There is a commercial that used to run all the time for an online headhunter-type company called "theladders.com". The scene opens with very well put together man, wearing designer sports clothes, standing on a tennis court preparing for the ball to come to him. Just as the ball comes over the net hundreds of other people rush out onto the court with him. These "others" look disheveled, frazzled, and inappropriately dressed, but are nevertheless so determined to go after the ball that the man can't even see the ball, much less take a shot at it. Finally the man just shrugs, throws up his arms in confusion and frustration. Then the voiceover comes in with the company's tag line: "The Ladders. Only 100k plus jobs for 100K plus people." Using what is clearly a caricature and grand oversimplification they draw a clear distinction between two groups of people: VIPs and "little people".
The company is trying to sell their VIP demographic a promise: that if they entrust their job search to them, they will find the job they are entitled to more quickly than if they had to compete in a job pool alongside hoards of unqualified masses.
They are also selling something else, though. They're selling a particular lens. This lens magnifies the world's values. The lens through which each of us views ourselves and the rest of the word is a prescription lens. Our values prescribe how we see ourselves and therefore how we live in the world. Our lens brings into perfect focus everything set before us, interpreting and clarifying the way or path in front of us, so that we can move ahead. Advertising does a great job of understanding the way that people tend to see things so that they can create on-demand, sound-bite-sized lenses that bring into sharp focus the relationship between what people think they need or value and the particular product the company wants to sell. The Ladders knows that their demographic values a particular version what it is to be a VIP (a very important person) in the world's eyes. If I had a easel up here with some newsprint, I could ask you all to offer up some qualities you think accurately describe those who get ahead in the world--those the world "blesses".
We would likely end up with a list something like this: wealthy; have it all together; no need unmet; being cool, in control; powerful; dominant; exerting an influence of force; legalistic; and most of all staunchly self-reliant.
If we go back to scripture, back to the world into which Jesus came, it becomes clear very quickly that the world hasn't changed all that much in the last 2000 or so years. People longed for a Messiah who, like Judas Maccabeus defeating the Greeks, would liberate them from oppression and once again win independence for them. This was their prescription lens through which they looked for the Messiah. So when an eccentric prophet like John the Baptist prophesied in the wilderness about the coming Messiah saying "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!" it's not surprising that many who came to be baptized came out of fear. They knew that to repent meant "to turn around". But they believed in a God of wrath who came to destroy those who hadn't turned around.
They were, as John the Baptist put it, "fleeing from the wrath to come".
They didn't even recognize that the Messiah of whom John spoke was Jesus of Nazareth. For he was the one who ate with sinners and tax collectors, took children on his lap, wept with grieving families, blessed widows and healed people on the Sabbath. He had nowhere to lay his head, and if asked if he was the Messiah, always responded with "who do you say that I am?" This was no powerful, forceful figure. So it's no wonder they didn't see him for what he was. Their prescription lenses just seemed blurry when they looked at Jesus, much like the disciples lenses, and much like ours today. This Messiah, this King, was crowned with authority by a voice from heaven that descended like a dove saying, "This is my beloved, my son, with whom I am well pleased.
They expected wrath, and God offered them a gentle man who identified with the poor, and ate his meals and made his home among those often untouchable and forgotten by society. In Jesus God was writing a new law on the hearts of His people.
Reminiscent of Moses on Mt. Sinai bringing God's commandments to a people waiting to reorder their lives, here in today's reading from the gospel of Matthew, Jesus takes his disciples, Simon and Andrew, up a mountain on the Western shore of the Sea of Galilee, just out of reach of the surrounding crowds, but within earshot. Here he is about to give them a new prescription lens. With this lens they will begin to see themselves and the world the way God sees them.
Through God's lens they will not only see the way things already are in a new light, but they will glimpse a vision of the "not yet" --God's vision of a new world. This new vision is not one that can only be found at the end of the world. This new Kingdom vision, embodied by the person and ministry of Jesus, breaks in to the world as we know it wherever people see through God's lens and follow God's path, brought into focus by that lens.
What we have come to know as The Beatitudes is that Kingdom lens. At the top of the mountain on the Western shore of the sea of Galilee, Jesus and a couple of fisherman sit with their sandaled feet in the dirt and sand (not exactly the kind of place where people of power and influence typically gather). Here Jesus lays out a vision of God's VIPs...the very important people in His Kingdom.
At a typical seminar where we might learn the 7 steps to success, we would be about to get our laptops ready for the power point presentation of the list of key "action steps" we must take if we want to become valuable and indispensable. But the disciples, the surrounding crowds, and we, Matthew's audience, quickly learn we have signed up for no such seminar. As Jesus begins teaching saying "Blessed are the poor in Spirit" they realize this is no lecture. In Greek, the verb for "blessed are" is an active verb that suggests that, with his words, he is declaring a blessing on the poor in spirit right then and there. It's likely that he stood with his hands raised, as though offering a benediction.
"Blessed are the poor in Spirit": In other words: God's blessings on those who feel their poverty and have the courage to cry out! Those who hold their babies in their arms as they wait in line outside in 15 degree weather in front of Open Door ministries, hoping to get enough food to feed their family, and dreaming of a day when they no longer have to wait in line. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. They are God's very important people...the indispensable ones. And their dream is also God's dream. To them God says, "You are my beloved, my child, with whom I am well pleased." God already stands with them, and begs us to stand with them as well so that the "not yet" of their dream may become a reality.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.":
In other words: Blessings on those who know the deepest sadness, because they attend to the whole world, not just their individual self.
