Several times recently as I have been checking out at a store the clerk, typically an African American, has wished me a “blessed day”. I like that. I want that. It would seem to follow that if I really want a blessed day, and a blessed life, then I need to seek to make the Beatitudes an integral part of my character–things which shape what I think and what I do.

*I am spiritual poor. I need to be much closer to my Master.

*I do mourn about my spiritual conditon. I know that God has forgiven me for my sins. I know that I have been born again. But I am not satisified. I do want to be more holy.
*I want to be meek and recognize my dependence upon God, but I often fail to do so. I want to fix things and run off to do them, rather than depending upon God.
*Realizing my spiritual poverty, I long to be righteous, to be just want God wants me to be.
*I still must work on being merciful. I tend to blame those with problems. They “made that bed. Now they can sleep in it.” I do think that I am making some progress here. Certainly, when I fail to be merciful, my conscience punishes me.
*I do try to be a peacemaker. I do not encourage conflict.
*Fortunately, I live and work with people who do not persecute me for my commitment to Jesus. I pray for those who are not so fortunate.

I do have a blessed life. But I need to take those blessing and be a blessing to those whose life is not blessed.

It is of interest to me that Jesus begins this great Sermon with these comments about how one’s life can be blessed and then concludes it with the illustration about the wise and the foolish builders. Could he have been saying to his listeners then and to us today that if we are wise we will built our lives upon him and his teaching; that we will construct it with the materials we find presented in the Beatitudes.

I am also wondering if the teachings in the remainder of the 5th chaper where Jesus looks at some of the laws of Israel, can be best understood by looking at them through the template of the Beatitudes. I will try that as I blog on.

At first glance it seems that Jesus repeats himself in the 9th of the Beatitudes. Both it and the 8th deal with persecution. The difference is that with the pronoun “you” he personalizes it. One can read the 8th rather philosophically, but in the 9th it is you and I who can anticipate persecution. Further, the reward offered to those who are true disciples of Jesus are eternal in heaven. Being a Kingdom person in this world is something great, but to have eternal life and reward in Heaven is far more significant.

One of the great commentaries on the Sermon on the Mount is by D. Bonhoeffer, a modern myrtar. He was hung by Hitler for his involvement in a plot to kill this tyrant. The title is “The Cost of Discipleship.” If you have not read it, please do so. It is very powerful.

Jesus, of course, experienced persecution for living a life characterized by the qualities presented in the Beatitudes. Reflect upon the events of the last few days of his life as recorded by Matthew (Mt. 21:1-27:56) Consider how he demonstrated poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, righteousness, mercy, a pure heart, and peacemaking. Consider how he was persecuted. Obviously, Jesus practiced what he preached.

When I consider my life, I find many times and ways that I have failed to practice what the Beatitudes teach. How about you?

The language here seems to move from person to person relations to group to group relations. The more persons involved in a conflict, the more complex it is to resolve in most cases.

Jesus knew and later experienced the fact that efforts at peacemaking, at reconciliation, are not always successful. So, he makes a major promise of reward for those who will try to act as a peacemaker.

Most Christians have experienced some persecution for being a peacemaker. For some it is mild. For others it has cost them their mortal life. Today, as in that day, persons are being hurt, punished and killed to being followers of Jesus.

They are assured a place in God’s Kingdom.This fact has strengthened the resolve of many to stay the course.

It seems to me that God wills for humankind to live in peace: with him (Rom. 5:1) and with one another. (Mt. 22:34-40). Here again we are looking at something which is not totally dependent up our own personal effort. Peace involves two or more persons.

Peace is most possible when the previous beatitude, purity of heart, is at work in the persons who seek peace. The lack of peace in a relationship is typically the consequences of one or both persons failing to love their neighbor as they should. This results in distrust and often issues in retalitory acts which heighten conflict.

In a few verses Jesus will return to this subject and tell his disciples that they should be initiators of the peace making process. Ideally, when one goes to another and declares that being a peace with him/her is of utmost importance, the other will respond by taking steps toward reconciliation.

The promise here is that peacemakers will be called sons of God. Does this refer to the idea that we are acting with the same goals and purposes of God himself, thus be are seen a “chips off the old block”?

In the psychology of the Hebrews the heart was the center, or the core being of a person. It is here that the “will” of a person resides. A pure heart would be one that willed what God wills. And this willing would apply to all levels of life–personal, family, community, church, vocation, nation, environment and the world.

The goal of the Christian life is to know and do the will of God. God’s will impacts each person both generally and specifically. This is to say that God wills every human person to trust and obey him. But he also has a specific will for how Gary Farley trusts and obeys him.

God has a will for each of us which is usually termed a “calling”, or a vocational role. And within the expression of this calling he will have a will for tasks that we assume and for how we perform those tasks. Our analysis should also include the factor of timing. Similar observation might be made concerning family, church life, and social and political life.

The central point here is that we are expected by God to perform each of these roles and tasks with a pure heart. Later Matthew will share a story about the mother of James and John requesting positions for her sons. (Mt. 20:20f.)The response of Jesus throws light on the current topic. We will return to it later. But for now let me observe that Jesus is telling us that in whatever roles or positions we are playing in life that we must act with purity. This is to say that our will should be God’s will for us in this case.

