Theirs Is The Kingdom!

A sermon based upon Matthew 5: 1-16

Preached by Charles J. Tomlin,  DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership,

January, 10^st, 2021.

 

Sometimes it seems our whole culture is designed to remind us to that our chief goal in life is to be happy.  Even the great constitution of our United States declares that ‘pursuit of happiness’ is right up there with pursuing life and liberty.  People even write songs about it.  Do you remember one?   

"Here’s a little song I wrote, you might want to sing it note for note:

Don’t worry. Be happy!".

 

Knowing that we all want and need at least some amount of happiness makes the world go around—the business world, that is.  

 

Advertising sells products based on how much happier or more satisfied we might be if we purchase their products—-whether it is a particular brand of shampoo or toothpaste or deodorant ( that probably affects the happiness of the people around us more than us!).   

 

One place of employment, as part of their annual performance review, requires each employee to answer the question, "How would you evaluate your level of personal happiness in working for this company?”

 

Of, course, there’s nothing wrong with being happy or pursuing some happiness in our lives.  Happy can be good, and our constitution guarantees us some form of life and liberty to pursue our own version of happiness, as long as, it doesn’t interfere too much with another person’s version.  But our ‘right’ to pursue happiness doesn’t guarantee our being happy, does it? 

 

Even in America the Beautiful, happiness isn’t everything.  If you are only using your life and liberty to pursue happiness, that could become the wrong thing, or the very last thing you might find.  Think about it this way:   When a couple ends a relationship it’s usually because one of them is no longer happy in the marriage.  Or sometimes, when people drop out of school, quit a job, or leave a church, the reason is expressed in a complaint that they were’t happy.

 

Many people buy into the mistaken idea that the only purpose in life is to be happy.  That too can spell trouble—sometimes even more trouble than not being happy.  The Jerry Springer show, and other talk shows too, are filled with people who are a lot worst than unhappy because they feel the need to complain loudly about not being happy.   Does that make them happy?  No, but it can make the Television producers happier..

 

But what is our hope when we don’t, or can’t find our own version of happiness?   What is our purpose in life when we don’t or can’t have the happiness others appear to have, or we dream of having?   How do we live when life is uncertain, unstable, or unfair?   And regardless of what it says in our much beloved constitution, life can sometimes be unhappy or the happiness we went after, can prove to be an illusion, which could make our unhappiness even worst.

 

I know this is an extreme example, but I’m thinking about that couple who probably murdered and buried those two children in Idaho, and then moved away to Hawaii.  Why did they have to murder her children to pursue their own versions of happiness?  What kind of new life or happiness were they after?  Now that the bodies of those two children have been recovered, and the couple have been arrested and charged, what kind of lasting happiness will they have, if they are convicted, or even if they aren’t?  

 

And while there’s definitely some real evil or sickness here, and none of us would ever go to that extreme, the point still holds true, that false and failed pursuits of happiness can take any of us down roads that are much worse than learning to live with our own unhappy times.  

 

As a more realistic example, many years ago, some close friends of ours had so much to be thankful for—they were a beautiful couple, had great jobs, and also had two beautiful children. 

 

But then, one of them, out of the blue, informed us they had ‘been bad’ and were now getting a divorce.  They got too close to a work colleague and had found a greater sense of happiness outside their marriage, than within their marriage.  So, since being happy was what they wanted, and deserved, they went after their new version of happiness, no matter who got hurt.  I’ve often wondered if the one who ended the marriage is happy with what they got and who they have become.

 

The movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith, tells the true story of Chris Gardner, a salesman, who lost practically everything— a couple of marriages, his home, his job, and almost his relationship with his son, so he could literally ‘go for broke’, becoming penniless and homeless, to hope of , producing and marketing a piece of medical machinery. 

 

The story is warm-hearted, and inspirational, but it still glorifies Gardner as a unrelenting hero of the American dream, willing to sacrifice almost everything for his own version of happiness, which eventually pays off.  In the end, he does end up very successful, despite several failed marriages, and all the pain, he and his family went through, so that he could finally achieve his own version of happiness.    

