TRISTAN SHERWIN

Here’s my longer sermon notes from this morning’s, Metro Christian Cente, Bury & Whitefield Zoom service (dated 27th June 2021). You can also listen via our YouTube channel.

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We’re going to kick start a new series this morning. Over the coming weeks, we’re going to take time exploring a set of Jesus’ words that we’ve called The Beatitudes.[i]

There will be interruptions to this, of course. We have a family service next week, and in a few weeks we’ll be looking at prayer and fasting as we look to reopen our back-in-person services. But in-between those events, and beyond our reopening, we’re going to dwell and wrestle through these words of Jesus.

The reason for doing so, will, I hope, become clear as I give something of an introduction to these famous and radical statements, before we start delving into each of them individually over the coming weeks.

READ: MATTHEW 4:23 – 5:16 (NET)

THE BIBLE IS NOT EASY

What is Jesus on about?

I don’t know if you have ever asked that question when reading some of the things Jesus says. It’s not a bad question, nor blasphemous. It’s not a disrespectful question. And it’s not a question that emerges because of lack in faith, either.

It’s the right question, whenever we pick up the scriptures. Especially when it’s something we are familiar with. Especially when we are prone to carry our own mind set, opinions, and cultural ways of thinking into the text.

‘What is this on about?’ is an important question.

It can be easy for us to assume that we should just be able to pick the Bible up, read it, and just get it. It’s a common assumption to think we will understand it, just like that.

A number of months ago, I shared an extract of something I was reading on social media, a book discussing how we read, interpret, and use scripture. A non-Christian friend commented on the post, saying something along the lines of, ‘it seems a bit odd that something for the masses to follow, is made so tricky to understand…’

Their comment is an echo of something I have heard many Christians say: ‘God wants everyone to understand his word. Therefore, God wouldn’t make it difficult for us to understand.’

I get the sentiment. However, at the risk of sounding controversial (and I assure you, I’m not), that’s simply not true. Putting aside the conversations about translations, that it’s an ancient text, from an ancient culture, from a far off land; Putting aside the differing genres in the Bible texts, the use of word play, here and there, and the numerous authors; Putting aside conversations about the Spirit’s aid in helping us understand the text… the Bible is a complex text.

There are numerous times, on a daily basis, when I come to the text and say, ‘what is that on about?’

I’m saying this to help people, this morning. Because if we don’t appreciate this, then we set up two potential problems for ourselves or for anybody else who starts reading the Bible.

On the one extreme, if we tell people that the Bible’s easy to understand, then at some point, they may come to point where they genuinely don’t understand what they are reading, and they won’t want to speak about their questions because they will fear that some people will begin to question the genuineness of their faith in God.

On the other extreme, teaching people that the Bible is easy to understand, stops people from asking the question of what it is about? It stops them thinking critically, it stops them exploring and studying the text, and it just permits us to read whatever we feel (at the time) and whatever we think it’s about, over the text. And that’s dangerous and leads to all sorts of problems, and all sorts of understandings. Some of which have led to the horrific, others that have led to the humorous.

This past week has been my final week at a work. One of the people I work with, a great guy, came to me the week before last, asking me about leaving engineering and becoming a Pastor. He’s an atheist, and yet during the conversation he told me that he’s recently been listening to an audiobook version of the book of Ezekiel.

Some of you may be excited about that. I was nervous.

That said, after he told me this, he then turned around and said, ‘I just don’t get it. It’s just weird. What’s it about?’ And I suddenly felt better. Although, he did share that he thought Ezekiel was talking about Aliens—especially when Ezekiel describes the Seraphim in chapter 1.

That may sound funny to you, but in the space of 26 years of working, that was the second time a colleague has said this to me about Ezekiel!

I’m not mocking my work mate, by the way, by mentioning this. I could see what he meant. Ezekiel mentions these winged beings covered with eyes. It’s a strange scene, and so my friend’s response is not surprising. I didn’t agree with him, and we had great, banter-filled conversation about it afterwards. But, at least he appreciated how unfamiliar this territory was to him. He understood there were questions to ask, that questions are normal.

