitudes: "You are loved; act like it."[10] BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT, FOR THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN In Luke 6: 20 we have simply, "blessed are the poor," a reflection of his interest in literal poor. But don't be too quick to say Matthew "spiritualizes" poverty with his "Blessed are the poor in spirit." He may very well have in mind the poor who are poor and crushed in spirit because they don't know if there will be enough money for enough food, enough shelter, enough health care - a spirit crushing condition. Jesus cared about our social needs and our spiritual needs, like our brothers and sisters in the Fraternity of Cuban Baptists who came into being partly because they thought it was just as important to save lives as it was to save souls. The word for "poor" comes from a verb meaning "to cower," or "to cringe." It moves toward the idea of being "dispirited," "fearing spiritual failure," "feeling spiritually inadequate." This verse may come from what we call the Sermon on the Mount, but because it is for many of us when we are down, we may well call it "The Sermon from the Valley." There is not a soul in this room who does not understand what such poverty is. And Jesus says to us who recognize our condition that we are to be blessed, encouraged and congratulated! A brilliant Methodist preacher named Charles Allen included the beatitudes in his best selling book, God's Psychiatry.[11] He began with this story. "Frederick William IV of Prussia once visited a school and asked the children some questions. Pointing to the stone on his ring, a flower in his button-hole, and a bird that flew past the window, he asked to what kingdom each of them belonged. The children gave him the right answers: the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdom. Then he asked, `To what kingdom do I belong?'" That is the supreme question facing us all - to what kingdom do you belong? Jesus suggests that the poor in spirit will belong to the kingdom of heaven. "A young girl, after a short life of hard work, little love, and almost total deprivation, lay on her death bed. A minister was called to her bedside, and he discovered that...the girl had actually never heard of the love of God in Christ. The minister told her that Christ would take her to himself. She wanted to believe this, but asked, `How will he even recognize me since I have never known him?' The minister noticed how rough and injured her hands were from the hard work she had to do, and remembering the crucified hands of Christ, he said, `You just show him your hands. Those he will know.'"[12] Jesus recognizes the poor in spirit as belonging to his kingdom. BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN, FOR THEY SHALL BE COMFORTED Blessedness or happiness and mourning may not at first glance look like they go together, but in real life, they often exist side by side in our lives. "Much folk music lives from this strange by strong combination."[13] Daphne du Maurier wrote in her book The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memoirs of how she coped after the death of her husband. "As the months pass and the seasons change, something of tranquility descends; and although the well-remembered footstep will not sound again, or the voice call from the room beyond, there seems to be about in the air an atmosphere of love, a living presence...It is as though one shared, in some indefinable manner, the freedom and peace, even at times the joy, of another world where there is no more pain...When Christ the Healer said, `Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,' he must have meant just this."[14] But there is another kind of mourning - it is grief over the state of the world, what the Romans called "the tears of thing," lacrimae rerum, what the Germans called "Weltschmerz," the pain of the world. To mourn in this fashion is to have the feeling of a person who is truly alive. Paul tells us of people who were "past feeling."[15] "Blessed are they that mourn" may well mean "Blessed are those who are not past feeling, who care, who care to the point of a broken spirit and a contrite heart, who care enough to repent, who care enough to weep, who care enough to act, for you shall be comforted." Father Damien was for thirteen years a mission to lepers. "Finally the dread disease laid hold of him. One morning he spilled some boiling water on his foot. But there was not the slightest pain. Then he knew that he was doomed. He knew that death had come to his body and little by little would take possession. A hundred times better for him would it have been if that boiling water had brought pain."