Blessed Are You | 2/22/26
-
The Beatitudes are described as marks of faith rather than a checklist for entry into heaven; which of these traits do you find most natural to live out, and which feels like a "fire hose" that is difficult to absorb?
If you think of yourself as one of Christ’s "climbing companions," what higher places or difficult areas of your life is he inviting you to explore with him?
Living in the "comma" means inhabiting the space between your current reality and a future hope; what is one area of your life where you are currently waiting for God's promise of healing or reconciliation to be fulfilled?
If you were to write your own personal Beatitude today—starting with "Blessed are..."—what specific act of service or quiet struggle in your daily routine would you recognize as a witness to God’s kingdom?
In what ways can you actively bring "heaven to earth" this week, perhaps by stepping outside your comfort zone or following a small nudge from the Holy Spirit?
Transcript:
It is the first Sunday of Lent, and we are making our way toward the cross. Usually, during this time of the year, we hear stories of Christ's ministry. We hear about Jesus's temptation in the wilderness, his encounter with various people as he healed them, or met with them to eat with them. Or we hear stories of his contentious encounters with those Pharisees that wind up getting him arrested along the way.
This year, though, we're journeying toward Holy Week in a different way. This time through the teachings of Jesus that we find in the Gospel of Matthew, that's often called the Sermon on the Mount. When we think of the word sermon, we think of exactly what I am doing right now. I am offering a message to you. But the sermon that we read in the Sermon on the Mount isn't this dynamic. Rather, it is a lecture that Jesus is offering. And many of us here, especially in this town, know what it feels like to sit in a lecture or to teach a lecture. Jesus is giving instruction on the way that leads to life. And this morning and over the next several weeks, we get a window into the classroom of maybe one of the greatest teachers the world has ever known.
So this morning, we begin with the Beatitudes. It's the first grouping of Jesus's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. And they are phrases. And each verse that Jesus offers—and many of us have heard them time and time again over the years, and maybe some of us are hearing them for the first time—but they will feel familiar because we see them so often in the public sphere. Whenever we've heard them, though, I bet it felt like we were drinking through a fire hose because they are read in rapid succession, and it's hard to absorb everything that Jesus is trying to share with us when they are read so quickly.
So this morning, as we read through them, I invite you to hear them in a different way, maybe closer to the way that Jesus actually taught them so long ago. After each verse or phrase, I will pause for a few moments to allow space for the words to sink deep into our spirits, for our hearts and minds to catch up with what we are hearing. In those moments in the silence, I invite you to reread the verse and maybe allow your heart and mind to catch on the word that resonates the most with your spirit. And my prayer is that as we read these together, Christ the great teacher will meet you in these words.
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak and taught them, saying:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
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.
Friends, this is the Word of God for us, for the people of God. And we say, thanks be to God.
Will you pray with me? O God of all blessing, we ask that you would open our hearts and our minds to hear a word of blessing from you this morning, by your Spirit. Meet us in these moments. Help us to see Christ. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.
Well, there is no time like the present. That seems to be Jesus's model. At least that's how Matthew portrays Jesus in this gospel account. Let's take a few moments to review the first few chapters of Matthew together. Chapter two: Jesus is born, and those curious scholars come bearing the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In chapter three, Jesus has grown up and is baptized. In chapter four, Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, and then he calls his first four disciples: Peter, Andrew, James, and John. And he also begins alongside them his public ministry. Off to the races they went.
At this point, Jesus and these four disciples have traveled all throughout Galilee, stirring quite the crowd as the numbers kept growing and Jesus kept on going. Those disciples started wondering, "What on earth have we gotten ourselves into?" Eventually, Jesus comes to a place where the landscape gave way to foothills, which provided an easy perch for him to climb up into. The high place was great, not only to rest weary feet, but provided a natural amphitheater for the crowds to hear what Jesus had to say, but only if they listened really, really closely.