Those who sit with sick and dying mothers, fathers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters at Bothwell Hospital, at the hospital in Tucson, Arizona, and at hospitals in Haiti, holding the hands of those losing the people they love, letting go of the hopes and dreams they had for their lives and relationships-- Weeping with them as Jesus wept with the family of Lazarus. Blessings on those servicemen and women who shield us from danger with their own lives, and whose physical wounds are nothing compared to the emotional ones. These are God's very important people...the indispensable ones. Their suffering is God's suffering. To them God says, "You are my beloved, my child, with whom I am well pleased." God already sits with them, and begs us to sit with them so that the "not yet" of an end to isolation and loneliness becomes a reality.
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.": In other words: Blessings on those who have been silenced and made invisible by oppression. Those who feel isolated and trapped. Those whose mental anguish others are too uncomfortable to handle--who smile and say they're "just fine" even though they're not, so that they may keep the community and connections they have. Blessings on those who work in bathrooms, kitchens, and excruciatingly hot fields until their hands hurt, for long hours for a painfully low wage, day after day--who remain silent so that they may keep their job and provide for their families.
These are God's very important people...the indispensable ones. Their oppression is God's oppression. To them God says, "You are my beloved, my child, with you I am well pleased." God already advocates for them, and begs us to advocate for them so that the "not yet" of societal justice becomes a reality.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." In other words: Blessings on those whose humility and empathy won't allow them to be self-satisfied. Those who know that God's love can't ever be earned and cannot be fenced in and reserved for a special few. Those who risk losing their jobs and their year-end bonuses by standing up and speaking truth to power...those who know, as Princeton Ethics professor Cornel West says, that "justice is what love looks like in public."
These are God's very important people...the indispensable ones. Their courage is God's courage. To them God says, "You are my beloved, my child, with whom I am well pleased." God already gives them the strength to speak out and begs us to speak out with them so that the "not yet" of systematic integrity becomes a reality.
Sometimes it takes a bit of time to adjust to a new prescription lens. The stronger the prescription, the more disorienting it can be at first. Not only is Christ asking us to take off that lens sold to us by The ladders...that vision of who is valuable as the world sees it. Christ is begging us, with his blessing, to throw that lens away for good. He wants us to understand that there is nothing we can DO to be valuable people. We cannot earn our value with success, control, or self-reliance.
He knows will be disoriented for a while, and that's okay, he assures us, because we won't go through it alone. In our baptism we receive our new lens from God. There we are cleansed of all those worldly illusions that show us the ladder we must climb to become valuable and indispensable.
In our baptism, our new lens is a free gift of grace that no one, whether a "100K plus earner" or a "little person" in the world's estimation, can earn. In our baptism God gives us the most valuable gift there is, abounding grace. But God doesn't stop there. In God's kingdom, there are no individuals, just children of God. Through God's lens we are always in community. We are never left alone. God's gift of grace liberates us from the crippling weight of the world's expectations and values.
In the community that Jesus created around him, and continues to create in our midst through us, we have a new identity. We no longer have to piece together a perfect picture of who we are with our accomplishments. Our new identity is given to us by God. In our baptism, God tells us, "You are my beloved, my child, with whom I am well pleased."
God accepts us as we are, and blesses us as we are. But for those of you who love some "action steps" don't get out your laptop, but do put on your walking shoes. Here comes Christ's commissioning:
"Now go be my beloved in this world. Keep those kingdom lenses on and follow the path that has been made clear in front of you." What does this new identity look like? In the last four beatitudes, he tells us.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy." In other words: extend compassion, forgiveness, support, and empathy to others, just as I have extended it to you. Take on others' troubles. Mercy exists to be passed on, not stored up.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." In other words: "be "clear at center" Do not be divided at your core. Blessings on those who are centered on God...for whom the way of Christ's ministry has become their way. On this path they will come to know God.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." The Hebrew word for peace is "Shalom". Shalom doesn't refer to an individual's peace of mind or inner tranquility.
Shalom is a vision of communal well being in every direction and in every relation. Shalom is a circle. In other words, Extend the circle of acceptance, love, and justice from within YOUR faith community out into the world, so that ALL people may be encircled in acceptance. ALL may know love. ALL may experience justice.
Jesus' beatitudes end with a final blessing, "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you...on my account...Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven". This may not sound like much of a blessing. And if we were still wearing that worldly lens, we wouldn't be able to see it as a blessing at all. For the world's lens gives us a vision of a path that leads to success and approval according to the world's values. But we now know that the world's VIPs are not God's VIPs.
It's true that in seeking reconciliation we may sometimes be called cowards. In working toward more non-violent solutions we may be called weaklings. And in loving our enemies we may be called naive or even unpatriotic.
The cynicism of the world can sometimes pull us toward despair. But to quote Cornel West one more time, "Anyone who has not despaired has not lived. But despair is not the last word. Justice is what love looks like in public.
I want to leave you with a story reported by Ann Curry of the Today Show earlier this month. A veterinarian volunteer named Bruce Langlois teamed up with a volunteer crew that included 5 physicians, 6 nurses, and 1 dentist to build an airstrip in a remote area of Haiti where the roads had fallen into such disrepair that planes could not land there.
They wanted to allow air service for ambulance operations and clinic services to treat and prevent cholera. Skydivers jumped onto the future runway site and, with the help of local workers, cleared a space and leveled ground for a 1400 foot sloping airstrip, which was completed during the expedition. On that day I think they cleared the way for a lot more than an airstrip. With no reward of their own anywhere in sight they cleared a path for healing with their compassion.
They stood with those isolated, trapped, and voiceless and literally brought mercy from the heavens with the work of their hands. This is God's vision. These are God's very important people. We are ALL God's very important people. God's beloved, His children, with whom he is well pleased.