[16] To grieve for the pain we feel is a sign of life; to have not feeling is a deadly signal; those who feel enough to mourn shall be comforted. BLESSED ARE THE MEEK, FOR THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH Only two people in the whole Bible are called "meek," Moses in Numbers 12: 3 and Jesus in Matthew 11: 29. Neither Moses nor Jesus were mousy. Meek does not mean "mousy." The idea of the Greek word is "tamed" as in the sense of strong and spirited horses whose energy is under control. Like Paul, I would use an athletic illustration. Picture a good defensive lineman rushing the passer; if he is out of control, he will fail; if he is meek in the best sense of the word, he will put pressure on the quarterback, hurry up the pass, and possibly get a deflection or a sack. The New English Bible translated meek as "those of a gentle spirit," but I like best something Terry Thomas Primer called to my attention after reading the Bible in French. French for "meek" is debonair. From now on when I hear "meek," I picture all the passion and energy of a great dancer under graceful control - Rudolf Nureyev or Mikhail Baryshnikov leaping, Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain, Fred Astaire anytime. BLESSED ARE THEY WHICH DO HUNGER AND THIRST AFTER RIGHTEOUSNESS, FOR THEY SHALL BE FILLED Have you heard the story about the young man who came to Buddha seeking the true way of life, the path of deliverance? Buddha led him down to the river. The young man assumed that he was to undergo some ritual of purification, something like a baptism. They walked out into the river for some distance. Then Buddha grabbed the man and held his head under water until he was almost out of breath and broke loose, aching for air. Quietly Buddha asked him, "When you thought you were drowning, what did you desire most? The man gasped, "Air!" Then Buddha said, "When you want salvation as much as you wanted air, then you will get it."[17] We hunger and thirst for righteousness in our time, but do we hunger and thirst for righteousness in ourselves or in others. Do you hunger for righteousness for yourself or just on the part of government figures and Olympic officials? That last question is one of those introspective questions that is appropriate for Lent. Our church is offering you two special events to begin Lent and to enrich your preparation for Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The retreat/Bible study with Rosann Catalano on Saturday, February 13 is one; the other is the gospel song service on the first Sunday of Lent (February 21). The deeper your participation in these, the richer your experience during the forty days before Easter. BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL, FOR THEY SHALL OBTAIN MERCY This seems to be the easiest beatitude at first glance. We cheer, "Let's hear it for the Good Samaritan and the man who prayed, `God, be merciful to me a sinner.'"[18] But can you and I be merciful when some one has wronged someone we love? A poor man named Peer Holm lived in a village with his wife and little girl. He warned his neighbor that the neighbor's dog was dangerous, only to be told, "Hold your tongue, you cursed pauper." One day Peer Holm came home and found that the dog had torn into his little girl's throat and killed her. The sheriff shot the dog; the other neighbors were bitter and when sowing time came, would not sell or give the dog owner any grain. Early one morning Peer Holm rose, went to his shed, got his last half bushel of barley, climbed the fence and sowed his neighbor's field. When the seeds came up, Peer's field remained bare, while the field of his neighbor was green, revealing his act of mercy.[19] BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART, FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD "Heart" in Hebrew psychology is the center of a human's feeling, willing and thinking. Heart, will and mind are all covered by the biblical term "heart."[20] If you set heart against head and head against heart, intellect against feeling and feeling against intellect, you are thinking more like a pagan classical Greek than a biblical Christian. Christians are supposed to have their heads and hearts and wills together. If your head is on straight and your heart is in the right place, head and heart are one. Paul wrote, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."[21] Jesus said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."[22] These biblical truths remind us that if we are unified in our head, heart and will, if we are looking to Jesus, we will see the Father and be purified by the Son and kept by the Holy Spirit. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS, FOR THEY SHALL BE CALLED THE CHILDREN OF GOD I'm glad Tom Brokaw's book (The Best Generation) about the generation that won World War II is a best seller. One of the great leaders in that effort was General Omar Bradley (you had better be a good soldier if your first name is "Omar!"). In a Memorial Day address shortly after the end of World War II, General Bradley said, "We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount...Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, and more about killing that we know about living."