Blessed Are Those Who Journey
March 13, 2011
Matthew 5:1-12
By way into this famous, beautiful passage, I want to do two things:
First, a couple of textual notes that I hope will be helpful, and second, a brief word from the Quaker educator Parker Palmer that I will put out there as an invitation to the journey of Lent.
Barrels of ink, reams of parchment and paper, and millions of bits and bytes have been given over to reflections on and studies of the Beatitudes. Indeed, you can find an entire society – the Beatitudes Society – devoted to them. So nothing we say this morning is anything like a final word – merely introductions and invitations.
But first, a note on the structure of the passage and one key word. It is worth noting that Matthew places these words on a mountaintop setting. There is a theological point here underscoring Matthew’s consistent theme that holds Jesus alongside Moses as heir to that prophetic and liberating role. Thus the Sermon on the Mount, which opens with the Beatitudes, is to Jesus as Sinai and the 10 Commandments are to Moses. For Matthew, this stuff is the centerpiece of the gospel, somewhat in contrast to the way Luke presents essentially the same material in the Sermon on the Plain in his accounting.
Also contrasting with Luke, Matthew does not have Jesus offer any of the balancing “woes” to his blessings, for example, in Matthew Jesus does not say, “woe to you who are rich” as a counterpoint to the first blessing: blessed are the poor in spirit. It’s also worth noting that Luke does not include the phrase “in spirit.”
I don’t want to go to deeply into the weeds here, though they are fascinating weeds and we may explore them a bit in the weeks to come. I do, however, want to say a brief word about the first word, translated in the NRSV as “blessed.”
The Greek word here is “makarios,” the passive voice of a word that has no precise English equivalent. It would have carried the strong sense of divine providence but not mere dumb luck in the Koine Greek of the New Testament. Of course, Jesus probably used an Aramaic word, either “ashrei” or “tovahoun” which, in addition to meaning “blessed” also mean “get up” or “wake up.” So there is, in these pronouncements of God’s blessing also an implicit call to act out of that blessedness in the world. That sense is made all the more apparent when, just a few verses further on, Jesus teaches the prayer that hinges on the phrase, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Or, as Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon put it in their classic, Resident Aliens, "The Beatitudes are not a strategy for achieving a better society ... they are an indication ... of life in the kingdom of God.”
The kingdom of God – that reality that Jesus said is “close at hand,” that is among you, even at this moment – that is what the Beatitudes summon. Contrary to what many traditions of Christianity taught, the way to the kingdom of God is not up and out of this life. It is, instead, down and in – deep down, and way in to this one life, this one soul, this one spirit we have been given.
For our moment, for this season of Lent, these blessings call us to journey near to the heart of God.
So, as we take these initial steps on this journey, listen also for a bit of wisdom about the inward journey from Parker Palmer:
“Here is a small story from my life about why one might want to take the inner journey. In my early forties I decided to go on the program called Outward Bound. I was on the edge of my first depression, a fact I knew only dimly at the time, and I thought Outward Bound might be a place to shake up my life and learn some things I needed to know.
I chose the week-long course at Hurricane Island, off the coast of Maine. I should have known from that name what was in store for me; next time I will sign up for the course at Happy Gardens or Pleasant Valley! Though it was a week of great teaching, deep community, and genuine growth, it was also a week of fear and loathing!
In the middle of that week I faced the challenge I feared most. One of our instructors backed me up to the edge of a cliff 110 feet above solid ground. He tied a very thin rope to my waist—a rope that looked ill-kempt to me, and seemed to be starting to unravel—and told me to start “rappelling” down that cliff.
“Do what?” I said.
“Just go!” the instructor explained, in typical Outward Bound fashion.
So I went—and immediately slammed into a ledge, some four feet down from the edge of the cliff, with bone-jarring, brain-jarring force.
The instructor looked down at me: “I don’t think you’ve quite got it.”
“Right,” said I, being in no position to disagree. “So what am I supposed to do?”
“The only way to do this,” he said, “is to lean back as far as you can. You have to get your body at right angles to the cliff so that your weight will be on your feet. It’s counter-intuitive, but it’s the only way that works.”
