Over the past several months, the Thursday night small group book study, the Renovare group, has been reading together a book by the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called "The Cost of Discipleship". In that book, Bonhoeffer makes a link between the Beatitudes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and what a life of discipleship means.
Over the next five weeks of Lent, we will explore together how the Beatitudes form the basis for a deeper life of discipleship. We will focus on one particular Beatitude each week.
Since Kerry Border has been leading that class, he and I will be sharing the preaching over the weeks in Lent: we will each preach several sermons, and we will also do several dialogue sermons, where he and I ask each other questions about the scripture text and about the Bonhoeffer book's handling of this scripture.
So as we hear this familiar scripture text this morning, let us listen for the Word of God and what it has to say to us.
Matthew 5: 1-12
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat
down, his disciples came to him.Then he began to speak, and taught them,
saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter
all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the
same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
This is the Word of the LORD; Thanks be to God.
When Jesus sits down to begin this famous sermon, he is teaching his disciples about life as a disciple. He only has called four disciples to follow him at this point, and when he sits down with them to teach them, as this story begins, he teaches them many things – in Matthew’s gospel his teaching continues for the next three chapters – but he starts with this, the foundation of his teaching.
Blessed are they….. for theirs is, for they will.
The word blessed does not mean happy in the way we typically think of happiness; its meaning is closer to “fortunate”.
The Greek word for blessed is markorios. In a recent Bible study developed by the Rev. Dr. Margaret Aymer and published by Presbyterian Women, the term markorios is defined as “greatly honored”.
It’s the first of many times that Jesus makes the Kingdom of God sound like it’s upside down and backwards –- from what we would normally consider to be “the good life”.
You are blessed – you are greatly honored – when you are poor in spirit, when you mourn, when you hunger and thirst for righteousness, when you are persecuted. It seems to me like you don’t get much more upside down than that….
But Jesus says these as statements of fact, as truisms.
When you are poor or mourning or hungry or thirsty for fairness and justice, then you are greatly honored by God; you are blessed. Jesus isn’t saying “go out and try to become” one of these things; Jesus says, essentially, “This is reality; this is the way things are. And so if you are in these situations, you can take heart – because being in these situations brings you blessing and honor in the sight of God. You’ll be ok. Don’t be afraid.”
And he needs to say that to his disciples, because they will find themselves in these situations often, as followers of Jesus, both when he is with them, and when he is gone from their sight. They need to have the strength and courage to continue on.
And so, of course, do we.
It’s what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “the Cost of Discipleship”. The overall theme in his book is that Jesus is not ever talking about cheap grace, even though grace is freely given. The reality is that free grace enters us into a life of discipleship that involves giving everything up for Jesus. It’s not an entry fee or an expectation for membership. But it changes us into people of faith, people of the Word, people of the Way. We are changed, as obedient disciples of Christ, into people who see the world differently, and who respond to it differently, because we have received grace.
And we are forgiven when we don’t get it right; given another chance, again and again. We are changed in our baptism, our dying with Christ so that we can be born again into new and transformed life.
And Jesus, of course, is uniquely positioned to say these things, because he speaks “with authority, not as one of the scribes”. He speaks with the authority of God, with the authority of love.
But do we really see the world in this way? Do we want to accept that being poor, whether in spirit or in reality, brings the kingdom of God to us? Does that sound like a decent tradeoff?
In a commentary he wrote on this passage, Lance Pape, a professor at Brite Divinity School, makes this observation:
“We prefer to live by those other beatitudes:
“Blessed are the well-educated, for they will get the good jobs.
Blessed are the well-connected, for their aspirations will not go unnoticed.
Blessed are you when you know what you want, and go after it with everything you’ve got, for God helps those who help themselves.
If we are honest, (he says), we must admit that the world Jesus asserts as fact, is not the world we have made for ourselves.”
And that was also the world that the disciples found themselves part of when Jesus appeared on their scene. It was no great honor to be poor, or hungry, or thirsty, whether in spirit or righteousness or physical condition. But they would soon see and understand that in the kingdom of God, in that day, it would be the One who was forsaken by everyone, the One who knew poverty of spirit as well as body, probably more than anyone else before or since, it would be the One who was hung on a tree until he died, despite having deserved none of it, that One man would be their Lord and Savior.
