meek

Gospel for January 29, 2023

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 5:1-12
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This passage introduces the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters 5-7), one of the major sections in Matthew’s Gospel devoted to the teaching ministry of Jesus.  Similar material is found also in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 6:17-49) in a more abbreviated form.  Obviously Luke is reporting on a different occasion when Jesus was teaching similar truths.  In Luke’s Gospel, the setting is on a level place rather than on a hillside.

This section of the Sermon on the Mount is commonly called The Beatitudes, from the Latin word that describes “supreme blessedness.”  The Greek word repeatedly used in this passage to describe each characteristic is makarios — which can also be described as “happy” or “blissful.”

At first glance, these are strange, paradoxical statements that Jesus makes.  How can the poor in spirit be happy, or blessed?  Or, to fast forward to the last verse in our passage, how can those who are persecuted possibly be blessed?

One possibility is that these are “covered promises” — that is, they are not yet fulfilled, but they will be in the Kingdom of Heaven.  These are eschatological promises.  And yet, Jesus is also challenging his listeners to live by these principles in the here and now.

The challenge for the expositor of these Beatitudes is that each of the nine blesseds deserves at least a chapter in a book.  I will instead make a few general observations.

What I notice about these Beatitudes is that some are passive, and some are active.  By that I mean that in some cases they describe people who are “acted upon,” and in other cases they describe people who act.

The passive descriptions are these — the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the gentle (the meek in some translations), the persecuted.  These are the people who know what it is to experience feelings of insufficiency, grief, to feel powerless, to be victimized by the powerful.  In each case, they will receive the antidote of their condition:

  • Those who know their own insufficiency and poverty of spirit will have the Kingdom of Heaven — overabundant sufficiency!
  • Those who mourn will be comforted.
  • The gentle, or meek, who would never dream of being self-assertive and grabbing whatever they want shall inherit the earth. 
  • The persecuted who suffer for the sake of righteousness, and who are victimized by the powerful, find themselves in good company with the prophets who have preceded them — and they will also receive the Kingdom of Heaven.

In each of these cases there is a reversal — what is lacking or insufficient is compensated and fulfilled.

Then there are the “active” qualities that Jesus identifies — those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers:

  • To hunger and thirst for something suggests a keen desire for it, above all else — and to desire righteousness is to desire only the holiness and goodness that comes from God.
  • The merciful are those who have compassion on the poor and weak, or perhaps those who possess power and use their power for mercy instead of judgment.
  • The pure in heart might seem like a passive quality, but Jesus describes them as those who will see God — theirs is the ultimate beatific vision of God, which comes only to those whose lives have been truly purified.
  • The peacemakers are those who seek to bring reconciliation and harmony and unity in the midst of conflict — they are children of God because they are most like God in their reconciling, peacemaking character.

These blessings reveal the “proactive” aspect of those who seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

APPLY:  

The passive qualities and the active qualities that I’ve tried to identify in the Beatitudes seem to me to be interwoven into a kind of ascending ladder. For example, those who are poor in spirit and mourning and who hunger and thirst for righteousness are keenly aware of their need for God and his Kingdom, comfort, and righteousness.

When those needs begin to be fulfilled by God, then there is a kind of ascent up that ladder — and those who have been filled in turn begin to fill others.  They are merciful, they are peacemakers.  And their hunger and thirst for righteousness leads to the purification that is a work of God.  They receive God’s mercy, they see God, they become children of God. 

The paradox is that as the blessed grow closer and closer to God, oftentimes they experience more and more hostility from a sinful, confused world.  And so it seems strange that the height of these Beatitudes is persecution!

However, even here the ultimate outcome is blessing — the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus makes it clear that those who suffer persecution are in good company:

that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

He also makes clear that this is to be expected when we truly identify with Christ.  Jesus tells his disciples in the Gospel of John:

‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also (John 15:20).

These Beatitudes are a powerful comfort to us as “covered promises.”  We are reminded that whatever our circumstances, God is greater than anything we might encounter.

RESPOND: 

I remember coming across a book many years ago by a then-popular TV preacher.  It was entitled The Be-happy Attitudes.

