The Beatitudes: Jamie Noling-Auth // ARTP 120

[Music] well students of art 120 arts and global culture class it is just a privilege to be with you my name is jamie newling oth and i'm the university pastor and dean for spiritual life and your amazing faculty you are so lucky to have them this semester um they have invited me to be able to talk with you about the beatitudes today your semester is centered around the beatitudes um you probably know this but all of our core curriculum has a character trait that we are a virtue that we are hoping will be cultivated in

the life of your soul as you go through this course and so you probably already know this um but two things that your faculty are hoping for you in this new semester one of those is creativity and the other is empathy and and for empathy and creativity you are going to find that the beatitudes are a perfect biblical passage um to address those two things so if you have been around christian community for a while you may already know what the beatitudes are if you have not been around christian community you might be you might

be thinking what are you even talking about right now well i'd love to share with you so um when jesus begins um toward the beginning of his ministry um in matthew's gospel the first of the four gospels that are recorded in the new testament there is this beginning of his first big sermon the sermon is called the sermon on the mount and he starts his sermon in a really unusual way and i'm just going to read a little bit of it to you just to jog your memory maybe you've heard it maybe you haven't um

and and so it goes like this it's found in matthew 5. it says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth and i'm just going to stop there we're only part way through the beatitudes but i want to read it to you from a few different places so i'm only going to read a little bit right now but what i want you to know about this passage is that it is also

recorded in luke's gospel so there's two places where it shows up now the place that's longer and that is often really attributed to the beatitudes is matthew's version of this because luke only has he just has four of the beatitudes whereas matthew has a much longer telling of the beatitudes and there's something really important that jesus is communicating about his ministry as he talks about the beatitudes and those same ideas are going to show up in a few different places in the new testament so i'm excited to talk with you about all of these things

um one thing you may not know if you have spent time in christian community and the beatitudes are maybe familiar to you is what comes before the beatitudes so here is what we have in matthew 4 the passage that's right before the start of today's passage your semester long passage it says this in matthew 4 23 jesus went throughout galilee teaching in their synagogues proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people news about him spread all over syria and people brought to him all who were ill with

various diseases those suffering severe pain the demon possessed those having seizures and the paralyzed and he healed them large crowds from galilee the decapolis jerusalem judea and the region across the jordan followed him so all of these things had happened before this first sermon that we have that we often think of this is the very first thing jesus ever said but have you ever thought about this like there were crowds of people listening to the sermon on the mount how did those people know about jesus well because actually there had been this pretty robust ministry

experience that jesus had had prior to the sermon on the mount so a lot of people were following him and hanging on his every word and wanting to see what he would do next and so now he's gathered at this mountaintop and it's funny because in luke's gospel it's actually called the sermon on the plane so why matthew will say sermon on the mount is because he wants his listeners to think back to maybe like moses on the top of mount sinai um with these you know tablets he wants to evoke this image of jesus

as this leader about to share something very important with the people whereas luke is he talks about um jesus having this sermon on the plane this gathering this big field maybe rolling hills so both are true and they're trying to teach us something a little bit different about where jesus was and how he was functioning so that's the context for the beatitudes is jesus has been doing ministry a lot of people are interested and they are leaning in to hear everything that jesus wants to say and he is clearly being cast as a very significant

leader in the faith so how does jesus begin this sermon well i want to pause for just a second and share with you that years ago i was at a conference and i had the opportunity to hear theologian eugene peterson speak and he was talking about writing the message and some of you know the message is a paraphrase of the bible and it's done by eugene peterson with the intention of trying to have people um experience the bible in really common language um and so some will say oh it's not a perfect translation of the

bible but it's actually it's pretty amazing and it's also pretty beautiful and poetic well one of the things that he talked about at this conference where i got to hear him speak that really stuck with me was he said that when he came to this passage um he kept seeing this word blessed blessed blessed or blessed blessed blessed and what is another great word here well he says when he looks back at the original language the word he most wanted to use this may surprise you the word he most wanted to use was lucky can

you believe that lucky are the poor in spirit lucky are those who mourn lucky are the meek lucky are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness this unusual word lucky but he said that his editors would not let him use the word lucky so he ended up in the message actually using the word blessed the word that we commonly know and if you've thought about that word blessed before in american culture it's really um it's a word that often we use to to kind of refer to money oh the lord has blessed me so much

though you know oh this thing is a real blessing and often we're talking about tangible or monetary things but what you're going to find here is that in jesus's use of the word blessed blessed he's not referring to monetary means or tangible things like that so let's dive in and actually what i'd like to do is i want to read to you how theologian nt wright has translated it and he's using his own translation of the original language but i think that this is really interesting so here is what nt wright has to say here's

