“Our Foundation”

Matthew 5:1-12

We moved to Fort Bragg, CA, in 2003 and spent a couple of years in an aging manse, one of the first homes built in the town in the 1850s, for a lumber mill boss. The foundation was anything but solid, and the flooring had more than a few slopes. One of my favorite activities in that old home was to take a marble, place it in one corner of the dining room, and let go. The marble would then move on its own in a zigzag pattern until it reached the other side of the dining room.

We were thrilled to find a new home development underway in Fort Bragg. It was a small development of only six new homes, and thanks to a split equity agreement with the church, we were blessed to be able to afford the plot, choose the house layout, and watch it being built from the foundation to the roof. Once the foundation was poured, just before it began to dry, we, as a family, were able to put our hands into it where the front porch would be, and even wrote our last name next to the hands. Everything began smoothly enough, and it was exciting as construction began on the foundation. The kids got to see where their rooms were, etc.

Once the home was completed, we moved in excitedly. After a couple of months in our new place, however, we began to notice that the flooring was becoming a bit loose in sections. We then heard the same thing from some of our neighbors. We contacted the developers and asked what was going on. Long story short, the builders were new and inexperienced, and they did not wait long enough for the concrete foundations to cure before building on them.

Once the foundation cured, which took a few months, it was time to reinstall the flooring. Just before that, we developed an idea for blessing the home. We asked members of our congregation to write their favorite Bible passages on the concrete to remind us that our foundation was built on God’s Word and blessings. There were at least a couple of people who wrote one or more of the Beatitudes from Jesus’ first sermon on that foundation. As it was covered with flooring, it did not stop me from remembering that our foundation was blessed and sturdy, with many of Christ’s teachings below our feet.

That story brings us to consider the foundations for our church sanctuary here this morning. As we consider improvements to our church campus, we know the physical sanctuary foundation is strong and not in need of repair. What about our spiritual foundation as a church community? Those spiritual foundations are very present in Jesus’ first teachings in Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount. This morning’s section, called the “Beatitudes,” is a list of teachings from Christ. If we follow them, they will provide a strong spiritual foundation for our church community and for us as individual disciples of Christ. The title for the beginning of Jesus’ sermon, “The Beatitudes,” means “The extreme blessedness.” The world around us will be extremely blessed by following Christ’s teachings.

John Fugelsang, in his book, The Separation of Church and Hate, writes, “That Sermon on the Mount- Jesus lays down a spiritual manifesto of social justice, compassion, and ethics in his most famous appearance; it’s like his Woodstock! The Sermon places humility over any sense of spiritual superiority. It challenges social and religious norms and calls for us to reject vengeance (even when someone desperately deserves it). Get a load of these Beatitudes! Jesus opens the sermon with a series of blessings that represent his foundational teachings and core values.  …Jesus pronounces blessings on specific groups of people. He focuses on the poor and marginalized. He praises nonviolence and peacemaking, radical love, mercy, and inclusion, and he pretty much takes down the status quo.”

Let us take a closer look at Jesus’ core values, or his “Woodstock.”  Examining his foundational teachings will help us consider our spiritual foundations here this morning.

The first word Jesus utters in his sermon is “Blessed-makarios, μακάριος”. Some translations of this passage use the word “Happy”.   Makarios does not mean happy. It does mean –“God is with us, God is on our side.” The person who is blessed has an understanding that they are a privileged recipient of divine favor. As I mentioned, I felt very blessed when we were able to buy and build a brand-new home as a family.

The first four beatitudes (5:3–6) name oppressive situations in which God’s kindom is at work to reverse the damage imposed by imperial policies, structures, and practices. This transformative work is underway in the actions of Jesus and his followers, but it has not yet been completed, as the second clauses indicate.

The first beatitude blesses “the poor in spirit.”  Who are the poor in spirit? In Luke’s version of Jesus’ first sermon, he says, " Blessed are the poor.”  But why is Matthew different? Matthew is trying to interpret Jesus’ words faithfully. His Aramaic word for “poor”, anawin anawin  means “those who are poor and are crushed as a result- poor in spirit.”

