7/23/67

Scripture: Matthew 5: 1-16.

Last Sunday, in our discussion of the Lord’s Prayer, we gave our attention to the teaching of Jesus as remembered and written in the book of Matthew in the first half of the sixth chapter. It is in that passage that the wording of that Prayer is recorded, together with the Master’s comments about prayer and sincerity. Today, we have given our attention to reading form the previous chapter; - the first half of the fifth chapter. Those chapters in Matthew -- the fifth, sixth, and seventh -- comprise that body of Jesus’ teachings which we usually refer to as “The Sermon on the Mount.” It begins, in the fifth chapter, with the “Beatitudes” -- those sayings that describe attitudes making for happiness. “Blessed” or “Happy” are those people who are “poor in spirit” -- that is, those who are “humble-minded,” for the kingdom of Heaven is theirs. Jesus was painfully direct in his comments on those who are proud -- whether he was talking about them, or directly to them. This pride, to which he refers, is not the pride of satisfaction over worthy accomplishment. Rather, it is the pride of hautiness and self-satisfaction. It is over-confident, blind to shortcomings, and oblivious to new learning. When Jesus speaks of the “poor in spirit,” he seems to mean those who are not haughty, those who are teachable, those who are not over-impressed with themselves.

“Blessed” or “Happy” are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. That sounds like a contradiction. How can anyone be happy and mournful at the same time? These contrasts are not uncommon in Jesus’ teachings. But they do not represent extremes that cannot be harmonized. Probably this saying becomes understandable if we take it to mean “Happy are those who know what sorrow means,” or even “Blessed are the sorrowful,” because they will be given courage and comfort! Even sorrow need not be desolation, for there are God-given resources with which to meet it and accept it and overcome it.

“Blessed” or “happy” are the meek. Here is a “sticker” for many of us. The popular mental picture of a meek person is not a pretty one. The meek soul is seen as one who will not stick up for himself or for others; one who will not stand for justice or fairness; one who will just weakly “make do” with about anything that comes along --- a “tremble-chin” sort of person. Where is any happiness in that? Is it deserving of aught save contempt? I doubt that Jesus had this kind of characteristic in mind. He himself was meek in the sense that he was not looking out for “number one.” He suffered humiliation, misunderstanding and malice, and even death, at the hands of those who were not going to have their “boats rocked” by any new or critical ideas, dangerous to their position. But at the same time he was a superbly strong personality, anything but weakly meek. His comments concerning the hypocritical were direct and scathing. His denunciation of all insincerity was scalding. If he thought that some people lived like whitewashed tombs, fixed up to look pretty good, but nonetheless full of decay inside, he said so.

Perhaps the “meekness” which he had in mind in the teaching of this beatitude could be understood if we look at the New English translation: “How blest are those of a gentle spirit; they shall have the earth for their possession.” Or try the Phillips translation: “How happy are those who claim nothing, for the whole earth will belong to them!” A few years ago there was a popular song, titled “The best things in life are free.” It was too simple to be entirely dependable. But it did serve as a reminder that some of the beauties and benefits of nature do belong to everyone without benefit of “ownership” --- the freshness of morning air; the view of a peaceful lake or a majestic mountain; the colors of a rainbow; the majesty of a storm; the green of summer trees, or the whiteness of a winter day; the hope of a sunrise; the promise of a sunset; the brilliance of a starry sky. These do not have to be acquired by purchase or title. They are yours and mine without claim.

The same nature can be cruel, with its earthquakes and tidal waves, its tornadoes, its droughts and floods. But the resources given to us to meet nature’s somber side are also a cause for rejoicing. The meekness of which Jesus spoke must have meant awareness and appreciation, as opposed to the misery of self-concentration and concern. And there is a lot more than the beauties of nature to be appreciated. There is goodness in human nature. The hand of sincere friendship; the smile of encouragement: the confidence of a child; the encouragement of some experienced soul, the loyalty of a loved one --- all of these are for those who “claim nothing,” but nevertheless delight in possession of so fine a world.