So when we look at this first Beatitude, what does Jesus mean by “poor in spirit”? Who really is poor in spirit?
Well, the disciples, for one. They have left everything. They will gain nothing that looks like success to any of us. They will follow Jesus, who has no home, no money, no family, nobody who even ‘gets’ what he’s all about. There really seems to be no honor in following Jesus.
But that is exactly Jesus’ point.
He is telling them that those who exist in a poverty of spirit, themselves just as much as the people they will meet along the way, both during the time that Jesus is with them and certainly after they go on as disciples without him, those are looked on with special favor by God.
In “The Cost of Discipleship”, Bonhoeffer says this about the disciples:
“They have no security, no possessions to call their own, not even a foot of earth to call their home, no earthly society to claim their absolute allegiance. Even more, they have no spiritual power, experience or knowledge to afford them consolation or security. For his sake they have lost all. In following him they lost even their own selves, and everything that could make them rich. Now they are poor—so inexperienced, so stupid, that they have no other hope but him who called them.”
[You see, Bonhoeffer is talking about himself and his fellow Christians at the same time that he is describing the disciples in Jesus’ time. And then he goes on to describe the Pharisees of his time as well. He says….]
“Jesus knows all about the others too, the representatives and preachers of the national religion, who enjoy greatness and renown, whose feet are firmly planted on the earth, who are deeply rooted in the culture and piety of the people and molded by the spirit of the age. Yet it is not they, but the disciples who are called blessed— theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That kingdom dawns on them, the little band who for the sake of Jesus live a life of absolute renunciation and poverty. And in that very poverty they are heirs of the kingdom. They have their treasure in secret, they find it on the cross. And they have the promise that they will one day visibly enjoy the glory of the kingdom, which in principle is already realized in the utter poverty of the cross.”
God blesses them. God blesses us – even those of us for whom life is pretty awful right now. And by “us”, I’m talking certainly talking about us here in this sanctuary, but I’m also talking about all the other “us’s” outside this building, and around the world. Especially those of us for whom life is awful – because when life is awful, we especially need God’s blessing. And life sends curve balls to us, whether we consider ourselves prosperous or not, privileged or not. Life has a way of doing that, of completely surprising us and knocking our legs out from under us, knocking the wind out of us. It may come in the form of physical illness, and certainly those are the sorts of things we are more willing to ask for prayer about, but it probably comes more often when one of our children or grandchildren or siblings is in trouble, or won’t talk to us, or we don’t even know where they are, or who they are, anymore.
Or when work is just insane, or when we wish we had work to complain about.
Sometimes it comes when we can’t remember the last time we sensed God’s presence.
Stop and think for a minute about one way you, or someone you love, or someone you know who is really hard to love,
When Jesus sits down to begin this famous sermon, he is teaching his disciples about life as a disciple. He only has called four disciples to follow him at this point, and when he sits down with them to teach them, as this story begins, he teaches them many things – in Matthew’s gospel his teaching continues for the next three chapters – but he starts with this, the foundation of his teaching.
Blessed are they….. for theirs is, for they will.
The word blessed does not mean happy in the way we typically think of happiness; its meaning is closer to “fortunate”.
The Greek word for blessed is markorios. In a recent Bible study developed by the Rev. Dr. Margaret Aymer and published by Presbyterian Women, the term markorios is defined as “greatly honored”.
It’s the first of many times that Jesus makes the Kingdom of God sound like it’s upside down and backwards –- from what we would normally consider to be “the good life”.
You are blessed – you are greatly honored – when you are poor in spirit, when you mourn, when you hunger and thirst for righteousness, when you are persecuted. It seems to me like you don’t get much more upside down than that….
But Jesus says these as statements of fact, as truisms.
