Epiphany 4A (January 30, 2011)

[Eric Frey]

4th Sunday After the Epiphany

Micah 6.1-8
Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1.18-31
Matthew 5.1-12

Sometimes we try not to preach the same texts all the time. Sometimes we preach the same text every year (Christmas, Easter, etc). Anytime the Lectionary includes a Sermon on the Mount passage, I preach it.

As I have been pouring over Matthew 5.1-12, I realize that typically we see the beatitudes in terms of the behavior that brings about the blessing. But it seems to me that the thrust of the message is not about us needing to become poor, or meek, or hungry, or thirsty, or grieved, or persecuted, but rather that in God's world, where Christ reigns in glory, the meek are blessed; the poor are blessed; the hungry are blessed; the thirsty are blessed; the merciful are blessed; the pure are blessed; the peacemakers are blessed; the persecuted are blessed.

The question is, are we about seeking a blessing for ourselves, or about being a source of blessing for others. The beatitudes list those who hold a special place in Jesus' heart. The beatitudes are a reminder of who the church ought to be reaching out to and blessing. The church out to be a place of blessing where the poor find a place, where the mourning find comfort, where the meek find a voice, where the empty are filled, where the merciful and pure and peacemakers are honored, where the persecuted find sanctuary.

Could it be that the beatitudes are a command to those who follow Christ -- that if his mission is to be our mission then we have to start seeing the world through his eyes and ministering to the world around us accordingly?

[Jon Twitchell]

You said it better than I did... but that was the approach I took this past Sunday. (I rearranged the lectionary so I could do all of the Sermon on the Mount during this season.)

I'm viewing the SotM as an announcement of the Kingdom of God... a proclamation of the new reality... a description of how things are to be in this new Kingdom. The question that I'm posing each week is, "How do we live into our calling as subjects in the Kingdom of God?"

If we are the subjects of this new Kingdom, then we are to be the 'living blessing' that Jesus is announcing... we are the ones to provide comfort to those who mourn... we are the ones who bless and thank the peacemakers... to those who are hungry to see a little righteousness in the world, we are to show it to them... to the meek, we bless them by standing up for them, speaking for those who don't have (or use) their voice.

You can listen here: http://www.capenazarene.org/ftp/sermonaudio/cecn_2011_01_16_living_blessing.mp3

(Thanks for confirming the direction I took... :) )

[Eric Frey]

John, I'm adjusting too. I'm doing Matt 5.1-12 this week, then following the lectionary the rest the way. I start my adjustment back at Epiphany though. I give Christmas 2 full Sundays, then Epiphany Sunday, then Baptism of the Lord, then into the Propers. So this year I think it worked out so I simply left out the 2nd & 3rd Sundays after Epiph...

[Jon Twitchell]

Ash Wednesday is so late this year that there's actually time to do a series here...

I didn't do much with Epiphany or Baptism of the Lord, but am doing the following:

Jan 2 - I did a "Lord of All Years" service as a New Year's sort of service
Jan 9 - Mt 4:12-25 (Sort of a prequel to SotM... here, I made the case that Jesus is announcing the Kingdom of God... hence what's to follow is an exploration of what that looks like) (I did make mention to Jesus' Baptism... but not significant enough to be considered a Baptism of Our Lord Sunday.)

Then I go into the Sermon on the Mount:
Jan 16 - 5:1-12
Jan 23 - 5:13-20
Jan 30 - 5:20-37
Feb 6 - 5:38-48
Feb 13 - 6:19-24 (notice that I'm skipping the Ash Wednesday text)
Feb 20 - 6:25-34
Feb 27 - 7:1-14
Mar 6 - 7:15-29
Mar 9 - 6:1-18 (Ash Wednesday)

The lectionary doesn't cover all of the SotM, so I'll "build" a set of complementary readings for those Sundays.

[Eric Frey]

Lectionary skips the Ash Wednesday text too. I am preaching the lectionary texts, but will expand the reading so as to cover the whole thing.

