The Kingdom Attitudes
Pastor Mathew Magera – 2/17/19 – Sermon 330
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from God our Father, from our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus gives us another glimpse of God today in this
sermon on the plain. Even though Jesus has broken the future of sin and death,
suffering and loss, here in our world they still seem to wield enough power to
make us miserable. Sometimes it looks like there is nothing more coming except
the same again and again. Today, Jesus addresses suffering but he addresses a
specific kind. Jesus offers blessings but he offers specific blessings for
specific people in specific circumstances.
A Sunday school teacher was talking to their class
one day about the beatitudes of Jesus. He asked the class of kids, “If I sold
my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church,
would that get me into heaven?” “No!” the kids all answered. The teacher asked
another question, “If I took all the food in my house and gave it to the hungry
people in the world that didn’t have food to eat, would that get me into
heaven?” “No!” the kids answered again. The teacher asked a third time, “If I
went around and told people about Jesus and how he loves them so much that he
died on the cross for their sins, would that get me into heaven?” “No!” the
kids answered yet again. The teacher was quite satisfied they understood his
point, so he went on to the next question. “Well, then who can tell me how I
get into heaven?” One child raised their hand and shouted out, “You’ve gotta be
dead first.”
A blessing is not something you seek to achieve. A
blessing is not something that you earn by doing something. It requires no
commitment. A blessing is something given to you. Common to both Matthew and
Luke, Jesus speaks what we know as the beatitudes, a series of blessings. These
blessings give us opportunity to reflect on life, to take a moment to consider
those who are affected by poverty, hunger and loss. We think of those who are
suffering from persecution and hatred and we remember how Jesus offers special
blessing for these people in these unfortunate circumstances.
There's more to it than this. There's more to it
than just being poor or hungry. There's more to it than mourning or being
hated. There's more to it than persecution. There’s more to it than being
blessed simply because you happen to have fallen on hard times.
Everyone wanted healing in Jesus' day. Everyone
wanted a better life. Everyone wanted a piece of the promise of a better
tomorrow. Many were healed. But not all. Many were changed. But not all. Jesus comes
to us with a message that proves to be challenging to us. Masked behind the
blessings is a story of our natural sinfulness and its lasting effects. Jesus
comes to tell us today that the Kingdom of God is not a path to a life in which
we will be kept free of pain, disease, disappointment, or persecution but that
it is still path of hope.
Everyone who has come to Jesus for healing at this
point probably had the understanding that Jesus was offering exactly what they
were looking for. They were looking for wholeness, quick fixes. But, Jesus'
message likely puts itself at odds with the people and I would go so far to say
that it does the same with us too. Too often we believe a blessing is something
that we can achieve on our own and that understanding causes us some tension
with what Jesus says.
That's where I want to go right now. I want to enter
that point of tension. Where do these blessings reveal to us about our own
desires, and what is Jesus really telling us?
Blessings: Not What We Can
Achieve
One way we think of these blessings is that they
describe the person we need to become in order to enter God's kingdom. If we're
not confident we are an inheritor of God's kingdom, are if we are not baptized
and looking to become a Christian, this might be a way that we look at Jesus'
words. With this mindset, the blessings Jesus offers are much like entrance
requirements.
We read these blessings with goals in mind. Blessed
are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God. We want the kingdom of
God. That's the goal. Blessed are you who hunger now for you will be satisfied.
Being satisfied is good. That's the goal. So we go down this list of blessings,
we observe the goals and we see that the achievers of these goals are poor,
hungry, weeping, etc. It seems only logical at that point that we equate the
goals with being poor, hungry, weeping, etc.
But, if a blessing is not something we can achieve, this
is not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is not showing us entrance requirements.
He's not saying that you need to be this or that to enter the kingdom of God.
He's not saying you need to be hungry now to be satisfied. He's not saying that
you need to weep now in order to laugh later.
For example, when you go to a library, for the most
part, what is one of the rules you follow. You're quiet. You speak in a low
volume or a whisper. It might not be a hard and fast rule anymore to be quiet
in a library but if you want to fit in, you are quiet.
This is one way we might think of Jesus as he talks
about these blessings. In the kingdom, there are certain behaviors we should
exhibit in order to fit in with those around us. It's as if we've walked into
God's library and the rules are to be poor, to be hungry, to weep and to be
hated. If we want to fit in, if we don't want to stand out as different, we
would do our best to follow these rules to fit in. But, Jesus is not saying
these as rules to fit in. Again, this would involve us doing something to
achieve a blessing.
Another way that may have come to understand these
blessings is seeing the conditions as a sign of something better coming. If you
find yourself experiencing any of these, if you find yourself experiencing hunger,
poverty, weeping, etc. God will swoop in and turn things around for you. This
way of looking at the blessings is to be a motivational speech. Put your chin
up, things will get better for you. This is what those television preachers
would likely use as the basis for their messages. Are you suffering in any way?
God will bless you. Are you hungry? Are you sad? Do people not like you? Are
you being persecuted because you're a Christian? If you can answer yes to any
of these, keep your head up because blessing is coming your way. God is not
ignoring your condition and he is preparing something very special for you.
This is what we call the prosperity Gospel, it's a false teaching that says the
more we are suffering, the bigger the blessing is coming your way. This is not
what Jesus is saying.