The promise that come with this says to me that I will see God working in me and through my roles and positions as I perform them with a pure heart. Further, one day I will see God face to face and will be able to rejoice for being “a good and faithful servant.”

Perhaps, I should also say a word about an “impure” heart. This would exist when I try to manipulate God to support my will, or when I would from what I desire, not what God wills.

The first four of the Beatitudes are personal. Here we moved to a greater level of complexity. Mercy involves others. Repeatedly, God told the prophets to teach the Children of Israel to be merciful. Mercy is a basic characteristic of God. The history of his relationships with the Hebrews in the Old Testament demonstrates his mercy. And a knowledge of the failures of the Christian movement across nearly 2,000 years continues to underscore this trait in God.

Since February/March of 2007 I have seen mercy demonstrated in a moving, powerful way. The pastors and leaders of several of the nine rural Alabama churches that were victims of arson then have called for mercy for the young men who set the fires. This display of mercy has struck a chord in the hearts of people across our nation.

More than enough resources have poured in to make it possible for these churches to rebuild. And they have done so with a eye toward the future and expanded ministries.

But there is much more here. Jesus is speaking of God’s merciful response to those who deal with their neighbors mercifully. It seems to me that the remarks by Jesus concerning the criteria of Judgment, Matt. 25, reflect what is stated in this Beatitude.

Some might see mercy as a sign of weakness. A better assessment is it is a demonstration of faith in the sovereign power of God.

Righteousness is defined as being right with, or aligned with God. Those, Jesus promises, who seriously want to be right with God will get their wish. Here again the presence of the Holy Spirit in one’s life makes this rightness possible.

Personally, I have found that as I have grown older the desire to be righteous has grown within me. Coupled with this is a growing realization of my unrighteousness. In reflecting upon my life, I am convicted of my failings in the past, and more honest about my current failings.

I struggle some with understanding the promise of fullness. I am certainly not full in the sense of having achieved righteousness. But there is a sense of having filled in some of vacant places of my life with righteousness.

Peterson’s translation reads, “Who can climb Mount God? Who can scale the holy north-face?”  The response is those with clean hands and pure hearts.  God will help them make it.

I fear that sometimes we Evangelicals in our passion to see people “accept Jesus” have cheapened grace by putting the person at the center of the process.  God is holy, awesome, above and beyond us. He loves us and wishes to save us, but we must come to him repentant and ready to do his will. I fear that we have been guilty of separating the roles of savior and lord.  That is, we offer a savior without telling folk that there are “strings attached”.  Jesus demands to be our Lord.

The Psalmist draws a picture here of God as a mountain, a great and dangerous one which we need to climb.  God wills for those who come to him be persons whose hands are not stained with blood and filth and whose hearts are righteous and pure.

Unfortunately, the response of some to this statement has been to try to clean themselves up on there own and thereby “earn their salvation”.  This too cheapens grace. The reality is that God not only demands obedience and purity and cleanliness of us, but he also provides these for those who put their trust in Jesus.  Jesus made the sacrifice.  Jesus is the “only” way.  Jesus is the one whom we follow, our guide up the mountain of God.

The points are:
(l)grace is costly;
(2)God is in charge;
(3)He places high demands, one that we really cannot achieve;
(4)He provides the way to meet these demands;
(5)repentance and grateful acceptance is the way.

Recently one of the great preachers of our time, Robert Smith, Jr, professor of Christian preaching at Beeson Divinity School came to our area and preached to us from the 23rd Psalms.  He made what was a most familiar passage live again for us.  Among his points were the following:

*We are sheep. We are like sheep.  We need a shepherd.  We need  a shepherd who is also our Lord.
*We need to be nourished by lush pastures and still waters. God provides for our needs.
*We need restored because we will need to go through valleys, valleys with dangers and with deep shadows. Shadows indicate that the sun is shining somewhere.  We will see it again.
*The rod and the staff will protect us from our enemies and retrieve us from our missteps.
*The narrow path of righteousness is what we need to follow. And our shepherd will keep us in it.
*One day we will be housed in the heavenly barn and be well filled.

Dr. Smith made much of the fact that as we go through the hard times our relationship with God will change from the more formal to the more familiar–from he to you.  In danger God becomes more real and significant to us.

Jesus quoted a portion of this psalm as he hung dying on the cross. It certainly captures the essence of the great suffering he endured.

The response to the suffering of the cross, “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me.” was hard for me as a literalistic young minister to harmonize. That is to say, that I looked at anything that Jesus said as literal and as absolute truth.  Surely, God had not actually forsaken his son.  Years later when I learned that Jesus was quoting from David’s song, I was greatly relieved.

Surely, Jesus was communicating to those around the cross in a way that they could understand his anguish. David continued in his song that his ancestors had trusted in God and their trust had been correct, so by implication Jesus was saying that he fully anticipated that the Father would bring him through to victory.

As it turned out it was not the victory of an old-time western movie, or of the type expected by those around the cross.  It was a far greater one–resurrection, ascension, advocacy, return to rule.

My primary point in this post is that one must be careful not to allow his or her hermeneutic ideas stand in judgment of the Scriptures.  Truth is there, often many layers of truth, but not necessarily truth that complies with what we bring to the verses.