Blessed Are the Embarrassed

I once came across Carl Bloch’s painting of the Sermon on the Mount with a lighthearted caption attached. The caption read, “Ok, everyone listen carefully; I don’t want to end up with, like, four different versions of this.” In reality, there are two versions of Jesus’ famous sermon: a shorter one in Luke (which we call the Sermon on the Plain, since Jesus delivers it not from a mountain, but from “a level place”[1]) and the one in Matthew that begins with the list of blessings in today’s Gospel: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…. Blessed are the mourners… the meek… the merciful… the pure in heart… the peacemakers… the persecuted.” These blessings are called the Beatitudes.

If Jesus is our best teacher, then there must be something to learn here. And as we are wont to do with scripture, we may hear the Beatitudes as a list of instructions: If you want to make your way into God’s good graces, you should be poor in spirit, meek, merciful, etc. In other words, the Beatitudes are directions for having an “A” attitude….

But Jesus’ statements here are not in fact commands, but consolations; they’re not entreaties, but encouragements; they’re not entrance requirements for the kingdom of heaven,[2] but assurances of divine love in spite of difficulty. To quote at length from one commentary:

The key word in this week’s passage [in Greek] is makarios. It is often translated as “blessed” or “happy.” Both [translations] can be misleading. There is nothing inherently good or mood-lifting about occupying the place of poverty and persecution. We dare not romanticize [these experiences]. Jesus is not denying the reality of suffering. He is pulling back the veil, giving us a privileged glimpse inside the heart of God.

If there is any blessedness or happiness to be found here, it is in recognizing God’s delight in what the world despises. Suddenly, outsiders are given insider status and the security of belonging. Those who feel cursed discover their own belovedness. This is what [theologian] James Alison calls the “intelligence of the victim” — the deep knowing of God’s delight.

Of course, the great irony of the Sermon on the Mount is that it is spoken for those who occupy the death valleys of the world. It is the revelation of God’s upside-down kingdom, showing how the Spirit sets up camp in the low places and calls forth life [amid] death and destruction.[3]

That is to say, blessedness is not a state of comfort, according to Jesus, but a promise of God’s care and concern for precisely those who are not #blessed. “To be blessed is to know that one is included in the coming realm”[4]– the new reality that is breaking into the world by grace– regardless of present circumstances.

But, O, how troubling are the present circumstances! Only the most willful Pollyanna would dare minimize the painful realities of life in the world. It’s the great quandary for people of sincere faith: What are we to make of all the tragedy, and what are we to do?

Pastor Robin Meyers suggests one possible place to begin:

[Excerpt from Saving God from Religion, pp. 134-5]

It is an embarrassment, a scandal, to be “confronted with the gap… between what ought to be and what is.” Nevertheless, we set our hopes on the one who blesses us even as we mourn the present state of affairs. So, blessed are you who are embarrassed, who can’t stand the way things are, yet who refuse to give up on God or your neighbors.

Friends, let me invite you to receive the Beatitudes today as an antidote to cynicism. If you’re tempted to conclude that the world will never change, and that faith is ultimately misguided, let Jesus’ promises restore and sustain in you a spirit of hope and commitment: Blessed are you, for your work is only just begun, and God’s dream for the world is already coming true.

[1] Luke 6:17.

[2] Edwin Chr. Van Driel, in Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, 309.

[3] streetpsalms.org/fourth-sunday-after-epiphany-year-a/.

[4] Ronald J. Allen, in Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 1, 309.