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Blessings to Peace (Matthew 5:
1-12)
A sermon preached January 14, 2007 at University United Methodist Church, East
Lansing MI by Kennetha Bigham-Tsai
As many of you know, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., over time
broadened his message beyond the domestic goals of racial reconciliation to the
wider arena of advocacy for peace. Listen to what he says in his Christmas
Sermon on Peace, “To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of
peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am
speaking against war…Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the
one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them?”
Tomorrow we will honor Dr. King and remember him for his
work for racial justice—his work to bring down the structures of segregation in
our country and to heal the wounds of racism. We will remember and honor Dr.
King for these things, but I also hope that we will honor and remember Dr. King
as a man who blessed us all by preaching an alternative way to peace.
So in honor of Dr. King today and in remembrance of his
legacy, let us look for a moment at the way to peace about which he preached—a
way to peace that some say is foolish and impractical—but a way to peace that
offers an alternative to the ways of war.
And friends, as the Church, we must stand with Dr. King and
speak about this alternative way to peace. Indeed, we are uniquely qualified and
called to do so—because this way to peace has something to do with the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. And this alternative way to peace--this Gospel way to peace—is
surely laid out in these Beatitudes, these blessings. For what these Beatitudes
present to us is a way to peace that does not wind through the valleys of war,
but is instead shouted from the mountaintop as blessings that find their source
in God.
These Beatitudes, the beginning of the Great Sermon on the
Mount, present to us this morning a way to peace that has its reality in the
coming Kingdom of God. For that kingdom will be a kingdom of peace. It will be a
new heaven and a new earth—a place where God will dwell among God’s people—a
place where God will wipe away every tear—a place where death and mourning and
crying and pain and poverty and war and injustice will be no more, (Rev 21:
1-7). This is the kingdom of peace for which we wait and hope and pray. And it
is this kingdom of peace toward which these Beatitudes point.
Yet this way to peace that we see in our text is an uncommon
way to peace. For peace according to this text—according to these blessings—is a
peace that is not found in military might, but is instead found first and
foremost in the poverty of our spirits. And so Matthew begins, “Blessed are
the poor in spirit. For theirs is the Kingdom of heaven,” (Mt 5:3). Matthew’s
reference to the poor in spirit did not solely mean material poverty, but also
meant knowledge of one’s own spiritual poverty. This meant the realization that
outside of a relationship with God, our spirits are empty. Without God’s Spirit
at work in us, our spirits are poor.
For when we truly know ourselves to be spiritually
impoverished and dependent upon God, then we cannot depend upon ourselves. When
we truly recognize our dependence on something above and beyond ourselves, we
cannot depend upon our own power. But instead, we must place our trust and our
hope for peace in the God of peace. And this, my friends—this poverty of spirit
and this God dependence—is the true way to peace.
Yet these Beatitudes tell us even more. For this uncommon
kingdom-way to peace, toward which these blessings point, has nothing to do with
our arsenals, but instead with our mourning. For our passage reads, “Blessed are
those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” (Mt 5:4).
Matthew had in mind not just those who mourn over the loss
of a loved one, but also those who mourn the unrighteousness and injustices of
this world. Matthew had in mind those, like Dr. King, who mourn the injustices
of racism and the inability of one person to love the other despite the color of
their skin. Matthew had in mind those, like Dr. King and others, who hold all
life to be sacred and who mourn the injustice of wars that kill and maim those
who fight them and those who are bystanders in the struggle.
Matthew had in mind those who mourn the poverty of our
compassion—those who mourn our quick resort to violence—those who mourn the hurt
that we do to one another and to the rest of creation. Matthew had in mind those
who mourn these kinds of injustices. For it is through this kind of
mourning—which can only lead to a passion for justice—that we will find peace.
And still these Beatitudes tell us more. They read, “Blessed
are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” (Mat 5:5). These beatitudes
tell us that this uncommon kingdom-way to peace is through such meekness and
through such humility. This is the way that Martin Luther King and Gandhi and
others showed us when they insisted on the power of nonviolent action and when
they used that power to bring down the empires and racism and caste and
intolerance. This the way to peace that Christ showed us when he chose a cross
rather than the leadership of armies. Friends, meekness has changed the world.
And meekness, according to our text today, is the way to peace.
