“Blessed are the poor in spirit…”
“Blessed are those who mourn…”

Scriptures: Psalm 23, Matthew 5:3-4

 

Back to the beginning. During these five weeks of Lent I’ve been skipping around in terms of preaching on the Beatitudes in the order that they appear in Matthew. But there is a method to this madness. We are ending up this week and next with perhaps the three most familiar of these “blessings” – and it’s somewhat surprising that Jesus would start out with these two. Why would he want to emphasize those who are “poor in spirit” and “those who mourn”? Not very pleasant activities. But this is, after all, Lent – a time when our meditations, our journeys, do lead us to focus on the more serious side of what our faith is calling us to do and be. Someone said at coffee hour last week that he was pleased we were being given an understanding of the Beatitudes, since he had heard that they were one of the most difficult passages of scripture to preach on. Well, I haven’t found it all that difficult – but they certainly are challenging. For as we have said, we are using these nine Beatitudes to shine a spotlight on the basics of our faith, and each one that we have examined so far has done pretty much that. So, let us continue.

“…poor in spirit…” Such a strange locution. First of all, let’s correct one possible misunderstanding: Jesus was not here referring to material or financial poverty. As Baptist minister Phil Newton has so ably put it: “This has been the error of many groups through the centuries….. It is the idea that if you are poor, then you are in a special relationship to God as though poverty equates to spirituality. And so some have given away their treasures and taken a vow of poverty in order to obtain the favor of God. While there is certainly commendation in not being strapped by the things of the world, such a vow cannot merit God’s approval; that comes only through Jesus Christ’s merits.”

Even though Jesus said in another part of Matthew “you always have the poor with you” (26:11), that wasn’t meant as a positive but rather as a challenge. Wars against poverty, efforts to decrease the wide chasm between the “haves” and “have-nots”, even small-scale activities like our food pantry and bread run are completely consonant with the Christian imperative to reduce the level of poverty in the world. Pure and simple: material poverty is not a good thing. Jesus would never have called blessed a state where people live in slums and have not enough to eat, and where health rots because conditions are all against it. That kind of poverty the Christian gospel aims to remove. (In point of fact, this statement about “you always have the poor with you” is in the context of Jesus trying to get the disciples to realize that a faithful act – such as a woman washing his feet with an expensive oil, because of her love for him – has more significance than simply selling the oil in order to give the proceeds to the poor. But that’s a whole other sermon.)

At its core, being “poor in spirit” means recognizing our complete dependence on God. The New Bible Companion puts it this way: “Being ‘poor in spirit’ means admitting that no one can have spiritual wealth in and of themselves — that all are dependent on God alone for spiritual salvation and daily grace. Such a person aligns with God’s will, even against the desires of [their] own.” Now, this is a tricky thing. It’s difficult on at least two levels: we don’t really want to give up control over our own lives, and we sometimes (maybe often?) have difficulty knowing what is God’s will for our lives. Bible commentaries, especially more conservative ones, use words like: “the poor in spirit recognize their spiritual destitution and depend on God;” “the poor in spirit live in dependence on God alone;” “the poor in spirit confess their unworthiness before God and utter dependence on God.”

Part of the problem with this kind of language is its tendency to lead us to poor self-esteem. While churches are not necessarily supposed to be temples for psychological well-being, with couches and therapists and the latest psychobabble readily available, I, for one, would find it hard to practice a truly wholistic Christian life if my self-esteem is dragging on the ground. Recognizing your complete dependence on God – being “poor in spirit” – should enhance your feelings of self-worth, for you are indeed a child of God, and your value to God is of inestimable worth.

The world declares “blessed are the rich”. As we said last week, the ones with the most toys would appear in the world’s eyes to be especially favored. Not so, declares Jesus, and he does so right here at the start of the Sermon on the Mount. And just so he knows that his listeners will get his over-arching point, he also makes the key promise right at the start: “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” – a promise that he comes back to at the end of these Beatitudes, as we talked about last week. To completely depend on God is the beginning point; all of the other blessings and promises of these Beatitudes flow out of that.

What does it mean in 21^st century terms to be “poor in spirit”? Let’s review for a moment. We have said that those who are merciful are those who show compassion and real forgiveness; those who are pure in heart are those who are living authentic lives; those who are meek are those who are exhibiting strength brought under control; those who are righteous are those who are helping to bring others into right relationships; those who are persecuted are those who are participating in the scandal of the cross. All of these characteristics can be found in someone who reveals through their whole life-style a sense of true humility.

