The title of Woody Allen’s 2009 movie, ‘Whatever Works’ captures the mood of post-modern ethics. Starting with the presupposition that great thinkers like Jesus or Karl Marx were great teachers, the movie contends that religions work from the fallacy that people are inherently good. Life as we know it now, is all there is. There is no God; no final accounting. Part of life’s challenge is to find moments of love and joy. So, we need to do, ‘Whatever Works…’
The moral subjectivism of the movie seems so plausible, tolerant, and so mature. There’s no guilt in life, only disappointments. Because we all die we should do whatever works to make us happy.
One of the strengths of societies that have been framed by the ‘Common Law’, introduced in England in the 9th century by Alfred the Great, is that they have a moral framework. Much refined over the following centuries, this ‘Common Law’ is framed with reference to the Mosaic Law and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount’. This in turn has shaped the laws of England and Britain as a whole, as well as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
King Alfred, a professing Christian, was not only a capable military strategist but also a wise and visionary ruler. It seems that because he knew the Christ who had taught the Beatitudes, he worked for peaceful solutions even with the most ruthless of his enemies. As one historian comments: Alfred had the wisdom to realize that the sword, though powerful to defend, could settle nothing permanently, and that only the conquest of the heart could endure (Arthur Bryant, The Story of England: Makers of the Realm, 1953).
SALT OF THE EARTH
Why did King Alfred respond the way he did? Clearly he understood not only Jesus’ Beatitudes, but also Jesus’ following words: “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot…”(Matthew 5:13).
Salt. In Jesus’ day salt was used for a number of purposes – as seasoning to bring out the flavor of food, and also as a preservative. At a time of no refrigeration, salt was rubbed into fresh meat to prevent it from rotting. Jesus is saying that his followers are to act as a preservative in the world — to slow down the decay. This is what King Alfred was endeavoring to do in 9th century England. And as we look back over history, we see he was laying the foundation for a great nation.
COUNTER-CULTURAL LIFE OF JESUS
This becomes our challenge today. If we are to stand against the dehumanizing elements of our world, we need to be ready to understand the counter-cultural life Jesus calls us to live. We also need the grace and the wisdom to live it. Only when we are willing to stand up and do this as God’s people will we stop the rot. But this will only happen if we ourselves don’t become insipid. That’s why Jesus goes on to warn against salt losing its saltiness.
Now, strictly speaking salt can’t lose its saltiness. NaCl is a stable compound. However, in the ancient world salt was obtained from salt marshes rather than through the evaporation of sea water. There were many impurities in it. And there’s also a play on words here that Jesus’ first hearers would have picked up. ‘Salt’ in Aramaic is Tabel. And there’s a word very close to it, Tapel which means fool. ‘Watch out,’ Jesus is saying, ‘that you don’t become insipid, wishy-washy followers and so make fools of yourselves.’
What a warning. ‘If you call yourself a follower of mine,’ Jesus is saying, ‘your life will be different.’ So we need to ask: How do other people see us? Do we go to church but our life remains unchanged? Is our life shaped by the culture or by the Bible? Are we just as unforgiving, just as greedy and selfish as everyone around us? ‘If you call yourself a follower of mine,’ Jesus says, ‘let your life be transformed by my words, for You are the salt of the earth.’
‘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 falselyon 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’(Matthew 5:10-12).
With these words – a double ‘Beatitude’ – Jesus concludes his words of ‘Blessing’. And what a note on which to finish: suffering and persecution. In our relatively comfortable western world we might feel uneasy with
Jesus’ words here. Yet we know how true is the reality of persecution against his followers. We hear accounts of the barbaric cruelty perpetrated against God’s people by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and by Boko Haram in Nigeria.
POLITICS
In November 2012, Dr. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, observed that Christians are the most persecuted religion in the world. Yet for the most part the western world remains either ignorant or silent – implying perhaps a desire not to get involved or a disinterest in matters of justice towards Christians.