“Blessed” or “happy” are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness --- right-ness --- for they shall be filled; or they shall be satisfied. One translation runs: “How blest are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail; they shall be satisfied.” Hunger, here, is a strong word meaning intense desire. And the word thirst may be even stronger. Perhaps no one who has not lived in desert country can fully understand the intensity of thirst pain which describes this desire for right-ness of which Jesus speaks. Note that he does not say “happy are those who are right” as though blessedness is for those who are sure they have arrived. He teaches that there is happiness, blessing, in having a desire for what is right; in the pursuit of it. There are times when we do hunger -- not for fame, not for notice or for the spotlight, not for money or the materials it can procure, but for what is right for goodness. Those times, says Jesus, are blessed.

The next beatitude does not seems as revolutionary as some of the earlier ones: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Fair enough! That one, we rather easily understand and accept. And yet, when it was spoken, this was as drastic as the other sayings. Jesus was teaching at a time when Romans despised pity. The Stoics might offer help or succor, but they looked askance at anything like compassion. The Pharisees tended to be harsh in their self-righteousness, and to show little mercy. Besides, it was a rather commonly accepted belief that suffering was only deserved punishment for sin. So Jesus was taking sharp issue with his world.

If we think of the beatitudes as a carillon of bells, we could hardly spare this bell of mercy. Mercy is like the spirit of the Red Cross in the world. It is aware of needs and suffering and disaster wherever they occur in the world, and it lays claim upon our help. But mercy has deeper claims than those usually assigned to the Red Cross, for it is not true mercy to save or restore a person’s body but neglect his spirit. And so resolute prayer is a part of mercy. For sacrificial, concerned love is a part of mercy. What of the morally crippled? What of those who, whatever their money status, are poor in honor? What of those diseased by greed? Do not they have need for the taste of mercy?

Mercy is not mere feeling or sentiment. It is practice. Aristotle regarded mercy as a troublesome emotion. It is troublesome if it is merely emotion. For proxy pity is not enough. It must be translated into deeds, or it is not enough. As for the blessing, the happiness, the benediction promised to the merciful, Shakespeare’s lines have caught its truth:

The quality of mercy is not strained;

It dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath; it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;

‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown.

“Twice blest!” God deals with the merciful as they deal with their neighbors. They obtain mercy --- they may have mercy shown to them.

The next beatitude -- “Blessed” or “happy” are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. One way of translating, or understanding, this teaching is to read it: “Happy are the utterly sincere.”

Perhaps it would be ungrateful to pick and choose among these teachings of Jesus - these beatitudes; but, for many people, this one is the “bright and shining star” of the constellation. We hardly know which is farther beyond us --- purity of heart, or to see God. But the Great Teacher does not mock our hopes, here or anywhere. What is purity of heart? In the Bible “heart” usually refers not to a specific organ but to the whole personality. It is not only the emotions, but mind and will. The word “pure” occurs more than 2 dozen times in the New Testament. Nearly half the time its original is translated into English as “clean.” If it refers to linen it is white linen; if it refers to gold, it is unalloyed gold; if glass, clear glass. Of the human spirit, two meanings are dominant -- rightness of mind and singleness of motive. As for the rightness of mind, whatever may be our revolt against a false “Puritanism,” we are not delivered to saving freedom by impuritanism. Any talk about the “new morality” that simply rebels into the “old immorality” is a false lead.

It is terrifically difficult to be utterly sincere, to have a singleness of purpose in politics, in trade, in advertising and promotion, in other areas where it is hard to be “clear” in intention and free from duplicity. And as for “seeing God,” what is meant by that? It is a deep longing. Tennyson is said to have left instruction that his “Crossing the Bar” was always to be placed at the end of his published works. It closes:

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

If one is looking for a physical face, the search become elusive. But if one is on the search for Eternal Goodness, then the pure in heart, the utterly sincere, may find the great Creative Purpose as Fact and Life.

