Matthew 5:1-12 Sermon
Epiphany 2020 • Sermon • Submitted
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Jesus is teaching his disciples surrounded by a world in pain.
This morning we’re looking at some of the most memorable sayings of Jesus: a collection of nine blessings that we call the Beatitudes, a name that comes from the latin word for blessed. These blessings are probably very familiar to us, chances are very good that even if you’re not a Christian, you’ve heard these before.
Now,
Now here’s what we’re not going to do: we’re not going to walk through all nine, fleshing them out individually, and applying them to our lives. To do that, and to do that well, in 25 minutes is a tall order if not impossible. Not only that, but I don’t actually think it’s all that helpful - because I don’t think these nine blessings are meant to be picked apart individually, but rather they are strokes of a brush in a much larger painting that Jesus is creating for us.
Jesus is turning the world’s system of value on its head.
So instead, we’re going to take that wider angle this morning. What is Jesus doing with these blessings that come right at the beginning of his most famous collection of teachings? That’s what we’re looking at this morning, and to do that, we’ve got two questions to look at. And to be honest, these two questions are really the interpretive key for understanding the Beatitudes, two question that are essential for us to answer if we’re going to see what Jesus is doing here and they don’t require any specialized knowledge of biblical history or ancient languages or anything like that. The two questions are: 1) Who is Jesus speaking these blessings to? and 2) On what occasion? What’s the setting?
So let’s actually take them in reverse order and talk about the setting into which these blessings are spoken. As we spoke last week, Jesus has been going from town to town in Galilee, and he’s brought a single message that he keeps coming back to time and time again, a message that Matthew summarizes in chapter 4:17, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” We talked a lot last week about what that meant, that God was taking back his world from the mess that we had made of it, and he was doing that in and through Jesus. We said last week, if you think about Jesus, you have to think about the kingdom. So this was the good news that Jesus brought to every town. After that he’s walking along the lake and he calls two sets of fishermen to follow him, and they do. And then we come to verse 23:
English Standard Version Chapter 4
23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. 25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
So now Jesus has this great crowd of people following him, and what do we know about this crowd? How do we see Matthew describing them? They are the sick, the suffering, the crazies, the ones in pain and in need. In first century Roman Empire there are no social safety nets. No medicaid. No disability aid, workers comp, or insurance. So these aren’t just the sick and suffering, they’re the poor. They are the ones who live in the wrong side of town. They’re the ones folks would cross to the other side of the street to avoid. They’re the ones who served as models and examples of life gone wrong. They were the outsider and the outcast. They were the unimportant and unknown and unwanted. And they were flocking to Jesus, to hear and experience the good news of the kingdom.
Chapter 5:
English Standard Version Chapter 5
5 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
English Standard Version Chapter 5
5 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
The Beatitudes
2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
So what’s the setting? Jesus is teaching up on a hill and he’s surrounded by a great crowd filled with the sick, the suffering, and the unimportant. They are surrounding Jesus as he teaches, and what is he saying?
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...”
Now this is absolutely remarkable for Jesus to be saying these things in this context, and to really understand that we’ve got to look at this all important word, “blessed.”
His teaching all revolves around this word, blessed. But what does it mean for Jesus to say that someone is blessed? Well, Jesus is actually engaging in a familiar Jewish teaching tool. He’s not the first Rabbi to teach in this way. In fact we’ve got examples in the Old Testament, which was the Bible in Jesus’ day, we’ve got examples of teaching just like this. begins:
English Standard Version Psalm 1
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
The longest Psalm, begins this way:
English Standard Version Psalm 119
119 Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the LORD!
2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
who seek him with their whole heart,
English Standard Version Psalm 119
119 Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the LORD!
2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
who seek him with their whole heart,
3 who also do no wrong,
but walk in his ways!
So to say that someone is blessed is to hold them up as an example that we should all strive to be. So here in the Psalms, we’re supposed to be the one who delights in God’s word and seek him with our whole heart. The person who does that is enviable - we’re supposed to want to be that person. They are blessed.
Popular culture actually has it right in a way. How many times have you seen people post pictures of their lunch or brunch or whatever, their avocado toast, and they’ve got the filter on, and at the bottom of their picture they’ve got #blessed. What they are saying is the same thing these biblical authors are getting at: You want to be me. To be blessed is to be in a good place in life, an enviable place.
But it’s more than that, because they are blessed by who? Blessed by God. What does that mean? To be blessed by God has to do with being in right relationship with him and experiencing the immense benefits of that close proximity. God is with you and he is for you and he favors you. And that’s enviable, that’s something we should strive for and want. God favors you. You’re blessed.
But what happened was that as Jewish culture went on, the idea of who God favors, who is blessed began to center on the healthy, the wealthy, and the wise. The top tier of Jewish society. One of the most famous teachers in Jesus’ day, a man who lived a generation before Jesus but whose writings were well known, taught things like this:
“Blessed is the man who lives to see the downfall of his foes. Blessed is the one who has not served an inferior. Blessed is the one who speaks and people listen.”
Do you see the kind of person that this teacher is describing? Who does God favor? Who is blessed? Who should we strive to be? The important, the wealthy, the winners, those whose voices are heard. So this sort of teaching and belief is infused into Jesus’ culture.
