The Virtues of a Kingdom People

This morning I am going to preach to you a sermon I wish my pastor would have preached to me. Growing up I always struggled with the requirements of a Christian. Over the years I have been told several different variations but the common theme was “don’t do this or this.” If I really loved Jesus I needed to abstain from certain things such as drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex, secular music, rated R movies, and I needed to wake up at 6:00 am and spend ten minutes praying and needed to lead at least one person to Jesus every week. In a nutshell that is what I was told over the years was required of me to be a faithful follower of Jesus.

As I got older, went to college, and such some of those requirements were loosened. I learned in college it was okay to drink when your 21 as long as you do so in moderation. It was okay to smoke as long as you smoke cigars or pipes because that’s what CS Lewis smoked. It was okay to listen to secular music as long as they thanked God at the Grammy’s. You could watch rated R movies as long as it was the Matrix or the Passion of the Christ. You can do your quiet time at any time and in any way you wish. Don’t fret over leading someone to Jesus once a week. Let your light shine and know you’re planting a seed. And of course, there was a strong emphasis on getting married. When I became a minister I was told that if I didn’t preach on the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and Hell, I was not really saved.

These lists or requirements I was given found some merit in the scriptures, a verse here or a verse there when stretched and manipulated, but they were never really listed by Jesus, and they never really did anything for my spiritual life except make sure I was afraid Jesus would stop loving me and kick me out of heaven if I didn’t keep these rules. Fortunately, I learned to read to at an early age and in time have come to see what God requires us, Jesus lays out for us in Matthew 5-7.

There is some thought these are a collection of Jesus’ sayings. I don’t think they are a collection. I think he put them all together in one lesson and this was his platform for his ministry. Likewise, I believe it to be our platform as Christians. I am tempted to make the argument that memorization of the Sermon on the Mount should be a greater requirement for church membership than baptism. But I’m Baptist so I won’t.

I think even the disciples knew these virtues of the kingdom forwards and backwards, inside and out, up and down, left and right. I think they also knew that when Jesus began, “Markarios...”: “Blessed are…” he wasn’t saying, “Happy are those…” or “Joyful are those…” I think they understood Jesus to mean blessed as to be in relationship not be in a state of happiness or joyfulness. It means to have the deep security that comes from loving and being loved. It means to have the deep soul-satisfying experience of being in a fellowship of which you feel that you are a part and you’re carried along with it. It means to be God’s people. (Jordan, Clarence. “The Lesson on the Mount—I”, The Substance of Faith and Other Cotton Patch Sermons pg. 66).

They did not understand, I believe, Jesus to say they are blessed in some pseudo-Christian belief as a key to your best life is now, but they understood these words to have a deeper meaning than happiness. These whom Jesus mentions are not happy people or people who live a life free of conflict and struggle. These are people who are blessed because they belong to God. Jesus is taking us up the stair steps in the new order of God’s movement, of the Kingdom of heaven.

Let us begin with the bottom step: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Luke 6:20 says “Blessed you who are poor; for yours is the kingdom of God.” So, which did Jesus teach, poor or poor in spirit? Our answer is both. The word has connotations that mean both poor as in poor economically and in spirit. Jesus teaches that the spiritually humble, those who pray humbly without claims of being better than others, are the ones who participate in God’s reign. The focus is on God’s grace and compassion not on our humility or virtue.

Jesus is not suggesting those who are poor in spirit are perfect, and he’s not saying we should bring attention to our lowliness. He is making the claim that those who recognize their strength does not come from within but from above are the poor in spirit. They know, better than others, how unvirtuous they are.  They are blessed because God wants to rescue the poor. God knows that people who have power often misuse or abuse that power to protect their own and often seek more power. We see throughout the scriptures, the poor being cast aside by the wealthy and the powerful.

Many of us understand this, we understand that one misstep, one sickness, one divorce, one death, one job loss can keep us from paying our bills, buying food, paying our rent, and we become evicted, homeless.  We see in scripture, God’s compassion for the poor and the outcast. Jesus said he came to bring good news to the poor. He embraces the social and religious outcasts. He delivers them by inviting them into his community, feeding them, making them into his disciples. I am convinced the reason Jesus chose four fishermen as his first disciples is not because they were “yes men” but because they were dependent.