‘What is that on about?’ is the best way to approach a text that we regard as sacred.

I’m reminded of the story in Acts 8:26-40, where Philip, led by the Spirit, is brought to the side of an Ethiopian Eunuch who happens to be reading the book of Isaiah. Philip asks him, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ The Eunuch doesn’t reply, ‘Of course I do! God wants everyone to understand his word. Therefore, God wouldn’t make it difficult for me to understand. Now do one, Philip, and go hitch a ride from someone else!’ The Eunuch’s answer is the best one: ‘How can I, without some help?’ He then asks, ‘Who is Isaiah talking about?’ In other words, ‘what is Isaiah talking about?’ And then Philip helps the Eunuch, to not only to understand Isaiah, but Philip helps the Eunuch to understand the text through the filter of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection.

I love the Eunuch’s honesty. I love his approach. To be frank, if you ever want to teach the Bible, and you stop asking yourself the questions, ‘What’s Moses on about?’ ‘What’s Ezekiel on about?’ ‘What’s Jesus on about?’, then I’m not convinced you should be teaching the Bible.

And if, this morning, you’re someone who does find themselves asking those questions, then I want you to know that you are on a good footing, and that you are also in good company today.

Jesus, in what we’ve just read, and what he continues to say in the rest of this ‘Sermon on the Mount’, is going to cause people to wonder what he’s talking about. At the same time, Jesus is also challenging people on what they believe about the Kingdom of God, and about the Law of Moses and the words of the Prophets. On some level, Jesus’ sermon about the Kingdom of God is going to hit his audience, again and again, with the implied accusation that they have not wrestled with the question of ‘what is this about?’ often enough or deeply enough.

DANGEROUS EXTREMES

Which brings me back to what I said earlier, What is Jesus on about? What are these Beatitudes about?

Well, let’s start with what it is not about.

So it’s worth saying, firstly, that Jesus is not giving his audience a list of things they must do, or must become, or character qualities they must live out in order to earn salvation, or enter into the Kingdom of God. This is not a set of ethical demands. This is not a grocery-list of moral imperatives. This is not an ‘eight-step freedom–in-Christ’ course. In other words, Jesus is not saying that to get into the kingdom you must be poor, or you must be in mourning, or you must be persecuted. The only ‘to do’ (if we are to use the term ‘to do’) in this list, is to rejoice. Be blessed, and be a blessing.

Secondly, following that, how we understand the word blessed, matters. We’ll look into the word Jesus uses, in a couple of weeks. For now, though, let’s just say that it could be translated as happy, joyful, or even ecstatic.

 ‘Happy are those who…’

 ‘Joyful are those who…’

‘Ecstatic are those who…’

However, we have to be careful about what we think Jesus is relating this joyfulness to.

If read the wrong way, ‘Happy are those who mourn…’ not only sounds deeply offensive and insensitive towards grieving people, but it also sounds like a contradiction. Doesn’t it? ‘Happy are those who are not happy.’?

If wrongly understood, the words ‘Happy are those who are poor…’ can be harmful, callous, and lead to propping up conditions of poverty instead of working to dismantle the causes of poverty.

Jesus is not applauding poverty or endorsing the factors that create it. Jesus is not cheering on injustice. Jesus is not saying that persecution is a good thing. Jesus is not saying to those who are mourning loss, suffering and discomfort, that they should stop grieving, get over it, start laughing and throw a P.A.R.T.Y.

Jesus is not saying that a beautiful life is one that contains injustice, hate, oppression, heart-wrenching grief and abject poverty! There is nothing beautiful in any of that.

There is nothing of the Divine dream in any of those things.

The poor are not blessed at being poor, the mourners are not happy because they are mourning, etc. They are blessed because they have glimpsed and understood something of the ethos—the values and priorities—of the Kingdom of God that Jesus is announcing. To those who are poor, to those who mourn, to those who hunger and thirst for justice, the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven is good news! They rejoice because they recognise that God has seen them, God has heard them, God is identifying with them, that the Kingdom of Heaven is for them.

