sermon notesA collection of resources, background information, and periodic reflections on the scripture readings in worship from Pr Josh Ehrler. Archives
July 2018
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For All the Saints in Matthew 5.1-1211/1/2017 Our reflection is on Matthew 5.1-12, the “Beatitudes.”
For those of us who follow a liturgical calendar, this reading falls on All Saints Sunday. Since All Saints is often a day during which congregations take time to honor our blessed dead, there are some natural connections that worshippers make that have to be named. Specifically, that somehow our beloved saints emulated this list of blessings. The worship day is fraught with opportunities for a preacher to misstep and create offense where she was hoping to merely reflect the words of the gospel writer. Matthew probably wasn’t thinking about a way to celebrate our saints when he wrote down these words of Jesus and he puts them, structurally, immediately after Jesus’ call to his first disciples (4.18-22) and a quick sermon from the Son of Humanity on the darkness of the world which requires repentance (4.12-17). What then, is a preacher to do? Lean toward the saints or lean into the text and all its context? Obviously one can hope to have both and we Lutherans love our already/not yet lingo to accomplish this. God has already engaged the world and brought forth salvation through Christ on the cross, and that good news of new life (or light as Matthew would say in this part of his book) has not yet been fully realized by Creation. For those not of the Lutheran background scratching their heads, yes, we’re saying that we want it both ways. Though, like the challenge of our sermon for this weekend, we can easily lean toward what God has done (yea God!) while ignoring our responsibilities as disciples Or we are prone to leaning toward what we are called to do (yea us!) while assuming that we have the power to fix our broken world. Really, what’s a preacher to do? Nothing, by the way, is the wrong answer. Matthew steps into Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount with a simple, obvious statement that brings the entire force of the gospel to bear on the world (and us disciples). “When Jesus saw the crowds...” (5.1a). Jesus has already been baptized in the midst of a great crowd. Jesus tried to avoid the crowds because his mentor/cousin/free agent prophet John has been arrested, and yet he winds up hanging out with fishermen by the Sea of Galilee. It also implies that he’d been bumping around humans at least up until the moment word of John’s arrest reached him. Jesus is of the people, he is of this world, he is a living, breathing example of God’s love among us. He knows these crowds. And it’s for these crowds that he preaches his first sermon. As Amy-Jill Levine notes in Women’s Bible Commentary, his first words are meant to offer comfort to those who seek it and to encourage a response from the disciples to the suffering of this world (p.469). In a sense, Jesus preaches an already/not yet sermon in which the first four Beatitudes are centered on God’s favor poured upon the crowds and the second five are actions directed toward his followers (Warren Carter, Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The New Testament, p. 138). The “poor in spirit” are God’s people who have been manipulated by the powerful and have nothing (Michael Joseph Brown, True to Our Native Land, p.91). “Those who mourn” have lost love ones and have lost their land, their food, and their identities. The “meek” are not lacking in physical strength, they lack power, authority and respect, making them easy victims for anyone who possesses such worldly resources (Carter, p.138). “Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” are, well, we can figure out what they are longing for from God and for their daily lives. The crowds are desperate for liberation and a sense that their lives matter. We can almost sense Jesus shifting his gaze mid-proclamation from the mass of humanity clamoring to be near him to the disciples who are already by his side. The merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the ones “who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” are not mythical saviors that we get to wait for, they’re in our pews, at our Bible studies, in our mirrors every morning. These disciples, or more accurately, we disciples are the living response to our people standing right next to us or living down our blocks who are despondent, hurt, depressed and hopeless. Our hope is in Christ, who brings forth the blessings of God. We who gather in worship each week can readily recite the myriad ways God has borne those blessings upon our lives. It takes some of us literally no effort to remember the Grace and mercy of our Lord who loves us without end. For those of us who can do this, we give thanks to God for being so near to your hearts and minds. This is where we can point to our beloved saints, because they are the cloud of witnesses who pointed us to our living Christ through their own flesh and blood. They who have gained their blessed rest and know the surpassing joy are our ongoing models of speaking God’s name, granting mercy and peace, being centered on the cross and reminding us regularly that we, too, dwell in God’s presence. With that reassurance secured, Jesus’ words resound with greater force as he convicts us to notice our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers, God’s people all around us who do not know this joy and probably don’t believe the lofty words we carry around. In this small town where Trinity Lutheran resides, we have neighbors who live in cars that barely run because it is all they can afford. Jobs are scarce and most that exist are kept to part time status so that the corporate owners don’t have to bother with benefits. We have friends who are home health workers, a necessary role for our most ailing and disabled population, who themselves are unprotected from employment laws due to curious loopholes. We have people who gather in our house who struggle to read, struggle to find food struggle to get even a finger hold up on their finances because of the expense of basics like health care and rent. Amy-Jill Levine brings a word of clarity to Jesus’ sermon in chapter 5 as she writes, “These actions rather than Christological confessions are paramount” (p.469) We Lutheran Christians can give thanks for all that God has done while simultaneously being moved by the pure truth that our gratitude only holds when our neighbors can also give thanks. Another way to think of the Beatitudes to is the conviction through Christ that we cannot be okay with the status quo. Until what we hold dear can be held by others, our call to serve is not complete. For our blessed ancestors who have been embraced by our loving God, we can celebrate that their call has been fulfilled. Christ destroyed death so that no one can be separated from the love of God. We can celebrate this truth with songs, candles, memorials and high praise. It is the foundation of our faith. We can also, in the same service and with the same candles, pray for the endless crowds pressing in to hear assurance that God is near and ask for God’s guidance to respond with our hands, feet and voices. Because the kingdom of heaven has already come near, but it is not yet fully realized in every home.
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