Hilton Head Island, SC – April 22, 2018
The Chapel Without Walls
Matthew 5:1-16
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 5:3 (RSV)
Before we consider the first of the eight Beatitudes, we need to ponder for a few moments the context in which Jesus made these statements. They are the opening words of what the Church has always called “The Sermon on the Mount.” For three complete chapters, from Matthew 5 through Matthew 7, at least according to the person who wrote this particular Gospel, Jesus made some extraordinary observations about numerous subjects. Many scholars believe that Matthew probably put this collection of sayings together to help us remember them better. The fact is that Luke also has many of these exact sayings, but he does not string them together in just one place as Matthew does. Mark also has a few of these teachings scattered here and there throughout his Gospel.
No one knows for certain exactly on which mountain Jesus preached this sermon. Tradition places it on the mountain that rises up from the north side of the Sea of Galilee. A beautiful church is built there, surrounded by a garden. Can you visualize Salvador Dali’s painting of Jesus suspended from the cross above the azure waters of the Sea of Galilee? Well, that is the view you see from the Church of the Beatitudes on the Mount of the Beatitudes.
The first verse of Matthew 5 says this: “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him.” To us that sounds strange. Jesus “sat down” to preach. Shouldn’t preachers “stand up”? Apparently in Jesus’ time rabbis sat down whenever they taught or preached. By comparison, we speak of a professor’s endowed chair, even though professors normally stand to deliver their lectures. When the Pope wants to say something especially important, he does so ex cathedra, from the papal throne. The Latin word cathedra means “throne.” The cathedral is the church where the bishop has his throne. Probably I should be sitting down to tell you all this, since it is teaching of a sort, but in our tradition, preachers stand to preach. Therefore here I stand; I can do no other.
Verse two says that Jesus “opened his mouth” and taught them. Well of course he opened his mouth! How could he tell them anything if he didn’t open his mouth? But in Greek (which was the language in which Matthew wrote his Gospel), to open one’s mouth meant more than just to say something. It meant to say something profound, something special, something unique. And that is what the Beatitudes are and the Sermon on the Mount is. It is as though Jesus is saying to us, “Now pay close attention! Listen carefully! This is really important!”
Thus he begins, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” For whatever reason, Matthew never used the term “the kingdom of God,” as Mark and Luke did; he always called this reality “the kingdom of heaven.” Frankly, I wish he had said “kingdom of God,” because to too many of us, “the kingdom of heaven” implies an eternal divine kingdom, beyond this world and temporality and all that is now familiar to us. I don’t think that is what Jesus meant to suggest in the first Beatitude. The poor in spirit are blessed right now, here, in this world. None of the Beatitudes is about future blessings; they are all about current blessings, present blessings that we already have. The poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek: they all have their blessings now, right here, as we speak.
Again I remind you that Matthew, and all the other New Testament writers, wrote in Greek. You might respond, “Well it’s all Greek to me anyway,” implying that you don’t understand any of it. That’s why they teach Greek to seminary students, to assist the clergy in interpreting the New Testament. However, I learned my Greek from a delightful if also rather senile Scottish minister in Glasgow who not infrequently forgot to come to class. Therefore you could pour all my knowledge of Greek into a thimble and it would be only half-full. But I have some books, don’t you see, and I can look at them again when I am going to preach sermons like this one, don’t you see, for which I should probably, but shall not, sit down.
As I was saying, the Beatitudes are in Greek, and each one begins with the word “blessed.” The Greek word for that is makarios. Centuries ago, the Greeks called the island of Cyprus he’ makaria: The Blessed Isle. I think (though I wouldn’t stake my life on it, and thus I am standing up to say this) that the Greek Orthodox bishop of Cyprus is always called Bishop Makarios. But because that may not be factually true, it won’t be a question of the final exam.
The New English Bible translates makarios as “happy.” Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The problem with that, however, is that the English word “happy” connotes chance: happiness just happens. But according to Jesus, certain people are blessed by God by direct means of the circumstances they face. They are not blessed by chance; they are directly blessed by God. It is God who grants blessings to the poor in spirit and the meek and the peacemakers. Their blessings don’t merely happen; they are conferred by God.
If that’s the case, then what does “poor in spirit” mean? We know what “poor” means, but what does “poor in spirit” mean?
To begin an answer to that question, we need to consider the circumstances of most of the people among whom Jesus lived and taught. They were what were called in Hebrew the Am ha-Aretz, the People of the Land. The People of the Land were the peasants, the farm laborers and unskilled workers and household servants and slaves. We live in a society which is comprised largely of middle class people, although if we continue in the direction in which we seem to be headed that could all change. But in the time of Jesus, indeed for almost all of human history except for the last fifty or sixty years, and even now in most countries, the vast majority of the population are the equivalent of the Am ha-Aretz. Therefore anyone preaching to folks like that would automatically need to take their situation into account by what he said.