The seventh of Jesus’ sayings about happiness is: “Blessed” or “happy” are the peacemakers, for they shall be called Sons of God. We are sorely in need of peacemakers today. Powerful nations have talked loudly about desiring peace, yet, by feeding arms and hatred to dissatisfied people, perpetuate strife. We of this nation, who have always valued peaceful pursuits most highly, have caught ourselves in armed conflict from which we have not found it possible even yet to extricate ourselves completely. But the effort to find peace goes on. Peacemakers are needed in the conflicts between the races; between the have-a-lots and the have-not-much; between the young and the not-so-young; even between those who strive for the same good ends but by differing ways or means.

The teacher of this Beatitude is one who did not shun conflict. Jesus could at one time tell his disciples that he came not to bring peace, but a sword. [Matthew 10: 34]. It was his intention to make a spirited spiritual attack on entrenched evil. Yet he was fully as emphatic, seemingly more so, about peace. His birth is associated with the singing of peace on earth. He could command his disciples to “love your enemies; do good to them that curse you.” [Matthew 5: 44]. He assured his friends of peace that is beyond ordinary understanding; “My peace I give unto you.” [John 14: 27]. Most of all, he would break down the strife, the divisions between man and God.

But peacemakers are peace makers -- the searchers for, the finders of, the builders of peace. Peace hopers, or peace eulogizers, may cumber the earth. But it is the peace builders who are needed to overcome the appeals to angered prejudice, to smoldering grudges, exhausted hatreds; to counter the greed for power. The central work of peace is reconciliation, the building of understanding between people and peoples. It is also a preventive task. More than simply adjustment of the relations between person and person, true peace involves reconciliation with God -- with Eternal goodness. For as long as people are at odds with God, they are at odds with themselves and their neighbors. So the most important work of the peacemaker is the practice of the presence of God. From that communion can come the overflow of his own peace-filled heart.

And the reward of the peacemaker is that one feels himself to be the child of God. The world about him may not see in him this essential “family likeness,” but God sees it. The peacemakers, having a oneness of spirit with God, are the better able to recognize all men as brothers.

Blessed are those who are “persecuted” -- those who have “suffered persecution” -- how can anyone be “happy” over that! Like so many of Jesus’ sayings, it sounds paradoxical. Jesus bade his followers to be glad in hardship; to “leap for joy” when persecution came. And he offered as reason that the prophets had been so persecuted. But it does not cause us much elation that there has been such persecution. It seems only a cause for grief, that the blindness and cruelty of the ages could so disfigure the earth. But Jesus, nevertheless, attacks the mood. One must note that not every persecution is here noted as “happy,” or “blessed.” The motive must be right -- “for righteousness sake.” Some persecutions may be invited by intolerance. But the persecutions that come because of one’s integrity in the cause of goodness are to be expected and accepted. The kingdom of Heaven, of happiness, is for those who will to endure.

These sayings, these teachings, of Jesus, paradoxical as they sometimes appear, bring out the meaning of true happiness. Surely the reward for goodness in living should not be misery and wickedness, not gloating nor the misery of selfishness, not just earthy awards. The outcome of Jesus’ recommended way of life is a “blessedness,” a “happiness” that is written by God on a person’s soul. It is a happiness not to be enjoyed in solitude, but shared with others.

Jesus went on, after naming these beatitudes, to tell his hearers that they are salt of the earth. [Matthew 5: 13]. Salt was greatly valued in His time in Palestine. So it was no mean title for him to give his followers that they should be “salt of the earth.” A bag of salt could be very precious in a person’s life. It gives zest to life. It is especially necessary in a hot climate. It is a preservative for food. And it is not to be dissipated in wastefulness.

