On the Beatitudes (Part 1)

A sermon given on All Saints Sunday at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on November 6, 2011.

Rev. 7:9-17.

Ps. 34:1-10,22.

1 John 3:1-3.

Matt. 5:1-12

Eschatology – From the Greek word eschaton, meaning “last things”

As some have put it, eschatology is “the discussion of what LASTS and what COMES LAST” (McClendon 1994, 75)

The Bible does not give us a detailed point by point, calculated description of exactly what happens at the end of time. Though many have tried to make it say that kind of thing for various agendas with good and bad intentions. Most recently our friend Harold Camping and his calculation in May 2011.

What the Bible DOES give us are pictures that shape our imagination – pictures that sustain our hope. Pictures that give us a new frame for our lives.

The picture of Christ’s one day reigning as ruler over heaven and earth is the ultimate Christian hope (so beautifully sung in Handel’s Messiah). It is then that Christians believe true peace and true justice will become a reality.

What ruler in this world has not been at least in part corrupt? What ruler or government has established justice and peace for ALL? But the Christian hopes in the picture of Christ as king, humble, merciful, and just – the perfect recipe for peace and wholeness in a land.

The view of the eschaton as a final time of peace and justice IS the background picture of hope of not only much of Jewish scriptures (our Old Testament), but of the teaching of Jesus and Paul (our NT).

This is the picture that gives us hope, this is the picture that drives us to act.

A recent Baptist theologian, James McClendon writes,

“For the believer in the [the Christian hope], ‘Whenever he does anything [that picture] is before his mind”…such a picture, once it is grasped, is ‘enough to make me change my whole life’”

The Christian imagination becomes so captivated by the picture of Christ’s rule of truth, of peace, and justice – that it is enough to make us change our whole life.

So when Jesus preaches that the kingdom of God is near: repent!

We can understand this as saying – remember that God’s rule is the ultimate reality and stop living as if other things, success, substances, self are the ultimate reality. Repent – turn around, reshape your thinking, let your imagination be molded by God’s reality.

Our present activity as a church, our present actions as individuals are actions of purpose – we are all working towards certain purposes.

All of those purposes have good aspects to them. We want to take care of our family, we want to do well in our work to be able to provide for ourselves and others, to stay warm and well fed.

What Jesus’ call to the kingdom does is call us to place our purposes in the bigger purpose of God’s plan for the universe.

Repenting then means that allow our purposes to be shaped, broadened, changed by the greater purpose we find in Jesus.

So Jesus says, the kingdom of God has come near. (Matt 4)

The kingdom of God is not here. But the kingdom of God IS here.

The Christian lives in the time in between Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom’s nearness and the fulfillment of God’s kingdom – when Jesus will reign on earth with justice and peace.

This inbetween existence is fuelled by the picture of the hope of God’s kingdom’s nearness – that one day we will participate in its fulfillment when we are resurrected in the ESCHATON.

And so we understand that the kingdom of God is already begun, but not yet fulfilled.

The kingdom of God is an ALREADY/NOT YET phenomenon.

This is what it means to be a saint.

None of us would go about saying that we are saints – but neither would any of us go about saying that the kingdom of God has come here on earth.

Both are ALREADY/NOT YET realities.

When we think of saints we think of people like Francis of Assisi or Mother Teresa, who gave themselves completely for others, living lives of complete poverty, rich only in love and hope.

And yes, in the categories of the Roman Catholic church, these are saints on account of their meeting the requirements for canonization as saints.

But the biblical understanding is that all those who follow Jesus’ way, all who repent and turn their lives in trust over to Jesus are saints. (scripture cite)

So today is ALL SAINTS day. We could spend our Sunday talking about all the different people who we consider saints (as opposed to ourselves, who are pitiful wannabes in comparison). But I’d rather think of Saint as an already/not yet reality just as the kingdom of God is an already/not yet reality.

So when we read the beatitudes in Matthew 5, we must not think of all of those who are not us who do make peace, all of those who are not us who are poor in spirit, meek, merciful, all of those who are not us who hunger and thirst after righteousness, after justice. We must rather realize that we are those saints – those who are blessed – because we are the disciples that God has called through Jesus. We have become partakers of the hope of God’s eschaton and we are therefore saints.

We are saints by the very fact that we have followed Jesus.

The Beatitudes describe the reality of those who have begun to follow Jesus and who seek the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness (Matt 6:33). All those who follow Jesus follow him in this ALREADY/NOT YET existence between the creation and the ESCHATON. The Beatitudes describe the blessedness that is a different blessedness than what many in the world think. The Beatitudes do not describe the blessedness of a successful life of wealth and power – they describe the blessedness that is an ALREADY/NOT YET blessedness. This blessedness is that of hope in the TRUE blessedness of fulfilled peace and justice. This is why someone poor in spirit, someone persecuted can be said to be blessed – because they are blessed by their participation in God’s ALREADY/NOT YET kingdom – the blessedness of hope, of faith, and love.

When the saints go marching, they march to different beat because they hope for a different hope than so many in the world – the promise of God of peace, reconciliation and justice – on earth as it is in heaven.

In the next two Sundays we’ll look at the beatitudes as teaching about the ALREADY/NOT YET kingdom and as describing those who are ALREADY/NOT YET saints – looking to make known in a real way the kingdom of God which will be fulfilled in the ESCHATON.

This following of Jesus is an inbetween experience – it is an already/not yet reality which gives us a pictured hope of the kingdom of God while calling us to be a part of its coming to be now.

We are ALREADY/NOT YET saints by virtue of our participation in the ALREADY/NOT YET kingdom.

And this is made possible by our conversion to Christ’s hope, Christ’s truth, Christ’s life through our repentance and belief.