Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12
           
The Beatitudes in Matthew’s Gospel serve as Matthew’s introduction of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.  This introduction tells us where Jesus is going in the sermon.  Then he tells us: do good to those who persecute you; love your enemies; turn the other cheek.  How unrealistic can a person be?  Is Jesus unrealistic?
           
What do you do with these statements of Jesus popularly identified as The Beatitudes?  Do you see them as progressive steps in living your life in serving God?  Do you dismiss them out of hand saying such statements may have worked for Jesus but you see how he wound up?  Do you dismiss them by saying they only applied to Jesus’ disciples while he was living?  Do you dismiss them by saying they have application only in a perfect place and they will be fulfilled in the next life?  Do you dismiss them as totally unrealistic and out of touch with the real world and real life?  Do you think it is idealistic to think that anyone could take these statements seriously and actually develop their living based on these statements? Or do you take these statements seriously and see the Beatitudes as a helpful, valuable guide of how to live life and be the best human being you can be?
           
The attitude Jesus expressed is one of being, the be attitude.  We are wrapped up in doing.  We measure worth by what we do or fail to do.  We determine our success in life by listing our accomplishments.  We make decisions about people based on appearances, what we can see they have done.  Jesus upset all of this with his instruction that it is what comes out of a person rather than what goes in that demonstrates what the person really is like.  Jesus dealt with attitudes that led to actions rather than the pretensions of putting on an act.  The beatitudes identify the steps by which a person moves from enslavement as a citizen of the world to become a liberated citizen of the reign of God.
           
Dag Hammarskjold, secretary‑general of the United Nations, died in a plane crash on September 18, 1961, in Zambia, Central Africa, while flying there in an attempt to negotiate a cease‑ fire between United Nations and Katanga rebel forces.  E. Stanley Jones told how he had flown over the spot where Hammarskjold met his tragic death.  The pilot of the plane carrying Jones lived in Zambia and told the famous missionary that in the wreckage of the U. N. plane an open map of Nadolo, a town near Leopoldville, Congo, (now Kinshasha, Zaire) was discovered instead of a map of the city of Nadola, Zambia, which was their destination.  The pilot had crashed his plane in an open field at night thinking he was at Nadola which had a thousand feet more landing strip than did Nadolo.
           
He had followed the wrong map, and the difference between an o and an a made the difference between life and death.  "If you have the wrong mental map of yourself," observed Jones, "you will probably come to wrong landings, a disaster instead of a destination." The Beatitudes can serve as an appropriate map for our lives  
Spiritual Bankruptcy
           
To gain a sense of what Jesus meant by the be attitude, the attitude of being, let’s give some attention to the first and the last of Jesus' beatitudes.  According to Jesus the first step in our journey from death to life is to be poverty stricken.  What did Jesus mean, "Blessed are the poor in spirit"?  The poor in spirit are those who recognize their needy condition and seek the one who can supply their needs.  The poor in spirit are neither the poor‑spirited nor the proud‑spirited.  I’ve known some poor spirited people.  Have you?  I’ve been poor spirited at times.  How about you? The poor spirited are devoid of spark and responsiveness.  The proud spirited are stuck on themselves.  Those who are stuck on themselves are stuck with themselves.  The poor in spirit are blessed, not because of the condition, but because of where the condition leads.  The poor in spirit are those who recognize and admit that by their own power they are utterly bankrupt to meet life.  Then they begin searching beyond themselves for help and strength, discovering that God is the source of all that they need.
           
The process that results in spiritual bankruptcy is similar to what happened to Jim.  After my grandfather's death, Jim purchased my grandfather's business.  I can see the excitement in Jim's face as he preened around the store after the sale had been finalized.  He was enthusiastic and energetic.  He had every intention of making the business more successful than ever because now it was his.  As the months passed, Jim's countenance expressed more burden than joy, more trouble than excitement.  Jim avoided conversations.  He became less and less visible.  It was rumored that he owed creditors large sums of money.  He became nonchalant about the business and refused to pay his bills.  Then the announcement came.  Jim had filed for bankruptcy.  What a painful decision!  What a blow to Jim's self esteem!  Of course, in a small town the wagging tongues were not helpful.  Everyone who knew little about the business had advice about how bankruptcy could have been avoided.  Jim had failed in business and his body language communicated that he felt like a failure as a human being.  Jim lived in seclusion for several months, venturing out into the public only when it was absolutely necessary.  Jim's plummet eventually bottomed out and he discovered that life had more to offer than business success or failure. 
           