When you are poor or mourning or hungry or thirsty for fairness and justice, then you are greatly honored by God; you are blessed. Jesus isn’t saying “go out and try to become” one of these things; Jesus says, essentially, “This is reality; this is the way things are. And so if you are in these situations, you can take heart – because being in these situations brings you blessing and honor in the sight of God. You’ll be ok. Don’t be afraid.”
And he needs to say that to his disciples, because they will find themselves in these situations often, as followers of Jesus, both when he is with them, and when he is gone from their sight. They need to have the strength and courage to continue on.
And so, of course, do we.
It’s what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “the Cost of Discipleship”. The overall theme in his book is that Jesus is not ever talking about cheap grace, even though grace is freely given. The reality is that free grace enters us into a life of discipleship that involves giving everything up for Jesus. It’s not an entry fee or an expectation for membership. But it changes us into people of faith, people of the Word, people of the Way. We are changed, as obedient disciples of Christ, into people who see the world differently, and who respond to it differently, because we have received grace.
And we are forgiven when we don’t get it right; given another chance, again and again. We are changed in our baptism, our dying with Christ so that we can be born again into new and transformed life.
And Jesus, of course, is uniquely positioned to say these things, because he speaks “with authority, not as one of the scribes”. He speaks with the authority of God, with the authority of love.
But do we really see the world in this way? Do we want to accept that being poor, whether in spirit or in reality, brings the kingdom of God to us? Does that sound like a decent tradeoff?
In a commentary he wrote on this passage, Lance Pape, a professor at Brite Divinity School, makes this observation:
“We prefer to live by those other beatitudes:
“Blessed are the well-educated, for they will get the good jobs.
Blessed are the well-connected, for their aspirations will not go unnoticed.
Blessed are you when you know what you want, and go after it with everything you’ve got, for God helps those who help themselves.
If we are honest, (he says), we must admit that the world Jesus asserts as fact, is not the world we have made for ourselves.”
And that was also the world that the disciples found themselves part of when Jesus appeared on their scene. It was no great honor to be poor, or hungry, or thirsty, whether in spirit or righteousness or physical condition. But they would soon see and understand that in the kingdom of God, in that day, it would be the One who was forsaken by everyone, the One who knew poverty of spirit as well as body, probably more than anyone else before or since, it would be the One who was hung on a tree until he died, despite having deserved none of it, that One man would be their Lord and Savior.
So when we look at this first Beatitude, what does Jesus mean by “poor in spirit”? Who really is poor in spirit?
Well, the disciples, for one. They have left everything. They will gain nothing that looks like success to any of us. They will follow Jesus, who has no home, no money, no family, nobody who even ‘gets’ what he’s all about. There really seems to be no honor in following Jesus.
But that is exactly Jesus’ point.
He is telling them that those who exist in a poverty of spirit, themselves just as much as the people they will meet along the way, both during the time that Jesus is with them and certainly after they go on as disciples without him, those are looked on with special favor by God.
In “The Cost of Discipleship”, Bonhoeffer says this about the disciples:
“They have no security, no possessions to call their own, not even a foot of earth to call their home, no earthly society to claim their absolute allegiance. Even more, they have no spiritual power, experience or knowledge to afford them consolation or security. For his sake they have lost all. In following him they lost even their own selves, and everything that could make them rich. Now they are poor—so inexperienced, so stupid, that they have no other hope but him who called them.”
[You see, Bonhoeffer is talking about himself and his fellow Christians at the same time that he is describing the disciples in Jesus’ time. And then he goes on to describe the Pharisees of his time as well. He says….]
“Jesus knows all about the others too, the representatives and preachers of the national religion, who enjoy greatness and renown, whose feet are firmly planted on the earth, who are deeply rooted in the culture and piety of the people and molded by the spirit of the age. Yet it is not they, but the disciples who are called blessed— theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That kingdom dawns on them, the little band who for the sake of Jesus live a life of absolute renunciation and poverty. And in that very poverty they are heirs of the kingdom. They have their treasure in secret, they find it on the cross. And they have the promise that they will one day visibly enjoy the glory of the kingdom, which in principle is already realized in the utter poverty of the cross.”
