I suspect one of the reasons why Matthew wrote his gospel was because he found Mark’s gospel lacking in certain ways. For example Mark talks a lot about Jesus teaching the people and their being amazed by his authority. But Mark doesn’t actually tell us much of what Jesus actually said. Matthew sets out to correct that, and he does it in a series of what might be called discourses of which the first and longest is the so called Sermon on the Mount.
This is the first prolonged example of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew’s gospel; and so the way in which it begins is significant. The reason why Matthew presents Jesus teaching his disciples on a mountain top is to remind us of Moses. In Matthew’s mind Jesus is the second Moses; which might make us think that Jesus’ teaching will be full of new commandments – to some extent that is true but it’s not how this first discourse begins.
It begins with the Beatitudes which are not a series of laws; this is not a description of good behaviour so much as an account of the character or feel of holiness. The Beatitudes are a description of ways of being blessed or perhaps fortunate or happy – the Greek word can mean all these things. So these Beatitudes are a way into the good life, the fulfilled life, though it is not always clear how much this life is possible now or only when the Kingdom of God is fully realised.
So first of all what does it mean to be poor in spirit? Wealth can often make you feel self sufficient, poverty makes clear to you what you lack and what you need. Poverty of spirit makes you feel your lack of holiness, your need for forgiveness, your need of grace if you are to find your true humanity. To recognise this lack puts you very close to the kingdom, though you may not realise it.
To mourn means not just to grieve the loss of loved ones; it can mean more widely any kind of loss or bereavement or absence. And we can feel that simply through a change in our circumstances or getting older or not having fulfilled an earlier hope or dream. We can even mourn for the state of the world. And yet by acknowledging that grief over what we have lost or never had or the tragedies we see in our world, we can find comfort.
Meekness is not a characteristic which the Victorians left us much time for; it smacks of suppression and false humility. And yet the true meaning of meekness is revealed in the answering phrase – the meek will inherit the earth. Only those who don’t think of anything as their right or reward can be trusted with the sort of power that inheriting the earth might imply.
Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness can readily make themselves unpopular. They are the people with a cause which fills them with the desire, equivalent to a deep hunger or thirst, to see justice done and they will stick at nothing until it is. They will campaign and go on marches and form committees and write articles and chain themselves to railings. They are you might think far from meek; and yet the kingdom needs this kind of holiness too.
And just in case your hunger for justice leads you to judge or condemn all who seem to stand in your way, and all who might in any way disagree with you, so mercy is shown to be another form of blessedness. Unless you can be merciful, by recognising your own need for mercy, your hunger for justice may never be fulfilled.
Purity is another of those virtues which the 19th century perhaps spoiled for us, especially with their often hypocritical emphasis on female purity. We perhaps still assume that purity has to do with sex and yet that is not what this beatitude is primarily talking about. Purity of heart should be interpreted as single mindedness, purity of vision and freedom from distraction. So many things clutter up our minds demanding attention of which one might have to do with sex, but that is not by far the only form of distraction. Seeing God as this beatitude promises, means seeing the one thing needful in any given situation and not being distracted by anxiety or self concern. Purity of heart discerns the way we must walk in.
It is in this way that the peacemakers can act as the sons and daughters of God. With undivided hearts they know and want what the God of peace wants. They may at times find it hard to work with those who rather un-peacefully hunger and thirst after righteousness; but what they also want is the building up of God’s peace through justice, mercy and reconciliation.
And just in case we have in our quest for holiness become a little complacent there is a sting in the tail of the Beatitudes. For the kind of faith they describe is not at home in the world as it is. The Beatitudes are in fact a direct threat to the world as it is. This kind of holiness puts you in a difficult relationship with a world which is likely to react with mockery, scorn or even persecution, though now we might also think of persecution as involving neglect and being treated as irrelevant. And yet through all such experience we are still blessed, happy even because on the other side of unbeatitude we can still see the kingdom of heaven.
It is not surprising that this gospel reading has since well before the Reformation been read on the feast of All Saints. The beatitudes help us to recognise the saints; they may even help us to become one, though of course if we are truly meek we won’t know it. Amen.