And that brings me to the third thing we can misunderstand: The Kingdom of Heaven. For some people, the Kingdom of Heaven is a future, far off, spiritual realm we go to when we die. As we mentioned in our series on the Upside-Down Kingdom, God’s Kingdom is about now, and not just then.

In the beatitudes, there is both a present and future tense when Jesus talks about the Kingdom: The Kingdom belongs to those who are poor in spirit, and yet those who mourn will be comforted. There is a sense that there is something of it here (something that has come with Jesus), and there is something of it yet to come. In either case, it’s not about us going there, it’s about it coming here.

In the Lord’s Prayer—which is also part of this same sermon by Jesus—we are taught to pray for the coming of God’s Kingdom on earth: ‘Let your Kingdom come… on earth, as it is in heaven’ (Matthew 6:10). We pray that because, ‘As [the New Testament scholar,] John Dominic Crossan memorably puts it: heaven’s in great shape—earth is where the problems are.’[ii]

As these statements of Jesus make clear, our world experiences poverty and oppression, hate and injustice, harshness and heartlessness, suffering and loss.

I don’t know about you, but I believe the Kingdom is a healing balm to all of that?

God’s Kingdom is for the earth, and a transformed earth, a restored creation. The ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ points to a world order were God’s passion, God’s dream for the earth, is a present, visible reality brought about by God. It is what life on earth would be like if God were King and the kingdoms of this world were not. It’s what life on earth is like when humanity reflects God’s image, when the world is full of the knowledge of the glory of God.

And our response to the announcement of this Kingdom is not to spectate, or to wait passively for it. We are to welcome it, join in with it, collaborate with it, participate in it, to embody God’s Kingdom rule on earth. That’s really what it means to rejoice: to rejoice is not about applauding it as it goes past, like we’re at some feat or parade. It’s about marrying our lives to it. It’s about joining the crowd that gathers in its wake and following were it leads.

We are blessed by the Kingdom, and are willing to be a conduit of that blessing to those around us.

That’s what Jesus is on about.

SALTY REMINDERS

In Matthew 5, Jesus is speaking to people who have been desperately waiting for the coming of God’s Kingdom. Jesus is speaking to people who are poor in spirit, oppressed people, people in mourning, people hungry and thirsty for justice, for things to be put right. People longing for mercy. People craving to see God; to have God visit them in a way that would liberate them. They are a people who are yearning, crying out, for God to vindicate, to justify and defend, his children.

At the time of Jesus, Israel finds itself under the rule of the Roman kingdom, the latest in a long succession of kingdoms that have occupied and subjugated the Hebrew nation.

Their hope is in God’s Kingdom to come. But where is the Kingdom at? Why hasn’t it arrived yet? What will it look like? How can we make it come?

They are, understandably, a restless nation. And as a restless nation, there are parts of it that are on the brink of lashing out against Rome. Parts of it that are seeking justice through the means of revenge. Parts of it that are thinking that a military victory over Rome will prove that they are indeed God’s children, God’s chosen.

Israel wants God’s Kingdom to come, and she’s ready to engage violently in a power struggle to bring it in. But, as Jesus tells them, it’s not taken by power, it’s given to and it belongs to those who are powerless. Israel is seeking consolation, comfort—in her mind, that means a national revival. She means to heal her own wounds by inflicting wounds on others. But God’s comfort comes to those who mourn, not maim. If Israel desires to inherit the earth, then she must do it through meekness, not dominance. Israel thirsts for justice, but justice is not the way of anger and vengeance. As Jesus will go onto say in this sermon, justice, healing, involves the courageous tactics of forgiveness, blessing, and non-violent resistance. Israel longs for mercy, but there’s a temptation to show no mercy to her enemies. Yet, she must learn to love her enemies if she’s to defeat the real enemy. Israel longs to see God, but it’s not about external purity, but a purity of the heart. Israel longs for vindication, to be recognised as God’s people, but to be like the father requires peace making not waging war.[iii]

You see, Jesus is calling Israel back to its vocation, it’s calling, as God’s people, to be a blessing to the world. This is why, after these Beatitudes, Jesus then goes on say, ‘You’re the salt of the earth, but you’ve lost the saltiness. You’re the light of the world, but you’re seeking to hide it.’

