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.
Another week, another few mass shootings in America. “When will it stop?,” everyone asks. Blame the guns. Blame “mental health.” Blame gun laws. Blame the dearth of gun laws. Say stupid things like “Guns aren’t the problem, we just need to enforce the laws.” Blame the Founding Fathers for the Second Amendment. Blame the NRA. Blame the government (AND both Democrats and Republicans). Believe me, there’s enough blame to go around. What about the American lust for guns? I don’t hear that mentioned much. Have you seen a chart contrasting the shootings in the USA vs. the rest of the developed world that has reasonable gun laws and restrictions? It’s incriminating. Deeply incriminating. Our love affair with guns is actually killing us.
When I was serving in Warren, PA, the Newton/Sandy Hook massacre occurred. That Sunday, I urged my congregation to write to all of their representatives, both State and Federal, urging them to consider reasonable gun regulation such as:
*A national, computerized system for background checks for ALL gun purchases, including those at gun shows. Private guns purchased or “gift” guns would not change hands until a form was submitted and the receiving individual’s history checked.
*All gun purchasers must also sign a form allowing their mental health history to be checked before the sale could be completed.
*All gun sellers would be required to train the purchaser in how to load, fire, and make safe the gun they were purchasing. (The week after Sandy Hook, a young boy was accidentally shot by a gun his dad had just purchased because the gun kept a bullet in the chamber even when the clip had been removed, and the father didn’t know this.)
*All purchasers of handguns would be required to not only receive training in handgun safety, but would have to be checked out on a firing range. (It’s not like in the movies where anyone can shoot an attacker 10 yards away and hit just the assailant. Even well-trained policemen rarely hit their target with a handgun, but untrained shooters are even more apt to hit an innocent bystander than their target.)
I wrote letters to all of my pertinent representatives with these suggestions. I don’t know if anyone else did, but that sermon is the only one I ever preached that was greeted with applause by the congregation, because it just made sense. The ideas got no votes, though, as evidenced by the fact that none of them ever became law.
But on this side of the gun, what drives people to such acts of violence? There are probably as many reasons for this as there are guns in America. We do know that over half of gun deaths, annually, are people taking their lives by suicide, and it is mostly men (women either don’t have easy access to guns, or even in desperation, can’t imagine shooting themselves; they tend to use drugs in suicide attempts, which is why many are rescued).
Here is an important qualifier: there ARE hosts of serious gun owners, including hunters and collectors, who have great respect for the weapons they buy and own. I have known quite a few of these persons, including a couple of parishioners who built and repaired guns as a hobby, or for a living. Many of these people are in favor of reasonable gun regulations, as their gun-related activities and interests would not be affected by them. Unless they have been poisoned by the National Rifle Association’s propaganda and “hate” campaigns against any and all gun regulation, these are reasonable people and truly “law-abiding citizens” not jeopardized by gun safety training requirements and protective legislation. They know how dangerous guns can be in the hands of amateurs and the untrained.
So, what does all of this have to do with the passage in Matthew from Jesus’ famous “Sermon on the Mount,” a section we have dubbed “The Beatitudes”? We have all seen the bumper sticker, “God, Guns, and Guts Made America Great.” Are the teachings of Jesus compatible with this slogan? Or even the American love affair with firearms? Maybe not, but not necessarily in the way one might think.
As an aside, I get such a kick out of pastors and church members who are advocating for disaffiliation from the United Methodist Church. Supposedly, what is at the heart of this “soft schism” is a statement in the UMC’s “Book of Discipline” that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teachings.” These folk support this statement—and more—that do great violence to persons in the LGBTQ community. And yet, I’ll bet many of them would immediately nix the idea that owning guns for personal protection and the “right” of persons to use them to defend self and personal property are ALSO against “Christian teachings.” Is it ever right for a Christian believer to take the life of another person because they feel threatened? While this is a topic for another sermon, it is at least part of the controversy raised by the juxtaposition of “God, Guns, and Guts” and The Beatitudes of Jesus Christ.
Maybe our problem is at the heart of what Jesus was trying to head off? We can live resigned to “lives of quiet desperation,” or we can opt for something better—something proactive and positive. This is precisely what Jesus was getting at! Let’s look at his “Blessed are the…” statements.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit…” “Poor in spirit” may mean a number of things, but one understanding could be that persons who manifest this trait are humble, grateful people. They understand that THEY are not the reason they may be blessed, and that all good fortune comes from GOD, not from them. They also know that their understanding of spiritual truth is measured and valid only as it is prompted by GOD’S Holy Spirit. People who are ”poor in spirit” would not affirm the idea that “guns and guts” made anything “great,” apart from the blessing of God.
