Matthew 5:1-12
5When
Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his
disciples came to him. 2Then he
began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3“Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4“Blessed
are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5“Blessed
are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6“Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7“Blessed
are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. 8“Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9“Blessed
are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10“Blessed
are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. 11“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and
utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice
and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they
persecuted the prophets who were before you.
I don’t know if you noticed, but I
changed the sign out front this week to read thusly: “This Sunday at 11, come
hear the best sermon ever. Also, the pastor will preach.”
This is the challenge of the sermon
on the mount. How do you preach about a sermon? If that is not meta-enough for
you, how do you preach about that which is widely agreed to be the best sermon
of all time, Jesus’s list of those whom God call blessed? It is wonderful, and
poetic, and timeless, and yet many of us who have heard this sermon for years
have not asked what it means. After all, being blessed is good, but what does
it mean?
The Common English Bible, which is
the translation that the United Methodist Church and other denominations have
been working on for some time, translates this passage this way:
“Happy
are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
4 “Happy are
people who grieve, because they will be made glad.
5 “Happy are
people who are humble, because they will inherit the earth.
Isn’t it wonderful, for there is
nobody who needs a measure of God’s grace more than the hopeless, the grieving,
the harassed. We’ve all been there at some point, of course, feeling like we’re
at the bottom of a well with no way out, until, eventually, God sends down a
rope. This is what it means to be blessed. God is with us. Always.
There is a reason this is the
greatest sermon ever preached. Nobody needs a way out more than the hopeless,
and we know this viscerally, in our guts, in our souls, for there have been
times when we have needed that presence of God more than we have needed food or
drink. And if you are like me, when you do get the rope, you tend to climb out
of the well, give God sort of an embarrassed thank you, and then go on your way
until you find yourself stuck in another ditch.
But there are those among us, and many
more outside these walls, who do not have the luxury of going about their merry
way. There are those who find themselves stuck more often than not, and
frequently because of the shove of a fellow human, sometimes because of you or
me. There are those who are truly hopeless, truly reviled, truly harassed.
I mean, it is nice that Jesus is
with me, that I am blessed when I mourn, but I have to tell you that I have a
sneaking suspicion that this passage of scripture is not actually about me.
Sure, I grieve, but not all that often. Sure, I am merciful, as long as it
doesn’t inconvenience me too much. But I am not really hopeless; my lot in life
doesn’t lend itself to that kind of thing. I haven’t had to spend too much of
my emotional capital on peacemaking. I am not particularly meek. For one thing,
I’m a little too cranky a person to be meek. And for another, meekness means
that you’re under provocation. You can’t prove your humility until you’ve had
your back pushed up against the wall.
I have a sneaking suspicion that
the beatitudes are not actually about me, and that is a problem because, you
know, I really, really want Jesus to like me. If Jesus is serious about this
stuff, if he is serious that God is especially with the oppressed, and I am not
one of those folks, well, that says lots about who Jesus is, but it says less
flattering things about my role in all of this, and that’s kind of hard to
face.
And so I am left to wonder, if it
is not about me, then who? Who are the grieving, the poor in spirit, the ones
who are reviled and persecuted and who find themselves on trial on account of
their faith in Jesus?
It is not too hard to find these
folks, once you start looking. There are Christians in oppressive countries who
are jailed for their beliefs. There are Christian missionaries who are killed
by terrorists.
Those are the easy ones to spot.
But in a country where we don’t kill people because of their beliefs, the
business of finding those people Jesus is talking about it is harder, because
the way we dispose of people in this country is not by killing them, but by
maligning them, by saying that they are outside the mainstream, that they ought
not be paid attention to. When you are stuck in a hole, after all, you can be
hard to spot.
But they are there, if you’ll just
open your eyes. Those who are poor, who are marginalized, who feel like they
have no home. I was reading an article just this week about a really cool organization
called Lost-n-Found youth, which provides safe space for youth who are LGBT,
who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, and who have been kicked out of
their homes by their families simply because of this fact. There are
approximately 750 LGBT kids on
the streets of Atlanta with no place to sleep, simply because they’ve been
kicked out of their houses by their families! Youth and children, who have been
disowned by their families. Say what you want about the issue of homosexuality,
but these are kids, and they are homeless. These are the kinds of people Jesus
calls blessed.
Did you know there were so many homeless
gay kids in this city? I certainly did not, but that is the way it works. We
shove these folks aside, and even if we aren’t actively persecuting them, we’re
letting it stand in the name of holiness, of maintaining our Christian morals.
It is in the face of this kind of response that Jesus sits atop the mountain
and says, blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn.
Now, I haven’t talked much about
the issue of homosexuality from the pulpit. You may have noticed me dropping a
couple of hints along the way about where I fall on this, but I haven’t said
much. For reasons I will explain, I think it is time.
