Macaroni Blessings (Blessed, Happy, & Settled in the Kingdom)

This blog is written as an assigned response to Paul Louis Metzger’s post, Blessed Are the Happy in Jesus, not Tortured, Cheated or Diseased Souls which introduces his series of posts on the beatitudes from Matthew 5:1-12. We also will consider these all in turn but first, we need to consider what sort of things beatitudes actually are.

So what is a beatitude? Simply put, beatitude is a term we use for a statement of blessedness. In the New Testament, when we read such declarative statements as “Blessed is/ are…” that are beatitudes. The name comes from the Latin word beatus. The earlier Greek word for the same thing is makarios (mä-kä'-rē-os) hence the other technical term for beatitude is makarism. This prompted my recent use of Macaroni & Cheese as an object lesson in a sermon. I will elaborate on this illustration later, but for now, let’s put it on the back burner to simmer. We need to ask what this word actually means.

 

So is it "Blessed", or "Happy"?
Traditionally, New Testament occurrences of makarios have been translated as “blessed”, but modern preachers and commentators have often opted for “happy” instead. In my opinion that creates a significant amount of cognitive dissonance. How can those described in these verses be happy? Certainly, it is not “happy” as we commonly use the word today. Let me describe it to you in the following four points:

·       The blessedness proclaimed in a beatitude or macarism is more than happiness as we commonly use the word. It is not dependent upon ideal circumstances and in fact, is often found in the most difficult of places. It is deeper, richer, and more enduring than that elated feeling that a random stroke of good fortune (“hap”) might produce. It is a holistic blessedness that is more shalom than smiley-face emoji, ☺.

·       A beatitude is neither something to be worked for like some kind of promotion or achievement level in a spiritual video game nor is it merely a wish for something we desire to be true. The beatitudes are too counterintuitive and counter-cultural for that. Rather, as Kenneth Bailey writes, “They affirm a quality of spirituality that is already present.”[1] Like a spiritual MRI, the beatitudes proclaim a truth we cannot see within the dominant worldview. So why is this kingdom quality already present? Because the true disciple has surrendered to the liberating love of the very present Savior King, Jesus Christ. Certainly, there is also the eschatological aspect that anticipates complete fulfillment in the future, but they are also present realities in the sight of God.

·       The beatitudes are not to be seen as a collection of individual attitudes, but rather as a cohesive whole. Too often we have approached beatitudes like the spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12:4-11) that are given individually and pieced together for the common good. Such thinking gives us “plausible deniability” to explain any apparent lack of these attributes in our life. However, Matthew 5 is no bullet list of happiness hacks should we choose to take advantage of them, but an interrelated description of the citizen of the kingdom of heaven. Such thinking was to begin to transform the listener to that long-ago “Sermon on the Mount.” Some scholars argue over how many beatitudes there are, but in the end, it is apparent that no matter how you divide them, they really were intended and presented as a unit, a single picture, not merely a collection of independent blessings. Like the Snickers candy bar ad, “No matter how you slice it, it comes up peanuts!” The true disciple has all these nutty kingdom “attributes” present in them because the king has revealed himself to them and taken up residence within their lives. In fact, they may actually build on each other as Jim Forrest suggests in his insightful book, Ladder of the Beatitudes.

·       Such macarisms proclaimed in Matthew 5 are a peak behind the curtain, an amazing revelation of how God sees the reality of our lives. As a classmate of mine pointed out, he is naming the reality—blessed! Jesus is naming the kingdom as it really is, not as the world sees or values it.

Classic 3-D Glasses

We need to begin to see the world, and our lives, through Jesus' eyes. And as those who are poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungry for righteousness, merciful, with pure/undivided affection, peacemakers, and not only endure persecution but with joy join the ranks of the prophets who looked for the coming kingdom.