The process by which the poor in spirit hear the good news is similar to Jim's business experience.  He tried everything he knew to do, resisted giving in, but eventually Jim had to declare bankruptcy in order to have any chance at living.  You and I try everything we can think of to avoid hitting bottom spiritually.  We attend church more often, participate in additional church related functions, read the Bible, pray.  There must be some religious hoop to jump through to solve the dilemma!  These approaches may supply some temporary hope but until we declare spiritual bankruptcy, acknowledging that only God can help us, we will remain captives of our own efforts.  The audit sheets of our lives reveal that we are in hoc so far that we can never get our lives balanced and out of debt.  Only if we declare spiritual bankruptcy will we permit the resources of God's love to balance our lives and ground us in permanent hope.

Being Persecuted
Declaring spiritual bankruptcy sets us up for the next step in the be attitudes.  Each beatitude leads to the following one.  Here is how Jesus said he would liberate people from oppression.  He would call them to join him as disciples.  As his disciples they would need to declare spiritual bankruptcy, grieve over their condition, be open to learn from God and others, crave to do what is right, be merciful, have their focus on God, and work for peace. Then they would be doing what God requires and the result would be persecution.  How ironic!  What strange logic this is.  We cannot let go of this eighth beatitude.  Rather it will not let us go.  It grips us with intrigue and raises difficult questions.
           
One of the first questions is, "What is persecution?"  Persecution is the act of being afflicted or harassed constantly with the intent to injure or distress.  Persecution is cruel oppression, especially for reasons of religion, politics, or race.  To be persecuted is to live in an atmosphere of suffocating suspicion, to be pursued by persons in a malignant spirit, to be sniped at by enemies lying in wait, to be hounded and harassed with unjust penalties for alleged offenses.
           
A second question is, "Why is this person being persecuted?"  Some people live frightened, suspicious lives.  They are convinced that there are other people out in the nebulous there who are attempting and succeeding in doing harm to them.  Waves of suspicion continue to break on international shores. People motivated by fear urge that we live by the ungolden rule of doing to them before they do to us.  The wave of suspicion breaks on our national shores as the serpents of racism and classism raise their many heads.  Such suspicion and fear become justification for hatred and violence for too many people and fuel the fires of persecution.  People who are motivated to hatred and violence by fear and suspicion become the persecutors rather than the persecuted.
           
Being persecuted is not proof of virtue.  Sadistic people gain pleasure by inflicting pain in others both emotional and physical.  Receiving the hostile, maltreatment of sadistic people does not result in the happiness to which Jesus referred.  Masochistic people derive pleasure from experiencing pain both emotional and physical.  These people often provoke maltreatment and then revel in being mistreated.  There are people who are unable to experience any degree of intimacy until they have caused an uproar and arrived at a victim status.
           
Self‑pity may lead a person to persecute himself if he can't get anyone else to persecute him.  The blame always is placed on someone else and it really doesn't matter what hurts the one who is suffering from self‑inflicted persecution.  Just so he hurts is what is important; therefore, he has a legitimate reason to feel sorry for himself.  This person has to suffer for a cause, even it's just because.
           
Suppose there are people who not only oppose us but also who really are persecuting us.  We should not jump to the conclusion that we are suffering for righteousness' sake.  The first value of persecution is the inducement of self‑examination.  Our self‑ examination ought to include introspection in light of the other beatitudes as well as exploring the possibilities of why others would dislike us and want to do us harm.  Oscar Wilde said he did not know why a certain man hated him so because he, Wilde, had never done anything for the man.
           
No evidence is available to support the idea that Jesus encouraged his followers to stir up a storm or to find one brewing and make it worse so they could be persecuted.  The evidence is quite the contrary.  Jesus instructed his disciples against needless antagonism, encouraging them to be as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves (Matthew 10:6).  They were not to force themselves on anyone; rather, if people would not hear and receive them, they were to leave that community and go to another (Matthew 10:14).
           
