6 Epiphany C, February 17, 2019
Jeremiah 17:5-10 Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20 Luke 6:17-26
Lectionary Link
Today we have read one of the versions of what are called the beatitudes. There are two versions found in the New Testament, one in the Gospel of Matthew and one in the Gospel. The beatitude sayings in Matthew are part of what is called the Sermon on the Mount. The beatitude sayings in the Gospel of Luke are within a Sermon on the Plains, not on the Mount. There are significant differences between the beatitudes in Matthew and Luke. For example, the Matthew version begins with "Blessed are the poor in spirit..." and the Lucan version is, "Blessed are the poor......" full stop, What happened to "poor in spirit?" How does one explain the differences? Two different speeches in different places with different audiences? Or, are the Gospel writers using words of Jesus to two different early church situations? The poor in spirit crowd probably had more money than the blessed are the poor crowd. One can see how actual economic condition of the listening audience would effect how the words of Jesus were recalled.
To further understand the beatitudes, one should understand the liturgy of the synagogue. There were prayers of benedictions and curses, yes curses. Benedictions "or good words about" are the blessings or beatitudes. The Birkat haMinim were "curses" which wished that "heretics" be blotted out of the book of life. These liturgical forms of curses are used to date the separation of Christians from the synagogue. After the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, the re-gathered parties of Judaism in Jamnia added a curse against the followers of Jesus. This would mean that a follower of Jesus would not stay in the synagogue to offer a curse against oneself, so when the curse appeared in the liturgy, one assumes a pronounced separation of synagogue and Jesus Movement.
One can see in the beatitudes this form of curse in the phrase "Woe to you...." So even in the words of Jesus the liturgical formula of "blessings and curses" are maintained.
Today, you and I may be uncomfortable with making curses a part of our liturgy, though we certainly moved the curses of our ill wishes "outside" of the church in the way that we express displeasure for people who significantly disagree with our "correct" view of things. Fortunately we don't have the guile to associate some of our small views with God's official view. We still bless and curse in our practice, but we take the scatological stuff outside of the church.
I would like to further state that the beatitudes have been mostly misunderstood or misapplied in the long history of reading these words of Jesus. Why would I say this?
How many of us would say that poverty, hunger, mourning, being hated, defamed and persecuted are states of blessed fortune? I can't wait until I'm poor, hungry, weeping, hated, defamed and persecuted because then I will really be lucky. What kind of thinking would this be? To wish for states of discomfort might be called unhealthy masochism. Why would anyone of a sound mind do this?
This misunderstanding caused the philosopher Nietzsche to call the beatitudes the "slave" morality. How did what is normal get turn upside down. Wealth, having enough to eat, happiness, public regard and respect are what is normal. How can someone call the opposite the new normal? In the Roman Empire, Christians were a minority and therefore liable to miss out on the rights of those in Roman society. So, do Christians make peace with their suffering by declaring that suffering is the new normal? Nietzsche criticized this as a dishonesty about what is normal. This is like the boy who comes into classes and accidentally trips and falls, and when the entire class laughs at him, he replies, "I meant to fall so that I could cause you to laugh; I was in control all of the time." Nietzsche called this the transvaluation of values; he said that the slave values were declared by Christians to be the preferred values. But is this dishonest? How many Christians actually adopt the beatitudes as their preferred values?
The beatitudes became a bit more complicated when Christianity took over the Roman Empire and became associated with dominating economic class of society. How could triumphant and wealthy Christians legitimately adopt the beatitudes as the true values of their lives? We can see how the monastic movement developed as a reaction against Christianity's compromise with the wealthy class in power. Monks and nuns voluntarily chose poverty and spartan conditions to be the true Christians who upheld the beatitudes in a more literal way. When wealthy Christian nations practiced colonization and slavery, those who were enslaved had the conditions of the beatitude forces upon them just like the conditions that had been forced upon the early Christians. When Christians introduced the Christian faith to slaves and colonized people, what did slaves and colonized people want? Not poverty, no persecution, or bias or prejudice or hunger; they wanted freedom and the right to life, liberty and happiness. Once again, it became rather hypocritical for Christians in power to try to sell the beatitude slave morality on oppressed people as those ordained by God and Christ.
So where does that leave you and me today in our understanding of the beatitudes today. How do we who prefer comfort and ease, honestly adapt the beatitudes as our honest rule of life? Are you and I complete beatitude hypocrites today?