There is nothing new in this. Many of Jesus’ early followers suffered persecution and even death for their commitment to him as the Messiah. Indeed under Nero, such were the atrocities perpetrated against God’s people that, according to the Roman historian Tacitus who was far from supportive of Christians, even many in the wider Roman society took pity on them (Tacitus, Annals, Book 15 [44]).
Persecution can take many forms. There’s the more obvious form of physical hardship, torture, imprisonment, death. But there are more subtle forms – mocking and personal rejection. In one way this beatitude is the most searching of all. If a follower of Jesus never experiences some kind of mocking or rejection, just how much of a follower are they?
Now we should notice what Jesus is not saying. He is not saying, ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted because they are difficult or awkward people or because they are religious fanatics’. No. Jesus restricts the blessing to those who suffer persecution because of righteousness— people who are determined to live as Jesus lived.
PLEASING TO GOD
It is significant that Jesus calls for a commitment to righteousness, for this is something that pleases a righteous God. Martin Luther, who himself faced persecution and threat of death, observed: ‘The command to you is not to crawl into a corner or into the desert, but to run out, if that is where we have been, and to offer your hands and your feet and your whole body, and to wager everything you have and can do.’ He continues, ‘What is required is a hunger and thirst for righteousness that can never be curbed or stopped or sated, one that looks for nothing and cares for nothing except the accomplishment and maintenance of the right, despising everything that hinders this end. If you cannot make the world completely pious, then do what you can.’
It is only when we can sit light to the things of this world and do all that we can do serve the righteousness of a righteous God that we will receive the blessing of joy of which Jesus speaks. As John Stott has commented, ‘Commitment to Jesus Christ means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that we should be called upon to suffer. In fact it is a joy and a token of his grace.’
Who then are the really ‘blessed’? Who are the ones who have God’s approval? As we look at what Jesus is saying with these ‘Beatitudes’, he is expecting his followers to undergo radical changes. ‘Instead of feeling proud of your relationship with God,’ he is saying, ‘understand your poverty before God. Instead of being indifferent towards unbelievers feel the pain for a world that is thumbing its nose at God.’
‘Instead of adopting the power play and plotting of the world to achieve kingdom ends, walk the tougher path of humility and service. Hunger for truth and righteousness. Show mercy. Pursue purity. Work for peace. Reckon on the reality that life won’t always be easy for you as one of my people,’ he is saying. ‘But stay with me. It will be worth every bit of it.’
John Stott concludes: ‘The culture of the world and the counter-culture of Christ are at logger heads with each other… Jesus congratulates those whom the world most pities, and calls the world’s rejects, blessed.’
Two millennia ago angels sang “peace and goodwill to all” at the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:14). But the world hasn’t got any better. Indeed, while peace is something we all long for, it is one thing the world does not have.
The reality is that everywhere there are tensions, injustices, and conflicts. It is estimated that more people were killed in the twentieth century in war than the total number in previous centuries. And now the twenty-first century doesn’t seem to be any better. Almost daily we learn of the most appalling atrocities being perpetrated in the Middle East and in other places. ‘Where then,’ we ask, ‘is the evidence of the fulfilment of the angels’ words?’
Before we charge the angels with false advertising, we need to remember the full text of their song: “Glory to God in the highest, peace towards all on whom God’s favor rests.” It is quite clear from this that the specific beneficiaries of the angels’ promise are the people of God.
THE PEACEMAKER
An important question for us to ask then is this, ‘What was the point of Jesus’ life?’ The night he was born the angels spoke of him being Savior and the Christ: a title meaning ‘king’. Was this prediction just another false hope? After all parents love to think that their babies are full of promise. In the United States many parents dream of their child being President one day!
So what kind of person did Jesus turn out to be? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all tell us that in his adult life Jesus displayed the kind of authority we would expect God’s king to possess. He healed the sick, the blind, and the paralyzed. He overcame the powers of evil. He offered forgiveness of sins and even raised the dead to life. No matter what was thrown at him he showed he was in control. But there was more.
