The most familiar prayer for all Christians is the one we call “The Lord’s Prayer.”
No matter what our denomination …what language we speak…the prayer that starts with addressing “Our Father who art in heaven…” is the one that everybody knows.
And because we know it so well…and we repeat it so often…it can sometimes become too much of a habit…and we stop paying attention to the power and the particulars of that prayer. There is one phrase that I want to lift up this morning: “Thy kingdom…” God’s kingdom…” thy kingdom come…thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
God’s kingdom is an upside down world from what we might think of when we say, “kingdom.” Because it’s not a place with castles and standard bearers and lots of gold.
It’s a state of being…living into a reality where…as the prophet Micah says…we do justice…love kindness and walk humbly with God. And we aren’t there…yet. But we keep praying…hoping…wanting and willing that doing justice…loving kindness…and walking humbly with God…will be the new world…the new earth.
A time when we will see that the politics of fear of the “other” will be cast down and perfect love…where all are housed…fed…cared for and respected…will be the rule and not the exception. We are a long way from that…but we pray…”thy will be done.”
They weren’t any closer to perfection in the days of Matthew’s Gospel…when Jesus ascended the mountain top and began his sermon…”Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.” We hear that Jesus was speaking to a crowd…and that crowd were the anxious, beleaguered and worn out people of Galilee. Like the disciples…they had heard something that made them want to find out who is this Jesus. Unlike Peter…Andrew…James and John…they hadn’t quite reached that moment of “Yes, I’m ready to go a different way!” But something inside them still made them want to find out if this guy is for real.
“Does he really understand what I’m going through? Does he see the same hellscape I’m seeing…where life is just mere existence…and where anyone who dares to question the Empire will pay a price?”
And what Jesus is saying to those who have gathered around him is, “Yes, I see you. God sees you. Because the fact that you are feeling this way is evidence that you are the ones who desire to see a different future. The fact that you are the ones who care…and are lamenting over the state of the world…it is through you that a new light will shine.”
In many ways…what Jesus is acknowledging for the crowd is that the world as they know it is not just. The powers of the world are takers and not givers.
They see humans as having worth when they can be exploited.
Investing one’s heart and soul and mind in that sort of a system is what’s crushing them.
And so Jesus begins this sermon with looking at the now…and inviting the crowd to move in a direction of what will be…one that changes the world when they live fully into the Love of God. To do justice…love kindness…and to have the wisdom to allow God’s Love to be their guide.
This all connects back to a moment that we hear about in the Gospel of Luke…a reading from chapter four of Luke…which incidentally…is often read on this particular Sunday of Epiphany in the years in which Luke’s Gospel is center stage.
It’s that time when Jesus gets up in the Temple and unfurls the scroll to the words in the Nevi’im…the prophets…to the passage in Isaiah that says… “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me; He has sent me as a herald of joy to the humble, to bind up the wounded of heart, to proclaim the release to the captives, liberation to the imprisoned; to proclaim a year of the Lord’s favor.”
Now…Luke slightly changes the wording of the prophet…and includes bringing sight to the blind…a metaphor for helping people see the needs of their neighbors. But this is what it means to follow those words of Micah….and what is the throughline of the beatitudes.
This is the message to us in our time…and in the middle of such madness as we’ve been a witness to in this country…and especially as it creeps closer to us here in Lowndes County. Jesus is extolling us to sit down and listen closely to these blessings he’s bestowing on those who hear his words.
The Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw in the Sermon on the Mount the truth of what it means to say that we are followers of Jesus.
And it wasn’t about being popular.
On the contrary….Bonhoeffer clearly says that to read, mark, hear, and inwardly digest the words of the beatitudes…is to understand that following Jesus leads to the cross…a place of surrendering the comfort of going along to get along…and entering deeper into relationship with the suffering of those who aren’t the powerful.
It means letting go of our ego’s need to be liked…or loved…or even adored by the many and accepting that to follow Jesus puts us in the minority.
And that’s not just OK…it is a far better place to be because it is the place where God working in us and through us can accomplish great things….greater than we can ask for or even imagine.
Just as Jesus knew then that these disciples and this crowd needed to hear words of the truth of their present time with a forecast of an unseen yet hopeful future…we need to take in the beatitudes with that same sense that God is calling us in our weaknesses…and doubts…to see that we who believe in the freedom offered through Jesus can be peacemakers…seekers of righteousness…and merciful to others.
Blessed be those who hear this call to follow in the way of Love as Jesus teaches us…to stand with those who are scared and afraid.
Blessed be those who overcome the desire to be liked to speak the truth about the injustices being committed in our name.
Blessed be those who…. placing their trust in Jesus… accept the consequences of what that means: Love is not always loved…yet Love…even love that gets bruised…beaten…and killed on a Roman cross…always rises and always ultimately wins through the work we do to bring justice and kindness into the world.
Keep listening…keep working…and keep walking humbly with God.
In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.