God blesses them. God blesses us – even those of us for whom life is pretty awful right now. And by “us”, I’m talking certainly talking about us here in this sanctuary, but I’m also talking about all the other “us’s” outside this building, and around the world. Especially those of us for whom life is awful – because when life is awful, we especially need God’s blessing. And life sends curve balls to us, whether we consider ourselves prosperous or not, privileged or not. Life has a way of doing that, of completely surprising us and knocking our legs out from under us, knocking the wind out of us. It may come in the form of physical illness, and certainly those are the sorts of things we are more willing to ask for prayer about, but it probably comes more often when one of our children or grandchildren or siblings is in trouble, or won’t talk to us, or we don’t even know where they are, or who they are, anymore.
Or when work is just insane, or when we wish we had work to complain about.
Sometimes it comes when we can’t remember the last time we sensed God’s presence.
Stop and think for a minute about one way you, or someone you love, or someone you know who is really hard to love,
is
experiencing poverty of spirit.
(pause)
Now, I’m going to ask you to disciple one another. I ask that you turn to one another, and offer a blessing to each other.
Just say “God bless you” or “May the Lord bless and keep you”, or “Receive God’s blessing”, or whatever stumbling words happen to come out of you. Bless the people whose names and lives you know, and especially bless those who you don’t really know yet. We’re not responding to sneezes here – instead, it’s about all of us recognizing that all are blessed, all are beloved children of God, no matter what.
Go ahead. Bless the people around you, in the name of God.
And accept blessings from people as well.
Now think for a minute about what it would be like to honestly bless those you meet this week who are clearly suffering from poverty of spirit. Who would that be? Where would you encounter them? On a bus? In a grocery store? Someone whose kids are clearly out of control, and they’re about to lose it? Someone who’s in a doctor’s waiting room, waiting to go in and be seen, or helping their family member who they’ve come there to be with? and what might you say? would you say it out loud to them, or just to yourself as you encounter them? how would you behave toward them, to reflect a spirit of blessing? How would it change the way you thought and felt about them?
I get an occasional email from Rev. Stan Ott, who developed the Acts 16:5 program I know your congregations have used either before or after you merged. He just sent this story out by email:
He said “I was waiting in the hospital for a routine blood test when I became aware of a strained mumbling voice nearby. Looking up I saw a good-looking man in his early 40's in a wheelchair having difficulty speaking and clearly sitting uncomfortably. An older gentleman, almost certainly his dad, was trying to arrange a supportive pillow behind his head. Then I saw the sign on the wall next to them, "Speech Therapy." Something about it was unspeakably sad. I do not know if he is an injured veteran or suffering from some terrible affliction but this young man in the prime of life is in a deep hole and his father is in there with him. As I was heading out of the hospital I was immensely aware of the gift of health and then of the thought, “Go back and say something.” I wondered what that would be and if it would be invasive. I paused, puzzling, and then headed for the exit except I found my legs taking me back the way I had come. I knew somehow my mind was not directing my steps and I wondered what I would say. I walked right up to the old gentleman and his son looked them in the eye and said, "I feel impelled to tell you I am praying for you. May God bless you." The gentleman immediately and sincerely replied, “Thank you,” as he continued to adjust the pillow for his uncomfortable son.
This episode had nothing to do with me. My gesture of concern may have taken five seconds. That father is offering care 24 hours a day every day. The true paraclete, the one who comes alongside to help, comes alongside for the long haul.
God did want me to see something and to say something. I left overwhelmed with the feeling of sadness for this family and the deep awareness of those close to me and others who are in similar places of suffering. It may be a cliché to say it, but when our Lord said these words, he actually meant them, " “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” Matthew 11:28* "...weep with those who weep,” Romans 12:15 and “Comfort, O comfort my people” Isaiah 40:1.
This is a story of people who are living with the poverty of spirit. As disciples of Christ, we are called to offer blessings to them, in word and in deed.
Bonhoeffer reminds us that for Jesus’ sake, we are prepared to lose everything. We surrender everything. We don’t hang onto anything. This, my friends, results in poverty of spirit.