I knew that he was wrong, of course. I knew that the trick was to hug the mountain, to stay as close to the rock face as I could. So I tried it again, my way—and slammed into the next ledge, another four feet down.
“You still don’t have it,” the instructor said helpfully.
“OK,” I said, “tell me again what I am supposed to do.”
“Lean way back,” said he, “and take the next step.”
The next step was a very big one, but I took it—and, wonder of wonders, it worked. I leaned back into empty space, eyes fixed on the heavens in prayer, made tiny, tiny moves with my feet, and started descending down the rock face, gaining confidence with every step.
I was about halfway down when the second instructor called up from below: “Parker, I think you better stop and see what’s just below your feet.” I lowered my eyes very slowly—so as not to shift my weight—and saw that I was approaching a deep hole in the face of the rock.
In order to get down, I would have to get around that hole, which meant I could not maintain the straight line of descent I had started to get comfortable with. I would need to change course and swing myself around that hole, to the left or to the right. I knew for a certainty that attempting to do so would lead directly to my death—so I froze, paralyzed with fear.
The second instructor let me hang there, trembling, in silence for what seemed like a very long time. Finally, she shouted up these helpful words: “Parker, is anything wrong?”
To this day, I do not know where my words came from, though I have twelve witnesses to the fact that I spoke them. In a high, squeaky voice I said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then,” said the second instructor, “it’s time that you learned the Outward Bound motto.”
“Oh, keen,” I thought. “I’m about to die, and she’s going to give me a motto!”
But then she shouted ten words I hope never to forget, words whose impact and meaning I can still feel: “If you can’t get out of it, get into it!”
I had long believed in the concept of “the word become flesh” but until that moment I had not experienced it. My teacher spoke words so compelling that they bypassed my mind, went into my flesh, and animated my legs and feet. No helicopter would come to rescue me; the instructor on the cliff would not pull me up with the rope; there was no parachute in my backpack to float me to the ground. There was no way out of my dilemma except to get into it—so my feet started to move and in a few minutes I made it safely down.
Why would anyone want to embark on the daunting inner journey […]? Because there is no way out of one’s inner life, so one had better get into it. On the inward and downward spiritual journey, the only way out is in and through.
Matthew 5:1-12
By way into this famous, beautiful passage, I want to do two things:
First, a couple of textual notes that I hope will be helpful, and second, a brief word from the Quaker educator Parker Palmer that I will put out there as an invitation to the journey of Lent.
Barrels of ink, reams of parchment and paper, and millions of bits and bytes have been given over to reflections on and studies of the Beatitudes. Indeed, you can find an entire society – the Beatitudes Society – devoted to them. So nothing we say this morning is anything like a final word – merely introductions and invitations.
But first, a note on the structure of the passage and one key word. It is worth noting that Matthew places these words on a mountaintop setting. There is a theological point here underscoring Matthew’s consistent theme that holds Jesus alongside Moses as heir to that prophetic and liberating role. Thus the Sermon on the Mount, which opens with the Beatitudes, is to Jesus as Sinai and the 10 Commandments are to Moses. For Matthew, this stuff is the centerpiece of the gospel, somewhat in contrast to the way Luke presents essentially the same material in the Sermon on the Plain in his accounting.
Also contrasting with Luke, Matthew does not have Jesus offer any of the balancing “woes” to his blessings, for example, in Matthew Jesus does not say, “woe to you who are rich” as a counterpoint to the first blessing: blessed are the poor in spirit. It’s also worth noting that Luke does not include the phrase “in spirit.”
I don’t want to go to deeply into the weeds here, though they are fascinating weeds and we may explore them a bit in the weeks to come. I do, however, want to say a brief word about the first word, translated in the NRSV as “blessed.”
The Greek word here is “makarios,” the passive voice of a word that has no precise English equivalent. It would have carried the strong sense of divine providence but not mere dumb luck in the Koine Greek of the New Testament. Of course, Jesus probably used an Aramaic word, either “ashrei” or “tovahoun” which, in addition to meaning “blessed” also mean “get up” or “wake up.” So there is, in these pronouncements of God’s blessing also an implicit call to act out of that blessedness in the world. That sense is made all the more apparent when, just a few verses further on, Jesus teaches the prayer that hinges on the phrase, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Or, as Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon put it in their classic, Resident Aliens, "The Beatitudes are not a strategy for achieving a better society ... they are an indication ... of life in the kingdom of God.”