To those for whom poverty is a spiritual crisis, to those people who are on their way down financially and they cry out to God- Jesus announces, “Look up; I am here, I am with you, and the kindom I bring is for you.”  It means that those who feel their poverty is valued by God and that God offers them blessings here and now, as well as in the life to come.   If God values the impoverished, then we should value them. It means that when we see someone asking for help on the street, our first response should be, “God blesses this person, and so should I.”  Theologian Warren Carter writes the following about this beatitude: “This beatitude does not romanticize poverty. Rather, it recognizes poverty’s corrosive and crushing impact on human lives, even as it also declares that God’s empire or rule is at work with the socioeconomic poor in their struggle for justice by transforming the imperial world.”    

The next to be blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. This means that for those of us who have lost a loved one, for those who are reminded of those losses on anniversaries, birthdays, in deep sadness, we are in God's hands. For those times when we mourn in this life, we can expect some form of comfort from our Creator. It does not mean that we are spared from this loss, or that it becomes an easy journey through the valley of the shadow. It does mean that God holds us in our deep sadness and, in time, provides us with peace. From God’s spirit, from others around us, from a sense that we are being held in the prayers of others, we will find comfort.

We value those in grief by showing compassion. The word comes from Middle English: via Old French from ecclesiastical Latin, “compassio”, from “compati” ‘suffer with’. Just as God accompanies those who grieve through the valley of the shadow, we too are called to suffer with them. 18th-century British philosopher Edmund Burke said,  “The true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living that belong to them.”

The third beatitude, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” is the one that makes no common sense to us. Everyone knows it is the aggressive, not the meek, who inherit the earth.

But Jesus turns the world upside down with this phrase. It is the meek who are in reality strong. The meekness Jesus is speaking of does not suggest weakness. Dr. Martin Luther King was such an example of this for us, and despite being gunned down by an act of aggressive violence, his words and manner of living still have a profound influence on the people of this world. Dr. King offered a meek but strong way of resistance to prejudice- rather than fight back with violence, Dr. King taught a way of nonviolent resistance. “We had to make it clear,” he said,  “that non-violent resistance is not a method of cowardice. It does resist. It is not a method of stagnant passivity and deadening complacency. The non-violent resister is just as opposed to the evil that he is standing against as the violent resister, but he resists without violence. This method is non-aggressive physically, but strongly aggressive spiritually.”

Jesus, in many ways, is also a good example for us about what it means to be meek, or gentle, yet not weak. In Jesus, there is a meekness that is almighty and a gentleness that is strong. Jesus didn’t come into Jerusalem on a white horse, brandishing a sword to vanquish his enemies. He came humbly upon a donkey, proclaiming God’s kingdom through love of God and neighbor. 20^th Century American Theologian Warren Wiersbe wrote, “Meekness is not weakness. It is power under control.” We sure could use some examples of meekness right now. Not brashness, not braggadocio, not bald-faced lying, but meekness- power under control! Our world needs meek leaders who are gentle yet guided by faith. And Jesus promises them that one day, they will inherit the earth. Indeed, it is the meek who are the true HOPE of the earth.

The next set of beatitudes (Matthew 5:6–12) identifies distinctive practices—seeking righteousness, showing mercy, being pure in heart, making peace, and being willing to be persecuted and reviled —all in the name of advancing God’s justice. These actions define the identity of the community of Jesus’ followers, challenging and redefining today's dominant culture.

In verse six, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”  What does this mean for us? Righteousness means right living in God's eyes. It means trying to make the world more like heaven as it is on earth. What does that entail? It begins by following Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount and bringing those teachings to life. It means being willing to speak up and speak out when we see unrighteous actions. There are people in this world who long for, who hunger for the world to be right. They long for justice in the world, for those who are treated unjustly to find vindication. Some work tirelessly to support people experiencing poverty, travel abroad to help those in need, and strive for everyone in the world to receive their fair share. Some risk being in harm’s way to help immigrant families in our nation. Just like food, righteousness, right living, is an absolute necessity for them. Two examples of people who hungered and thirsted for righteousness were Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Today, Jesus calls them blessed and says they have been filled with righteousness for eternal life.

