The Beatitudes are Jesus parallel to
Moses giving the 10 commandments. These eight Beatitudes are Jesus laying out
the introduction where it led to his Sermon on the Mount. For All Saints Sunday
it's traditional for us to use one or the other of the accounts of the
Beatitudes. The actual one in lectionary for today is the one from Luke, which
has four, but some words are a little different and it still has eight, but
four of them were positive and the others are reversed to the negative. So four
Beatitudes and four woes in the Sermon on the Plain.
Preached extemporaneously at Briensburg UMC on November 3, 2019.
So there's some parallel similarities, but just like the
King James version being more familiar to me than some others. So the Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount and all
is kind of more familiar, I guess, in a way, or we think about it more as the
Beatitudes. And it begins with this verse that Jesus saw the crowds and went up
the hill where he sat down, his disciples gathered around him and he began to teach
them.
So that begins the real blessing, I think. Just think how
it would feel to be in this crowd, depicted in the picture here, of people
gathered around Jesus to hear him lay out his plan for humanity. His vision for
the kingdom of God. We have his law that is recorded later, but you kind of can
see as you read the scriptures, that he was mixing that into the whole of his
teaching all along, how we love God and love one another, and that we do this
the way that Jesus did it. And we follow his example of love, not just any body
who has some kind of way of thinking about it, but the example that Jesus set.
So we're following him and we're hearing his teachings,
and we're just sitting there and Jesus' feet. Well, what price is he really
inviting us to? I think one of the main reasons why this is important for All
Saints Sunday is that we're invited to sit there spiritually right now. We're
all gathered around the feet of Jesus wherever we are. We don't have to go over
there, climb the mountain. Wherever we turn to Christ, we find that he's there
and we can learn from him and look at his example.
We can see how he lived out these teachings, the
Beatitudes and the teachings that emanate from them in the Sermon on the Mount
as they filled them up and fulfilled the Old Testament law and build on that
with the new covenant and the New Testament that we share. Not only Christ, but
also all those in Christ. We have a small congregation here and yet we're
vastly outnumbered by the ones in this room that we see by the ones who are
here with us that we don't see.
Who we can feel their presence as they look in on us and
as they join us in the spirit, and as Wesley put it, they seen the lamb in
hymns above and we in hymns below. Every once in a while I mention that during
the time when we'd sing the doxology every Sunday and it says, "praise him
above your heavenly host," you know, I could do some visualize several of
those people, my mother, different members of the congregation that have come
and gone to be with the Lord, other family and friends that have been important
in my life. And I can just see them, Cheryl's dad and mom, different ones, you
know, just to start, I probably shouldn't of started making a list. Everybody's
family and friends, all of them.
It's just a beautiful feeling to know that we are all
family. Whether we can see each other or not, that we're present. We have
eternal life. They have eternal life. We're all a part of who Christ is, and
Christ invites us and everybody into that kind of an internal spiritual
fellowship that is not dependent on our physical state. But instead what we're
willing to live into, and we see in his life the example of how he lived out
those Beatitudes.
Then he invites us to try to do that ourselves and live
into those conditions and receive those blessings. So I put on there the word
as it appears in Greek, and of course it's all Greek to me, but "makarias" is the word that's translated blessed, and another way is
just happy. But it's a supreme happiness that we all are looking for. It's
heaven. It's the glory of God, the Chicana glory of God that he invites us
into, to live into, and to grow into, which might take an eternity, but he's
been around for a long time with his happiness and he wanted us to be as happy
as he is. God wants us to be as happy as God is.
So that we would have the fullness of our joy. So that's
when we talk about being blessed. It's just Christ is inviting us to the
ultimate in his blessings, and blessings that we enter into a little bit of joy
and then it just keeps growing and becomes more perfect, throughout all of this
life and the life of the world to come.
One of our prayers at the grave side is that we would
grow, that the person who has led upside their earthly tabernacle, that now
they have returned to God who gave it, and they're going on from strengths to
strength in that service to the heavenly kingdom. And another predator that we
have at the funerals is that we pray that our beloved will live in perpetual
light. And these are all ways of expressing the divine glory of God that is
there for us, it waits for us, not just in the life of the next world, but in
this life and on into the next life.