And therefore what was the first of Jesus’ Beatitudes? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” The poor in spirit were (or are) those whom life has made so destitute that they know they have no choice other than to rely solely on God. Either that, or they realize they shall inevitably give in to despair.
Few if any of us in this congregation have ever been truly destitute. Most of us have likely had periods of fiscal scarcity, but usually it wasn’t very serious, nor did it last very long. Nevertheless many of those who listened to the Sermon on the Mount (if indeed it was just one sermon and it was delivered on a mountain somewhere in the Galilee) were financially destitute. They lived from hand to mouth. They didn’t have two denarii, two pennies, to rub together. When Jesus began his sermon with those words, naturally they perked up their ears. Jesus was telling them that they were blessed, precisely because they were poor in spirit!
But how could that possibly be? Grinding poverty threatens to take the spirit out of all of its victims. Those who are really poor take no delight in their poverty. But that is just the point, Jesus is telling them - - - and us. When people are that poor, they know they can count only on God. Otherwise their constant shortages would send them into a downward spiral of despair.
Does that mean Jesus extols poverty? Of course not! Does he see it is a status devoutly to be sought? Absolutely not! But the first Beatitude, as all the Beatitudes, declares that God has already blessed those who are in various inferior situations, because God will not abandon these people in their desperate need. When we are really up against it, if we believe in God, our circumstances force us to recognize that God alone can sustain us in whatever it is that challenges us and threatens to destroy us.
There is another word we could use as a synonym for the term “poor in spirit.” It is the word “depression.” Genuine poverty no doubt often produces depression. Financial sparseness likely leads to depression as surely as very good times likely lead to a certain kind of joy or elation. I would guess that psychological or spiritual depression is more common among the desperately poor than among any other categories of people, unless they have come to believe that God will surely sustain them regardless of the severity of their poverty.
Continuous depression is one side of what being poor in spirit means. But Jesus is encouraging those who suffer from poverty of spirit to trust in the saving grace of God. If they do that, and place themselves totally in God’s grace, Jesus proclaimed they would emerge from what John Bunyan called his “slough of despond.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
There was a story on cable news a couple of days ago about 2700 families who moved to the Orlando area after the two hurricanes that devastated Puerto Rico last summer. The Federal Emergency Management Administration put these families into inexpensive motels. Some of them found employment, and others didn’t. Next month the FEMA funds will expire, and then what? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a black American who mainly writes about blacks in America. He has just published a book about the Obama Administration called We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. Mr. Coates believes that Barack Obama tried too hard to get along with white people --- and succeeded. And that distresses Ta-Nehisi Coates. He is very poor in spirit about America’s black citizens. He has become an atheist, and sees no hope for either America or for those he considers its most disadvantaged people. Do you suppose he feels blessed in any respect?
Have you ever been poor in spirit? Are you now poor in spirit? If you believe in God, you can know yourself already to be blessed, because you know God is with you in the dejection and depression you are facing. None of us is truly poor in the common understanding of that word, but many if not all of us have been poor in spirit from time to time.
The problem for affluent people is that we may naturally assume we must be totally self-sufficient and self-reliant. Those virtues are indeed virtuous, but they tend to seduce us into placing too much reliance on ourselves and too little reliance on God. Americans as a nationality are particularly given to applaud self-sufficiency to the detriment of a proper relationship with God. “God helps those who help themselves” is an American mantra. Without question there is truth in that statement, but if carried to extremes (which often happens, especially among folks like us), it results in an inner conviction of independence from everyone, including God.
Those who daily know poverty are less apt to put great stock in their own independence. They know they must rely on one another, and most of all on God, to survive. There is a unique sense of community among the very poor. It isn’t always a healthy sense, to be sure, but it exists nonetheless. Affluent people depend on themselves too much, perhaps, and poor people too little, perhaps. But whether poor or rich, we all must learn to depend on God more than is our inclination. When we do, then we shall know ourselves to be blessed by God.
Make no mistake about it. In Matthew 5:3, Jesus does not tell us that poverty is a blessing, or that it will make us happy, because neither is true. The blessing to which Jesus pointed says that those who feel they have lost everything realize as others do not and cannot that what they do have in the fullest measure is God. God is the one who fills the void of the poor in spirit; God alone can fill that void. And those who come to know that are blessed by that sober and sobering knowledge. When we know we have nothing but God, we know we have everything.
My favorite Broadway musical is Les Miserables. It is about the poor people of Paris building barricades against the oppressive regime which keeps them in their political and economic bondage. Probably my favorite song is the one that ends the first act, and then with different lyrics ends the second and final act.
Do you hear the people sing?
It is the song of angry men,/
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again.
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums,
It is the song about to start
When tomorrow comes.
Then comes the grand finale at the very end, a song of hope for the poor in spirit.
Will you join in our parade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drums?
There is a world about to start
When tomorrow comes.
God shall never forget those whom the old world has abandoned. He prepares for them a new world. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.