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Matthew 5.8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

Meekness, mercy, purity – these are not the way to popularity, influence and affluence in our culture. But they are the essential qualities of the Kingdom of God, that inner world where God rules in our hearts. The pure of heart are those who know they are sinners, know they are forgiven, and know the love of God in Jesus – and in seeing Jesus, they see and come to know God.

“Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” These words of David would be deeply familiar to Jesus, the Son of David. The pure in heart is the person whose heart is clean and whose spirit is made right.

In biblical terms the heart is more than that physiological organ that keeps us alive by beating approximately every second of our lives. The heart is the centre of the affections, the starting place of our motivations, one of the governors of our behaviour and actions. When we choose and decide and think, we form our attitudes, our character and our values. The heart is the debating chamber where we decide what matters, and what matters most to us.

So we have a prayer: “Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me.” And we have a promise: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. How do we move from that prayer that knows the heart is sinful, to that promise that knows the heart can be cleansed and made pure?

As Christians we get it wrong, often. Christians of all people know they are sinners, and serial offenders at that. How to have a pure heart? The 80 something year old Apostle John knew the problem, and in his pastoral letter to the wee house groups in Ephesus he wrote:  “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

So there it is. Blessed are the pure in heart, the promise to those who know to pray “Create in me a clean heart O God.” And the promise to those who know that if we sin, – and however hard we try not to, we do – if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive and cleanse us.

Just as I am – Thy love unknown Has broken every barrier down;
Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone, -O Lamb of God, I come!

Just as I am – of that free love, the breadth, length, depth, and height to prove,
Here for a season, then above, -O Lamb of God, I come!

Matthew 5.7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Mercy is a soft word that makes tough demands. Mercy is more than empathy and compassion; it is a standard of behaviour, a habit of the heart, a call to action for those who seek first the Kingdom of God. Generous giving, compassionate care, practical help, honest to goodness kindness, costly forgiveness, – these make up the barcode that when scanned, identifies true followers of Jesus.

To be moved to pity by someone else’s suffering, hardship, problems and their struggle just to get on with life, is to be like Jesus. The number of times we’re told “he looked and he had compassion”; one of the most telling moments was “When he saw the crowds he had compassion on them, for they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd…”(Matthew 9.36)

And what did Jesus do? He got them settled, comfortable and fed them. The feeding of the 5000 was miracle enough; but it was also a demonstration of mercy, compassion, practical care for people who were struggling. I suppose the other obvious clue comes from the parable of the Good Samaritan. You know, the one who was just as busy, just as nervous, as everyone else walking the robbers’ no man’s land on the way to Jericho. He saw, had compassion, poured oil, put him on his own donkey, paid his bill, said he’d pay any extra costs personally; that’s being merciful.

We live in a world where there can be extraordinary acts of kindness, gestures of generosity, the kind of goodness that takes you aback. But we also live in a world too busy to notice, where the phone in the hand is the centre of attention as we walk by, where we celebrate overblown celebrity and tolerate under-funded poverty.

When Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” he made a promise that like all the other Beatitudes can transform lives, our own, and others’. Living this Beatitude changes life, and makes us part of the change.

Think of it as a chain reaction of compassion, we care because God cares for us. Our kindness is simply the overflow of the kindness of God to us. We love because he first loved us. Jesus isn’t arguing that it’s in our best interests to be merciful; he’s saying, if you are seeking the Kingdom of God, it starts by doing to others as God has done with us. We too have our struggles, and we too have had our blessings. In the lives of others don’t add to their struggles, add to their blessings.

Here’s how that happens: “God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Romans 5.5. Being merciful is being the conduit through which the overflowing love of God flows outward to others.

(The photo was taken in Carnie Woods, a mile from our door, and one of the places where your feet walk on old paths, amongst old trees.)

Matthew 5. 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Hunger and thirst are basic human drives, and they are about our survival. We need food to nourish, and water to refresh. Jesus is congratulating those who feel injustice like a hunger, and long for the emptiness that others feel to be filled, and satisfied. The life that is made right with God, hungers for that same rightness to be blessing for others.

The word righteousness has deep roots in Christian theology and experience. It means to be put right with God, but once that is accomplished, we are co-opted into God’s great purpose of making right. That takes us into repairing, restoring and renewing a broken and fallen world. That’s why we talk of the Gospel of peace, of reconciliation, of justice and of love for neighbour.

Again it is Luke who in his Beatitudes gets to the physical and material realities of what happens in a world of unrighteousness. (Luke 6. 20-22) When others are hungry, poor, or weeping, but we are satisfied with more than enough, and life is good for us but terrible for others, then to hunger and thirst for righteousness is to recognise the brokenness of the world, and in Jesus name find ways to make it right.