Being poor in spirit is to be dependent on God and God alone. It is to recognize that God’s movement, God’s kingdom, can only be ushered in by relying on God’s strength, and we give ourselves over to God. In other words: Blessed are the humble before God, who cares for the poor and humble. (Stassan, Glen H. Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context pg. 39).

The second step: Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted

Once again we get a blessing that carries with it two different meanings. The first is what many of us have been taught, it is a blessing to those who mourn the hurt of life. It is the grief, sorrow, and sadness of the real experiences of life. When we understand these beatitudes to more about God than ourselves, meaning the focus is on God, we hear God speak, “I will wipe away the tears from every face, and death and mourning will end. (Isaiah 25:8; Revelation 21:4).

Mourning also means repentance. In the scriptures, sinners mourn for their own sins and the sins of their community, and truly want to end their sinning and serve God. It is being moved to tears by our sinfulness that we sincerely return to God and causes us to change our way of living. In other words: Blessed are those who mourn what is wrong and unjust and sincerely repent, for God comforts those who suffer and those who truly repent. (Stassen pg. 40).

The third step: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Once again we have another word that means more to it than we think. This beatitude basically means the same as the first. It is a form of humbling, of humility in the sense of surrender to God. It is submissive to God, keep that in mind. I’ll say it again, it is being submissive to God. If we are humbled, poor, and surrendered to God, we are blessed because in Christ God is delivering us, and we shall inherit the earth.

It does not mean to be a Mr. Milquetoast, someone who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick. They are not Jon Arbuckle. It does not mean to be all things to all people. The word meek is only used two other times in the scriptures to describe people. It’s used once to describe one Old Testament character, Moses, and one New Testament character, Jesus. Moses did not walk into Pharaoh’s court saying, “Well, now gosh, Mr. Pharaoh Sir, it’d be great if you’d let my people go out for a church picnic.” No, Moses walks in and says, “Thus says the Lord. Let my people go!”

Being meek means to be broke, to be humbled. Think of it in terms of horses, since in the classical Greek, meekness refers to horses. It is being trained to wear the bridle of God. Both Moses and Jesus were fearless and they were surrendered to the will of God. One of the meekest statements in the scripture is this: “When the Sanhedrin told Peter and John, “Don’t y’all ever preach in the name of this Jesus anymore—we just got rid of him,” Peter says, “Whether it be right for us to obey God or man, you judge. But we cannot help but speak those things which we have seen and heard.” (Jordan pg.68).”

It is the meek man, Dr. Jones, who obeys the pull of God. In other words: Blessed are those who are surrendered to God, who is the God of peace. (Stassen pg. 41).

The fourth step: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

What does it mean righteousness mean? Because our culture is highly individualistic (don’t tread on me, Jesus loves me, this I know), we think of righteousness as a virtue of an individual person. We tend to think it is something someone possesses; but if someone possesses righteousness, what they are in possession of is self-righteousness. And that is something Paul says the gospel says we cannot have.

Jesus means, explicitly (just like those who mourn) those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are hungering and thirsting for God to deliver his justice, a justice that rescues and releases, and a community restoring justice that restores the powerless, the offender, the outcasts, the lost, the forgotten back into their rightful place in covenant communion. And that is what we are to hunger and thirst for.  In other words: Blessed are those hunger and thirst for a justice that delievers and restores to covenant community, for God is a God who brings such justice. (Stassen pg. 43).

The fifth step: Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Mercy is about action. To be more specific, it is an action that is a generous action to deliver someone from need or bondage. When the lepers cried out, “Have mercy!” They were not asking Jesus to forgive them or to be let off easy. They were asking to be healed. They were asking to be delivered from their affliction. Showing mercy is not weakness, it is a strength. It is an action that one does to show loyalty to God, and that what God demands, desires is not so much activity directed toward God, such as sitting in our pews singing “Amazing Grace”, but loving kindness benefitting other people. As Hosea 6:6 says, “I desire mercy not sacrifice.” In other words:  Blessed are those who, like God, offer compassion in action, forgiveness, healing, aid, and covenant steadfastness to those in need. (Stassen pg. 44).