This capstone beatitude does not say, "Happy are those who are persecuted."  That is a half‑truth and half‑truth often is more dangerous than no truth. This eighth beatitude says, "Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires."  What God requires is explained in the first seven beatitudes.  To translate the first seven beatitudes into our living may very well result in the eighth.
           
Happiness is a by‑product of the be attitude.  Jesus suggested that happiness was the good fortune of those who receive God's salvation, but his understanding completely contradicts with the ideas and values of a sensual society that equates happiness with materialism.  Often we live as though happiness can be pursued or grasped.  The faster we run after happiness the quicker it escapes us.  The tighter we clutch at happiness when we experience it, the sooner we strangle it.  Happiness as Jesus expressed it is not so much bubbling effervescence as it is a state of contentment that is evident in those who hear his words and live them.
           
Jesus expanded and interpreted the eighth beatitude, no doubt, because it was the climax and the direct result of the previous seven.  As he expanded this eighth beatitude, Jesus personalized the application of the beatitude by shifting from saying, "Happy are they," to say "Happy are you."  Jesus saw the state of contentment in his disciples because they were his followers.  The persecution they experienced and the false things said against them also were the result of being his followers.
           
Blessedness or happiness is the by‑product of persecution when the motive for action is righteousness or justice.  One of my favorite bumper sticker reads, "If you love Jesus, do justice.  Any old goose can honk."  Jesus never left any doubt what would happen to his followers.  He expected them to be persecuted.  He did not come to make life easy but to make people great by teaching them to be servants.  Those who are being persecuted because of their work for righteousness have no need to call attention to their persecution because they are seeking to be liberators like Christ who liberated them.  It was clear to Jesus and it must have been clear to his most casual listener that his liberating ministry was the mortal enemy of systems built on power, greed, oppression, and falsehood, and that the two systems could never lie down together.    
           
When the church is authentically the body of Christ it is the conscience of society, the nation, and the world.  Perhaps our alleged Christianity is condemned when it is so mild that it is simply ignored.  Jesus encouraged his followers to be glad in hardship and to leap for joy when persecution came because they would be doing what God wanted.  
           
Jesus adds that when his disciples are persecuted for doing what is right, for being merciful to others, for making peace, they are in good company.  This was how Israel treated the prophets who preceded them.  Bitter persecution may come to the follower of Christ because the servant is not above the master.
           
During World War II a pastor from the United States visited Heinrich Niemoeller in Germany.  Niemoeller's son Martin had been a pastor in Germany.  He had defiled Hitler, was put in prison, and spent several months in a concentration camp.  The pastor expressed his concern for the Niemoellers.  Heinrich Niemoeller replied,
           
“When you go back to the United States do not let anyone pity the father and mother of Martin Niemoeller.  Only pity any follower of Christ who does not know the joy that is set before those who endure the cross despising the shame.  Yes, it is a terrible thing to have a son in a concentration camp.  Paula here and I know that.  But there would be something more terrible for us: if God had needed a faithful martyr and our Martin had been unwilling.”  Isn't this the essence of what Jesus said?  Persecution is a terrible thing, but unfaithfulness to God is far worse.
           
As unrealistic as Jesus seems to us, his ministry of liberation produces freedom and faithfulness.  According to conventional wisdom, Jesus is unrealistic.  According to God’s wisdom, Jesus is on the mark.  His be attitudes, attitudes of being, offer us a mental map to follow for the living journey we are invited to make.  They begin by pointing out our need to admit we are spiritually bankrupt and conclude that through our relationship with God we can remain faithful followers of Christ even when being persecuted because of our faith commitment.  I urge you to climb the mountain of be attitudes and view life from the perspective they offer.  The view will be breath‑taking but life‑giving.  If you climb the mountain of Beatitudes you will find Jesus’ instructions to be helpful in how to live life in this world with meaning and purpose. There is nothing unrealistic about that.
Notes
    
1E. Stanley Jones, Victory Through Surrender (New York:  Abingdon Press, 1966), pp. 8‑9.