You might be thinking, though, it certainly looks
like this is what he's saying. I mean, blessed are the poor for theirs is the
kingdom of God? It looks like there is something better. Blessed are you who
hunger now? For you will be satisfied. Doesn't that indicate that something
better is coming? We have to remember that Jesus' promises are focused on his
kingdom, not ours. Yes, something is coming, but not in our earthly kingdom.
Jesus is also not just validating any suffering that
we may be going through. Just because we skipped lunch and feel a little rumble
in our bellies does not mean that we are blessed. Someone might be mourning
their stock portfolio when it doesn't perform as well, but that doesn't qualify
them for the comfort Jesus talks about here. A neighbor down the street may be
persecuted and disliked but maybe that's because they have the type of personality
that could make milk curdle. So, Jesus doesn't just validate any broad type of
suffering.
Blessings: What Jesus Gives
So, if these blessings are not something that we can
attain on our own even by giving everything up, we must allow Jesus to simply
give them. We need to allow him to bless us as citizens of his kingdom. The
things that Jesus chooses to bless here are not just random ideas he has come
up with. He is speaking of attitudes that are rooted within our kingdom
membership. Jesus is saying that if you are a citizen of the kingdom, these
conditions are going to be the natural result of our citizenship.
If we are mournful, then what makes us mourn is the
sin we see around us. If we are persecuted, it's because we won't compromise
our belief in Jesus. Being a member of the kingdom of God means that we will
live out what we believe even if it pits us against the practices of the world.
As a citizen of God's kingdom, who we are will naturally clash with what the
world considers to be the goals of life.
You see, our world is spun around the concept that
we need to have the most, we have to have the best. God's kingdom takes that
and turns it the other way around. God's kingdom is about giving the most, it's
about giving the best. Our world is focused on what we have, it's focused on
self gratification. God's kingdom is focused on what others have, it's focused
on self-sacrifice.
As a result of this, as a member of God's kingdom,
of knowing God's ways, seeking God's ways, the lifestyle we live in this world
is one of self-sacrifice. It's one in which experiences of hunger, poverty,
hatred, and weeping become natural experiences because our world isn’t fair and
in comparison to the riches of God’s kingdom, this world has much that we
lament. The more we commit to God's kingdom in this world we will constantly be
at odds with the world around us, and thus always subject to these conditions
Jesus speaks of in his beatitudes.
These blessings become a source of comfort for us
then. When we suffer, Jesus comes close to us and says, I know this hurts. He
comes to us and he says I know you are suffering. But, he also encourages us in
that this suffering becomes a sign that we are walking with him, that we have
taken up our cross and that we are following him, trusting him.
While this is a source of encouragement, it also
becomes a crossroads. Sometimes the pain is so great, the suffering so deep
that the riches of God’s kingdom clash so heavily with the riches of this
world. Going against the grain hurts. So, then, do we continue going against
that grain, living in God’s kingdom in a self-sacrificial way or do we retreat because
the threats of poverty, hunger, weeping, hatred and persecution are too much
for us? This is the crossroads we often find ourselves at. This is where we
find it difficult to follow Jesus. It's at this point we'd rather seek the
perks of this world, perks we can see, perks we can feel, taste, and touch.
This is why Jesus immediately follows up his blessings with these woes. Woe to
you who are rich. Woe to you who are well fed. Woe to you who laugh and live a
good life now. Why woe? Because this world is only temporary. God's world is
eternal. The good will only last so long. God's kingdom will continue. It's a
promise. Jesus is showing us the temporary vs. the eternal. Jesus is offering
us a kingdom that lasts.
Our benefit, therefore, is not found in this world. Our
benefit comes from when this world passes away. Our reward comes when the clash
is gone, when the fight is over. This is what we live for. This is what we work
toward. This is what Jesus came to die for, to give us the opportunity to
experience.
How could Jesus glorify suffering like this? Well,
to set this straight, Jesus is not saying that being poor is good, that being
hungry is good, that weeping and being hated, being persecuted is good. He's
not saying hey, it's okay to be poor, it's okay to be hungry, it's okay to be
hated by others. No, these are terrible things. It's awful to be poor. It's an
awful feeling to be hungry. To be hated is terrible. There is nothing good
about being poor, about being a nobody, about being hungry, about being sad, about
being sick. No one in their right mind wants to experience any of this. Remember,
not even Jesus wanted his destiny to be the cross.
Here again, lies the point in which we need to trust
Jesus. When we reach that crossroads between following the kingdom of God and
the riches of God or following this world and the riches this world offers us,
I want you to know you can trust him. Going forward is tough, it’s brutal, but
it promises hope. We may not be guaranteed to live the good life now but we are
promised to live the good life to come. There again is that blessing, which reminds
us that we cannot achieve it on our own or by our own doing. We need Jesus to
offer that blessing to us and he does. A blessing is not something you seek to
achieve. It is not something that we earn by doing something. It requires no
commitment. A blessing is something given to you.
This is the glimpse that Jesus gives us today. Even
though Jesus has broken the future of sin and death, suffering and loss, here
they are still in our midst with enough power to make us miserable. Sometimes
it looks like there is nothing more coming except the same again and again. So
every once in a while Jesus needs to remind us of that future he has in store
for us. He came to defeat these powers and restore creation, to make it new
again and to turn the power of grace loose.
He has loosened grace for us today in this reminder,
in this sharing of the beatitudes. So, as you seek to be Jesus in the world, as
you seek to give for your neighbor and live against the grain, remember that as
Jesus has called you to this life, he has also graciously blessed you as well.
To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.