Jesus knew that what men and women needed most was not a lawmaker or a social worker. We needed someone to deal with our deepest problem – our broken relationships, with God and with one another. He knew the only remedy for this was a cross where a sacrifice to address this brokenness would be made once and for all. It is the divine, costly work of Jesus’ death that enables the healing of our broken relationship with God, and with one another, making peace. No wonder the angels sang: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, ‘shalom’, ‘peace’.
When we consider these things we feel the impact of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God.”Peacemakers have first found peace with God through Jesus Christ. They are God’s sons and daughters.
MAKING PEACE
Jesus now teaches us to make peace with those around us. He is anticipating that his people will be involved in the work of peace-making by telling others of God’s good news. He is also expecting his followers to be peacemakers in the sense that they are to be at the forefront of seeking solutions to ease tensions and reduce conflict, working so that people understand one another – within the church and in the wider community.
This task isn’t always easy, especially when we’ve been hurt by others. It’s often hard to forgive, to be reconciled, and make peace. When we are in the midst of injury and conflict, it’s easy to forget that ‘a soft answer turns away wrath’ (Proverbs 15:1), and that we should not let ‘the sun to go down on our anger’ (Ephesians 4:26).
Furthermore, to forgive does not necessarily mean being reconciled. If someone has wronged us they need to repent and ask our forgiveness. To be a peacemaker means that we do everything we can to bring about harmony. Usually a cost is involved. It also means we don’t bear grudges or nurse our anger.
And, there is something else: peace-making does not mean church unity at any price. Jesus himself said: God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).
GRACE AND PEACE
Making peace amongst God’s people requires us to understand God through his Word and, by God’s grace, to put this understanding into practice. As Paul the Apostle says in his Letter to the Colossians, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful (Colossians 3:15).
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Some years ago, to promote Christ Church New York City, we advertised our service times and locations and our website with words drawn from Psalm 24 on small bottles of hand sanitizer: ‘Clean hands… Pure heart’. While we received some positive responses we were not inundated with newcomers. Rather, I quickly discovered New Yorkers were not particularly enamored by the idea of a ‘pure heart’. Pure hands, yes. Pure hearts, no!
SO WHAT IS JESUS SAYING?
In the light of this attitude it’s tempting to think that Jesus is thoroughly unrealistic. Yet we need to remember that while his primary audience for his Sermon on the Mount consisted of ‘followers’, vast crowds were present that day when he spoke. Jesus knew that because his words are true and because men and women are made in the image of God, his teaching is beneficial for everyone.
Indeed, the present tenses of his statements that day, tell us that Jesus is saying that purity is something we, men and women, should aim at now. Certainly, those who call themselves God’s people and who look forward to the perfection of the coming kingdom, should already be preparing for it. Life in the new heaven and the new earth should not surprise us by its purity, but be the perfecting of what God has already begun in our lives.
PURE IN HEART
In the light of the broader context of the Beatitudes, let me suggest that Jesus is not speaking about an outward conformity to rules or even simply an inward purity or righteousness – although these elements are certainly biblical. Rather, as New Testament commentators such as RVG Tasker and John Stott have pointed out, pure in heart here is primarily a reference to single-mindedness in the way we relate to God and to one another.
To pick up the theme of Psalm 24, the pure in heart are those who do not serve false gods – the gods of wealth, success or self-interest. Nor are their lives shaped by lies and deception.
The pure in heart are characterized by sincerity and genuineness. They are without guile, before God and people around them. As John Stott put it, ‘their very heart – including their thoughts and motives – is pure, unmixed with anything devious, ulterior or base. Hypocrisy and deceit are abhorrent to them’.
So this Beatitude asks us awkward questions: Do we let our circumstances determine our response in each situation – what mask we might wear, what half-truths we might speak, what role we might play? Are we known and respected as a person of integrity, someone to be trusted, someone whose heart is pure?