[23] There is, of course, another kind of peace, the peace we crave on the inside: - Peace between our inner selves and our outer selves; - Peace between our past and our future, our futile regrets over what has been and our useless worries over what may be; - Peace between our higher and lower natures. BLESSED ARE THEY WHO ARE PERSECUTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE, FOR THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN Do you ever think that sometimes Jesus "just goes too far?" Persecuted for righteousness' sake? Poverty and grief are tough enough, not to mention being merciful to some back stabbing gossip or trying to be a peacemaker only to catch it from both sides. Perhaps this beatitude on persecution is the toughest one of all, the one where Jesus turns things upside down in the most outrageous fashion. In recent years, if you have been paying attention, you will have noticed that Baptists have started persecuting Baptists. Let me tell you, there is something worse than persecution; it is unfaithfulness.[24] CONCLUSION Jesus has never promised more than in the blessings of the beatitudes. Notice, Those who are poor spiritually have Heaven.The mourners has comfort. The meek have an inheritance. The spiritually hungry are filled. The merciful obtain mercy, The pure-hearted see God. The peacemakers are children of God. The persecuted are rewarded.[25] To help us understand how to receive the blessings, and how to enter the kingdom, I offer you a closing quotation from a splendid preacher named Barbara Brown Taylor. She calls her sermon on the beatitudes, "Blessed are the upside down." She remembers what is like to be a little girl and stand on her head to "liven things up a little. Grass hung in front of my eyes like a green fringe. Trees grew down, not up, and the sky was a blue lawn that went on forever. For as long as I kept my balance I could tap dance on it, while birds and clouds flew under my feet. My swing set was no longer an `A' but a `V' and my house seemed in danger of falling off the yard - just shooting off into space like a rocket - leaving the sidewalk lined with pansies that led to nowhere...In a world where trees grew down and houses might fall up, anything seemed possible. "I think Jesus should have asked the crowd to stand on their heads when he taught them the Beatitudes, because that was what he was doing. He was turning the known world upside down, so that those who had been fighting for breath at the bottom of the human heap suddenly found themselves closest to heaven, while those who thought they were on top of things found themselves flat on their backs looking up... "The world looks funny upside down, but maybe that is just how it looks when you have got your feet planted in heaven. Jesus did it all the time and seemed to think we could do it too. So blessed are those who stand on their heads, for they shall see the world as God sees it. They shall find themselves in good company, turned upside down by the only one who really knows which way is up."[26] [This sermon is for circulation within the Woodbrook congregation and may not be reproduced without permission.] Notes: [1] Matthew 4: 17, 19 [2] I Corinthians 9: 22 [3] I Corinthians 9: 24-26; Ephesians 6: 12; II Timothy 4: 7 [4] Please do not consider this quotation of the film as an endorsement of it. The Life of Brian contains some genuinely funny material, but also has some very offensive and outrageous portions. [5] William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1 [Philadelphia: Westminster Press] 1958, p. 80 [6] The Quick Verse computer program has references to Jesus as follows: preaching, preacher, preach - 20; healing, healer, heal - 21; teaching, teacher, teach - 65 [7] Clarence Jordan, Sermon on the Mount (revised edition) [Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Judson Press] 1972, p. 26 [8] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook - A Historical/Theological Commentary, Matthew 1-12 [Waco, Texas: WORD Books] 1987, p. 137 [9] Steven E. Berry, "Theological Themes," Lectionary Homiletics, January 1996, Vol. VII, No. 2, p. 27 [10] Barbara Brown Taylor, cited in Lectionary Homiletics, op. cit., p. 30 [11] Charles L. Allen, God's Psychiatry [Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Co.] 1972 (18th printing) 159 pp. [12] Lectionary Homiletics, op cit., p. 32 [13] Bruner, op. cit., p. 139 [14] Daphne du Maurier, Readers' Digest, August 1980, pp. 72-74, cited by Bill D. Whitaker in Illustrating the Gospel of Matthew, compiled by James E. Hightower, Jr., [Nashville: Broadman Press] 1982, p. 115 [15] Ephesians 4: 19 [16] Allen, op. cit., p. 133 [17] Allen, op. cit., p. 31 [18] Luke 18: 13 [19] Allen, op. cit., p. 41 [20] Bruner, op. cit., p. 148 [21] II Corinthians 2: 9 [22] John 14: 9 [23] cited by Robert J. Hastings in Illustrating the Gospel of Matthew, op. cit., p. 26 [24] Clarence Jordan, op. cit., p. 39 [25] Hankins F. Parker, Earth's Greatest Sermon - A Practical Application of The Sermon on the Mount [New York: The American Press] 1966, p. 38 [26] Barbara Brown Taylor, Gospel Medicine [Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cowley Publication] 1995, pp. 145-146, 149 |