Eugene Peterson, in his Message Translation of those verses, put’s it like this:

“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.

Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

Jesus is speaking to a people who have forgotten, or lost sight of, their vocation to be a blessing to the world.

In our home, Steph has a jar filled with various flavours of hard-boiled sweets. But it’s been a hot few weeks, and those sweets haven’t coped so well. Steph’s jar now contains this homogeneous lump of sugar. Mint Humbugs, Chocolate Limes, Rhubarb & Custard, and Blackcurrant & Liquorice have all melded together. You can pry one or two of them off the masse, but it will not taste right. Admittedly, if you like Chocolate Limes, it’s not that bad. But if, like me, Chocolate Limes make you want to heave, it’s not pleasant at all.

It’s like that here. Israel, under the prolonged heat of their circumstances, aren’t tasting the way that Israel has been called to taste. They are at risk of losing their flavour, and leaving a foul taste in the mouth of the world.

That’s true of all of us. Under prolonged circumstances, under different conditions, under disruptive and difficult times, we risk distraction, we risk losing our flavour.

In effect, Jesus is saying in the Beatitudes, ‘If you’re going to be the salt of earth, if you’re going to be light, if you are going to rediscover the vocation, then this is what it looks like…’. Of course, he doesn’t stop at the end of Matthew 5:16. Jesus’ message of what this is supposed to look like continues, in what follows, not only in what he teaches, but also in the example of his own life.

Jesus perfectly displays the flavoursome collaboration of Humanity and Divinity, bringing out the God-colours of the world.[iv]

In short, Jesus is telling his people, and us, that this is what you should be about. This is what you are meant to be at.

BE AT

And that’s why we’re going to spend some weeks exploring these radical words.

It’s a new day for us as a church. We are different coming out of lockdown than when we first entered into it. And something is compelling me, over the next few months, to take some time laying the heartbeat, the ethos, of who we are called to be, what we are meant to be at. So we’ll look at values, we will look at creeds etc,. but, actually, the starting place for us is always Jesus and his Kingdom. So we are going to explore what we should be at through these beatitudes.

Because if we are really seeking the centrality of Jesus in our lives, church, community and world, then whatever we do has to carry the flavour of his life.

As Eugene Peterson translated it, we are to be the salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavours of this earth. We are here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world.

Or, as Jesus is on about, we are to be blessed and to be a blessing.[v]

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[i] If you are wondering why these words are called what they are, it’s because the name beatitude comes from the Latin word beatitudo. The old Latin translation of the New Testament (known as the Latin Vulgate, or just Vulgate) translated Matthew’s Greek word makarios, into the Latin word beati. Traditionally, this is translated blessed in our English translations, but, I suppose, the actual English equivalent would be happy. ‘Happy are those…’

[ii] As quoted by Marcus Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, p.188.

[iii] I’m indebted to Tom Wright for these gorgeous insights. See N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, p.288.

[iv] As always, there is so much more we could say about this passage and it’s context. We could talk about how Matthew’s Gospel has, as its focus, this preoccupation of presenting Jesus as a new Moses. We could mention how this scene of the Sermon on the Mount echoes the people of Israel standing at Mount Sinai receiving the covenant, and how Jesus, here, is bringing a new covenant. We won’t, though. But, I hope I’ve said enough to give some context. If your senses are intrigued, if you are asking ‘what’s that about?’, then go and explore this idea of Matthew presenting Jesus as a new Moses (most commentaries do pick up on this, so I’d start there).

[v] The painting used within the header for this series is called ‘The Sermon on the Mount X (after Claude), 2010’, and is one of a series of paintings by the artist David Hockney, based around Claude Lorrain’s The Sermon on the Mount. As Hockney himself describes the work, ‘It is a picture about looking up.’ Personally, I find that a great way to think about the Beatitudes themselves. You can see more of Hockney’s series, here: https://www.thedavidhockneyfoundation.org/chronology/2010