As we approach the message of the kingdom of heaven, as found in Matthew 5-7, the text calls for us to repent of our own wisdom and our inclination to try to import the values of the world into the kingdom of heaven (see my pastoral post “Now it Begins…”).

Some of you may still be wondering about the macaroni metaphor. So how did I use Macaroni & Cheese as an object lesson? I used to think a plate of Kraft mac & cheese was happiness itself. I was comfortable with its hot bland yumminess. Over the years I began to put my own spin on it by adding some Parmesan cheese. Like all products that are marketed to us each day Mac & Cheese promised happiness. However, what I once thought was a blessing is now, in light of nutritional and overly processed food concerns, revealed to be something less…other…than what I thought.

 

This illustration fits into my metaphor exactly because those things that the world markets, values, and considers to be a blessing, are not the same as what Jesus proclaimed to be Makarios.

 

We must repent and begin to see our situation through his eyes, his heart, and rest in his proclaimed “blessed” values. The world has an idea about what attitudes bring success, but they are of no value in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus' kingdom is truly counter-cultural...even in the church.

Coming Soon: My next post will take this thought further as I engage a classic quote from St. Augustine about just such kingdom “happiness.”

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[1] Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, 68.

 

“Now it Begins…” (Matthew 4:12-25)

This week, we are preparing to spend time listening to the simple yet challenging words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 5-7, arguably his most famous teaching (what we call "The Sermon on the Mount").  This summer, if we are going to hear Jesus speak in his own voice, in a fresh way that penetrates our cultural conditioning, we will need to understand a few things before we begin.

The Nature of the Kingdom = "Good News!" (Matthew 4:12-16, 23-25)

Matthew’s narrative snippets are not as detailed as those of Mark or Luke and seem to be used primarily to frame five major discourses or sermons that some believe were intended to remind the reader of the five books of Moses. Daniel Wallace points out as much in his book Greek Grammar.

v. 12-16 Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee.  And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

“The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,
    the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people dwelling in darkness
    have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,
    on them a light has dawned.”

v. 23-25 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.      

This “kingdom of heaven” (or Kingdom of God in the other Gospels) was very good news for those who were oppressed—whether physically, politically, economically, spiritually, or “E) All of the above”. This gospel of the kingdom was proclaimed to those who would have thought they were the least likely to receive it. The good news of a new kind of kingdom came to the poor, the sick, the outcasts, the powerless; those who were outside the mainstream of Judaism…and even to Gentiles.  

A 19th-century preacher, Charles Spurgeon, summed up the uniqueness of this visitation,

The far-off ones were visited by him who gathers together the outcasts of Israel. Our Lord courts not those who glory in their light, but those who pine in their darkness: he comes with heavenly life, not to those who boast of their own life and energy, but to those who are under condemnation, and who feel the shades of death shutting them out from light and hope… What a mercy to know that to those who appear out of the reach of the usual means, to those who dwell “by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles,” Jesus comes with power to enlighten and quicken! If I feel myself to be an out-of-the-way sinner, Lord, come to me and cause me to know that “light is sprung up” even for me! (Charles H. Spurgeon, The King Has Come, 43)

So what was this message of good news? It is one that we often fail to consider to be positive.

The Message of the Kingdom =  “Repent” (Matthew 4:17)

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Many of us have heard the word “repent,” but what does it mean to repent? It means more than being sorry. It is not merely remorse, “Remorse sees the bitter end of sin; repentance breaks free from it. The result of sin brings remorse; a divinely commissioned call brings repentance.” (Kittel, 589) Repentance means more than a change of mind that produces a change in behavior. It really is a heart change involving a relational return to the Lord. “It echoes the OT prophets’ frequent summons to Israel to return to God, to abandon their rebellion, and come back into covenant-obedience.” (R. T. France, Matthew, 90) Repentance is a radical conversion…allowing God to remake, rewire, and reprogram you on every level…in preparation for entering the kingdom/kingship of God.