I will admit that I never read the book.  I had my own prejudices about the author and his perspective.

The truth is, though, he was on to something.  Jesus knows what is required for our “happiness,” or our “supreme blessedness.”  The first element necessary is to recognize our need for God — our poverty of spirit, our mourning, our starvation for righteousness.  We experience blessedness when we begin to realize that God alone can fulfill us.

And we also begin to find “happiness” when we in turn become agents of God’s “beatitude” — when we find our hunger for righteousness satisfied by God, and our hearts are purified — it is then that we begin to see God.  We become agents of mercy and peacemakers.  And we are able to endure whatever resistance and hostility that we experience in this world because we can see the final outcome — the Kingdom of Heaven.

Only a Christian, living in the light of such Beatitudes can really be truly happy!

Lord, what a joy it is to know that you have created me, and you know what is required to make me happy.  And that only in you do I find true happiness!  Make me hungry for you, I pray.  Amen. 

PHOTO:
“Stairs of MEEI church_1098” by James Emery is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for November 1, 2020 All Saints Day

3193361974_673e0da370_zSTART WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 5:1-12
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This passage introduces the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters 5-7), one of the major sections in Matthew’s Gospel devoted to the teaching ministry of Jesus.  Similar material is found also in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 6:17-49) in a more abbreviated form.  Obviously Luke is reporting on a different occasion when Jesus was teaching similar truths.  In Luke’s Gospel, the setting is on a level place rather than on a hillside.

This section of the Sermon on the Mount is commonly called The Beatitudes, from the Latin word that describes “supreme blessedness.”  The Greek word repeatedly used in this passage to describe each characteristic is makarios — which can also be described as “happy” or “blissful.”

At first glance, these are strange, paradoxical statements that Jesus makes.  How can the poor in spirit be happy, or blessed?  Or, to fast forward to the last verse in our passage, how can those who are persecuted possibly be blessed?

One possibility is that these are “covered promises” — that is, they are not yet fulfilled, but they will be in the Kingdom of Heaven.  These are eschatological promises.  And yet, Jesus is also challenging his listeners to live by these principles in the here and now.

The challenge for the expositor of these Beatitudes is that each of the nine blesseds  deserves at least a chapter in a book.  I will instead make a few general observations.

What I notice about these Beatitudes is that some are passive, and some are active.  By that I mean that in some cases they describe people who are “acted upon,” and in other cases they describe people who act.

The passive descriptions are these — the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the gentle (the meek in some translations), the persecuted.  These are the people who know what it is to experience feelings of insufficiency, grief, to feel powerless, to be victimized by the powerful.  In each case, they will receive the antidote of their condition:

  • Those who know their own insufficiency and poverty of spirit will have the Kingdom of Heaven — overabundant sufficiency!
  • Those who mourn will be comforted.
  • The gentle, or meek, who would never dream of being self-assertive and grabbing whatever they want shall inherit the earth. 
  • The persecuted who suffer for the sake of righteousness, and who are victimized by the powerful, find themselves in good company with the prophets who have preceded them — and they will also receive the Kingdom of Heaven.

In each of these cases there is a reversal — what is lacking or insufficient is compensated and fulfilled.

Then there are the “active” qualities that Jesus identifies — those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers:

  • To hunger and thirst for something suggests a keen desire for it, above all else — and to desire righteousness is to desire only the holiness and goodness that comes from God.
  • The merciful are those who have compassion on the poor and weak, or perhaps those who possess power and use their power for mercy instead of judgment.
  • The pure in heart might seem like a passive quality, but Jesus describes them as those who will see God — theirs is the ultimate beatific vision of God, which comes only to those whose lives have been truly purified.
  • The peacemakers are those who seek to bring reconciliation and harmony and unity in the midst of conflict — they are children of God because they are most like God in their reconciling, peacemaking character.

These blessings reveal the “proactive” aspect of those who seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

APPLY:  

The passive qualities and the active qualities that I’ve tried to identify in the Beatitudes seem to me to be interwoven into a kind of ascending ladder. For example, those who are  poor in spirit and mourning and who hunger and thirst for righteousness are keenly aware of their need for God and his Kingdom, comfort, and righteousness.