But the crowds didn't follow him this time all the way up into that mount. They stayed on the ground level. Only these four disciples went with Jesus and drew near to him in the foothills. In the Message paraphrase of this scripture, Eugene Peterson describes the disciples as Jesus's "climbing companions," the ones who were willing to go with him to the higher places. And as amazing as these disciples are, this sermon wasn't recorded for their benefit.
You see, the Gospel of Matthew wasn't recorded as an eyewitness account. This account was actually probably written between the years 75 and 80 A.D. At this point in early Christian history, this new community of faith—these people who were trying hard to follow Christ—were trying to determine what that actually looked like over and above all of the other different faith communities that were in existence at that time. They were trying to answer the question: how did their faith in Christ set them apart from everyone else?. That's a question I think we're still grappling with these days.
So Jesus's audience in the Sermon on the Mount wasn't just the disciples depicted who climbed up with him and sat around him. This was written for us, the people who are willing to go with Christ to the higher places, willing to be Christ's climbing companions in the here and now. We, too, are invited to go with Christ to those higher places so that we, too, can discern what it might mean for us to distinguish ourselves in this world today, as part of the community that Christ established long, long ago.
So this morning, we grab our notebooks, scooch in close to Jesus perched among the rocks. And as we do, we very quickly learn that there is so much to unpack in each of these Beatitudes. Beatitudes are phrases or blessings that depict traits and lived experiences that are elevated in God's community. Jesus, though, does not offer these traits as a checklist for us to evaluate our place within this community. You know, someone isn't going to be standing at the pearly gates with a clipboard and a list: "Oh, poor in spirit? Yes. Mourned appropriately? Check. Merciful? Most of the time. Okay. Persecuted? Oops. Sorry."
This is not what we believe to be true. Instead, these Beatitudes are marks of faith that, if lived out most faithfully, bear witness to a way of life and experience of a love so deep and a love that is vastly different from anything that we can experience from the Kingdom on earth. Each of these Beatitudes, though, could be a sermon in and of itself. And if I were to try to unpack each and every one, we would be here for a really long time. And we have art to see and pickleball to play.
So rather than looking at each one in depth, I invite us to zoom in even further and to take notice of the way that each Beatitude is structured. Each phrase is structured with the same rhythm and pattern. "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." This rhythm, this pattern, made it easy for the people who were listening and reading to internalize the words, to have them seep deep in their soul. It's like a song for the heart.
Each phrase begins with "Blessed are," and then the trait that follows is one that is already present and experienced as part of this alternative way of being. It is a present and lived experience, felt in the here and now of this faith community. That present experience then is followed by the words, "for they will"—a promise that will be fulfilled sometime in the future. This is something that has not yet happened, but we are hoping for. There is a present, and there's a future.
Friends, this is what we believe to be true about the church, the body of Christ, all of us together. We are those who claim to follow the way of Christ in the world. Do you have a foothold in the present moment? We believe we are called to bear the markings of Christ in the world today, right here and now, and to be a witness to the Kingdom of God. And part of that work is that we point to a hope in the promised life that we have in Christ—in his life, death, and resurrection—that hasn't quite come to its fullest fruition yet.
The promise is that one day God's kingdom will reign on earth as it is in heaven. We just shared some of that language together as we prayed the Lord's Prayer—that earth would feel like heaven. That promise is that one day there will be reconciliation and healing among all the nations, where each and every one of us can sit at that great heavenly banquet table in peace, connected by love.
Each Beatitude—the present experience and that future hope—is held together by something that is so often overlooked when we are reading anything. It's a punctuation mark called a comma. When a comma is seen in a sentence, it functions as a natural break. It makes a breath and space as the words are read aloud, so we can breathe. It gives room for our minds to catch up with the words and be prepared for a different yet connected thought. When we are given this space, when we are reading Scripture, it's an invitation for the Holy Spirit to meet us in that free moment where there are not words on a page. It allows time for our imaginations to show up to the reading and to help us find our place in the story, and how we might connect our lives and our lived experience to the community that Christ is describing here. We find ourselves in the comma, in that place between the present lived reality and the hope that is to come, but isn't here yet.
