Not Just for High Achievers

Epiphany 4A: Matthew 5:1-12

If you are listening for it, you can find Christian messages in the strangest places, even in the lyrics of country music songs. Consider these thoughtful, theological verses: “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers,” “Jesus, take the wheel,” and “God blessed Texas with his own hand.” As I said, deep theology…The lyric that most struck me recently when I heard it is a line from Brooks and Dunn’s ‘Red Dirt Road’: “Happiness on earth ain’t just for high achievers.” The songwriters meant by that to affirm that there’s a goodness and honorability in the lives of common, everyday people. But upon deeper reflection, the verse is also, I reckon, a good paraphrase of Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel.

You see, in Jesus’ day, as in ours, there was an understanding that there are some people who get the lion’s share of the resources and of power in society. Back in Jesus’ day, the privileged were those who were born into the best families, who had the most land and political connections, who could play the game well. Today, the spoils go to those who are the smartest, who go to the best schools, have the best connections, who work the hardest, who are able to play the game the best. Not much has changed, I guess. The difference, though, is today we explain the social hierarchy as being the result of “merit,” of the smartest, most talented, hardest working rising to the top, while in Jesus’ day, it wasn’t merit, but God’s providence, God’s particular blessing that explained the way things are.

Yet when Jesus sits down and begins his sermon with these blessings, he doesn’t attack the social order of his day exactly, as much as he attacks the belief, the theology that undergirds it, the conventional wisdom about how God blesses people, even what it means to be “blessed.” He declares: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, the hopeless. Blessed are those who mourn, the ones who’ve known nothing but loss, things taken from them. Blessed are the meek, the ones who don’t assert themselves, who aren’t self-promoters, and who lose out because of it. And blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who’ve been wronged and for which there’s no recourse, no way of setting things right.”

This is hardly the way we typically see these kinds of people. Such people—the hopeless, the losers, the meek, the victims of life’s injustices—are to be pitied, maybe. But they are hardly the ones we’d associate with blessing. And likely those who fit these categories would agree. Nothing about their situation, their troubles suggests anything resembling blessedness, or God’s favor. If anything, they look like they are a people who’ve been abandoned by God. So where does Jesus get off calling these people blessed?

Jesus doesn’t stop there. He continues, declaring as blessed other groups of people. Now, these are ones we wouldn’t say are exactly ill-fated, but because they try to do right by others, they suffer for it—those who show mercy, those who live lives of integrity and self-discipline and piety, the peacemakers, those who stand up for basic decency, for fairness, for the truth and goodness of Christ. In the world we live in, we may admire such people, praise them, write songs and movies celebrating them, but we don’t really want to be them ourselves, not really. Because we know, as well as they do, that doing these things is a sure way to sabotage our efforts to get ahead and to be thought well of by others. I mean, we may romanticize the daring individual who stands up against those in authority, who speaks truth to power, who champions right and justice. But the fact is, when we are faced with either speaking up for what is right and good or keeping our mouths shut, the vast majority of us retreat from ourselves out there, risking our status, our position to be the hero. We recognize the risks, the danger that not “being a team player” presents, and we tell ourselves, “Discretion is better part of valor” and keep mum.

I mean, just consider the thoughts and feelings that come forward in us when we think about mentioning religion or Jesus in mixed company: What are they going to think of me? Are they going to lump me in with those other Christians I don’t agree with? Will they talk to me again? Will they report me to the boss?  We might fancy ourselves as brave and courageous, but we know that doing the right thing, standing up for others, putting your neck out there, is an invitation to get it cut off. No good deed goes unpunished, as they say.

And yet some people persist, they do the right thing, they show mercy, they live with integrity, they work for peace, harmony, and justice, they happily talk about Jesus with others—even when they know that they will be disliked, shunned, punished, persecuted for it. And the crazy thing is, Jesus says that they are “blessed.” He has the audacity to describe them as enjoying God’s favor, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. Why, how could he say this?

I mean, when has anyone looked at someone who’s grieving and dared call them “blessed”? Where have you ever seen someone who is hungry for justice getting their fill? In what world do you see the meek, those who don’t assert themselves, getting…well, anything? Certainly not the world we live in!

President Bush was speaking the truth decades ago when he met with the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church just as Desert Storm was getting underway. The Presiding Bishop urged the senior Bush, who is an Episcopalian, not to bomb Iraq, to give sanctions a chance, to work through diplomacy to settle our differences. The President told the bishop that sometimes, as a president, you have to “face up to reality.” And, the reality is, in politics and diplomacy, being sincere, not asserting yourself, and showing mercy—the kind of things championed in the Beatitudes—simply aren’t practical or realistic—they don’t “work” in the real world.

But that’s the point, I think. The kind of blessings that Jesus is talking about here in the Beatitudes are not the kind of blessings that the world recognizes. They aren’t rewards for a job well done, nor are they privileges we enjoy because of the kind of people we are. They don’t give us a practical guide to getting ahead in life. Nor are they a political strategy for improving society. Because, Jesus’ Beatitudes simply don’t work in the “real world,” don’t make any sense. Jesus is instead talking about how things work in another world, in God’s world, in the Kingdom of Heaven. In this new world, it’s the poor, the gentle, the sorrowful, the compassionate and the persecuted—the kind of people this world despises, those who are sat upon, spat upon, and ratted on —these are the ones who enjoy God’s favor, who are blessed, who will get the good things that have been denied them in this life.

The Beatitudes then are not words of wisdom but of revelation, pointing to the new world order that God will create, that God is creating, right here, right now, a new world that is invading this one, taking over even as we speak. In the Beatitudes, Jesus is alerting us to signs of this divine takeover: This is what it looks like when the Kingdom of Heaven comes to earth, when God’s values rule in this world, when God’s grace motivates our lives. And Jesus’ point is, because of this, we can find blessing in even the toughest of situations—in grief, in poverty, in the midst of injustice and oppression.

Brooks and Dunn, in their song, were affirming the goodness, the blessings that we can all enjoy even if we are not at the top of society. Jesus goes further and points our attention to the blessings that God gives to us, even to those on the bottom, not because they or any of us have earned them, but because this is the way things work in the Kingdom of Heaven, in the rule that God is establishing on earth, where the world’s “losers” as well as its “winners” have a place and can know God’s goodness.

And God’s goodness, his blessings, are even better than the best things that high achievers can enjoy now. To borrow from C.S. Lewis, those who scoff at the beatitudes in favor of earthly comforts and pleasures are like an ignorant little child making mud pies in some slaggy alley in the slums, who when invited for a weekend at the beach, says ‘no, thank you.’ He’d rather just go on making mud pies simply because that’s the best he knows. He can't imagine anything better. The problem, Lewis suggests, is not that people can’t find pleasure, but rather we are too easily pleased. We fool around with drink and sex and money and power, making mudpies, thinking this is as good as it gets, when really what God is offering in his kingdom is infinite joy!

To be sure, this kingdom is not something that can be seen, with normal eyes, apart from faith. But it’s there, under the surface, behind the curtain, seen in glimpses, between the cracks, where grace shines through. By Jesus’ announcing it here, though, at the start of his ministry, we are clued in to what to look for, what to expect, and we can look for ways to be a part of it, to make those promised blessings real here and now. Thanks be to God!