Jesus follows with the next Beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”  Who are the merciful? They are those who come to the aid of people in need. They are the ones who forgive others. They are the ones who understand that, since God has been merciful to us, we should be merciful to others. Mercy begets mercy, which in turn begets still more mercy. We witnessed widespread mercilessness in the streets of Minneapolis last week. And yet, we have also heard stories of great mercy. Neighbors taking immigrant children to and from school, neighbors bringing groceries to families, too afraid to leave their homes. Last Sunday, we learned about a Minneapolis church where Donna Kleiman’s daughter was volunteering, which expanded its weekly meals from 2,500 to over 17,000. The people of Minneapolis are demonstrating mercy. Faith communities are greatly expanding their ability to feed others who are afraid to go to the grocery store for fear of being taken by ICE agents. It is imperative that we show mercy in times like these.

Next comes the beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The heart in Jesus’ view here is our human center, the home of personal feeling, will, and thinking. A person who is blessed in this sense has the very core of their being directed toward God. What is the result of this, of the center of a being directed towards God? They shall see God. They will have a deep sense of God. Martin Luther says, “What is meant by pure in heart is this: a heart that is watching and pondering what God says, and replacing its own ideas with the word of God.”  If a person keeps Jesus's teachings as their foundation, which purify the heart, the result is a closer relationship with God.

Then Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God.”  In his Confessions, St. Augustine wrote: "It is one thing to see the land of peace from a wooded ridge and another to tread the road that leads to it." For Christians, Christ himself is that road, that way to peace. Treading it means that we will become peacemakers ourselves, loving as he loved when others hate; turning the other cheek to transform hostility into friendship, even if this means going to a cross. As Augustine indicated, we cannot look at peace as some far-off ideal, but as something that we must plunge into.

Today, the Holy Land remains a place where examples of peace and peacemakers are scarce. This has been the case on and off for decades. In 2005, amid the ongoing strife in the Holy Land, there was an example of peacemaking that transcended the hostilities. Israeli Yigal Cohen was going to die without a heart transplant. After spending four months in a hospital, barely clinging to life, he eventually received an organ donation from a rather surprising source-a Palestinian man, Mazen Joulani. The man's family says Jewish settlers killed him. Yet despite the circumstances surrounding Joulani's death and despite the perpetual fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, his family agreed to donate his organs, which resulted in saving the lives of five people, including Cohen. Cohen's father said, "This is a noble act that really, really touched us. We were very surprised yesterday to find out the identity of the donor." Cohen himself commented, "The very fact of the act simply taught me that there are other kinds of people on the other side and maybe there will be others like this, and through people like this, one day we will find the path to peace and to a normal relationship."

 What is the result of our being peacemakers? It is the full adoption as God’s offspring. We find a sense of belonging, a sense of home. We will also live in a more peaceful world.

The last Beatitude states, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.” How is it that we are blessed when we are persecuted? And what does it mean to be righteous? Jesus has already stated what a righteous life- a life that is right before God entails- it is living life remembering the poor; it is living a meek life, seeking the welfare of others before ourselves; it is living a merciful life, a life where God is at the very center of our being and we are pure in heart; it is living a life making peace. Those are not the ways of our world. And living in such a way will rub folks the wrong way, and persecution may come in many forms. That persecution may be severe.

Did any of you read the news story about the New Hampshire Episcopal bishop warning his clergy to finalize their wills and get their affairs in order to prepare for a “new era of martyrdom?”

Bishop Rob Hirschfeld of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire made his comments earlier this month at a vigil honoring Renee Good, who was murdered on Jan. 7 while behind the wheel of her vehicle by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

Hirschfeld’s speech cited several historical clergy members who had risked their lives to protect others. “I have told the clergy of the Episcopal diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness,” Hirschfeld said. “And I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.” The current darkness we find ourselves in has made me consider the foundations of my own faith and what kinds of persecution I am willing to consider. If my faith is only strong when the world is all unicorns, sunshine, and rainbows, but does not address the darkness, and I am willing to risk much, then what good is it?

 This is a time to act in faith, guided by what is right in God's eyes, as expressed in Jesus’ core teachings. May God be with us as we pray for the strength of our spiritual foundations, so that we act in faith. Alleluia! Amen.