Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
“Complicated Blessings” — Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (Micah 6:6-8/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Matthew 5:1-12/NRSVUE)
Living in Salt Lake City and having to drive way more than I’d like to, means that I also sit in traffic way more than I’d like to, which means that I spend a significant amount of time staring at the backs of other people’s cars, which means that I read a whole lot of bumper stickers — so many, in fact, that I’ve become a bit of a connoisseur.
I’m always on the lookout for ones that amuse or intrigue me and, when I find them, I’m often inspired to snap photos to share with my family, which is fun. But, seeing as most of these aren’t exactly what I’d call “appropriate for church,” I won’t share them with you here this morning.
But another way in which I’ve come to use bumper stickers for my own entertainment is more suitable for general audiences; it’s a kind of game, really. Since bumper stickers are kind of like potato chips in the sense that it’s tough for many people to have just one, I try to infer what I can about a vehicle’s owner and what they’re into by assessing the array of adhesive art they’ve chosen to affix to their car.
In some cases, this game is straightforward. Take my own car for instance: all of my stickers are from various state and national parks, so one could readily (and rightly) assume that I enjoy going to state and national parks. When it comes this game, there’s not a lot of fun to be had with me and my car; what you see is what you get. Some folks are harder to figure out, though.
Not long ago, when I was stopped at a traffic light, a half a car length in front of me and a lane to my left was a comically large pickup truck; it was painted shiny dark blue without a speck of dirt on it, so it didn’t seem a truck someone used for work); it was also really loud and was belching dark gray diesel exhaust from its enormous tailpipe. As I looked to see what kind of sticker game its owner might have had, my eyes were drawn to a white arrow on the rear right fender pointing towards the tiny door that covers the fuel cap and the words that were inscribed right above that arrow read: “Electric Vehicle Repellant.” So, this was clearly the vehicle of a serious environmentalist.
There was a bunch of other stickers on that pickup too, and while I don’t remember exactly what they all said, I do remember they used words like “Freedom” and “America” and “Guns” in conjunction with some other ones that I also won’t share with you here. It felt like the owner of this vehicle was practically begging folks to draw inferences about what kind of stuff they were down with.
But when I looked at the pickup’s rear window, I kind of got thrown for a loop — at least for a few seconds, anyway. Right there, in the center of that window, was a sticker that seemed to strike a note different from the rest — it was a giant white cross. Yet, when I looked closer, I realized that the horizontal and vertical pieces of that cross were actually assault rifles, which confirmed that this sticker was consistent with the other ones I’d observed.
The way things are going in our country these days, that cross (or any kind of cross) appearing amidst all of that other stuff probably shouldn’t have been all that surprising — disappointing and disturbing, but not surprising. In the end, I guess this one wasn’t really all that hard to figure out. And when someone is willing to tell you who they are and what they stand for that succinctly and directly, it’s generally a good idea to pay attention.
That’s pretty much what Jesus is doing for his disciples in our reading from Matthew. Almost all of these twelve verses would have made great bumper sticker material (and the same could be said about Micah’s exhortation to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God) but for the fact they didn’t have cars back then. Thankfully, though, you can find bumper stickers of them online now — believe me, I checked.
Today’s Gospel passage constitutes the beginning of Jesus’s famous Sermon on the Mount, the first and longest of the five speeches that he gives in Matthew — indeed, this one takes up three full chapters. I really hope you find the Sermon on the Mount interesting because it will be the source of our readings for the next few weeks. We spend so much time on it because it contains a whole lot that’s worth thinking about. And like I said, today is just the beginning.
As the saying goes in the real estate business, the three most essential components of property value are location, location and location, and both the Sermon on the Mount’s place in Matthew’s Gospel and the place in which that sermon is delivered are worth thinking about.
The fact that Matthew uses this event to mark the very beginning of Jesus’s public ministry means that it serves as our introduction to who Jesus is, what he stands for, and what God’s kingdom is all about. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, and Matthew, being a good storyteller, understood this. The rest of the Gospel will address in far greater detail the ideas that are raised here, but today’s text is Matthew’s way of grabbing our attention and presenting these ideas concisely — think of it like a theological bumper sticker.
We also need to consider the actual place in which Jesus’s sermon is delivered — on top of a mountain — because this is no accident. Lots of really important events take place on mountains throughout the Old Testament — the most memorable of which, perhaps, was Moses going up to fetch God’s commandments so he could come back down and share them with the Israelites.