how he would translate the text from the original language wonderful news for the poor in spirit the kingdom of heaven is yours wonderful news for the mourners you're going to be comforted wonderful news for the meek you're going to inherit the earth wonderful news for people who hunger and thirst for god's justice you're going to be satisfied wonderful news for the merciful you'll receive mercy yourselves wonderful news for the pure in heart you will see god wonderful news for the peacemakers you'll be called god's children wonderful news for people who are persecuted because of god's

way the kingdom of heaven belongs to you wonderful news for you when people slander you and persecute you and say all kinds of wicked things about you falsely because of me celebrate and rejoice there's a great reward for you in heaven that's how they persecuted the prophets who went before you so do you see even just that word blessed um how just even changing it right there whether that word means lucky or whether that word means wonderful news there's some depth to be offered there and you might think wait a second i don't feel very

lucky or it doesn't feel like wonderful news when i'm grieving or when i'm being persecuted things like this that are listed here why did jesus say that why why would he begin here is this just is this just kind of um to make us to make us feel better about those circumstances or is there actually something good in there one of the things that i think is confusing about the beatitudes is that often how that how we are teaching about them in christian community is as though this is a to-do list this is a task

list like if you are actually going to be blessed or if you're actually going to have favor in god's kingdom what you need to do is you need to be persecuted if you're going to have favor in god's kingdom you need to mourn if you are i'm going to have favor in god's kingdom you need to be meek um and kind of going through those beatitudes as though they're a checklist we do the same thing with the fruits of the spirit in order to um you know win god's favor i need to do the following

things but actually these are gifts is what um these two particular theologians and bible scholars have to say to us that that these are gifts of god that actually when we are going through these hardships when we have these difficulties what we hear in the beatitudes is that god is near that there's more to it to experience of god's goodness and presence when we are going through these experiences and that's really important as we read the beatitudes these are not just something that you need to aspire to in fact these are gifts that god wants

to give you as you go through difficult times well why would jesus start his message here why why would he begin the sermon on the mount in this way well to proclaim good news that is the way of jesus there is a similar passage um in luke's gospel where at the very beginning of jesus ministry he is standing in front of a synagogue and he actually he opens a scroll do you remember the story he opens a scroll as he's standing in front of a synagogue and he quotes a passage from isaiah and then he

proclaims that this has been fulfilled in their hearing and this is the passage that he does in luke's gospel and this is in luke 4. luke 4 um 16 this is the passage the spirit of the lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind to set the oppressed free to proclaim the year of the lord's favor and then as i said jesus stood before them and said today this scripture is fulfilled

in your hearing so what jesus is ushering in is this wave of good news and it's good news for those who are on the margins for those who are suffering for those who are hurting for those who have very little for those who have found themselves in really horrible circumstances jesus is saying i bring you good news and not just the promise of good news down the road in heaven though of course like eternity is filled with the goodness of god but also right now my kingdom the kingdom of god is ushering in good news

for those who have been on the margins for those who have been oppressed for those who are poor for those who are grieving for those who are hurting for those who have not been treated well the good news of jesus is for you and that's what we proclaim even mary at the beginning of luke's gospel when mary the mother of jesus learns that she is pregnant with the messiah she in her song mary sung the magnificat says something really similar so she's praying this prayer of response and one of the things that she does is

she is celebrating god for god's goodness she says his mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation he has performed mighty deeds with his arm he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts he has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble he has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty he has helped his servant israel remembering to be merciful to abraham and his descendants forever just as he promised our ancestors so all throughout the old testament there are these

prophetic passages promising that there will be this messiah who will come and bring good news for all of the oppressed for all of those who are poor for for the people of israel and what mary proclaims and then what jesus proclaims in the temple and then what jesus proclaims as he's standing on this mountainside is good news for those very people who have lived on the margins for those who have who are hurting for those people who don't have enough good news today and good news of an eternal kingdom that is good before jesus preaches

a sermon that has any um any things about holy living any things about what a righteous way of life might look like before he does any of that he turns his attention in goodness to those who are suffering and outcast and experiencing all kinds of pain and so as you jump into this semester as you are exploring the beatitudes as you are thinking about art as you are thinking about global culture as you are thinking about the word blessed or blessed this word the character trait that your um class is going after empathy gosh that

is at the heart of jesus this empathy this deep empathy this goodness this care for the broken this is essential to the mission of god blessed are those who are hurting if you want to live in the way of jesus you need to pay attention to these things that jesus is saying here the marginalized the outcast the poor in spirit that's who jesus came for that's who is at the center of jesus's kingdom and so god bless you as you continue to study the beatitudes i hope that it is a very meaningful experience for you

as i said i think you have just some of the best faculty teaching this class and i hope that this is an experience that is just deeply uh transformational for you that you experience the goodness and deep love of the living god god