There is somewhere written an account of a merchant in Sidon who purchased salt from Cyprus and hid the salt bags in houses in remote mountains to avoid payment of tax on it. But the floors of the houses were of common earth. Before long the salt had absorbed so much of moisture and earth that it lost its zest. So it became useless except as a road binder -- “thrown out and trodden under foot by men.” To be, and to remain, “salt of the earth,” Christians are not to be contaminated by all of the mundane evil of the world lest they lost their usefulness to God’s great purposes in the world. And we are not just for storage. We are to reach out in usefulness to others -- a seasoning for all the life that goes on about us!

Then Jesus goes on to say to his followers: “You are the light of the world.” [Matthew 5: 14]. And, as that light, you are to be seen, like a city set up on a hill where it is not hidden --- cannot be hidden, but is known to all people near and far. A little later on, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is chiding people for being seen. In the sixth chapter of Matthew, from which we were reading last Sunday, Jesus was admonishing his hearers to be quiet about a lot of things. Don’t be parading your giving out in front of everybody in order to be sure that it is seen. There is no reward in that. If recognition and glory is wanted for your giving, that is all the reward that will come; and it is a hollow kind of satisfaction. When you do your giving “don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,” said he. [Matthew 6: 1-3]. And yet every householder knows that the left hand and the right hand had better be acquainted with what is going on, or else the bookkeeping department will be hopelessly “fouled up!” Jesus could seem terribly paradoxical at times. For he had just shortly before that taught his disciples that they must be seen of men! You are to be the light of the world!

Of course he was concerned with motives. If giving is done just for the satisfaction of being seen, then the motive kills the effect. If it is a quiet and effective will to help where help is needed, that is quite another thing and it brings its blessed satisfaction. And that giving, that sharing, that outreach, is essential to Christian expression, inside and outside the church. Jesus said to one man, go and sell everything that you have and give to the poor, not so that everybody will notice what a wonderful a tither you are, but so that you can come and follow me!

There is a proper motivation for being seen --- not for attempting to catch the spotlight of public notice, but for serving Christ’s cause of godly Goodness. The light that we are called upon to live is not to be hidden like a candle with a bushel basket turned over it. It is to be set up on a stand like a candlestick where it can, and will, be seen like a city on a hilltop. In recent years, our United Church of Christ is urged toward better identification. That is, let the world around you know what the United Church of Christ is.

An advertisement which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post February 25 in this year gave a vivid answer to what we regard as mission now in this decade of the 20th century. Mission is not some vague attempt to induce hymn singing among the natives of some distant place. Christian mission abroad now involves concern for training leaders in emerging nations, equipping people to carry on the educational and medical and agricultural and social, as well as evangelistic, work done by pioneer missionaries. Actually , for 157 years, the Board of World Ministries has been concerned with the whole person --- with preventive medicine, famine relief, higher education, literacy, theological training, better farming. Now it is also concerned with family planning, industrial organization, economic and social justice, international communication, and all the multitudinous complexities of life in a world where no island of land or people is far away any more. And there is still hymn-singing, too.

Let the world know what we are doing --- not just to be seen but because we are trying to do it. And we hope to be joined by lots of other people who want to have a part in doing it. And the whole mission of the church, and of Christian people, is far from being exclusively “foreign.” It is as close at hand as the next door neighbor, and his need -- and mine -- for mutual friendliness and understanding.

It you are to know the blessedness -- the happiness -- about which Jesus talked so paradoxically and so truly, be about the work he has commended, in the spirit which he commended. Whether your light is candle sized or searchlight size, let it shine, so that your Father in heaven --- the Eternal Goodness of the Universe --- may be glorified by people rejoicing in that light. Quit worrying about yourself and who you are, and what you want. There is fun, there is happiness, there is blessedness in being the kind of light that Christ wants you to be among the peoples of your world! This is the salt of living.

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, July 23, 1967.

Also in Pittsville, WI, July 29, 1973.

Also at Waioli Hiu’ia Church, February 10, 1974.