The searching nature of Jesus’ words here and the promise attached to them are challenging. For they remind us of the attitude of mind and the quality of life we need to work at living now by the grace of God. For as John Stott succinctly put it, ‘only the pure in heart will see God, see him now with the eye of faith and see his glory in the hereafter, for only the utterly sincere in heart can bear the dazzling vision in whose light the darkness of deceit must vanish and by whose fire all shams are burned up’.
Jesus’ words in his Sermon continue to search us. They challenge us to ask whose blessing do we want most of all? Do we look most of all for the blessing that comes from people around us because they perceive us to be successful? Or do we want God’s blessing above anything else in life?
On Sunday, July 25, 1993, a year before Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa, a man with an AK-47 and another with grenades embedded with nails, entered evening worship at St James’ Anglican Church, Cape Town. Eleven people were killed in church that night, and fifty-eight wounded. When TV reporters turned their cameras on the man whose wife had been the first to die, they asked, ‘What is your response?’ Looking squarely into those cameras that were pressed into his face, he said he forgave the attackers.
FORGIVENESS
Throughout the church the response was the same: they held out forgiveness. The world was stunned. Some cynically responded that if there were a God he would have protected his people. But countless others, in Cape Town and around the world, started asking questions. Bishop Frank Retief recalls that a thousand people turned up at church the following Sunday night. Over the coming months many came to know Jesus Christ.
Bishop Retief later remarked that any grand scheme Christian leaders might plan to reach South Africa with God’s gospel would have paled into insignificance compared with the conversations and the conversions that resulted following that dark night. It began with the spirit of forgiveness church members held out to their attackers.
“Blessed are the merciful,” Jesus said,“for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
SHOWING MERCY
When we first read these words we might get the impression that if we want to receive God’s mercy we need to show mercy ourselves. But to think Jesus is saying that God’s mercy and forgiveness are conditional upon our willingness to forgive others is to fail to understand the context and nature of mercy. We are not saved by being merciful. Mercy is not attained through merit. If it were, mercy would not be merciful. Meritorious acts, by definition, deserve a reward – not mercy.
A parable. In Matthew 18 we read Jesus’ parable about a servant who owed a king a large amount of money. The servant said, ‘Master, please be patient and I will pay you everything.’ The king was moved with compassion and canceled the debt. But later on the same servant refused to be merciful towards a fellow servant who owed him a small amount of money.
The parable is a powerful illustration of someone who asks God for mercy but doesn’t show mercy himself. Anyone who truly acknowledges their own need of God’s forgiveness and mercy will begin to see that they should show mercy to others. Showing mercy can be a good sign we have received mercy from God.
Putting Jesus’ words here into the flow of his beatitudes, when we are conscious of our own spiritual bankruptcy (Mt 5:3), when we grieve over our sin and the sin of those around us (Mt 5:4), and when we hunger and thirst for righteousness (Mt 5:6), we will be blessed. When we receive God’s mercy ourselves we will want to show mercy. In turn, beneficiaries of our mercy, even though they may have earlier dismissed us, may show mercy to us by wanting to learn why we have shown mercy.
RECEIVING MERCY
Jesus makes a promise: as we show mercy, we in turn receive it. Members of St James’ Anglican Church, Cape Town, South Africa, in showing mercy were shown mercy when outsiders to the church gave them a hearing. This is something we need to think about given the antipathy towards Christianity in the West.
Jesus’ words, Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercyforce us all to ask hard questions: Am I merciful towards or dismissive of the needy? Am I compassionate or indifferent towards the downtrodden? Am I helpful or callous towards the backsliders? Am I willing to forgive the perpetrators of evil towards me as a follower of Jesus?
If we are to see a time of spiritual revival in the West, one of the first signs will be a widespread acknowledgement of spiritual bankruptcy – a bankruptcy that finds its satisfaction only in God and his righteousness – and goes on to be merciful towards others.
This is one of the big themes we will be exploring at the Anglican Connection conference at the end of this month (see anglicanconnectionconference.com): in our changing world are there fresh ways we can twin showing mercy with introducing God’s good news?