When the prophet Micah spoke the word of the Lord it wasn’t primarily or only about personal holiness. His concern was about the unjust, unequal, compassionless society in which the rich flourished and the poor suffered. “He has told you people what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? But to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6.8)

Jesus spent so much of his time feeding the hungry, eating with the lonely, giving a drink to a thirsty woman at a well, turning water into wine. And the permanent sign of God’s gracious love and the binding of humanity to God through the cross, is bread and wine, food for body and soul.

So when we truly hunger and thirst for righteousness, we know deeply and surely, that the work of the Kingdom of God is about feeding the hungry, giving refreshment to the thirsty, visiting the sick and the lonely, caring for each human being as one of the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters.

The love of God for the world is itself a hunger and thirst for righteousness. From all eternity there is a deep yearning in the Father heart of God to welcome home his children, to restore the ruined masterpiece of creation, and to make right the relationships that have gone wrong. But the promise stands; those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled and satisfied by a world redeemed in Christ.

Meekness isn’t amongst the qualities that tend to turn up on CV’s in the person’s recognised strengths box. Which is a pity. In biblical times the word was used of an ox yoked to the plough. It means strength harnessed to purpose. Those who are seeking the Kingdom of God do so meekly, with quiet, determined purpose in the strength of God.

Isn’t it interesting that Jesus seldom praises speed, and often commends slow and steady. The seed grows secretly and slowly; yeast does its work gradually and pervasively; the Samaritan interrupts his own agenda and takes the rest of the day to help the ‘man who fell among thieves’; the Father waited, and waited, and waited for his son to appear round the distant corner on the way home. Mind you the father then embarrassed himself by running like a teenager down the main street to hug his son and throw a flash mob party.

Remember I mentioned how so much that Jesus taught, and so much of how he behaved and treated people, was counter-intuitive? Congratulating the meek is another case in point. And here’s something else to ponder:

"Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

That word gentle? It’s the same word Jesus used in the Beatitude, meek. Christ-likeness is more about meekness than power playing, self-assertion, self-sufficiency, or any number of other self-centred self-descriptions. The call to discipleship is a call to follow, with faithful persistence, trustful patience, and meek obedience.

But remember, meek does not mean mere compliance or lacking in backbone, energy or drive. It is our whole being harnessed to purpose in the work of the Kingdom of God. We take the yoke of the gentle Christ on our shoulders, discover it is cross-shaped, and then we follow him to Calvary, and beyond to the empty tomb, and beyond that as he goes before us into whatever future we are called to live.

John Bunyan: I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of, and wherever I have seen the print of his shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my foot.”

Matthew 5.4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

We mourn when we experience the kinds of loss that are life-changing. It could be our job, our health, a relationship, and yes, the death of a loved one. Comfort is not emotional cotton wool; it is strength to go on. Comfort is when we are surrounded by the strength and prayers and practical help of others. And every such word and act of comfort that comes our way has God’s signature written all over it. Because God is the God of all comfort.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." (2 Cor. 1.3-4)

That word translated as ‘comfort’ is a couthy word. It means paraclete, and that refers to someone who comes alongside to help, an advocate, someone who has our back. The God of all comfort comes alongside those who mourn, the Father of compassion feels our sorrow, hurt and sense of loss when life goes wrong.

In the story of Crown Terrace Baptist Church in Aberdeen, Stewart and Helen were fine examples of Christian service and compassion. They were people who came alongside folk who were struggling. One of Helen’s sentences in her prayers for people was “may you be blessed and be for blessing.” That’s exactly what Paul is saying to the Corinthian Christians then, and his words come as benediction to us now. 

We are blessed to be for blessing. As a community each church is a conduit of grace, love and compassion, each of us called “to comfort those in any trouble, with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” When we struggle, God comes alongside. When others struggle, God sends us to come alongside them – may we be blessed, and be for blessing.

These past months have been times of loss for so many people: bereavement, unemployment, loneliness, illness, lock down isolation, loss of the company of friends, family and social interaction, freedom to shop without anxiety, and a long list of etc. etc. we could all add to.

Blessed are those who mourn…Give thanks for all those phone calls, cards, acts of kindness, supportive gestures, and even allowing for physical distancing, folk who have come alongside us when we mourn what we have lost. So may we each be blessed, and be for blessing. “for we shall be comforted.”

Matthew 5.3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Most of us want to be independent, resourceful, and resilient. We prefer to be the ones who help others, rather than need help ourselves. When Jesus says happy, to be congratulated, are all those who find it hard to make life work sometimes, it all sounds counter-intuitive. And that’s true – so much of what Jesus teaches goes against what we think is usually the case.

