“The Beatitudes
Revisited” Epiphany 4 - January 29, 2017
Dr. Roger Ray, pastor
Matthew 5:1-12
5:1 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he
sat down, his disciples came to him.
5:2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5:5 "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
5:7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
5:9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called
children of God.
5:10 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness'
sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
5:11 "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
5:12
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way
they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
When my daughter
was a toddler she was very attached to me and she got terribly upset when I had
to leave the house. When she could talk a bit, she would demand an explanation,
“Why are you leaving?” My mantra became, “I have to go fight sin.” She
occasionally tried to negotiate, “Why can’t mommy go fight sin and you stay
home?” A lot of possible explanations raced through my mind in those moments but
after some diplomatic excuse was offered, I donned my suit and tie and went out
in my clerical armor to slay dragons.
As an adult, when
she texts or emails to say, “what’s up” my stock reply is still, “just busy
fighting sin.” Saying that was more a bit of comic relief than an actual
explanation for most of the past 28 years but lately I have felt my heart sink
a bit, every time I say it.
We have a new
president who was not only enthusiastically endorsed by the KKK but has
recently been diagnosed by John D. Gartner, a registered
psychotherapist from the renowned Johns Hopkins University Medical School, as
being a malignant narcissist. Scientists from the EPA, the Agriculture
Department, and Health services have all been told to keep quiet and not give
the public scientific information about the environment, global climate change,
or even health hazards in our food supply.
Controversial
pipeline projects that will contribute to the destruction of the environment
while placing our supply of water in danger have been approved. As we sat back
and watched the destruction the complete destruction of the city of Aleppo, a
city of more than 2 million people, setting off the worst refugee crisis in
modern history, now we have entirely closed our doors to Syrian refugees in
their time of greatest need.
Wheels have been
set in motion to appoint Supreme Court justices who will roll back the rights
of women to manage their own reproductive lives and the rights of gay and
lesbian citizens to marry the person they love. Even after more than two
decades as a newspaper opinion writer, I can hardly get anything into print
about these issues because newspapers are afraid to criticize our current
government and that is not without good reason.
Journalists have
been arrested and some have been beaten by police and then sentenced to years
in prison for simply reporting the news about protests at Standing Rock in
North Dakota and last week in Washington, DC for covering protests during the
inauguration of President Trump.
The legitimate
protests of the Black Lives Movement are being dismissed as being somehow
unfairly critical of the police who have a horrifying track record for shooting
and killing unarmed black men and women in this country.
The wall that is
now proposed to be built along our border with Mexico will cost $25 billion and
the best idea Trump has for paying for it is to levy a new tax on goods brought
into the United States from Mexico which means we will have to pay for it. As
Andy Borowitz said, “It’s a good thing our roads and schools are in such great
shape or I’d be pissed.”
I sat, earlier
this week, looking through the sound and bullet proof glass of the Greene Co.
Jail at a sick old man, Charlie White, who has been in the jail for two years
now awaiting a federal trial for growing marijuana near here. He is 76, nearly
blind, and in failing health. I had hoped that he would be among those pardoned
by Obama in the closing days of his administration but Charlie and a million
other non-violent offenders remain incarcerated in our country. In the country jails, conditions can be much
worse than the conditions for suspected terrorists in Guantanamo.
Here, just four
miles from where we are gathered this morning, hundreds of inmates are kept,
three and four adults crammed into two person cells, where the heat has not
worked all winter. They eat only canned food, no fresh vegetables, fruit, or
meat in 40 degree temperatures, day after day. If the Humane Shelter housed
dogs and cats this way every employee there would, ironically be charged and
sentenced to years in the country jail…. But decent people don’t treat dogs
that way but our government treats sick old men that way.
So now, when I
leave home to go fight sin, I hardly know where to start. Should I go to a
Women’s march, or go to my Senator’s office to protest this new refugee policy,
or should I go back to Standing Rock to join the water protectors once again?
The Quixotic
mantra of mounting my stead, taking lance in hand, to go forth and fight sin
that once brought a smile to my toddlers face now leaves me wondering if I
might not be on Charlie’s side of the glass at the Greene Co. Jail before this
year is finished. The fight is no longer a matter of metaphor. It is real and
the stakes are high.
I am finding a
role model in these dark days in the Standing Rock Sioux tribe member, Chase
Iron Eyes. Like the rest of us, Chase isn’t perfect and he is struggling to
find his legs in the shifting earth of the fight against the DAPL pipeline but
what he is bringing to the battle is a mature depth of character.
The tribal elders
have more or less accepted defeat. They don’t want the pipeline to be finished
but the economic hardships placed on the impoverished Indians living on the
reservation has led them to ask the people in the protest camps to disperse.
