May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and redeemer. Amen.
Has anybody here read the medieval epic poem Beowulf? According to some, it’s the oldest piece of literature written in the English language, written down sometime between the eighth and eleventh centuries. It’s a super cool story about some Danish kings (one of them named Beowulf) who get attacked by the monster Grendel, then by Grendel’s mother, and then by a dragon. And they have to defend themselves. Cool stuff. My wife thinks I’m so, so nerdy when I start talking about Beowulf, and it’s true. I’m a nerd. But Beowulf is cool.
One of the things that I really like about the story of Beowulf is that it’s like a little window into the minds of people who lived more than a millennium ago. We get little glimpses of how these ancient Scandinavians thought. About the things they thought were important, about the things they thought were proper. And you can see that their ways of thinking are just so different from our own way of thinking.
For example, you can tell that the narrator of the Beowulf story thinks that it’s super important for kings to be generous with the spoils of war. Over and over again he praises kings for all of the stuff that they give out to their retainers. The cups, the rings, the swords, the horses, the feasts. The narrator also thinks it’s super important for people to be brave. When Beowulf goes out to slay the dragon, only one dude, Wiglaf, has the courage to stay with Beowulf and fight. The rest of his men run away and hide in the forest. Cowards. And the narrator lets us know that these cowards disgust him. Another thing the narrator really values is fame. He thinks it’s right and good for Beowulf to seek and attain fame. Generosity, bravery, fame. These are the things that make a good ninth-century Norseman.
In other places and in other times, though, what makes a person good is different. I’ve spent a lot of time studying the Aztec of sixteenth-century Mexico, for example, and they had very different ideas of what it meant to do good. The Aztec envisioned their journey through life as taking place along a high ridge with the land falling steeply away on either side. Very dangerous. One misstep would send you tumbling down the mountainside, so you needed to act soberly, cautiously, obediently. To be a good Aztec person, you had to keep careful control of yourself.
And then there is today. If, today, you get on TikTok or Instagram, you can find many thousands of people with many thousands of different views about how you should behave: Don’t eat meat, eat lots of meat, grow your own food, build your own patio, build your career, invest in index funds, invest in crypto, eat only European gluten.
It’s funny how different groups of humans can have such different views of what is good and right. What’s right is surprisingly fluid. There are lots and lots of different ideas across time and space about the right way to act.
Today’s gospel reading has its own take on this question. The question of how to act properly. Of how to be good. Of what is right in the eyes of God.
In the passage today from Matthew we hear Jesus tell us what good people are like. He does this using the so-called beatitudes, in the first part of his so-called sermon on the mount. Quintessential Jesus right here.
There are nine of these beatitudes, each beginning with the word “blessed.” Blessed are blank. And this word “blessed,” it means that these are the kinds of people that make God happy, that elicit God’s favor.
Scholars have noted that the beatitudes can be divided up into groups. The first four beatitudes, for instance, all seem to describe a specific set of people: people who have suffered misfortune. First, the poor in spirit, people whom scholars define as having no hope. Their situations are so dire that they have lost hope.
Second, those who mourn. And scholars believe the word mourn to mean something slightly broader than what we might think. These mourners are people who are miserable or unhappy in a general sense, not just because someone close to them has died. These folks have no joy in their lives.
The third group is the meek, which is perhaps more appropriately translated as the powerless and dispossessed. The swindled and deprived. These people have no resources.
And the fourth type of people are actually a kind of summary of the first three: those who hunger and thirst for God to resolve their situation, those who have serious needs that are not being met. Those with no hope, no joy, no resources. Jesus declares in this opening section of his sermon on the mount that all of them are blessed, all of them elicit God’s favor. Not because of something they have done or not done, but just because that is how God is. God has a special concern for the hopeless, the joyless, and the destitute.
The other people that are blessed by God are the people of the next four lines: the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are tenacious in the ways of God. If we step back a bit, we see that these next four are a kind of parallel, a kind of inverse of the first set. If the first set needs help, then this second set gives it.
First, the merciful. The word mercy can have a range of biblical meanings, including healing the sick, giving money to the poor, feeding the hungry, really just righting any kind of wrong.
Next, the pure in heart, or those who are passionate about or loyal to God’s kingdom and God’s kingdom alone. They are focused on their mission, they are not distracted by other passions. They are purely passionate.
Then, the peacemakers. And these people aren’t diplomats. Because this peace isn’t just peace between nations, but right relationships between individuals. It’s the same peace that we pass to each other on Sundays. The peacemakers are those who work to make relationships right.
The last of this group of four are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, or, to put it another way, those who are tenacious in their work for God’s kingdom, and willing to suffer for the cause of justice.
So the first set of beatitudes is about people who have suffered misfortune, and the second set is about people who help to remedy that misfortune. Jesus says that God is interested in people in need and in people who work to meet those needs.
If we think back to the things that other groups of people in various places and time periods thought were good and right, we can see that Jesus’s vision is pretty radically different.
For the medieval Danes, it was right to be brave, to reward loyal service, and to be remembered after your death. For the Aztec, it was right to master your impulses and act with sobriety and restraint. For influencers on Instagram, it is right to make smart money decisions, to climb the career ladder, to get a perfect body. But God, according to Jesus, prizes different things. God blesses those who are in need of help. And God blesses those who give help. He doesn’t care about fame or glory, about gluten or oatmilk, about waistlines or wrinkles or curated wardrobes, about self-control and mindfulness, about self-sufficient homesteading or Michelin-starred restaurants. That is not what’s right. That is not God’s kingdom. Not even close. God’s kingdom is just people in need and people meeting needs. That’s what matters to God.
The final beatitude—the ninth one—is different from the first eight. The first eight are all written in the third person using descriptive verbs. But the ninth one is written as a second person command: Blessed are you. In other words, God expects you to be involved in this whole business of giving help. This is not a spectator sport. Even if you experience some discomfort, or even persecution and false accusations, God expects you to get involved. If you’re going to call yourself a Christian, if you’re going to follow the example of Jesus, you have to get involved. You’ve got to help bring hope to the hopeless. You’ve got to help bring joy to the joyless. You’ve got to help bring shelter to the unhoused, food to the hungry, money to the poor. God loves those who need help. And God loves those who help them.
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