 

This is a long introduction.  But it’s necessary because in the opening to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenges almost everything our culture assumes to be the way to happiness. 

 

BLESSED ARE...

And for Jesus, God’s blessing has a much greater and more lasting value than happiness.  What makes a person blessed has less to do with our situation or status in life, and much more to do with our relationship with God.  Jesus illustrates this by even turning our normal way of thinking about happiness and blessing upside down.

 

Several years OK, a popular television preacher, named Robert Schuller published messages on this portion of the Gospel of Matthew, and he titled the book The Be-Happy-Attitudes.   Schuller took these as ‘attitudes’ which, when we have them, bring us happiness.   But this still doesn’t capture the distinctive, different and upside-down way Jesus is describing the reality of God’s kingdom.

 

Now, I was never much of a Monty Python movie fan.  It was most often too satirical and disrespectful for me.  But even with that, the film “The Life of Brian’ which is a spoof on the story of Jesus, does have a few interesting teaching moments, that make valid points.   One point was exactly here, when Jesus was preaching to his followers as a large crowd gathered.

 

A few folks in the distance were having a hard time making out what he is saying, and exactly who he is blessing.  They think they hear him say, "Blessed are the cheese makers," and off they go, talking excitedly to one another, trying to figure out the deeper meaning of what he said.

 

Now, of course, we know that Jesus didn’t say, "Blessed are the cheese makers," but the valid point is that what Jesus was saying must have sounded just as strange to his followers, as it still does to most of us today.   

 

Think about it,  it is really strange, and goes against the grain of most everything when know about how life works to says:  “Blessed are the poor..., Blessed are those who mourn,... Blessed are those who are meek...,  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...  

 

You must be careful not to wish these kinds of situations on anybody.   Who wants to the blessing of poverty?  Who wants to be blessed with grief and loss?  Who wants to settle for being meek and lowly?  And who wants to live in such a difficult, immoral situation that are desperate for some sign of goodness?   No, these are not the kind of ‘attitudes’ anyone would desire.  That’s not the kind of ‘upside down’ reality Jesus means.  Jesus isn’t teaching the ‘attitudes’ the prescriptions for living.

 

So, what does Jesus’ upside down language and blessing mean? 

 

Well, for one thing, the text plainly says that Jesus wasn’t even speaking to the world, or the masses.   Matthew tells us that ‘When Jesus saw the crowds he went up on the mountain; .and that ..his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak and taught them…" (5:1).  Jesus wasn’t sharing the secrets of happiness with the world, just like he wasn’t giving secret lessons to his own disciples on how to find God’s blessings in life. 

 

No, what’s going on with these ‘beatitudes’ is ‘kingdom talk for kingdom people.’   Jesus isn’t prescribing how to live, but he sharing the blessing of God’s presence, who has come to be them, and to bless them, because they are already being faithful to God’s truth and purpose. 

 

And when people are down in Spirit, because of how things are; Jesus says ‘take heart’, the kingdom is yours.   When you do have to mourn your losses, because you love and care, take heart,  God’s presence and promise will comfort you.   When you are being humble and meek in how you live your life, God will give a blessing that others have no clue about.

 

Sure, some of this kingdom talk, sounds bizarre and out of step with the times, and even just plain upside-down; but that’s exactly what Jesus meant to say.   You can’t earn God’s blessings.  You can’t make this kind of contentment and happiness for your life.  No, the spiritual truths Jesus teaches here, are things that only God can do for us, and what God does in us, when we are living in a consistent, living relationship with him. 

 

The kind of ‘other-worldly’ ‘counter-culture’, upside down talk Jesus is giving here, is very much the same kind of reality, the apostle Paul talked about with the Corinthians. "The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing," says Paul, "but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18).   In these beatitudes Jesus expressing God’s blessing to those who ‘live’ the cross and bear the cross, even before there was a cross.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is flipping the same kind of worldly priorities Paul is talking about.  