We see these as one continuum and we don't... Our body is
laid aside and maybe the promise is that one day our bodies will be restored,
but whether they're laid aside or whether they're restored, we still are in
Christ, and Christ in us. And our life is eternal. And our families and
friendships and fellowship that we share is eternal. It makes changes in this
life all the time, you know, as people move to another part of the country, and
people go through different situations in their lives and all, and then it
changes in the next life too.
So there's a lot of ways that we... The way we relate to
each other changes according to our circumstances, but it's all one life, a
life in Christ. And that Christ is inviting us into perfect blessing. The
blessings that we see him expressing in his life and in preaching about in his
life. And then each of these Beatitudes has a condition with it, and it's not
the kind of condition where it's transactional. It's not something that well
you do this and you'll get that.
But it's rather the condition is the condition of your
soul, the condition of your relationship with God and with the people around
you. This is the condition your condition is in. This is your state of being.
What kind of person are you? This is your character. What kind of person are
you? How do you relate to the people around you? How do you relate to God?
What's important to you in life? Those aren't just transactions that you can
turn off and on. Those are like a switch or something. Those are something...
Those are that the way you're growing in life, the trajectory of your life, the
direction you're headed in, and the condition of your heart and your mind.
What kind of things... How do you think about people? What
kind of things are on your mind? What kind of feelings do you have? What kind
of thoughts do you have? That's what Christ is getting at and so that requires
a lifetime of growth, doesn't it? As we grow into the likeness of him who
filleth all in all. The Bible is always calling us and inviting us. Paul wrote,
"Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure." And to think
on those kind of things.
That's what Christ is inviting to in the Beatitudes. Look
at the Beatitudes, see how Christ manifested those in his life and then see how
best it can every day be growing into that likeness, and be more like that.
Most of them are like contradictory to the ways that we normally think would
make us happen. And so that's an extra step of growth because we have to by
faith say, well this is Christ and this is how Christ is inviting us, and I
believe that and that's what I want to be like and that's why I want my world
to be like, so that's what I'm going to grow into. I'm going to work on that
and try to become that way.
Then as we become that light, the more we are that way,
then the greater the blessings that follow. And we're sort of always on a
little continuum, probably somewhere, nobody that I know of is at the very
opposite of the Beatitudes. Some seem like they might be for the moment, you
know, but they're not really that way, but sometimes we get to thinking that
some people are completely the opposite, but nobody's actually completely, they
don't think, you know? But anyway, somewhere between the complete opposite, but
nobody I know is the complete absolute reflection of Christ either.
So somewhere in there we all find ourselves, and everybody
else is in there somewhere too, in that mix, always growing on the spiritual
journey. And as we grow into that condition, as we grow into that character,
that reflection of Christ, then we also grow into the promises that are included
in the Beatitudes. If you're this common person, then this is going to be the
kind of blessing that you're going to get out of it. And the more you're...
These kind of people that are here, then the more those blessings will... those
promises will come to fruition in our lives, is that we live into the promises
of God.
We live into the image that God created us in the first
place. We're really just becoming who we really are. I guess it's like, you
know, we want to be the fullness of who we were made to be, to reflect fully
the image of God. That is the image in which the Bible says we were created,
male and female. Everybody created in this image, image of God. That's what
we're going into, and the promise is we can do this. The promise is it's an
invitation and then Jesus goes on in the Sermon on the Mount to kind of explain
how, and he goes on in his life to demonstrate how.
The church through the ages, including all our family and
friends that have handed the faith down to us, and others through the ages who
have handed this faith down to us, the mighty times witnesses have been showing
us how, and have been helping us come into the glory and the joy and the
victory and the wonder of true happiness.
Then we also have that as part of our opportunity to pass
on, not only to the other people around us of this generation, but to the
generation and generations yet to follow. They would be a part of that mighty
throne. The crowd throughout from history, from eternity upon eternity. We're a
part of that. We're just kind of in this little niche in the flow right now.
Charles Wesley on the other hymn wrote about all the
mighty number of people that have gone on before. Many have gone on and have
already crossed the river. Some are partying now, and some will cross later.
That's us. We're in that number.
So that's the Beatitudes that Christ invites us into and
it's the same part of the same promise and the same invitation of the great
invitation. When he said, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy
laden, I will give you rest. Come take your yoke and learn of me. For I am meek
and lowly and humble of heart and you will find rest for your souls."
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Painting: BĂ©atitudes by Joseph Matar, www.Lebanonart.com