When those needs begin to be fulfilled by God, then there is a kind of ascent up that ladder — and those who have been filled in turn begin to fill others.  They are merciful, they are peacemakers.  And their hunger and thirst for righteousness leads to the purification that is a work of God.  They receive God’s mercy, they see God, they become children of God. 

The paradox is that as the blessed grow closer and closer to God, oftentimes they experience more and more hostility from a sinful, confused world.  And so it seems strange that the height of these Beatitudes is persecution!

However, even here the ultimate outcome is blessing — the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus makes it clear that those who suffer persecution are in good company:

that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

He also makes clear that this is to be expected when we truly identify with Christ.  Jesus tells his disciples in the Gospel of John:

‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also (John 15:20).

These Beatitudes are a powerful comfort to us as “covered promises.”  We are reminded that whatever our circumstances, God is greater than anything we might encounter.

RESPOND: 

I remember coming across a book many years ago by a then-popular TV preacher.  It was entitled The Be-happy Attitudes.

I will admit that I never read the book.  I had my own prejudices about the author and his perspective.

The truth is, though, he was on to something.  Jesus knows what is required for our “happiness,” or our “supreme blessedness.”  The first element necessary is to recognize our need for God — our poverty of spirit, our mourning, our starvation for righteousness.  We experience blessedness when we begin to realize that God alone can fulfill us.

And we also begin to find “happiness” when we in turn become agents of God’s “beatitude” — when we find our hunger for righteousness satisfied by God, and our hearts are purified — it is then that we begin to see God.  We become agents of mercy and peacemakers.  And we are able to endure whatever resistance and hostility that we experience in this world because we can see the final outcome — the Kingdom of Heaven.

Only a Christian, living in the light of such Beatitudes can really be truly happy!

Lord, what a joy it is to know that you have created me, and you know what is required to make me happy.  And that only in you do I find true happiness!  Make me hungry for you, I pray.  Amen. 

PHOTO:
“The Beatitudes” by J. Stephen Conn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for February 2, 2020

3193361974_673e0da370_zSTART WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 5:1-12
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This passage introduces the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters 5-7), one of the major sections in Matthew’s Gospel devoted to the teaching ministry of Jesus.  Similar material is found also in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 6:17-49) in a more abbreviated form.  Obviously Luke is reporting on a different occasion when Jesus was teaching similar truths.  In Luke’s Gospel, the setting is on a level place rather than on a hillside.

This section of the Sermon on the Mount is commonly called The Beatitudes, from the Latin word that describes “supreme blessedness.”  The Greek word repeatedly used in this passage to describe each characteristic is makarios — which can also be described as “happy” or “blissful.”

At first glance, these are strange, paradoxical statements that Jesus makes.  How can the poor in spirit be happy, or blessed?  Or, to fast forward to the last verse in our passage, how can those who are persecuted possibly be blessed?

One possibility is that these are “covered promises” — that is, they are not yet fulfilled, but they will be in the Kingdom of Heaven.  These are eschatological promises.  And yet, Jesus is also challenging his listeners to live by these principles in the here and now.

The challenge for the expositor of these Beatitudes is that each of the nine blesseds  deserves at least a chapter in a book.  I will instead make a few general observations.

What I notice about these Beatitudes is that some are passive, and some are active.  By that I mean that in some cases they describe people who are “acted upon,” and in other cases they describe people who act.

The passive descriptions are these — the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the gentle (the meek in some translations), the persecuted.  These are the people who know what it is to experience feelings of insufficiency, grief, to feel powerless, to be victimized by the powerful.  In each case, they will receive the antidote of their condition:

  • Those who know their own insufficiency and poverty of spirit will have the Kingdom of Heaven — overabundant sufficiency!
  • Those who mourn will be comforted.
  • The gentle, or meek, who would never dream of being self-assertive and grabbing whatever they want shall inherit the earth. 
  • The persecuted who suffer for the sake of righteousness, and who are victimized by the powerful, find themselves in good company with the prophets who have preceded them — and they will also receive the Kingdom of Heaven.