The Sermon on the Mount that we will examine in the coming weeks will require us to take up the challenge of thinking differently and loving differently.

Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom of heaven is different from the status quo. No matter how hard we try, we cannot smuggle our worldly ways into the kingdom of heaven (Rev. 22:14-15), whether it is our ways of …

·         thinking—I deserve what is good, what is better than you, even what is the best.

·         loving—as long as you love me

·         forgiving—as long as you don’t do it again

·         giving—for recognition

·         fasting—to get what we want

·         worship—to feel we are better than others

·         trusting—to relax only when we have a surplus.

"Jesus calls for a decisive response to a new situation, the arrival in his ministry of the kingdom of heaven." (France, 103) This is the repentance that is needed. But there is more to the message of the kingdom. It is not merely a divine directive, but a relational invitation. 

The  Invitation of the King = “Follow me” (Matthew 4:18-19)

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them,

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Is this not good news that Jesus invites people to follow him, walk with him, and learn from his life (words and works)? This time will be life-changing and world-changing, valuable beyond imagination, but it will often be counterintuitive and difficult. Our decision to follow Jesus in discipleship will be tested. There is a cost to be counted, as we can see in Matthew 8:18-22. But we need to settle the question from the beginning—am I willing to follow Jesus wherever he leads me?

Will you join us in following Jesus into the kingdom of heaven…even here on earth?

 

 

[This post about how we can prepare for greater cross-cultural engagement through Jesus' cross-cultural, counter-cultural teaching from the Sermon on the Mount was originally posted at http://ourlongview.blogspot.com/]

 

 

 

A New Blogging Season is Approaching!

More cultural engagement posts will be coming in June if not before.

This year's topics will center around "Advocacy" on behalf of the oppressed, misunderstood, and marginalized in seeking justice for all; and, around Jesus Christ's mix of counter-culture and cross-cultural engagement found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

If you have seed ideas for posts on these two subjects, please feel free to let me know via commenting on this post.

Heaven Come to Earth & Earth Come to Heaven

[This article is cross-posted on my Our Long View blog.]

One night recently, at a church’s regular night of prayer and worship, I noticed the emphasis in what we said, what we sang, and what we prayed touching again and again on the phrase “your kingdom come” from the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:10, which says,

“Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.”

It resonated with me at the time because just a day earlier, I had been journaling through the tail-end of John 17—which is known as Jesus’ high priestly prayer for his followers—and I was struck by the way that Jesus prayed for “Heaven to come to earth.” He was praying for the kingdom to come, just not in those words.

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:20-24)

While Jesus prayed, it was not only for his disciples at that time…but by extension for all believers down through history…which includes all true Christ-followers today.

This section of Jesus’ prayer is, first of all, that we might be one, in perfect relationship with each other. The church has an “invisible” spiritual unity in Christ, but often we lack that visible unity between denominations and congregations that we need to be a convincing witness to the world (v.21). Thankfully, while we have a long way to go, I think this is getting better all the time. I see new trans-denominational partnerships developing. Yet we have to stop seeing others as competitors in a market-driven approach to church growth. We were saved by the grace of God to be one body, woven together like strands in a great tapestry that, as a whole, testifies beautifully of the love and grace of God in Christ. In order to do this—to be one—we will need to trust in the glory Jesus has shared with us all instead of trying to produce our own. Unity takes humility and an intentional effort, most of the time, to develop brother/sister relationships with other congregations. Jesus' second prayer for us, in this section, is that we might be with Jesus in heaven to see the shared glory of God and experience that perfect Trinitarian love for ourselves.

Waiting for dawn in Jerusalem

We pray “your kingdom come, your will be done,” and Jesus, when he prayed for us, told us what the answer to our prayer looks like. He prayed for our unity with each other in the here and now (heaven come to earth) as the evidence of God’s triune presence, and he prayed for our unity (earth come to heaven) with God in the future. That we could be with him where he is in the glorious love of the Father was the longing of our Lord Jesus. God, in his shared glory, invites us to eat with him in unity at his table (Luke 13:29).