Interestingly, the words of Jesus in Luke are not so much about those who are “poor in spirit”, and struggling with guilt, or feeling inadequate, or anxious about problems too hard to solve, or low in spirits. Luke’s Beatitude says “Blessed are you who are poor”, and by that he means those who don’t have enough money or enough to eat. But that lack of material security also causes poverty in spirit, anxiety about tomorrow, feelings of injustice and just the struggle to keep hoping.

One way or another, we’ve all been in places and times when our own resources are not enough. We may even feel that blessing has passed us by, God’s interests are elsewhere. Jesus’ words make a promise. When we are at our lowest, God is there, in strength, in grace, and in the power of a love that understands those deep longings we all have, for life to be fruitful, and for hope to pull us forward.

“For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”, is not a promise of something better, sometime, like the postponed promises of patronising politicians! Both Matthew and Luke promise that when we are at our lowest, ours is the Kingdom of heaven. Like treasure discovered in a field, God will not leave us bankrupt. Like seed growing on good ground, fruit will grow out of our lives; like a mustard seed growing into a tree that shelters the birds, so is our faith – and so is God’s kingdom in our hearts.

Blessed are the poor in Spirit… When we reach the place where we run out of resources, ideas, and solutions, we never run out of God’s love for us, or God’s grace to help us. The kingdom of heaven is that place in our lives where we trust God to care for us no matter what. And no matter what, He does…for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

I keep coming back to the Beatitudes. This is distilled essence of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God. They are also a series of sayings that simply and uncompromisingly contradict the cultural assumptions that fuel the way we live just now. 

Ever since Christians thought seriously about the Sermon on the Mount as a charter for human life and flourishing, there have been arguments and qualifications and rhetorical moves to soften the demands, and even evade the ethical imperatives of the Kingdom of God.

The Beatitudes are so counter-intuitive, and so counter-cultural that reading them as true statements can create cognitive dissonance, an inner uneasiness that we are being asked to believe statements inherently contradictory.

It's that blessed word 'Blessed', that causes the bother! How can Jesus possibly think, and say, and claim, that all these poor in spirit, mourners,meek, hungry and thirsty folk are to be congratulated? Helped, supported, defended – all of that – but to describe them as blessed and happy? And once you work out how the world works, are we really to make habits of mercy, purity of heart, peaceable peace-making, and welcoming persecution the working assumptions of our lives? Really? Is that what Jesus demands of us? Yes. Really.

So whenever we return to these words of Jesus, and read and hear again these outrageous reversals of our usual perceptions, we are likely to be not a little unsettled. Which is good. Because sometimes we become a little too settled. These are words that stop the slippage of minds too preoccupied to seek first the Kingdom of God; they collide with any kind of complacency about what a Christian world view is for those who faithfully follow Jesus; and they set the agenda for any of us who dare to pray "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

So I often return to the Beatitudes

to get my motives, motivation and moral compass reset towards Christ as the magnetic north

to have my eyes tested to ensure I am still looking at the world through eyes attentive to movements of mercy and options for peace-making

to check that my appetite for justice and righteousness is still hungry and thirsty and pushing me towards the new reality that is God's purpose of shalom

to listen for a Voice that isn't trying to seduce me into selfishness, and its multiple goals of buying, possessing, competing, resenting, coveting and colluding

to hear Jesus say, once again, as a regular reminder, "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness" and all the other things that matter most will fall into place

to lay my mind and heart open to the deep cleaning corrective of promises that do not promise free expression of my self-interest, but the freedom to engage in a life work shaped by redemptive gestures of Kingdom grace.

No wonder Matthew tells his readers that Jesus took his disciples to a high place, up the mountainside. The Sermon on the Mount sets the rules of the Kingdom of God. The reign of God in a human life is not about coercive power; it is an invitation to risk, a calling to side with the vulnerable, a demand that we choose one of two ways, one of two foundations, one of two lifestyles.

So, yes, the Beatitudes are not airy fairy ideals for the sentimental, or the over spiritual happy makers; they are demands for a way of seeing the world, and living in the world by practices that subvert the way things are. The Beatitudes are not for the fainthearted, but for those whose hearts are already and repeatedly given over to the reign of God. 

This morning I wrote Pastoral Letter 19 since the lock down started on March 23. We didn't know then how long this would all go on, and we still have no clear pathway forward beyond easing lock down and carrying on with the public health measures known to hinder the spread of Covid 19. Over these weeks I have written weekly to our church community, and prepared a brief Thought for the Day based on one biblical text each day. As time passes they are building up into an archive of pastoral care by written words. I live 40 miles from Montrose, so till the last week or two travel was impossible, and even now physical distancing and restricted meeting frustrate the desire for presence when face recognises face and heart speaks to heart. 