BTW... I love the Devil's Beatitudes in your sermon. I'm going to steal those. As I listened to your sermon, I was struck by the contrast between making his kingdom come and keeping his kingdom from coming. Anyway, thanks for the sermon.

[Susan Unger]

4th Sunday After the Epiphany

Micah 6.1-8
Psalm 15
1 Corinthians 1.18-31
Matthew 5.1-12

As I have been pouring over Matthew 5.1-12, I realize that typically we see the beatitudes in terms of the behavior that brings about the blessing. But it seems to me that the thrust of the message is not about us needing to become poor, or meek, or hungry, or thirsty, or grieved, or persecuted, but rather that in God's world, where Christ reigns in glory, the meek are blessed; the poor are blessed; the hungry are blessed; the thirsty are blessed; the merciful are blessed; the pure are blessed; the peacemakers are blessed; the persecuted are blessed.

The question is, are we about seeking a blessing for ourselves, or about being a source of blessing for others. The beatitudes list those who hold a special place in Jesus' heart. The beatitudes are a reminder of who the church ought to be reaching out to and blessing. The church out to be a place of blessing where the poor find a place, where the mourning find comfort, where the meek find a voice, where the empty are filled, where the merciful and pure and peacemakers are honored, where the persecuted find sanctuary.

Could it be that the beatitudes are a command to those who follow Christ -- that if his mission is to be our mission then we have to start seeing the world through his eyes and ministering to the world around us accordingly?

I did my paper on the beatitudes. My intro was that I never understood them. It took me forever to research it, but my conclusion was that I have rarely seen them put in practice because most people, Christians especially don't consider them possible to follow so never bother. Instead, by asking for God's grace and strength to follow through on them, we can live the lives of the beatitudes. I enjoyed the conclusion because I am a gentle, peace making person who has been reviled for being so. It has been a shock to me to find that contrary to what other christians and familly member say, Jesus blesses such behavior on my part.

[Ryan Scott]

BTW... I love the Devil's Beatitudes in your sermon. I'm going to steal those.

I couldn't get the mp3 link to work for me, Jon, you'll have to share those Devil's Beatitudes with us here. I'm curious.

[Jon Twitchell]

I couldn't get the mp3 link to work for me, Jon, you'll have to share those Devil's Beatitudes with us here. I'm curious.

Hmmm... that's odd. If you really want to listen, you can go to www.capenazarene.org and listen from the sermon player on the right.

Alternatively... I got them here: http://www.funnysermons.com/anecdotes/evil/satans-beatitudes.html

[Kazimiera Fraley]

I also am working with the beatitudes. I am really fascinated by the idea that this first part of the Sermon on the Mount seems to be Jesus' reaction to the the crowd. He see the crowd and then goes and sits on the mount and waits for his disciples to gather around and then begins to teach them (sometime before the end of it all the crowd must have figured out what was going on and gathered round as well since they are reported to be astonished when Jesus finishes the SotM). I makes me think of all the other times he saw the crowd and had compassion on them. It is as if Jesus sees the crowd and sees the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the peacemakers and knows that culturally they are the ones who are at the bottom, they are the harrassed and reviled and he wants his disciples to know that the world is wrong. The values of the world are not the values of the kingdom these people may be seen as cursed and rejected by the society at large but in the kingdom these are blessed.
I am thinking of going so far to say that the blessing, which of course is God's blessing should come through us. That those of us who gather at Jesus' feet should be living kingdom values in this world and in doing so these whom Jesus mentions (and many more like them) are blessed. We are turning the world and its values upside down but living those values and making valuable what the world considers worthless. This is truly what the Gospel is all about !

[Jon Twitchell]

For those of you working with this text this week... if you have a younger/tech-savvy congregation (and you can get away without being too political), you could play with the twitter acronyms: SOTU (State Of The Union) and SOTM.