So what does this mean for us as a people who are living this every single day, to live a life rooted in the Beatitudes? The Reverend Doctor Sam Wells, former dean of Duke University Chapel—Go Duke—offers us this thought: To be a Christian is to dwell in that comma that lies between the first and second half of each Beatitude. That comma is your home on earth. That comma is where you find Jesus. So our invitation this morning is to dwell in that comma, to find our home in participating in the witness of this set-apart community, the way that Christ calls us to.
You know who knew exactly what it meant to dwell within the comma of the Beatitudes?. It was the late Reverend Jesse Jackson, leader of the Civil Rights movement, who learned what it meant to dwell fully in the comma of the Beatitudes from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Jesse Jackson continued that witness and fight for the beloved community, or the fullest expression of God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven—that hope that hasn't quite revealed itself fully yet. Jesse actively dwelled in the comma of the Beatitudes in every single facet of his life, but particularly on Sesame Street:
[children’s voices echoing]
“Okay, here we go:
I am [I am], somebody [somebody]! I am [I am], somebody [somebody]!
I may be poor [I may be poor], but I am [but I am], somebody [somebody].
I may be young [I may be young], but I am [but I am], somebody [somebody].
I may be on welfare [I may be on welfare], but I am [but I am], somebody [somebody].
I may be small [I may be small], but I am [but I am], somebody [somebody].
I may make a mistake [I may make a mistake], but I am [but I am], somebody [somebody].
My clothes are different [my clothes are different], my face is different [my face is different], my hair is different [my hair is different], but I am [but I am], somebody [somebody].
I am black, [I am black], brown, [brown], white, [white].
I speak a different language [I speak a different language],
but I must be respected [but I must be respected], protected [protected], never rejected [never rejected].
I am [I am], God's child [God's child]. I am [I am], somebody [somebody].
Give yourself a big hand!”
Friends, we just witnessed the kingdom of God. We just witnessed the beloved community in the voices of those children who resounded with the phrase "I am somebody"—children of every different walk of life.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to preach this sermon at Oak Hammock with the residents there, and I brought my two boys with me, Christian and Ansley. Ansley, the youngest, could not sit still the entire time I was preaching. Can you imagine that?. Except while we played that video, that was the only time he was still because he, too, can connect with the feeling of being somebody. Those children in that video realized their blessedness. They realized their sacred worth as a part of the beloved community of God.
You know, I would bet that there is someone sitting in this space or joining us online, and definitely someone out there who needs to know that they are somebody. That they are more than their fear, that they are more than their grief, that they are more than their present reality, that they are experiencing right now. Someone who needs to know their blessedness.
And when we become a people who dwell in the comma of the Beatitudes—between the present reality and the hope of the future that is to come—what happens is that we participate in the present lived experience of that future that we hope for. We participate in the way of Christ; Heaven does come to earth!
So, friends, how might you dwell in the comma today?. Amy-Jill Levine wrote a book, Sermon on the Mount, and it offers to us a framework that might help us wrap our imaginations around what it looks like to find our place in the comma of the Beatitudes. She says, "But perhaps a better exercise is to continue the pattern and develop our own. Blessed are those who care for broken bodies or lonely children. Blessed are those who sit by the dying at night. Blessed are those who can sing of God, asking, ‘Whom shall I send?’ and can respond, ‘It is I, Lord, I have heard you calling in the night.’ The path is narrow, and the journey hard, but the blessings are found in every step forward.”
So, friends, blessed are you who make the casseroles on the meal train. Blessed are you who help the children once again settle another squabble by saying, "I'm sorry." Blessed are you who pass bags of food through the car window. Blessed are you who seek to understand before jumping to conclusions. Blessed are you who follow the nudges of the Holy Spirit into a place that is way outside your comfort zone. Blessed are you who pray, who write, who march, who hold signs because you believe that we can be better. Blessed are you who are just plain weary. Because through you the kingdom of God is and will be on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