Humility, too, is a tricky thing, just like learning to be dependent on God. You can’t really strive to be humble – that’s a contradiction in terms. But you can come to recognize its affects. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is an object lesson in a gradual dawning of what true humility can mean – and just look at the grace-filled response of the loving father! John Newton’s familiar hymn, which we love to sing – “Amazing Grace” – came out of Newton’s own life experiences and led him to lines like “I once was lost but now am found”; “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved”; and, of course, the promise that comes from realizing that this “wretch” has been saved:

The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.

To be “poor in spirit” is to know the promise of the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Here’s something we know a lot about, don’t we? Especially as we grow older, the list of those for whom we must mourn grows longer and longer. The line that I said in the play “Prelude To a Kiss”, offers a good summing up: “…and your parents die and your friends, again, if you’re lucky and it’s not you first. And if you live long enough, you finally get to watch everybody die: all your loved ones, your wife, your husband and your kids, maybe, and you’re totally alone.” While the character appears to be an old man, he is actually saying this with the soul of a young, newly married woman – which lends these lines a particular poignancy. Mourning is something that happens to all of us at all ages. And it is a great relief to hear Jesus say that we will be comforted.

But is there more to it than this? This would seem to be the most straight-forward of all of these Beatitudes, but we need to be careful here because remember that in all of these Jesus is talking about spiritual conditions. What is it that we mourn over – that Jesus wants us to mourn over? Simply put: that we are sinners. A.W. Pink says, “Thousands acknowledge that they are sinners, who have never mourned over the fact. Take the woman of Luke 7 who washed the Savior’s feet with her tears: have you ever shed any [tears] over your sins?” The Prodigal Son, again, offers an illustration of someone who has come to the point of weeping over his condition – not just his physical condition but what he feels he has done to himself and his family relationships. And once again the loving father comforts him with the unexpectedness of his response.

We modern 21^st century Christians don’t like to talk very much about sin, now do we? It seems to belong to another time, another place – a quaint concept. Moreover, dwelling on our sinfulness can lead to those other twin torments of contemporary life – despair and guilt – which, along with low self-esteem, serve to hogtie our development as whole, free Christians. John MacArthur, once again, has an intriguing take on how to deal with this. He says:

“Anybody who’s ever been through those kinds of things knows what it is to yearn for comfort in a life of pain or a life of sorrow or disappointment or bitterness. We all have longed to run away, to look away, to flee from sorrow to the place of comfort that is always so hidden and so elusive and the deeper the sorrow and the deeper the disappointment and the deeper the pain the more elusive that place of comfort is. And I guess that’s the paradox of this beatitude, because here it says, ‘Happy are the sad.’ We never [believed] that was true. Comforted are the mourners. That’s contrary to everything we know.”

Once more: a paradox. “Happy are the sad” – which means those who have learned how to mourn who they are and then come out of it on the other side – the side of a God who says, “I don’t care who you are. I know who you are. You are my beloved child.” This is what it means to be comforted – not to have no tears, for love does make us cry. No, it means no more wallowing in grief or despair or self-pity or low self-esteem or any of those things that would keep us from knowing down to the depths of our souls the love that Jesus has for us. After all, Jesus didn’t say “Blessed are those that moan”; nor does Jesus say “Blessed are grim, cheerless Christians.” Once we know ourselves to be comforted we are done with complaining and our lives are filled with joyful, cheerful living.

Despite its renown for being the shortest verse in the Bible (and thus much loved by those told to memorize Bible verses), “Jesus wept” (John 11:35) is extremely important here for showing Jesus’ compassion and therefore for teaching us that we, too, can weep – for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for all manner of ills in the world. In our submission to the will of God we can weep knowing that we will be comforted. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley (the valley of the shadow of death), I fear no evil” for God does comfort me. All fear and anxiety have fled. “Surely, surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of [our] li[ves], and [we] shall dwell in the house of the Lord [our] whole life long.”

Next week we’ll conclude our series on the Beatitudes and our Lenten journeys with quite possible the most important Beatitude of them all: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

I hope that your Lenten journeys continue to go well.

 

Amen

 

Dave Pomeroy

First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
April 3, 2011