So when we pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God, perhaps we should start looking with the wide-eyed wonder and expectancy of a child for the ways in which it is already present in the midst of us (Luke 17:21) and seek to experience it together as “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17).
 

As we seek to live out heaven’s kingdom convictions on earth, many will see it and desire to “immigrate” in order to worship with us in the Spirit and in truth. May we walk worthy of such citizenship.

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (Revelation 12:9-11)

The Empty Tomb

As we continue through the Lenten season in preparation for our celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, perhaps we would make Jesus’ prayer our prayer as well.
 

 Will you join me?

 

Finding Our Shoes

In my recent post on Discalced Diplomacy, I told a personal story about taking off my shoes and how that related to engaging others of different faith traditions. I hinted at how a mental practice of “taking off our shoes” can give us insight into how to engage in relational dialogue with those of diverse faith traditions. In a subsequent paper, I suggested three things. For best results, we should …

1.    Enter slowly to prevent misunderstanding. Discalced diplomacy is not a bayonet charge looking to rout an enemy in a moment of confrontation.

2.    Come clean, honoring the sacred space to avoid misbehaving. Discalced diplomacy recognizes engagement as a sacred space and honors it by not polluting it with bitterness and bias.

3.    Stay long enough to delve deeper into our respective convictions so that we are not guilty of misbelieving. Discalced diplomacy doesn’t facilitate a quick tactical retreat when things get uncomfortable or take longer than we expect.

Now, how do we move forward? How do we move from encounter to encounter, from one role or project to another? What kind of “shoes” can we put on that will help us to get traction and provide sole protection for the journey? The good news is that we don't have to find the shoes that we took off.

In addition to all the other outwear we will need for the “wilderness trek” through this life, and all the risks and adventures it contains, God gives us shoes for the journey, the kind that don’t wear out, “And, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.” (Ephesians 6:15)

If we are going to wear shoes, let’s make sure that it is because we have “put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace” so that we might respond quickly and faithfully, going where Jesus sends us…into the entire world. Moses was sent to Egypt.

‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’  (Acts 7:32-34)

Bible Reflections.net

Paul was sent into areas where no one had preached before, and ultimately knew he would go to Rome, where he and Peter would both die. Thomas went to India. Bartholomew went to India and then to Ethiopia. Philip went to Carthage, in North Africa. Simon the Zealot was killed in Persia. Others died in Syria. In their steps, others like Patrick went to Ireland, where he had been a slave. Columba to Scotland, Aiden to England, Boniface to Germany, Cyril & Methodius to the Slavs, and down through history to the current day. Feet made ready by the gospel of peace.

I conclude this post with a shortlist of Bible passages speaking about this “peace”. I think these passages might be printed inside the shoebox. Take the lid off and check!

From the prophecies in the Old Testament, such as,

“For you shall go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
    shall break forth into singing,
    and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:12)

To the beginning of the Gospels, when the old priest Zechariah concludes his prophetic prayer over his infant son John, who would become known as “the Baptist”,

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
    for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
 to give knowledge of salvation to his people
    in the forgiveness of their sins,
 because of the tender mercy of our God,
    whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
    to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:76-79)

While recognizing the unique role of John the Baptist in preparing for and announcing the presence of the Messiah to Israel, I think there is ample cause to see his role as typical of that of all followers of Jesus. We don’t announce damnation, but the good news of forgiveness and merciful salvation. It is by the light of Christ, the Dayspring of deliverance, that we can see and follow “into the way of peace.” This is further described in the Epistles,

“Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” (Romans 12:17-18)

“So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” (Romans 14:19)

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:14-18)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus….What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (Phil. 4:6-7, 9)

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:14-16)

While we could do with taking off our own shoes to engage others for the common good, I am glad we get to put on something better.