The kingdom of God – that reality that Jesus said is “close at hand,” that is among you, even at this moment – that is what the Beatitudes summon. Contrary to what many traditions of Christianity taught, the way to the kingdom of God is not up and out of this life. It is, instead, down and in – deep down, and way in to this one life, this one soul, this one spirit we have been given.
For our moment, for this season of Lent, these blessings call us to journey near to the heart of God.
So, as we take these initial steps on this journey, listen also for a bit of wisdom about the inward journey from Parker Palmer:
“Here is a small story from my life about why one might want to take the inner journey. In my early forties I decided to go on the program called Outward Bound. I was on the edge of my first depression, a fact I knew only dimly at the time, and I thought Outward Bound might be a place to shake up my life and learn some things I needed to know.
I chose the week-long course at Hurricane Island, off the coast of Maine. I should have known from that name what was in store for me; next time I will sign up for the course at Happy Gardens or Pleasant Valley! Though it was a week of great teaching, deep community, and genuine growth, it was also a week of fear and loathing!
In the middle of that week I faced the challenge I feared most. One of our instructors backed me up to the edge of a cliff 110 feet above solid ground. He tied a very thin rope to my waist—a rope that looked ill-kempt to me, and seemed to be starting to unravel—and told me to start “rappelling” down that cliff.
“Do what?” I said.
“Just go!” the instructor explained, in typical Outward Bound fashion.
So I went—and immediately slammed into a ledge, some four feet down from the edge of the cliff, with bone-jarring, brain-jarring force.
The instructor looked down at me: “I don’t think you’ve quite got it.”
“Right,” said I, being in no position to disagree. “So what am I supposed to do?”
“The only way to do this,” he said, “is to lean back as far as you can. You have to get your body at right angles to the cliff so that your weight will be on your feet. It’s counter-intuitive, but it’s the only way that works.”
I knew that he was wrong, of course. I knew that the trick was to hug the mountain, to stay as close to the rock face as I could. So I tried it again, my way—and slammed into the next ledge, another four feet down.
“You still don’t have it,” the instructor said helpfully.
“OK,” I said, “tell me again what I am supposed to do.”
“Lean way back,” said he, “and take the next step.”
The next step was a very big one, but I took it—and, wonder of wonders, it worked. I leaned back into empty space, eyes fixed on the heavens in prayer, made tiny, tiny moves with my feet, and started descending down the rock face, gaining confidence with every step.
I was about halfway down when the second instructor called up from below: “Parker, I think you better stop and see what’s just below your feet.” I lowered my eyes very slowly—so as not to shift my weight—and saw that I was approaching a deep hole in the face of the rock.
In order to get down, I would have to get around that hole, which meant I could not maintain the straight line of descent I had started to get comfortable with. I would need to change course and swing myself around that hole, to the left or to the right. I knew for a certainty that attempting to do so would lead directly to my death—so I froze, paralyzed with fear.
The second instructor let me hang there, trembling, in silence for what seemed like a very long time. Finally, she shouted up these helpful words: “Parker, is anything wrong?”
To this day, I do not know where my words came from, though I have twelve witnesses to the fact that I spoke them. In a high, squeaky voice I said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then,” said the second instructor, “it’s time that you learned the Outward Bound motto.”
“Oh, keen,” I thought. “I’m about to die, and she’s going to give me a motto!”
But then she shouted ten words I hope never to forget, words whose impact and meaning I can still feel: “If you can’t get out of it, get into it!”
I had long believed in the concept of “the word become flesh” but until that moment I had not experienced it. My teacher spoke words so compelling that they bypassed my mind, went into my flesh, and animated my legs and feet. No helicopter would come to rescue me; the instructor on the cliff would not pull me up with the rope; there was no parachute in my backpack to float me to the ground. There was no way out of my dilemma except to get into it—so my feet started to move and in a few minutes I made it safely down.
Why would anyone want to embark on the daunting inner journey […]? Because there is no way out of one’s inner life, so one had better get into it. On the inward and downward spiritual journey, the only way out is in and through.
posted by David Ensign at
11:57 AM
<< Home