So since Matthew wants to underscore how important what Jesus had to say here is, the decision to have him head up to the mountaintop to say it is a really good one. The story of Moses was really familiar to Matthew’s first readers; and they would have figured out quickly that Matthew was comparing Jesus and Moses.
But Matthew begins to break down this comparison just as quickly as he sets it up, which kind of makes sense because he’s not trying to say that Jesus is just another great prophet in a long line of great prophets; he’s trying to say that Jesus is different and more important; he’s trying to say that Jesus is the Messiah.
Just look at how the stage here is set: Jesus goes up the mountain, he sits down, the disciples come to him, and then he begins to speak and teach. Jesus appears much like a king on his throne with his disciples approaching him like subjects in a royal court — even though he’s actually sitting on the ground (which no earthly king would do, which is also no accident). And then the new king delivers his coronation speech, in which he describes what life in his kingdom — life in God’s kingdom — is actually like.
This beginning of this speech consists of nine sayings that are known as the “Beatitudes,” from the Latin word beatus, which translates as “blessed” or “fortunate.” Much like the Moses story, the form of these short blessings would have been familiar to Matthew’s audience because they appeared throughout the Hebrew Bible and in a lot of other writings at that time.
A beatitude was a widely-understood way of proclaiming someone’s privileged status or fortunate circumstances: “Blessed are those who don’t eat three week-old burritos that have been sitting in the back of the fridge, for they shall not get food poisoning,” for example. When used specifically in a religious context, a beatitude declared a particular person or people to be favored by God.
But if the form of Jesus’s list of blessings was no big surprise to his listeners, the content of them had to be a little shocking. Folks in that context likely began reading “Blessed are” and thought they were getting one thing and ended up getting something they didn’t bargain for.
At some basic level, it was like me looking at that cross in the window of that pickup truck and being taken aback when I realized that it was made with with guns — indeed, it was the very dissonance of it that caused me to stop and reflect on it. While I have to admit that the Bible doesn’t ever say anything one way or the other about guns (you know, because they didn’t have guns back then), it does say some stuff about not worshipping false idols and not killing people and violence generally being frowned upon, so conflating the sacred symbol of Jesus’s resurrection and eternal life with a secular symbol whose primary purpose is to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time is kind of an interesting choice.
Clearly, the provocative imagery of that bumper sticker got my attention and made me think (though probably not in ways that either the creator or the displayer of it had in mind). Similarly, the dissonance between the message of the Beatitudes and the means through which they are presented serves to underscore how scandalous they actually are (and this is exactly what Jesus had in mind). The difference is that the Beatitudes are scandalous in a good way, scandalous in a holy way; and I say this simply because what they address is espoused repeatedly — often in God’s own words — throughout both the Old and New Testaments.
Blessed are the poor in spirit? Blessed are those who mourn? Blessed are the meek? Blessed are those who are reviled and persecuted? Wait, what’s so blessed or fortunate or happy about any of those things? I mean who would actually want to be one of those people?
And yet, Jesus doesn’t mince words or beat around the bush here; he’s pretty darn clear about the fact that these are the people whom God blesses. In just a few short sentences, he completely undermines any notion we might have that God’s reign works the same way our world works. Jesus’s version of Heaven sure doesn’t sound like any kind of meritocracy I’ve ever heard of.
But before we get the idea in our heads to go out-meek, or out-mourn or out-poor each other in order to gain God’s favor, we probably ought to think twice. I say this because it’s important to understand that the Beatitudes are not commandments — they’re not lists of all the things that we shall and shalt not do. Nor are they descriptions of a transactional paradigm — they’re not advocating for a “do this and get that” way of living.
The Beatitudes are descriptions of the blessings God’s reign holds for all of the people among us who are poor or meek or persecuted or reviled. What Jesus says here turns our understanding of the world completely upside down — that’s the whole point. They are Jesus’s scandalous invitation to a world that is nothing like the one we know.
May this invitation cause you to reflect on what really matters,
may it lead you to stop thinking of people in terms of winners and losers;
may it inspire you to see things as God sees them, not as we see them;
may it cause you to understand how blessed we truly are;
and may it provoke you to act in ways that truly honor the grace that God has shown to us. Amen.