And still this text continues. It tells us that the way to
peace is also through mercy, and through purity of heart, and through a hunger
and a thirst for righteousness. And we know all of this to be true. For without
mercy, we know that we cannot forgive. Without mercy, we know that we cannot
love our enemies. And without mercy and pure hearts and a hunger for
righteousness and for justice, we know that we cannot call ourselves to account
for our own use of power, for our treatment of others, and for our honesty
before God and before the world. Without mercy and justice and purity of heart,
we cannot find our way to peace.
And still our text tells us more. These Beatitudes tell us
that the way to peace is to live as peacemakers. For our text reads, “Blessed
are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” (Mat 5:9). Now it
is interesting that in the time that the Book of Matthew was written, Palestine
was under Roman rule. And the Roman emperors of that day called themselves
peacemakers. Yet they saw peace only as superiority and national might. And are
we so different? I wonder sometimes if our conceptions of peace also have to do
with maintaining our own power and superiority and if we ever truly question the
means by which we seek peace. We sometimes fail to seek peace through humility,
interdependence, cooperation, justice, reconciliation, and love.
But these Beatitudes suggest another way for us. They
suggest that peacemakers are the children of God who recognize that all people
are equally the children of God. Peacemakers are those who recognize the
interconnectedness and sacredness of all life. Peacemakers are those who are
committed to working for peace through justice and reconciliation and through a
commitment to the love of neighbor, even if that neighbor is the enemy.
Peacemakers are those like Dr. Martin Luther King and all of you whose hearts
have longed for a world in peace and who have prayed for that peace. You, and
he and others are those peacemakers, and our passage for today suggests that it
is through such peacemakers that our world will find its way to peace.
Yet we must know that this way to peace will lead to
struggle. For you will be persecuted and reviled, our text says—and people will
say all kinds of evil against you for Christ’s sake. And is this so unexpected?
For so Martin and Rosa were persecuted. So Gandhi, and Bonhoeffer, and Mandela
were persecuted.
So all the prophets before you were persecuted—prophets who
called the world to the love of God and of neighbor—prophets who called the
world to justice—prophets who called the world to the help of the poor and to
compassion for the widow--prophets who called the world to freedom for all
people despite their race or ethnicity or religion or class or gender or
orientation. So the prophets were persecuted. So Christ was persecuted. And so
you will be persecuted if you work for peace.
But your reward is not in worldly popularity or in material
ease. Your reward and your peace are in God and in the blessings of the
inheritance of God’s kingdom. And that kingdom of peace has come. These
blessings—these Beatitudes to peace have come.
They have come in your hearts and in mine. They have come in
our passionate caring for life. They have come in our knowledge of the poverty
of our own spirits without the fullness of the Spirit of God. They have come in
our own humility—a humility that recognizes the limits of our own power and of
national power.
These kingdom blessings have come in our hearts—hearts that
mourn the injustices of this world—hearts that mourn the maiming and killing
that comes with war. These kingdom blessings have come in our hearts—hearts that
hunger for justice for the poor and for the dispossessed—hearts that are
merciful and that seek reconciliation despite all wrongs. These kingdom
blessings have come in our hearts—in the pure hearts of peacemakers who are
called children of the Most High God.
Yes, these kingdom blessings have come and God’s kingdom has
come in our hearts and in our spirits. Yet we now that in this world—in the
reality of the situations of conflict around our world—the Kingdom of God has
not yet fully come, and the blessings of that kingdom have not yet been fully
realized.
And so it is this coming kingdom and these
hoped-for-blessings for which we must pray and for which we are called to work.
Because, with the Kingdom of God comes the blessing of peace—a peace that
surpasses all understanding (Phil 4:7)—a peace that neither the world—nor a war
can give to us –because it is the peace that comes from God alone.
And so let us all commit to continuing to pray and to work
for a peace that comes from the living out of these blessings that describe the
coming kingdom of peace. We must work and pray for peace through the living out
of these Beatitudes to peace—Beatitudes and blessings that will bring peace to
our world and to our hearts.
So friends hear this passage again. Hear this word of
blessing and of peace. And this time hear it for yourselves. For you stand on
the mountaintop this morning with Dr. King and with all of the others who make
up God’s great cloud of prophetic witnesses. You stand with the disciples this
morning. Jesus sits in your midst this morning. And these blessings are for
you.
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, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the
meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they
will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed
are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter
all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for
your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets
who were before you. Amen.
A Christmas Sermon on Peace, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in A
Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King,
Jr. James M. Washington, ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1986, p. 234. |