In each of these cases there is a reversal — what is lacking or insufficient is compensated and fulfilled.

Then there are the “active” qualities that Jesus identifies — those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers:

  • To hunger and thirst for something suggests a keen desire for it, above all else — and to desire righteousness is to desire only the holiness and goodness that comes from God.
  • The merciful are those who have compassion on the poor and weak, or perhaps those who possess power and use their power for mercy instead of judgment.
  • The pure in heart might seem like a passive quality, but Jesus describes them as those who will see God — theirs is the ultimate beatific vision of God, which comes only to those whose lives have been truly purified.
  • The peacemakers are those who seek to bring reconciliation and harmony and unity in the midst of conflict — they are children of God because they are most like God in their reconciling, peacemaking character.

These blessings reveal the “proactive” aspect of those who seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

APPLY:  

The passive qualities and the active qualities that I’ve tried to identify in the Beatitudes seem to me to be interwoven into a kind of ascending ladder. For example, those who are  poor in spirit and mourning and who hunger and thirst for righteousness are keenly aware of their need for God and his Kingdom, comfort, and righteousness.

When those needs begin to be fulfilled by God, then there is a kind of ascent up that ladder — and those who have been filled in turn begin to fill others.  They are merciful, they are peacemakers.  And their hunger and thirst for righteousness leads to the purification that is a work of God.  They receive God’s mercy, they see God, they become children of God. 

The paradox is that as the blessed grow closer and closer to God, oftentimes they experience more and more hostility from a sinful, confused world.  And so it seems strange that the height of these Beatitudes is persecution!

However, even here the ultimate outcome is blessing — the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus makes it clear that those who suffer persecution are in good company:

that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

He also makes clear that this is to be expected when we truly identify with Christ.  Jesus tells his disciples in the Gospel of John:

‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also (John 15:20).

These Beatitudes are a powerful comfort to us as “covered promises.”  We are reminded that whatever our circumstances, God is greater than anything we might encounter.

RESPOND: 

I remember coming across a book many years ago by a then-popular TV preacher.  It was entitled The Be-happy Attitudes.

I will admit that I never read the book.  I had my own prejudices about the author and his perspective.

The truth is, though, he was on to something.  Jesus knows what is required for our “happiness,” or our “supreme blessedness.”  The first element necessary is to recognize our need for God — our poverty of spirit, our mourning, our starvation for righteousness.  We experience blessedness when we begin to realize that God alone can fulfill us.

And we also begin to find “happiness” when we in turn become agents of God’s “beatitude” — when we find our hunger for righteousness satisfied by God, and our hearts are purified — it is then that we begin to see God.  We become agents of mercy and peacemakers.  And we are able to endure whatever resistance and hostility that we experience in this world because we can see the final outcome — the Kingdom of Heaven.

Only a Christian, living in the light of such Beatitudes can really be truly happy!

Lord, what a joy it is to know that you have created me, and you know what is required to make me happy.  And that only in you do I find true happiness!  Make me hungry for you, I pray.  Amen. 

PHOTO:
“The Beatitudes” by J. Stephen Conn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for January 29, 2017

3193361974_673e0da370_zSTART WITH SCRIPTURE:

Matthew 5:1-12

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This passage introduces the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters 5-7), one of the major sections in Matthew’s Gospel devoted to the teaching ministry of Jesus.  Similar material is found also in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 6:17-49) in a more abbreviated form.  Obviously Luke is reporting on a different occasion when Jesus was teaching similar truths.  In Luke’s Gospel, the setting is on a level place rather than on a hillside.

This section of the Sermon on the Mount is commonly called The Beatitudes, from the Latin word that describes “supreme blessedness.”  The Greek word repeatedly used in this passage to describe each characteristic is makarios — which can also be described as “happy” or “blissful.”

At first glance, these are strange, paradoxical statements that Jesus makes.  How can the poor in spirit be happy, or blessed?  Or, to fast forward to the last verse in our passage, how can those who are persecuted possibly be blessed?

One possibility is that these are “covered promises” — that is, they are not yet fulfilled, but they will be in the Kingdom of Heaven.  These are eschatological promises.  And yet, Jesus is also challenging his listeners to live by these principles in the here and now.