And so when Jesus begins his teaching on the hillside, he opens with a familiar formula, “Blessed are those who...” and you can bet the people around him are already starting to connect the dots. They know what this Rabbi is going to teach on: he was going to talk about the healthy, wealthy, and wise and how God favors them, and how they could get there one day. And then Jesus announces the great surprise, as he begins to offer blessings to the poor, the meek, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for justice but have no power to bring it about, the unimportant, the sick, and the oppressed. To everyone’s surprise Jesus is turning the value system of their world on its head. He’s offering a new perspective. A perspective of value and worth that is part and parcel of the kingdom of God that he is announcing. A kingdom perspective.
The vast majority of those Facebook Ads and videos that appear on your wall are garbage, but every now and then the algorithms get it right. A few months ago I came across a video of a French artist named Bernard Pras. This guy’s niche is amazing. You walk into the room of his gallery and you’re looking at what looks to be a haphazard pile of garbage and junk. Metal chairs with towels thrown over it, lampshades, couch cushions, broken piano bits, deer antlers, a stuffed shark, bedposts, all kinds of stuff. At first your like, oh this is that kind of art. But at one particular spot in the room is a viewbox, a small rectangular piece of metal with an opening. And when viewed from the viewbox, which is set at just the right angle, the pile of trash and garbage becomes an amazing rendition of Van Gouh’s self-portrait.
The first time I saw it I was blown away by the ingenuity, but also by the message. Beauty from this pile of garbage. What I thought was a bunch of junk that amounted to nothing, when viewed from the right perspective was actually a vehicle for beauty and meaning and for significance.
I think this gets at what Jesus is doing with his nine blessings. He’s offering a kingdom perspective. What is the basis for value and worth in the Kingdom? Well it doesn’t track with the world’s system of value. Who is enviable? Who are the fortunate ones? It’s what the world would say.
I came across a commentator who put this in far better words than I could:
“To often these characteristics have in Christian history been turned into ideals or virtues that we must strive to obtain. When we do that, we turn them into formulas that help us gain status and favor with God, which is of course exactly the opposite of what Jesus is trying to say. Rather they are descriptions of the kinds of people to whom Jesus in fact first brought the kingdom of God. No where does Jesus tell us to try to be poor in spirit, or mourn all the time, or try to get yourself persecuted. He simply announces the great surprise, that these people who are not honored or significant in their society are precisely the ones who have received the honor of being the first of those who are called into his kingdom.”
What is the basis for value and worth in the Kingdom? God’s love. And upon whom does God’s love fall? Everyone.
So Jesus offers these perspective flipping blessings while surrounded by a crowd of the bottom-tier of society. Do you see how understanding the setting helps us see what Jesus is doing? Okay but I said there were two questions, and don’t worry, the answer to the last one is much shorter, but it packs a punch and really brings home what Jesus is doing here.
We walked about the occasion or setting for these blessings, but who is Jesus actually talking to?
1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
Who is Jesus talking to? His disciples. Who are his disciples? The ones who had committed themselves to learning the way of Jesus. Folks who weren’t just admiring Jesus, but were following him. Jesus is teaching his disciples while surrounded by a great crowd of the poor and unimportant of the world. Can’t you just imagine that as Jesus opens with these nine blessings, offering a new Kingdom perspective, turning the value system of the world on its head, can’t you just imagine these disciples looking around at the crowds and seeing them for the first time in a new light? And I think that is exactly what Jesus is doing here. He’s opening the eyes of his disciples to see the world through his Kingdom perspective. That’s what this entire sermon on the mount is about - seeing the world through his Kingdom perspective, and he starts it right at the beginning with the help of a visual aid, the crowd all around them. He wants them to see the crowd as he sees them.
In fact, he keeps teaching his disciple this same lesson. When their hurrying to heal the sick daughter of one of the rulers of the synoguge, an insiginifcant woman touches the hem of Jesus’ cloak, and Jesus stops to find the woman. His disciples are urging him to hurry, but Jesus wants his disciples to see, to really see the woman. Another time, the the townspeople were bringing their children to Jesus, and the disciples are trying to shoo them, but Jesus calls the children to himself, why? Because he wants his disciples to really see the children. Another time, a blind man is calling after Jesus, “Son of David, have mercy on me,” and the disciples try to quiet him down because he’s making a scene, but Jesus stops and heals him. Why? Partly because he wants his disciples to really see the man. Jesus wants his disciples to see the world through his Kingdom perspective, not through the perspective of the world, which would say that these people amounted to very little, like trash hapharzardly thrown about. But Jesus brings a Kingdom perspective that says blessed are the poor, the sick, the unimportant.
So Jesus turns to us this morning who follow him as his disciples, because he wants us to see. He wants us to see those around us who are hurting, who are in need, who are lonely, who are unimportant in the eyes of the world. He wants us to see the world with his kingdom perspective. And perhaps the greatest motivation is to remember that he has seen you. With all we’ve done, and all we’ve failed to do, it would hardly be surprising if Jesus passed us by. But the Kingdom is the announcement of the great surprise and the wonderful good news: Jesus sees us, he welcomes us, and now he sends us. Let’s pray.
The New Revised Standard Version Those Who Are Worthy of Praise
I can think of nine whom I would call blessed,
and a tenth my tongue proclaims:
a man who can rejoice in his children;
a man who lives to see the downfall of his foes.
8 Happy the man who lives with a sensible wife,
and the one who does not plow with ox and ass together.
Happy is the one who does not sin with the tongue,
and the one who has not served an inferior.
9 Happy is the one who finds a friend,
and the one who speaks to attentive listeners.
10 How great is the one who finds wisdom!
But none is superior to the one who fears the Lord.
11 Fear of the Lord surpasses everything;
to whom can we compare the one who has it?
So this wasn’t a new way of teaching, but a very familiar method. But what does it mean to blessed?