“Blessed are those who mourn…” Can a nation do any more mourning than we have done for the victims of Sandy Hook? Las Vegas? Orlando? Parkland? Virginia Tech? Uvalde? Or the over 45,000 Americans who died by guns per year? (Incidentally, that number is almost the total of American soldiers who died throughout the entire Vietnam War.) People who genuinely mourn tend to look for ways to decrease the REASONS to mourn, such as medical research to end killing diseases or safety measures to decrease highway deaths. Why are we not similarly motivated to encourage and VOTE for ways to lower gun deaths? I guess we just like to mourn and mourn, in this regard.
“Blessed are the meek…” Of course, as we have examined before, “meek” does not mean “weak” or “milquetoast.” The word can mean humble, but probably more accurately, it describes a person who is honest, with gobs of integrity. “Genuine” would be another good adjective for the meek. If you like psychological descriptors, how about “self-aware”? Persons who are “meek” are blessed with an almost total disregard for “props” or possessions that artificially elevate their status or their worth. These are not persons who “need’ guns, nor are they persons who will brag that their strong “guts” got them where they are. They DO, however, give credit to where credit is due—to the God who created and sustains them.
“Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness…” When I hear the word “righteousness,” I think of “right living,” or those who seek to live a life pleasing to themselves and God. Balanced by the other “blessed” statements of Jesus, those who “hunger for righteousness” set a God-honoring life as a top priority. This necessarily means putting personal ambition and “defense of self and property” as much lower on this priority scale. Those who thirst for righteousness think far less about “my rights” than they do about what is right in the eyes of God.
“Blessed are the merciful…” When it comes to addressing the ancient Hebrew law code of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” it is clear that Jesus is directly countering it as an argument for reciprocal violence in this statement. Actually, the law code statement more directly addresses compensation for a wrong done to an individual—if someone takes out your eye, you can’t kill them, but only similarly wound them, for example—than it does retribution or revenge. Remember learning that Shylock in Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” wants his “pound of flesh,” but is told that if he spills one more drop of blood than exactly that pound, he will be liable? This is more what the law code is saying. Jesus, instead, elevates MERCY as the greater good. For those Shakespeareans still with me, even Portia says, “The quality of mercy is not strained…”
“Blessed are the pure in heart…” While all of the “blessed are the” statements of Jesus in this monumental message have a “reward” clause, this one takes the cake—those who are pure in heart will “see God.” I don’t think Jesus means “see” as in eyeball, but “see” as in “get,” or understand. People who work at cleansing their hearts of the things that corrupt them—sinful activities, selfish aims and ambition, vain personal glory, will begin to comprehend the absence of these things as beginning to align them with the ”personality” of God as demonstrated and taught by Jesus, himself. “Pure in heart” people are those who wind up as “servants of all,” and what Jesus categorized as “the last,” whom he said would become “first” in the Realm of God. Toting a gun does not make someone a hero. Being willing to lay one’s life down for a friend, does. Only the pure in heart would be willing to do this, don’t you think? Just like Jesus…
“Blessed are the peacemakers…” This one should be easy and obvious to interpret, but I have learned over the years that “peace” is not just the absence of war, nor is “peacemaking” just personally being a nice, accommodating individual. Peacemaking is an intentional, intense, and difficult effort undertaken on behalf of the whole community. I have been involved with a team of persons operating under the name of the “Peace is Possible Coalition.” This group meets regularly, keeps eyes peeled for places where proactive efforts toward justice are called for, writes letters to the powerbrokers, authors editorials aimed at exposing injustices, and plans forums where principal leaders come together to strategize for justice and peace. It’s a lot of work! And our efforts too often only succeed in raising an issue to the level of public knowledge or scratching the surface of monumental tasks that will be necessary for addressing serious issues that block or restrain justice. And there can be no true peace without justice. Peace without justice is at most a “cease fire” that yields little progress, especially for those suffering under an injustice, such as racism. Rodney King may have meant well with his exclamation, “Why can’t we all just get along?” as he was getting his head beat in unjustly by the police, but the truth is, the work of peacemakers is complicated, involved, and long-suffering, but real peacemakers never stop believing that peace is possible. Oh, and while the Colt company once made a gun they called the “Peacemaker,” fact is, guns make war, not peace.
Jesus concludes this part of his teaching by saying that living according to these ideas will most likely bring more retribution—or persecution—than praise, as in doing so, others with far less pure motives are exposed for what they are, and people don’t like this, especially when they are among the powerbrokers. And while it sounds like Jesus promises “rewards” that don’t arrive until “heaven,” his reference may have more to do with bringing some “heaven” on earth as the efforts these values evoke make for positive change that benefits all.
The teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount clearly dispute ideas like “God, Guns, and Guts” make anything great. Servanthood, compassion, humility, loving peace and righteousness, and lives of genuineness and integrity—these are the things that result in greatness, not as much for the individual as for the community, and that reflects the greatness of God. Jesus gives us proactive and positive goals for living that oppose the “firearm and frontal assault” mode we often see at play in the world around us.
May we take these “blessed” values seriously and attain the day when we will, together, “rejoice and be exceedingly glad.” Amen.
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