The sixth step: Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God.

To be pure in heart does not mean to remove oneself from others who are bad, or shrink away from outside influences and relationships. Jesus is not saying, “Only listen to Christian music” or “Only read Christian books, watch Christian television shows, etc.” He is not speaking to those things, mainly because those things are not absent of corruption just because it has the label of Christian. What Jesus is referring to is within. He states what comes someone’s mouth is what comes out of their hearts. In the 17^th century monk by the name of Brother Lawrence captured eloquently in his writings what I believe Jesus means by pure heart.

“I know that the right practice of it (the presence of God),” the monk writes, “the heart must be empty of all other things, because God will possess the heart alone; and as God cannot possess it alone without emptying it of all besides, so neither can God act there, and do in it what pleases, unless it is left vacant to God.” (Nouwen, Henri. “An Oratory of the Heart” Show Me the Way: Daily Lenten Readings pg. 97).

In other words: Blessed are those who give their whole self over to God, who is the only One worthy of the heart’s full devotion. (Stassen pg. 45).

The seventh step: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

In this beatitude Jesus is making a serious point to the Zealots in his presence, as Matthew is to the Zealots in reading the passage. The Zealots were Jewish revolutionaries who hoped through the means of violent revolution would bring about the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God, God’s movement Such a means, such an ideal would be a temptation for the downtrodden, the oppressed who longed for God’s kingdom, just as it is a temptation for us today. The Zealots hoped, by their militarism, to demonstrate they were the loyal sons of God. But Jesus turns them on their heads. He boldly proclaims the opposite. It is the peacemakers who will be children of God.

Again, as with the rest of these steps, these virtues of a kingdom people, it is a total surrendering to God and abandoning the desire or effort to get our needs, our hopes, our dreams, our satisfaction met through the destruction of our enemies. We are not God’s children when attack others. We are not God’s children when we meet our budget or raise enough funds to keep the doors open. We are not God’s children by our worship style or doctrines. We are God’s children we are surrendered totally to him. And when we are surrendered to God, we become his agents of peace, and this is not some John Lennon form of peace, laying around in a bed and allowing photos to be taken. Being agents of God’s peace means to reconcile and love our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us. It is to see them as God’s sees them. And that can only happen by total surrender. In other words: Blessed are those who make peace with their enemies, as God shows love to God’s enemies. (Stassen pg. 45).

Steps eight and nine: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The eighth and ninth beatitudes summarize and conclude what Jesus is getting at. Jesus is getting at this: these beatitudes are about persecution for righteousness and for Jesus just as the prophets were persecuted. And truth be told this is something many of us in America will never fully comprehend. We believe Jesus is referring to folks like Tim Tebow, Kirk Cameron, or Phil Robertson. But he’s not. I think he’s referring to Elijah hiding in his cave from Jezebel or Peter hanging upside down, or James being beheaded, or John being boiled alive, or the hundreds of martyrs burned at the stake, or the hundreds of Baptist ministers imprisoned for preaching without a licenses, or the Christians in other countries who have to flee in order to live, or the ones lynched, bombed, or a cross burned in the yard. I think Jesus is referring, not to millionaire celebrities, but the ones, like the prophets, find themselves nailed to a cross.

In other words: Blessed are those who suffer because of their practices of loyalty to Jesus and to justice. (Stassen pg.46).

These beatitudes are not a guide to right living or a guide to perfect happiness or to your best life now. They are a call. A call of complete surrender to the will and reign of God in our lives, in our community, in our nation, and in the world. These virtues cannot be obtained without complete surrender. Jesus said those who love me keep my commands. These nine steps of the reign of God cannot be kept if we do not surrender to the One who gave them. Let us turn our past, present, and future over to the untamed will of God. Let us surrender together.