 

In God’s kingdom, where love is the supreme value, most everything is the opposite from what we expect.  For if God worked the same way the uncaring secular world works, Jesus would have said, "Blessed are the rich in spirit… Blessed are those who rejoice… Blessed are the proud…

 

" But Jesus says the exact opposite.   Why did he say the opposite of all this?

 

FOR THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM…

The reason Jesus talks this way, and sees life this way, and invites his disciples to see life in this kingdom way, and us too, for that matter; is because living a life of faith is the only way to be redeemed in and saved from the brokenness and wrong-mindedness so prevalent in a fallen world.  

 

When we live the cross, and when we trust God so we don’t have to trust only in our own wisdom or power;  when we hunger and thirst and dream of a day when God’s justice will prevail for all people everywhere;  and when others see the very different way we are living God’s mercy in the world, they will see the peace and purity in us, and they might come to desire and believe in God’s mercy and peace too.  

 

 It is no accident, that right after these ‘blessing’ his disciples for who they are and how they live, that Jesus challenges them to keep being both ‘salt’ and ‘light’ as a witness to God’s very different way of life that still challenges a flavorless and dark world.

 

Johnny Dean,  an African American pastor, tells how a young couple joined the church when they moved to a new town.  They weren’t particularly religious people, but to join a caring community seemed like a good way to get to know their new neighbors and become accepted.

 

They went to church most Sundays.  The husband enjoyed talking with the other men before and after church, and the wife loved to sing the hymns.

 

 The preaching was tolerable.  When their children were born, the couple brought them before the church to be dedicated.  The pastor talked about raising their child in a Christian environment.  It was a very happy time in their lives.

 

But one evening the husband was late getting home from a business trip. The wife became was worried.  She knew he would call if anything was wrong.  When the phone rang at 11:30 that night she expected to hear her husband’s voice, explaining why he was so late.  She wasn’t prepared for to have a highway patrolman tell her that her husband had been involved in a terrible accident.  They had done everything they could for him, but Jack had died before the ambulance could get him to the hospital.

 

Numb, in shock, the wife called her new pastor.  Within hours, people were in and out of her home, offering consoling words, bringing food, taking care of the children, answering the phone.

 

In the days and weeks to come, the wife, now a wisdow, only vaguely remembered the funeral.  She was on autopilot as she tried to feed and dress her children.  After some months had passed, she found herself facing an exhausting, never-ending schedule of things to do and places to be.

 

One Sunday, the wife asked the pastor if she could address the congregation for just a moment.  She said that she deeply appreciated all that the church had done for her and her children, but she still needed their help.  She said, "When my husband and I brought our children here to be dedicated, you promised to help raise them in the faith.  I need your help. I just can’t do it alone."

 

After an agonizing moment of silence, a couple stood and offered to keep the children one day a week.  One man, who was an accountant, offered to help her organize her finances.  Another couple offered to fix dinner for the family once a week.  The congregation rallied around the young widow and her children.  They did that because that’s what God’s people do.  That’s not what a "looking-out-for-number-one, I-don’t-want-to-get-involved" society would do, no that who God’s people are, because God is there for us.

 

What you really learn in this upside-down kingdom of God, is that none of us can easily face the challenges of life alone.  In order to live like this, and to keep an attitude of faith like this, we must be part of a community, if not a kingdom; which lives and invites peace, mercy and compassion as the rule, not the exception.  We challenge the world by how we live, because this is who we have become, because God is here, where God’s people live out the values of this other worldly kingdom.  As Frederick Buechner, wrote, "Compassion is like living inside someone else’s skin.  It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too."

 

Can you imagine what happens when a church lives the values of God’s kingdom and God is revealed in our midst?   

 

It’s a place where the first shall be last and the last shall be first but nobody really minds who goes first and who goes last, because they know there is more than enough of every-thing to go around?  That’s exactly the kind of place where the mourners are comforted and the losers win?  

 

What would it be like to live in a community like that? Well, honestly,

 I think it just might feel like the kingdom of God.  And that kingdom wouldn’t just be God’s kingdom, but it would also be ‘theirs’.    AMEN