I haven't reread any of them, but I suspect some recurring themes will be becoming evident to those who read them week by week. The theme or text on which I write is not pre-planned but arises out of the overall context we find ourselves living through. The mood of the country, the daily updates on statistics and public health measures, my own sense of what is happening, conversations with various folk I try to help and support, all influence the way I think, pray and write. In other words, theological reflection takes place in the here and now of a zeitgeist exuding anxiety about health, uncertainty about work and economic damage, impatience to return to normal which feels like a form of denial of the reality that it may never again be the way it was.

So, where now? How to live faithfully and purposefully in a world evolving into something different but unclear? At the level of local church communities the questions are just as troubling and the answers just as difficult to find. Every week I've struggled to find words and ideas that might help our church community to hold on to hope, to think new thoughts, to see our times against the backdrop of God's long purposes, to acknowledge the reality of suffering and not give facile faith lifts.

In doing all that I've learned to do something that has become part of the way I am a pastor mostly en absentia, physically distant but wanting to be near. I pray through the list of all those who are part of our church, formal members and committed friends, those who are always there and those who are seldom there. A number of folk I've supported by phone, email, text and letters / cards. I've always done these things, but now they are the primary expressions of a calling that has previously relied so much on presence, spoken words, and the sacrament of physicality that is the human body being present as grace to other people.

So as I have come to write each week, I have a growing sense of those who will read, think about, and respond to all those words. Some will be for blessing, some will touch places where pain resides, some will annoy though that is never the intention, and some will inform, encourage, or empower – this I hope, and pray. It isn't the same; indeed it's nothing like the same as embodied, incarnational presence which is both sacramental and mutual in the meeting of hearts and minds and the nearness of the other. 

Today's letter was written around words written 2,400 years ago, give or take a century or two. The Book of Proverbs is a reader's Digest of one liners for smart living, or wisdom as the book calls it. In chapter 3 there are words that will become axiomatic in how faith communities go about their decision making processes.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3.5-6)

What I wrote about that verse, I'll post on Monday once it has gone out to our folk. For now suffice to say it has sharp relevance to any of us who ask of God, where now? Meantime, I also came across a prayer written by one of the thinkers I follow closely in his books and online. A man of spiritual wisdom, humility and realism about how the world actually works, and who commits this day as each day to God. This is our prayer for the week in our wee church, in Montrose, week beginning August 3rd, in the 19th week since lock down, and in the confusion and uncertainty of the times, seeking for right paths. 

Eternal God, I have many plans for today.

But I do not know what the day will bring, despite my plans.

And more – I am a mist. I appear for a while – and then vanish.

My life here is but a moment, but you are eternal.

May I embark upon this day, intentional about what I think you want me to do,

and yet humble about the limits of my plans, my knowledge, my control.

Into your hands I commit my day. AMEN   

(David Gushee, Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Centre for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University.)

I wrote this prayer some years ago now. It was for closing worship after a Church day conference where I had been invited to help the group explore ways of dealing with conflict, disagreement, relational tensions and all the other words we use to describe what happens when people are finding it hard to get on with each other!

Reading it again, it all feels a bit idealistic, and raises the inevitable question, "But How?" But then the fruit of the Spirit isn't about us being perfect, but about God's work in us conforming us to the image of Christ, bringing us to maturity, or to put it in our own casual terms, the fruit of the Spirit become signs that we are growing up!

Anyway, I'm posting it here for those who might find it helpful…..  

Praying the Fruit of the Spirit When Dealing with Difficult People

Lord Jesus Christ, by your grace

help us to love others as you have loved us.

where there is the sadness of hurt, help us to bring the joy of laughter.

when we are provoked, may your peace stand guard over our hearts and minds.

when others speak hard words that hurt us, give us patience so that we don’t make things worse by speaking as we have been spoken to.

help us to find ways of showing kindness to those we find it hard to love.

may our thoughts and actions spring from goodness and not from defensive self-interest.

your love never gives up on us, no matter how often we hurt you; make our love for others as faithful as your love for us.

Lord Jesus, you are gentle and lowly in heart; give us that same gentleness and strength of character when we have to deal with difficult people.

by the power of your Spirit, give us self-control, in our words, in our thoughts and in the passions of our heart.

May the fruit of the Holy Spirit blossom, set and ripen in our lives, through your grace and by the obedience of our faith,  Amen.