I would suggest another insight into the beatitudes which is not hypocritical or dishonest and it has more to do with the transformation and abundant life program which characterized the early Christian New Testament mystics.
I would like to illustrate this with some poignant examples. Have you ever found your self moody and a bit depressed but then be confronted with a person with really bad circumstances and they are cheerfully blissful. And you stopped in your track and immediately rebuked by one's own petty and moody self-involvement. It like the saying, "I complained about having no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet." You see pictures of children in refugee camps smiling and laughing, and you say, "I'll have what they're having, without all of the suffering." You see people who suffer from drastic impairments, or parents with handicapped children and you see them cheerful and happy and you wonder, "how do they do it?" How can they have such empowering contentment given the obvious challenges of their situation?
The mysticism of the early Spirit filled church was about the experience of abundant life also known as a highly conformable contentment. How does one attain or live from the state of inner contentment, no matter what happens within the freedom of the conditions of what can happen to anyone. This, I believe, is the essence of the beatitudes. It is not a masochistic, abnormal wishing for deprivation and bad fortune; it is attaining to an inner state of contentment which allows one who live with grace, hope and faith in any situation.
The secret of Christian mysticism is to find and know the state of contentment that adjusts to no matter what we are facing.
St. Paul who experienced lots of suffering but also some comfortable hospitality wrote, "I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
Jesus offers the mystical state of spiritual contentment to those who suffer and to those who do not. Because the state of contentment is offered to all, it does not mean that we should cease to eradicate suffering, oppression and illness in our world. We should not be people who say, "Since you can experience the state of spiritual contentment in dire circumstances, then I do not need to work for justice or the end of poverty." This kind of religious thinking is what made Karl Marx call religion the opiate of people. "You can tolerate your poverty now because, you'll have streets of gold in the heavenly Jerusalem."
Attaining spiritual contentment should inspire us and give us the strength and empathy to work for the best possible conditions for as many people as possible.
Today, let the beatitudes invite us to honesty. Let us ask God for the blessed state of contentment even while we know that we will not be exempt from a range of good and bad things happening to us. But in the grace of the contentment of the abundant life of Christ, let us endlessly work to bring good news to others in this world. Amen.
Jeremiah 17:5-10 Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20 Luke 6:17-26
Lectionary Link
Today we have read one of the versions of what are called the beatitudes. There are two versions found in the New Testament, one in the Gospel of Matthew and one in the Gospel. The beatitude sayings in Matthew are part of what is called the Sermon on the Mount. The beatitude sayings in the Gospel of Luke are within a Sermon on the Plains, not on the Mount. There are significant differences between the beatitudes in Matthew and Luke. For example, the Matthew version begins with "Blessed are the poor in spirit..." and the Lucan version is, "Blessed are the poor......" full stop, What happened to "poor in spirit?" How does one explain the differences? Two different speeches in different places with different audiences? Or, are the Gospel writers using words of Jesus to two different early church situations? The poor in spirit crowd probably had more money than the blessed are the poor crowd. One can see how actual economic condition of the listening audience would effect how the words of Jesus were recalled.
To further understand the beatitudes, one should understand the liturgy of the synagogue. There were prayers of benedictions and curses, yes curses. Benedictions "or good words about" are the blessings or beatitudes. The Birkat haMinim were "curses" which wished that "heretics" be blotted out of the book of life. These liturgical forms of curses are used to date the separation of Christians from the synagogue. After the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, the re-gathered parties of Judaism in Jamnia added a curse against the followers of Jesus. This would mean that a follower of Jesus would not stay in the synagogue to offer a curse against oneself, so when the curse appeared in the liturgy, one assumes a pronounced separation of synagogue and Jesus Movement.
One can see in the beatitudes this form of curse in the phrase "Woe to you...." So even in the words of Jesus the liturgical formula of "blessings and curses" are maintained.
Today, you and I may be uncomfortable with making curses a part of our liturgy, though we certainly moved the curses of our ill wishes "outside" of the church in the way that we express displeasure for people who significantly disagree with our "correct" view of things. Fortunately we don't have the guile to associate some of our small views with God's official view. We still bless and curse in our practice, but we take the scatological stuff outside of the church.
I would like to further state that the beatitudes have been mostly misunderstood or misapplied in the long history of reading these words of Jesus. Why would I say this?