We let go of the so-called good things in life, because we realize we don’t own them, and we are prepared to give them up when others have need of them, and when generosity and kindness toward others is more important than our own comfort or our need to be right.
It’s not about whether we can prove someone needs or deserves something sufficiently or not. It’s about what spirit we live in, the extent to which we open our hearts to Christ, how we show with every ounce of our being that Jesus is our Lord and Savior.
It’s the Cost of Discipleship.
It’s costly grace, and it was bought for us with nothing less than Christ’s life.
Amen.
Now, I’m going to ask you to disciple one another. I ask that you turn to one another, and offer a blessing to each other.
Just say “God bless you” or “May the Lord bless and keep you”, or “Receive God’s blessing”, or whatever stumbling words happen to come out of you. Bless the people whose names and lives you know, and especially bless those who you don’t really know yet. We’re not responding to sneezes here – instead, it’s about all of us recognizing that all are blessed, all are beloved children of God, no matter what.
Go ahead. Bless the people around you, in the name of God.
And accept blessings from people as well.
Now think for a minute about what it would be like to honestly bless those you meet this week who are clearly suffering from poverty of spirit. Who would that be? Where would you encounter them? On a bus? In a grocery store? Someone whose kids are clearly out of control, and they’re about to lose it? Someone who’s in a doctor’s waiting room, waiting to go in and be seen, or helping their family member who they’ve come there to be with? and what might you say? would you say it out loud to them, or just to yourself as you encounter them? how would you behave toward them, to reflect a spirit of blessing? How would it change the way you thought and felt about them?
I get an occasional email from Rev. Stan Ott, who developed the Acts 16:5 program I know your congregations have used either before or after you merged. He just sent this story out by email:
He said “I was waiting in the hospital for a routine blood test when I became aware of a strained mumbling voice nearby. Looking up I saw a good-looking man in his early 40's in a wheelchair having difficulty speaking and clearly sitting uncomfortably. An older gentleman, almost certainly his dad, was trying to arrange a supportive pillow behind his head. Then I saw the sign on the wall next to them, "Speech Therapy." Something about it was unspeakably sad. I do not know if he is an injured veteran or suffering from some terrible affliction but this young man in the prime of life is in a deep hole and his father is in there with him. As I was heading out of the hospital I was immensely aware of the gift of health and then of the thought, “Go back and say something.” I wondered what that would be and if it would be invasive. I paused, puzzling, and then headed for the exit except I found my legs taking me back the way I had come. I knew somehow my mind was not directing my steps and I wondered what I would say. I walked right up to the old gentleman and his son looked them in the eye and said, "I feel impelled to tell you I am praying for you. May God bless you." The gentleman immediately and sincerely replied, “Thank you,” as he continued to adjust the pillow for his uncomfortable son.
This episode had nothing to do with me. My gesture of concern may have taken five seconds. That father is offering care 24 hours a day every day. The true paraclete, the one who comes alongside to help, comes alongside for the long haul.
God did want me to see something and to say something. I left overwhelmed with the feeling of sadness for this family and the deep awareness of those close to me and others who are in similar places of suffering. It may be a cliché to say it, but when our Lord said these words, he actually meant them, " “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” Matthew 11:28* "...weep with those who weep,” Romans 12:15 and “Comfort, O comfort my people” Isaiah 40:1.
This is a story of people who are living with the poverty of spirit. As disciples of Christ, we are called to offer blessings to them, in word and in deed.
Bonhoeffer reminds us that for Jesus’ sake, we are prepared to lose everything. We surrender everything. We don’t hang onto anything. This, my friends, results in poverty of spirit.
We let go of the so-called good things in life, because we realize we don’t own them, and we are prepared to give them up when others have need of them, and when generosity and kindness toward others is more important than our own comfort or our need to be right.
It’s not about whether we can prove someone needs or deserves something sufficiently or not. It’s about what spirit we live in, the extent to which we open our hearts to Christ, how we show with every ounce of our being that Jesus is our Lord and Savior.
It’s the Cost of Discipleship.
It’s costly grace, and it was bought for us with nothing less than Christ’s life.
Amen.
