Readings: Psalm 24:1-6, Matthew 5:1-12

Yesterday, someone said there was so much trouble in the world, so much to pray for, that they did not know where to begin. How overwhelming things can seem in these days, how easy it is to feel small and lost, struggling on the periphery of a world speeding ahead of us. As we get older and slower, we can feel left behind, frustrated, burned out, and exhausted by the changes and chances of life. But the times are always changing, and Jesus calling to His disciples, calls also to us, to listen to Him, to learn from Him who is gentle and humble in heart.

If we listen to philosophy, it tells us that life is an aspect of existence that acts and reacts, grows and evolves. And science tells us survival is for the fittest, for those best adapted to their environment – that competition goes hand in hand with success, and that the weak are the food which sustains the tertiary consumers. In worldly, and human terms the riches of life go to the warrior kings, the loudest, the wealthy, the powerful, and righteousness is found in our ability to keep up with our neighbour.  

Many in the large crowds that gathered around Jesus were likely to have been those in need; the exhausted, the sick, the poor, the abandoned. Those who possessed little yet suffered much, those society had stripped of their dignity, were looked down on and called sinners, their condition labelled a punishment for a crime they did not know.

Whether the Beatitudes was or was not one sermon given at one time matters little, we know that all throughout His ministry people came to Jesus for healing, or hungry for His word. When Jesus called His disciples to follow, He called as the Father calls to all His children to walk alongside on the journey of life back home. Whenever He sat down to eat, or speak, Jesus sat as the head of a family. 

Through the gift of imagination and art we can picture easily in our minds the scene painted in the Gospel of St Matthew. Jesus teaches us contextually and concretely from His immediate surroundings. So, I wonder what does Jesus see? When they hear the words of their Father, their teacher, their friend – what emotions are stirred in the hearts of the disciples as they listen to Him speak of the people who are close to God, the sheep He has come to gather into the fold?

The spirit apart from the body is dead, so the spirit of man is his life – and who would have thought that those in the crowd were filled with life? It is likely they were not clothed in fine linen, perhaps quite dirty, some in rags, others as well kept and clean as they could be. Jesus’ teaching is radical, He is turning the world upside down, the poor, the oppressed, the sick, the grieving – they are closer to God and blessed in His eyes – for God does not see as humans see – for we look at what is outside, and God sees the heart.

Jesus has looked upon them and found sweetness, like finding grapes in the desert, like their ancestors He has found the humble, and the faithful.

There is humility to be found in the marginalised. In setting Adam and Eve outside the Garden, God exerted His authority over them, so that our wickedness may not endure forever. And similarly, for a time, the Law separated the clean from unclean, so that what is seen is an outward sign of an invisible reality. But the letter of the Law revealed only its outward physical reality, and spiritual eyes were needed to reveal the heart of the Law. When the Pharisees and Sadducees came asking for signs, they did not see that their lives and the Law were already signs to them. Jesus yearns for us every day to open our eyes and to see, for there is so much that is not of God around us; the towers we build to the sky, the structures we participate in and uphold; they entangle us not in His Kingdom but in the world.

Being temporarily unclean meant both men and women would go through a period of isolation or separation from their community, temple and family. In that place of separation, in that time of isolation our hearts become humble, and long to return to relationship, and righteousness before God. Being unclean, being an outcast, was a time for reflection and prayer, a time to reignite a passionate desire for God. The Psalms of David show us this wrestle between the often-difficult experiences of the world and the taking of the mind back to the praise and worship of God, of meditating on His mighty works, of climbing above and going beyond what is seen to seek Him in the stillness of our hearts.

A humble heart is grateful, and absence has the ability to show us what truly matters – relationship with God, with others and with ourselves. Relationship is a place of encounter and transformation, of being unique, known and loved.

In condemning others, the self-righteous in the attitudes and thoughts of their hearts have condemned themselves. Thoughts become actions, and their unrighteousness becomes the righteousness of the powerless, the poor, the voiceless and oppressed. Elder Arsenie Papacioc said, “A poor man when he reaches out to you does not beg but offers you the Kingdom of God.”

But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first. Blessed are the poor and those who realise their own poverty. To be spiritually empty of the natural allows room for the Holy Spirit to come and work within us. St Paul tells us the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit and cannot understand them.

Blessed are we when we do not adorn ourselves outwardly – how truer it would be for us to live with holes in our clothes rather than to believe ourselves renewed by a shopping spree, for it is the inner life we cultivate above all else. How blessed were the desert fathers with visions and miracles when they chose to live outwardly as they saw inwardly. We all fall short of the glory of God, and so many of us forget that the touch of our consumerism reaches across the world, we forget that our neighbour is the child dying of starvation, is the sea turtle caught in a fishing net, is everyone displaced by climate change or war. We forget our interdependence – instead we say I want, I need, or I deserve, when really, we don’t.

Sadly, there are more people waiting outside the doors of shops at 11am on a Sunday than there are people in Church. What does that tell us about the state of relationships between the people of God and the world?

Life and death is in the power of the tongue. What kind of church are we when like the Pharisees and Sadducees we throw stones at others with words and deeds, and even atheists are paid to spread the good news – is that not a joke? Stoning was originally for the unrighteous, yet later the righteous were stoned too because humans became the unrighteous judges of hearts.  The Beatitudes teach us we cannot always see success in God’s Kingdom outwardly, but we can hear it in the mouths of the faithful.

The devil may throw us down, but the angels pick up the pure in heart. The devil offers us the world if we follow him, yet God is our King.

In 1 Samuel people wanted an earthly king to rule over them so like other nations they would thrive becoming rich in the courts of honour. Yet, the prophet Samuel warned that earthly kings take away wealth, but still they insisted – and as time unfolds, sure enough the people rebelled and killed the king’s messenger who came to collect taxes. Then God sent us His only Son, a heavenly King, a King who came to give us all that was His and to serve – yet He too was killed. The problem is within us, the problem is with the intentions of our hearts.

In the world you will have trouble, but take heart Jesus says, I have overcome the world. The Holy Spirit will comfort us if we ask. If the world can give good gifts, how much more will the Holy Spirit give to us in our need? But God gives not as the world gives, His treasure is stored in the heart and made manifest through the love we have for each other just as He loves us. We who are called to be a royal priesthood are His hands in the world – so why when someone needs the light of hope would we give them darkness, when someone needs healing and love we attempt to tear them down and pour out scorn? Why are we depending more and more on ourselves and what we see, in an age when videos are faked to lead us astray or follow the wicked?

We are blessed when we recognise our poverty, when we hold fast to God and do not get swept along with the appearance of the world. We are blessed when we love and have loved, when God collects the tears of our hearts – for they are precious to Him. We are blessed not in self-interest but in our care for others, Jesus does not empower our agenda we submit to His.

It is time to see the writings on the wall, it is time to repent and be humble. We can change with prayer as a constant dialogue, a back and forth of speaking and listening, in movement and in stillness. We must rediscover the spiritual, the unseen light in our souls, we must gaze upon the body of Christ hanging upon the cross – for in His becoming human for our sake He humbled Himself and we find our own vulnerability, our own tenderness, and wholeness within the heart.

Amen.