Allowing DAPL to finish the pipeline will reopen the roads that lead to the
tribe’s casino, the only real source of employment and income on the
reservation.
Iron Eyes has
patiently and lovingly been respectful of his tribe’s elders. He has always
tried to see their side of the issues. He has refused to condemn them, even
while insisting upon staying in the camp and encouraging others to do the same.
And he has insisted that there be no weapons, no alcohol, and no violence in
the camp or at any of their civil disobedience protests.
He has learned a
lesson from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. realizing that when the world sees the
police shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protestors.
When images of
bloodied Indians, Veterans, and supporters being arrested and – this is no
exaggeration – housed for days in dog kennels outdoors, gets into the media,
they can win the moral battle that, in the long arc of time, will change the
world. You literally, as Father Daniel Berrigan said during the Vietnam War
protests, sometimes we have to bait the trap for evil with our own flesh.
Just as Martin
Luther King and his followers knelt on sidewalks and peacefully received the
bites of attack dogs and the blows of police Billy clubs, now Chase Iron Eyes
is asking the water protectors to remain unarmed and peaceful in the face of a
militarized police force that regularly attacks them. This is a matter of
character. Character of this sort doesn’t come into existence by accident. You
don’t stumble into being willing to take a beating without resistance to make a
point. That is one of the most disciplined and difficult paths anyone can
choose. Fighting back is our most basic instinct. Redemptive suffering is a
choice of civilization over evolution.
They have just
raised the stakes in North Dakota. On Thursday, Rep. Keith
Kempenich introduced the North Dakota bill, which states that if a driver
“unintentionally” causes injury or death to someone blocking traffic on a
roadway, then the driver will not be liable for damages.
That is, you can
run over and kill those of us who have peacefully protested at Standing Rock
and be found innocent of any crime as long as you claim that it was an
accident. Welcome to Trump inspired America!
I have a biblical
text this morning…. It has taken me an uncommonly long time to mention that
fact but it is printed in your liturgy and you heard Dr. Adams read the
Beatitudes from the fifth chapter of Matthew this morning.
This is a text
that was taught to most of us when we were children. . . a sort of a wish list
for shaping young Christians into being good, nice, polite, submissive people.
Matthew’s list of
blessings is a cleaned up version of a passage in Luke that is much less
religious and which also contains stern warnings to the rich and powerful. But Matthew’s list of nine blessings include
nice things:
"Blessed are the
poor in spirit,
"Blessed are those
who mourn,
"Blessed are the
meek,
"Blessed are the
merciful,
"Blessed are the
pure in heart,
"Blessed are the
peacemakers,
I preached my
very first sermon when I was 16 years old on this passage at the First
Christian Church in Glasgow, KY.
I did manage to
take off on the peacemakers line and turn it into an anti-Vietnam War sermon
but I was just a kid, what did I know?
But I would argue
that being a peacemaker, being meek, pure in heart, being merciful does not
mean that you are simply a nice person, or a passive person, or someone who
never rocks the boat.
Naomi Shulman wrote
following our election day in November that this is just no time to be nice.
She said: "Nice people made the best
Nazis. Or so I have been told. My mother was born in Munich in 1934, and spent
her childhood in Nazi Germany surrounded by nice people who refused to make
waves. When things got ugly, the people my mother lived alongside chose not to
focus on “politics,” instead busying themselves with happier things. They were
lovely, kind people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged
away."
I think that
these days call for character…. These days ask of us to be peacemakers, to be
merciful, even to be meek and pure of heart, but they demand that we not be
passive. Peaceful, but not passive. Non-violent but not obedient. What we saw
in Martin Luther King, and Dorothy Day, and the Berrigan brothers, what I am
seeing now in Chase Iron Eyes, is great depth of character but a total
commitment to revolutionary living that does not let the evil prevail in the
world with our silent consent.
The novelist,
Laurell Hamilton said in “Stroke of Midnight” “My
father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later,
but once you've been mean to someone, they won't believe the nice anymore. So
be nice, be nice, until it's time to stop being nice, then destroy them.”
It is not my
place to tell you what to do when you leave here today, but I will tell you
what I am going to do. I’m going to go fight sin.
I’m going to
defend the rights of women, gay folk, Indians, Syrians, Muslims, and Mexicans.
I am going to fight poverty, racism, discrimination, unemployment, and I’m
going to fight to protect the earth, to make education available to the poor,
to defend water, and to expand access to healthcare.
Fortunately, I
live alone so I can stay out as late as I need to.
These progressive sermons are available as
podcasts at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/progressive-faith-sermons/id419225485
Order a copy of Progressive Conversations by
Roger L. Ray at: http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Conversations-Matters-Critical-Thinkers/dp/1498234704/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1453072652&sr=8-2&keywords=roger+ray
