Matthew 5:1-12
Jesus has his disciples, the crowd, gathered and he teaches them all these things. Now we can draw the parallels to Moses and presenting this from up in the mount. And we can go into this being a reflection of law and how far short we fall and how we should be penitent because we fall short. Or we can ask is there something here I am not seeing? Is there something I need to hear with new ears?
This begins to take us on a journey.
The first pet of the journey is to Greece. We go back to the original language to see what might have more meaning and we find the word makarios, which we translate as blessed has a much harder interpretation, almost like a Hebrew word where they tell us the word has lost its real meaning over time. So now where do we go, back to Bangor, Maine and we take a dictionary off the shelf (because we are on a journey and can't use our smart phone) and look up the word blessed. Now blessed's first definition is as an adjective so we'll have to look into that so back to Minnesota and yes it is an adjective here and it means holy.
Holy, well that makes us stop dead in our tracks. Lets chew on holy, Hoy are the poor in spirit, holy are the meek, holy are those who mourn. Yes, doesn't this give us a different view of this scripture? Where do we find the holy? Where does God in break into our lives? Is it when we are these things and we don't become hardened but grow inside and face the places we are taken to that we become more. Now we travel to France and drop into the story Les Miserables and we look at the characters of Jean Valjean and Javert. Javert knows only one story for Jean Valjean he's a thief and he will never be good, or just or fair. When Valjean saves his life from the rebels he has no idea what to do. He wants to believe Valjean will live the same story, no good, thief and yet his life was saved by scum. He can't deal with it and he takes his own life. Refusing the gift of life given and forgiven. Holy are the peacemakers.
Now let us travel to Nairobi Kenya, here is a friend from South Sudan. What does the Moru say for Matthew 5:3? The answer comes those who. Well what about blessed, and we talk about blessed. Then we go back to poor in spirit because we approximate what the Moru says when we translate it to English. What it literally says is those who hold onto God are blessed. Now here is a new thing to think about. Holding onto God. How do we hold onto God? Do we hold onto God? How is holding onto God looked at by others? When we are mourning, when we are being persecuted, when we are arrested do we hold onto God?
Now let's travel back to Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Now I may have led you on a merry chase here. I wanted to open for you a few tools of turning the gem which is scripture. Some of it is in defining, some is in consulting scholars, and some has been in just talking with a friend.
There is just one more layer to the scripture today and that is the feast of All Saints. For this we travel our memories. Who are the people we most remember, who are the people we remember and don't want to be like? Jesus explaining this fulfillment of the law to in these beatitudes is recognizing this. Those people in our lives who were kind, who acted out of compassion, who were looked at as meek, gentle, and generous are the ones who we hold dear. These are our saints. Recognizing the holy spaces where we met and lived is one of the ways we desire to be like them and pull from the store of what we don't want to be. One of the most important things in Matthew is how we act, being disciple is a verb. It is going and doing and in this case being. There is nothing we can do to be any one of these things. We just have to live life and remember to open our eyes and ears to the journey in recognizing the holy around us.
Jesus has his disciples, the crowd, gathered and he teaches them all these things. Now we can draw the parallels to Moses and presenting this from up in the mount. And we can go into this being a reflection of law and how far short we fall and how we should be penitent because we fall short. Or we can ask is there something here I am not seeing? Is there something I need to hear with new ears?
This begins to take us on a journey.
The first pet of the journey is to Greece. We go back to the original language to see what might have more meaning and we find the word makarios, which we translate as blessed has a much harder interpretation, almost like a Hebrew word where they tell us the word has lost its real meaning over time. So now where do we go, back to Bangor, Maine and we take a dictionary off the shelf (because we are on a journey and can't use our smart phone) and look up the word blessed. Now blessed's first definition is as an adjective so we'll have to look into that so back to Minnesota and yes it is an adjective here and it means holy.
Holy, well that makes us stop dead in our tracks. Lets chew on holy, Hoy are the poor in spirit, holy are the meek, holy are those who mourn. Yes, doesn't this give us a different view of this scripture? Where do we find the holy? Where does God in break into our lives? Is it when we are these things and we don't become hardened but grow inside and face the places we are taken to that we become more. Now we travel to France and drop into the story Les Miserables and we look at the characters of Jean Valjean and Javert. Javert knows only one story for Jean Valjean he's a thief and he will never be good, or just or fair. When Valjean saves his life from the rebels he has no idea what to do. He wants to believe Valjean will live the same story, no good, thief and yet his life was saved by scum. He can't deal with it and he takes his own life. Refusing the gift of life given and forgiven. Holy are the peacemakers.
Now let us travel to Nairobi Kenya, here is a friend from South Sudan. What does the Moru say for Matthew 5:3? The answer comes those who. Well what about blessed, and we talk about blessed. Then we go back to poor in spirit because we approximate what the Moru says when we translate it to English. What it literally says is those who hold onto God are blessed. Now here is a new thing to think about. Holding onto God. How do we hold onto God? Do we hold onto God? How is holding onto God looked at by others? When we are mourning, when we are being persecuted, when we are arrested do we hold onto God?
Now let's travel back to Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Now I may have led you on a merry chase here. I wanted to open for you a few tools of turning the gem which is scripture. Some of it is in defining, some is in consulting scholars, and some has been in just talking with a friend.
There is just one more layer to the scripture today and that is the feast of All Saints. For this we travel our memories. Who are the people we most remember, who are the people we remember and don't want to be like? Jesus explaining this fulfillment of the law to in these beatitudes is recognizing this. Those people in our lives who were kind, who acted out of compassion, who were looked at as meek, gentle, and generous are the ones who we hold dear. These are our saints. Recognizing the holy spaces where we met and lived is one of the ways we desire to be like them and pull from the store of what we don't want to be. One of the most important things in Matthew is how we act, being disciple is a verb. It is going and doing and in this case being. There is nothing we can do to be any one of these things. We just have to live life and remember to open our eyes and ears to the journey in recognizing the holy around us.
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