Let me preface this by saying that
I know this is a really, really complicated subject, and I’ve met almost nobody
who didn’t feel strongly about it one way or the other. Let me also say that
the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church is very clear. We believe
that people who are LGBT, who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender are
people of sacred worth, children of God, but—the church has said—the practice
of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. If we are going to
talk about this issue, we should be clear about what the general conference of
the church has said.
I deeply love our church, this
denomination. I have told you that I did not grow up in a United Methodist
Church, but that I chose this denomination on purpose, because I love our way
of doing ministry, our theology of grace. But if I am going to be clear about
where the church stands on this issue, I should also be clear that I disagree
with the church’s teaching. I understand the church’s position, but my
understanding of who Jesus is and what he teaches leads me to a different
place. I certainly don’t mean to suggest that sexuality ought not have
boundaries. I am saying that the boundaries and covenant of marriage are things
that ought to be open for everybody, for they are deeply good, deeply holy.
Now, I don’t intend for this to be
a sermon only about homosexuality, and so if you’d like to talk to me
one-on-one about this issue, know that my door is open to you. I mean that—I
would love to talk with you. But I also believe that we can’t pretend that
difficult issues don’t exist. That doesn’t do justice to the work of God in the
world. So why do I bring this up?
Perhaps you have heard in recent
months about Frank Schafer, the former United Methodist pastor who was brought
up on charges within the church because he performed the wedding of his son,
which would have been lovely in the eyes of the church except for the fact that
his son was engaged to a man. And Frank Shaefer went through a costly church
trial, and ultimately he lost his ministerial credentials, for saying yes to
his son.
This being a newsworthy thing,
several of you heard and asked me about my thoughts on the situation, which I
have shared privately, but I did not bring up the trial in worship because, well,
we had other irons in the fire. The work of God is bigger than this one issue.
But today, today is different,
because a United Methodist minister in the New York conference has been brought
up on charges for the same thing, for saying yes to his son, for saying yes, my
child, I love you and I will perform your wedding: but this time, the situation
hits closer to home. The Rev. Dr. Tom
Ogletree is the minister in question, a world-renowned Christian ethicist and
the former dean of two seminaries, most recently Yale. What I find most
impressive about him is that he is the brother of Bette Prestwood, one of our
beloved members here at North Decatur. I checked with Bette before I brought
this up today, because you can imagine that it is deeply personal, but it is
important for you to know that this is going on. I hope you will be supportive
of Bette in these days as she supports her brother and her family.
This isn’t a sermon about just
about homosexuality. It is a sermon about God, and without getting into a
drawn-out explanation of why I believe what I believe—because that conversation
should be one-on-one, not one-on-a-hundred—let me just say this. I’ve never met
anybody who was gay who wasn’t reviled and harassed because of it, who didn’t
find him or herself hopeless at times; there is a reason that the suicide rate
for people who are lesbian and gay is so high. And now, we’re punishing people
for agreeing to officiate the weddings of their own children, for wanting to
give their kids a chance at the stability that the marriage covenant brings.
Here’s what I want to know: if it is true that the hopeless are blessed, that
those who are harassed and reviled are blessed, that those who hunger and
thirst for the favor of God are blessed, how can anybody, anybody make an
argument against aggressively reaching out and welcoming those who are
marginalized, including our lesbian and gay sisters and brothers? Why do we
continue to act like the church is a place for people who have it together
instead of what it is, a hospital for sinners like you and me?
It is in the midst of this reality
that Jesus preaches the sermon on the mount. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are the reviled. Blessed are the meek. And what does it mean to be
blessed? It means that God is with you, of course. And so if we want to be with
God, we ought to go looking for those Jesus called blessed.
If you have come here looking for a
blessing, I must share with you that it is quite possible that the sermon on
the mount is not actually about you, at least in the way that many of us wish
it were. But the sermon on the mount also reminds us that the business of
living our faith is less about my own wanting this to be all about me and more
about making this all about others, for it is in the business of working for
the welfare of others that we find God.
Now, here in a few minutes, we are
going to gather at the table for Holy Communion. No matter where you fall on
all of this, whether you’ve been nodding your head so much during this sermon
that you’ll leave with whiplash or whether you are wondering why the Bishop
sent us this guy of all people, no
matter, you are welcome at the table. This is what the church does, after all.
We eat. We gather, we discuss, we argue, and eat. We get nourishment for the
road, sustenance to support us on the long road of blessing.
And if you take on that challenge--if,
as you travel that long road of blessing, you find yourself hungering and thirsting
for righteousness--well, Jesus says you might just also find yourself filled.
You might just find yourself in the presence of God. There is no greater
blessing. In the name of the Creator, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
