Matthew 5:1-16                                                                    Summer

 No pain, no gain is a motto that started with the body building community. Pumping iron actually tears muscles. Bulking up is done through tearing, healing, and tearing again.

 Hebrews 5:8 Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered;

 Philippians 1:29 For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.

 Romans 8:17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

 Pain and gain. Without pain – ours or someone else’s, we have no gain. I think you will see in the Beatitudes that pain and gain go hand-in-hand.

 Here’s the church built on the Mount where Jesus supposedly preached his first sermon. “When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:” Thus begins our text.

 I invite you to hear the beatitudes now slowly – one at a time. I will make comments on each one before moving on.

 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 Every six seconds a child dies of hunger or malnutrition. There’s a great debate over the fact that Matthew says “Poor in spirit” and Luke says “poor” but the truth is the Greek word translated poor means both poor and humble. Blessed are the dependent, totally dependent on God. Those of us who are independent are more likely to forget God, to be ungrateful for what we have, to think that we can take care of ourselves, that all we have is due to our own smarts, not a gift from God.

 I might have interpreted poor in spirit a little more spiritually. I could have had an image of an alcoholic who has lost everything and hit the bottom, finally acknowledging the only so the only way is up is to seek God’s help and follow the 12 steps. I might also have had a depressed teenager, distant from parents and misunderstood by friends, who has no one to listen to her but the Lord.

 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

 Grieving is such a difficult and exhausting process, but the comfort we experience as we open ourselves to the presence of God with us in the pain of loss is equally powerful. Romans 8:18 “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory about to be revealed to us.” 2 Cor. 1:5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.

 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

 The meek are those who do not claim rights or exert power over others. They are humble and gentle. They don’t necessarily need to be in a desperate state of impoverishment like this poor child. But the meek are shaped by their experiences of powerlessness. So perhaps meekness grows when we give up power, when we forsake our own rights in order to help another, when we humble ourselves in order to treat the lowly, those we consider below us, with dignity and respect. It might seem like the geeks are inheriting the earth. Computer geeks like Bill Gates with their billions of dollars, but by God’s standards, it’s not the geek, unless it’s a weak geek, but it’s the meek.

 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be  satisfied.

 They will be filled up. To hunger and thirst for what is right and just and good in God’s eyes makes one righteous. Hear a few words from the saintly woman of God who served the neediest of Calcutta, India. “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love....It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish....Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat...Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary.... What we need is to love without getting tired. I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?...If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” Mother Teresa was satisfied. She was filled up with the righteousness she sought with all her heart.

 Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

 Our judgment of others gets in the way of our loving them. We are merciful only as we acknowledge that we ourselves are in need. Do we really contemplate that it is by
God’s mercy that we are here in a place of comfort and extravagant wealth by the world’s standards, or do we think we deserve it? Do we ever stop to think what it would be like to be a person in a developing country or in a war-ravaged country or even in the ghettos of our own cities with no education and no hope for change?

 The image here could equally be one of a domestic situation in one of our homes. Someone is mistreated and reacts in anger. At that moment, there is a golden opportunity for forgiveness, for the supreme gift of mercy. Romans 12 says “Do not repay evil for evil. No if your enemies are hungry, feed them.” Feed them with mercy.

 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

 Fifty years ago, five missionaries flew a small plane into the jungles of Equador and dared to make contact with a most dangerous tribe, called the Waodani (whoa-DONNY) also known as “Auca,” or naked savage. After several months of exchanging gifts with the natives, the five men were speared multiple times and hacked to death with machetes. Steve in the picture was five years old when his father was killed. When he was fourteen years old, he and his sister went back to Equador where his aunt was still living and ministering, to be baptized by members of the Waodani tribe who had become Christian. He was baptized in the creek where his father died. When he was grown, he took his family to live for a year and a half with the very man who killed his father. Pure heart. Pure heart of mercy. When asked how he could love the man who killed his father, he simply said, “If God were not in the equation, impossible.”

 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

 When we are merciful and pure in heart, we become peacemakers. This sculptured symbol of reconciliation is in Northern Ireland. Peacemaking is risky. It means reaching across the divide to shake the hand of another, not sure if that reach or that handshake will make you lose your footing and fall. Children of God take chances for peace.

 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is  the kingdom of heaven.

 Jim Crow Laws were ridiculously unjust. Easy for everyone to see that – now. When black people stood up for righteousness, they were often kicked down, persecuted, even killed. I am thankful for all the people, black and white, who had enough courage to be persecuted for doing what was right.

 Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all  kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

 This is the scene of a deadly bomb in a Catholic church in Iraq. Persecuted, endangered for being Christian.

 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way  they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

 Stephen was stoned to death. This is Rembrandt’s painting of the scene. Stephen, the prophet who came before those Christians in Iraq.

 You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness  be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled  under foot.

 Salt is a preservative. It brings out the flavor of food. It is a cleanser. Our salt -- table salt -- isn't the same salt that Christ was speaking of. The salt they used was a compound harvested from the dead sea. It contained a good portion of sodium chloride (table salt), but also had a mix of other salts and minerals. That compound was not stable. Over time, when exposed to air and humidity, the other salts and minerals would react to the oxygen and water in the air and actually become other chemicals. Those other chemicals would actually erode the sodium chloride (the salty flavor) and make it bland, flavorless and useless.

 You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after  lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it  gives light to all in the house.

 One little light illumines a whole room. Several street lights illumine a neighborhood. A church illumines a community. A lighthouse covers miles of open sea. It doesn’t take much light to overcome darkness.

 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your  good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

 These bicycles and the other gifts were the light of Christ at Christmas for the children of Beth-El. To God be all glory.

 The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

 I used to think that the beatitudes were instructions on how to live a blessed life. Now they seem more like proclamations about now life really is, a reality to which we are often blind and ignorant. They represent a value system, a value system often at odds with our particular culture.

 We value happiness, personal fulfillment, confidence and strength, success and productivity, security and popularity. But Jesus says we are blessed when we are struggling, grieving, humble, longing, weak, honest, and mistreated for our faith.

 The reality of things of life as seen from God's perspective is that the powerless are the inheritors the future. It is the meek, the poor, those who suffer loss, those on the bottom of the social ladder, who will rule in the rightside-up kingdom of God. It is they who are blessed even now. Jesus is attempting to undermine our assumptions regarding security and hope, showing us that the kingdom of God is for those who hope in God and not in the power structures offered by the world.

 We want to avoid pain, to deny aging and death, to pretend that we are really okay, that we live the “good life” But the truth is, the good life is life like Mother Theresa’s, full of the pain of others. The good life is a life like Martin Luther King’s full of anguish over injustice. The good life is the sacrificial life of those missionary families who loved and forgave. The good life is a life of utter dependence on God and extreme service to others, laying down our lives. No pain. No gain.