The challenge for the expositor of these Beatitudes is that each of the nine blesseds  deserves at least a chapter in a book.  I will instead make a few general observations.

What I notice about these Beatitudes is that some are passive, and some are active.  By that I mean that in some cases they describe people who are “acted upon,” and in other cases they describe people who act.

The passive descriptions are these — the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the gentle (the meek in some translations), the persecuted.  These are the people who know what it is to experience feelings of insufficiency, grief, to feel powerless, to be victimized by the powerful.  In each case, they will receive the antidote of their condition:

  • Those who know their own insufficiency and poverty of spirit will have the Kingdom of Heaven — overabundant sufficiency!
  • Those who mourn will be comforted.
  • The gentle, or meek, who would never dream of being self-assertive and grabbing whatever they want shall inherit the earth. 
  • The persecuted who suffer for the sake of righteousness, and who are victimized by the powerful, find themselves in good company with the prophets who have preceded them — and they will also receive the Kingdom of Heaven.

In each of these cases there is a reversal — what is lacking or insufficient is compensated and fulfilled.

Then there are the “active” qualities that Jesus identifies — those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers:

  • To hunger and thirst for something suggests a keen desire for it, above all else — and to desire righteousness is to desire only the holiness and goodness that comes from God.
  • The merciful are those who have compassion on the poor and weak, or perhaps those who possess power and use their power for mercy instead of judgment.
  • The pure in heart might seem a passive quality, but Jesus describes them as those who will see God — theirs is the ultimate beatific vision of God, which comes only to those whose lives have been truly purified.
  • The peacemakers are those who seek to bring reconciliation and harmony and unity in the midst of conflict — they are children of God because they are most like God in their reconciling, peacemaking character.

These blessings reveal the “proactive” aspect of those who seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

APPLY:  

The passive qualities and the active qualities that I’ve tried to identify in the Beatitudes seem to me  to be interwoven into a kind of ascending ladder. For example, those who are  poor in spirit and mourning and who hunger and thirst for righteousness are keenly aware of their need for God and his Kingdom, comfort, and righteousness.

When those needs begin to be fulfilled by God, then there is a kind of ascent up that ladder — and those who have been filled in turn begin to fill others.  They are merciful, they are peacemakers.  And their hunger and thirst for righteousness leads to the purification that is a work of God.  They receive God’s mercy, they see God, they become children of God. 

The paradox is that as the blessed grow closer and closer to God, oftentimes they experience more and more hostility from a sinful, confused world.  And so it seems strange that the height of these Beatitudes is persecution!

However, even here the ultimate outcome is blessing — the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus makes it clear that those who suffer persecution are in good company:

that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

He also makes clear that this is to be expected when we truly identify with Christ.  Jesus tells his disciples in the Gospel of John:

 ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also (John 15:20).

These Beatitudes are a powerful comfort to us as “covered promises.”  We are reminded that whatever our circumstances, God is greater than anything we might encounter.

RESPOND: 

I remember coming across a book many years ago by a then-popular TV preacher.  It was entitled The Be-happy Attitudes.

I will admit that I never read the book.  I had my own prejudices about the author and his perspective.

The truth is, though, he was on to something.  Jesus knows what is required for our “happiness,” or our “supreme blessedness.”  The first element necessary is to recognize our need for God — our poverty of spirit, our mourning, our starvation for righteousness.  We experience blessedness when we begin to realize that God alone can fulfill us.

And we also begin to find “happiness” when we in turn become agents of God’s “beatitude” — when we find our hunger for righteousness satisfied by God, and our hearts are purified — it is then that we begin to see God.  We become agents of mercy and peacemakers.  And we are able to endure whatever resistance and hostility that we experience in this world because we can see the final outcome — the Kingdom of Heaven.

Only a Christian, living in the light of such Beatitudes can really be truly happy!

Lord, what a joy it is to know that you have created me, and you know what is required to make me happy.  And that only in you do I find true happiness!  Make me hungry for you, I pray.  Amen. 

PHOTO:
“The Beatitudes” by J. Stephen Conn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.