Sermon for February 1, 2026
Readings:
Then he began to speak and taught them saying:
Blessed are the rich in pride, for theirs is the kingdom of this world.
Blessed are those who feel no sorrow, for they do not need to be comforted.
Blessed are the bold, for they can just take the earth.
Blessed are those who are self-righteous, because they are already filled.
Blessed are the cruel and inhumane, for mercy is for the weak.
Blessed are the pure in ideology, for they will see God in their mirrors.
Blessed are the troublemakers, for they will be called my children.
Blessed are those who are praised for wickedness, for theirs is the kingdom of this world.
Blessed are you when people praise and adore you and utter all kinds of flattering things to you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your rewards will be great on this earth, for in the same way they praised the great and powerful who were before you.
I sincerely hope that all of you are able to identify what is wrong with everything I just said. I hope that you can recognize that those are not the words of Jesus. What I have just given you is what I would call the Devil’s Beatitudes. Sometimes, in order to see something clearly, it is helpful to take a look at its inverse or opposite. It’s like a photographic negative where light is dark and dark is light. It is only when you shine a light through a negative that you can see things as they really are. All of those things I just said may sound appealing; they may even sound true, but you know…or at least I hope you know and can recognize that they are false. They are not the words and teachings of our Lord. They come from somewhere, or someone, else entirely.
But when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
“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.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“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 falsely on 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.”
That is a very different message than what I said in the beginning. I can remember vividly the first time I read those words for myself. It was in a bible that my grandmother had sitting on her desk. That part of the Bible, the sermon on the Mount, was illustrated. Baptists sometimes like to pretend that they don’t like images in worship, but don’t you believe it. They just want the images to be in their bibles and not on their church walls. Anyways, I can remember reading those words and just being struck by them. Even as a child I could sense that there was some very deep truth there. I could also sense, that what Jesus was saying and the values that he was teaching, conflicted with the values that I could already see being lived out in the world. Although I wouldn’t learn this word for many, many years, Jesus was being counter-cultural. His words were a challenge to the dominant culture in the world. They were a challenge in his day when he first spoke them to his disciples. They were a challenge when I first read them as a child. They remain a challenge to us today. This very day. Jesus’s words have been a challenge to us in every age, throughout time. Even during those times and ages, like our own, when Christianity made at least a nominal claim of being the dominant culture or religion…even then, Jesus’s words have proved to be a challenge…and sometimes an indictment.
As a church, we go to great effort to honor what we believe to be the word of God. It is read aloud at every worship service. Frequently much of it is sung, as in the psalms which have always formed the backbone of the church’s daily worship. Jesus’s words are given even greater reverence, being encased in silver and gold, processed into the congregation, and listened to while standing at attention. Hours are spent listening to preachers expound upon these texts with varying degrees of effectiveness. We honor these texts even when they challenge us to be better and to do better.
Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth;
for the Lord has a controversy with his people,
and he will contend with Israel.
“O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
If you attend our Good Friday services, then you may recognize that last line from the Prophet Micah. It is sung by the choir during the veneration of the cross in what we call the reproaches or the Popule Meus. The words are sung as if they are the words of Jesus, but they are much older than Jesus. We believe Jesus to be the incarnate son of God who calls us to new life and a new way of seeing the world. His life was unique in its reconciling power, but as the reproaches and the words of the prophets make very clear, God has been challenging humanity to do better for a very long time. We believe our God to be loving and forgiving and we believe that our God saves us when we cannot save ourselves, but we also believe in a God that calls us to be better and to do better. We believe in a God who calls us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with him. We have preserved those words of the Prophet Micah, like we have preserved Jesus’s sermon on the mount, NOT because they merely affirm us as we are, but because they challenge us to be better than we are. They challenge us to put more trust in God than we do in the powers of this world or even in ourselves.
Preserving that message and sharing it with the world is a part of the vital task of the church. And the church is criticized sometimes for not appearing relevant to the world we live in. People don’t get us and what we do. The rituals seem arcane and unimportant. People wonder what church is even for. Some people think that the church is too politically active; others think it is not politically active enough. Well, I think that our faith should inform our politics and not the other way around. Our faith should inform our politics; our politics should not inform our faith. But so often that is what we see on both the left and the right. Well, I have no sworn allegiance to any political party, but I do have a sworn allegiance to Jesus. Partisanship is never going to save us. But Jesus will. We need to be bigger than the stupid, petty partisanship that surrounds us. We need to be witnesses to a better way. That is what makes us relevant. We are relevant because the God of the Jesus and the prophets is still God, and is still calling us to do better and to be better.
Very often churches like Ascension, that are very intentionally traditional in style and worship, are accused of being museums (as if that is some sort of insult). I was reading an article this week about the Anglican Priest Percy Dearmer. He lived at the end of the nineteenth through the beginning of the twentieth century. He was something of an antiquarian and had a bit of style. I wouldn’t have agreed with him on every liturgical point, but he thought that worship should be beautiful and he thought that traditions should be preserved and there we certainly agree. He was criticized for fostering what was called “British Museum religion.” I have no doubt that there are some who think that that is what we are about. But if that is true, then it is not in the way that the critics mean. The author of this article I was reading wrote that “The museum metaphor becomes apt only when one recalls that museums are not cemeteries of the obsolete. They are classrooms, treasuries, and places of encounter. They invite us to listen to voices that would otherwise be lost.”
Museums invite us to listen to voices that would otherwise be lost. Think about that the next time you go to the Met. Museums invite us to listen to voices that would otherwise be lost. Think about that the next time you come in here. Because if that is what a museum is, then I am proud that that is what we are. We are a classroom, a treasury, a place of encounter. We are a place that invites people to hear voices that the world would rather drown out. And the most important voice of all those voices that the world would like to silence and forget is the voice of our Lord. We need to be a place where his voice is heard. We need to be a place where his words, his actual words, are proclaimed and remembered. Because the world is always going to want to forget, or twist, or warp, or misunderstand. We need to hear his words so that we can recognize when we hear words that are not his.
Inwardly Digest 