The Gospel today is the introduction of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which is the longest teaching discourse in the entire New Testament. This section is called the beatitudes. Beatitudes means “A declaration or ascription of special blessedness.”
Today, Jesus gives us nine statements which begin with blessed. More ink has been spilled attempting to tell us what Jesus means by all the blessed statements than anyone here can imagine! They range from contemplative spiritual exercises, to self-help books, to long exegetical essays detailing the nuances of the original Greek text. Everyone has an opinion about the beatitudes. And today, you will hear mine.
Or better said: you will hear some of mine. Much of the debate about the beatitudes comes from the very first blessed statement. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I am sure that for most if not all of you, when you heard that for the first time, you asked yourself; what in the world does poor in spirit mean?
Blessed are the poor in spirit has widely been interpreted to mean those who have a humble heart. And oh, how sanitary and easy an explanation that is! That is something we can all get behind, that is something we can all imagine ourselves being. This interpretation takes a saying that seems strange and makes it something accomplishable, it makes is something we can do, something we should do! And this interpretation also gives us a baseline to see how we are doing in our faith, and that isn’t at all a bad thing. But it is the wrong interpretation.
Another interpretation is that it means people who are poor, speaking strictly in a financial way. This interpretation is one that has many upsides, it causes us to pause when we see people in need, it causes to help when we see someone with very little, and it coincides nicely with a lot of other teachings of Jesus. However, this is a simplification of what Jesus means and forgets the spiritual aspect of the saying.
So, what is it that Jesus is saying when he says blessed are the poor in spirit? To understand it we must first understand the biblical meaning of poor. When we hear poor in the Bible it means more than what poor means today. Today poor means people who have little money or possessions. The biblical understanding of people who are poor is of those who are economically, socially and politically marginalized. These are the people who have no hope from fellow man, but whose only hope is in God. When we understand that definition of poor, and we add “in spirit” to it what we have is something that sounds more like this. Blessed are those who society has beaten down and not allowed a voice, who are trapped under the powerful foot of oppression, and whose oppressors have driven away all hope of change, and whose hearts have been crushed, yet who still seek after the face of God for comfort, and who trust in the Lord their God.
When this is the understanding of blessed are the poor in spirit, it set us up to listen to Jesus’ teachings on that mountain with attentive hearts and ears. This understanding is a great comfort to those who have been literally crushed for the sake of Jesus Christ. Examples are, the Christians who for the sake of Love were killed in Germany in the 30’s and 40’s, or the Christians who were stripped of their ability to practice their faith by Lenin in the Soviet Union, or the Christians being killed today for their faith in many parts of the world. This saying of Jesus gives those who are poor in spirit the comfort of knowing that God is indeed with them.
Imagine if this definition was the wide understanding of poor in spirit in the early 1800’s, perhaps Wilberforce would not have been so alone in his distain and loud objection of the slave trade, or perhaps in the 50’s and 60’s the civil rights movement would have been quicker to launch, and many more peaceful men and women like Dr. King would have come forward to stand beside him and others like him.
So, the tone is set, it is set for today, and for us as we leave this place, and as we read scripture. I encourage you all to go home today and read the sermon on the mount found in Matthew 5:1-7:27, and keep this definition in mind. It is our obligation to seek out the poor in spirit; those who have been crushed by society, yet still believe, yet still yearn for God with all their heart, soul, and mind, not just to help them, but because they have a great deal to teach us.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Christian D. Wood
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
4 Epiphany 29 January 2017