How many of us would say that poverty, hunger, mourning, being hated, defamed and persecuted are states of blessed fortune? I can't wait until I'm poor, hungry, weeping, hated, defamed and persecuted because then I will really be lucky. What kind of thinking would this be? To wish for states of discomfort might be called unhealthy masochism. Why would anyone of a sound mind do this?
This misunderstanding caused the philosopher Nietzsche to call the beatitudes the "slave" morality. How did what is normal get turn upside down. Wealth, having enough to eat, happiness, public regard and respect are what is normal. How can someone call the opposite the new normal? In the Roman Empire, Christians were a minority and therefore liable to miss out on the rights of those in Roman society. So, do Christians make peace with their suffering by declaring that suffering is the new normal? Nietzsche criticized this as a dishonesty about what is normal. This is like the boy who comes into classes and accidentally trips and falls, and when the entire class laughs at him, he replies, "I meant to fall so that I could cause you to laugh; I was in control all of the time." Nietzsche called this the transvaluation of values; he said that the slave values were declared by Christians to be the preferred values. But is this dishonest? How many Christians actually adopt the beatitudes as their preferred values?
The beatitudes became a bit more complicated when Christianity took over the Roman Empire and became associated with dominating economic class of society. How could triumphant and wealthy Christians legitimately adopt the beatitudes as the true values of their lives? We can see how the monastic movement developed as a reaction against Christianity's compromise with the wealthy class in power. Monks and nuns voluntarily chose poverty and spartan conditions to be the true Christians who upheld the beatitudes in a more literal way. When wealthy Christian nations practiced colonization and slavery, those who were enslaved had the conditions of the beatitude forces upon them just like the conditions that had been forced upon the early Christians. When Christians introduced the Christian faith to slaves and colonized people, what did slaves and colonized people want? Not poverty, no persecution, or bias or prejudice or hunger; they wanted freedom and the right to life, liberty and happiness. Once again, it became rather hypocritical for Christians in power to try to sell the beatitude slave morality on oppressed people as those ordained by God and Christ.
So where does that leave you and me today in our understanding of the beatitudes today. How do we who prefer comfort and ease, honestly adapt the beatitudes as our honest rule of life? Are you and I complete beatitude hypocrites today?
I would suggest another insight into the beatitudes which is not hypocritical or dishonest and it has more to do with the transformation and abundant life program which characterized the early Christian New Testament mystics.
I would like to illustrate this with some poignant examples. Have you ever found your self moody and a bit depressed but then be confronted with a person with really bad circumstances and they are cheerfully blissful. And you stopped in your track and immediately rebuked by one's own petty and moody self-involvement. It like the saying, "I complained about having no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet." You see pictures of children in refugee camps smiling and laughing, and you say, "I'll have what they're having, without all of the suffering." You see people who suffer from drastic impairments, or parents with handicapped children and you see them cheerful and happy and you wonder, "how do they do it?" How can they have such empowering contentment given the obvious challenges of their situation?
The mysticism of the early Spirit filled church was about the experience of abundant life also known as a highly conformable contentment. How does one attain or live from the state of inner contentment, no matter what happens within the freedom of the conditions of what can happen to anyone. This, I believe, is the essence of the beatitudes. It is not a masochistic, abnormal wishing for deprivation and bad fortune; it is attaining to an inner state of contentment which allows one who live with grace, hope and faith in any situation.
The secret of Christian mysticism is to find and know the state of contentment that adjusts to no matter what we are facing.
St. Paul who experienced lots of suffering but also some comfortable hospitality wrote, "I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
Jesus offers the mystical state of spiritual contentment to those who suffer and to those who do not. Because the state of contentment is offered to all, it does not mean that we should cease to eradicate suffering, oppression and illness in our world. We should not be people who say, "Since you can experience the state of spiritual contentment in dire circumstances, then I do not need to work for justice or the end of poverty." This kind of religious thinking is what made Karl Marx call religion the opiate of people. "You can tolerate your poverty now because, you'll have streets of gold in the heavenly Jerusalem."
Attaining spiritual contentment should inspire us and give us the strength and empathy to work for the best possible conditions for as many people as possible.
Today, let the beatitudes invite us to honesty. Let us ask God for the blessed state of contentment even while we know that we will not be exempt from a range of good and bad things happening to us. But in the grace of the contentment of the abundant life of Christ, let us endlessly work to bring good news to others in this world. Amen.
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