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"Mercy, Not Sacrifice: the law and those who are blessed"
Amy Marie Epp
Sept. 25, 2005
“Always and everywhere I have said as follows about the community of goods: that each [person] should have regard for [their] neighbour, so that the hungry might be fed, the thirsty refreshed, the naked clothed. For we are not lords of our own property, but stewards and dispensers. Assuredly, no one could say that we claim that one should take [one's] own from anybody and make it common property; rather we would say, if anyone would take your cloak, give him your coat also.”
These were the words that were read by Paula earlier in our worship service. They were written by one of the first Radical Reformers, an Anabaptist leader and theologian in the 16 th Century, Balthasar Hubmaier. Like many of the early protestant reformers, Balthasar knew the Bible inside and out and quoted it often in his writing. Part of this quote is based very closely on words that were spoken by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, the portion of Matthew which, of course, we are going to be spending some time hearing and becoming more familiar with over the next number of weeks until Advent. Specifically this morning we will be focusing on the first 12 verses of the Sermon on the Mount…the Beatitudes, named for the series of blessings.
The book of Matthew is about as systematic a set of guidelines for living as we can find in the New Testament, the closest thing to a guidebook for the disciples of Jesus that we have. It was written at a time when rabbinic Judaism was developing. It was written to an urban congregation, struggling to define itself in a changing faith environment. Perhaps an identifiable setting. The young church was taking shape, and needed a way to define itself, to be able to answer for itself and for the world, why it was church, and not like the synagogue down the street. Matthew offers a new way of being a faith covenant community, which isn't Judaism, but which doesn't forget the story of God's faithfulness.
The text we heard read with the Beatitudes was from the prophet Isaiah. It refers to the covenant that God made with Israel , “I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast sure love for David.” We have heard, and we proclaim that through Christ there is a new covenant. It is a covenant that is not only for the people of Israel, but for all people. Matthew sets out to present the teachings of Jesus in a way that creates guidelines – the most systematic of which are found in the Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes provide the opening and introduction. and begin to answer the question, who are the blessed, and what is the law to mean to us.
Nowadays we struggle with the old testament, think it's not relevant for contemporary Christians, the archaic language, the laws that make little sense, the war and destruction. what does that have to do with me? But that was the scripture to the first Christians. That was the scripture to Jesus. While it was very important to Matthew to distinguish a different ethic for Christians, to describe how faithful followers of Jesus are to act, Matthew is one of the most Jewish gospels. It is important to Matthew to impress upon its readers that Jesus is a Messiah in the line of David. There is an intimate connection between Jesus and the Torah, the old testament law and scripture. He not only teaches and interprets it, he is its fulfillment and personification.
We hear the prophet Isaiah call with longing, “All who thirst, come to the water, delight in abundance, be in everlasting covenant.” This is really the center of the whole old testament, and this is really the reason that it is still relevant and important. The Holy One, is longing to be in covenanted relationship with God's people. The law came not out of a desire to punish, to enslave and make captive. The laws that we read in the Old Testament were created as a grateful response to God's merciful act of removing the people of God from slavery in Egypt. They were created to build community and establish justice among those who were in relationship to God.
Balthasar Hubmaier was aware that poverty and justice for the poor was a issue of Christian ethics even before becoming Anabaptist. Like several of the 1 st Anabaptists, he was a Catholic priest. He was also a civic leader. In this role of he saw people being exploited by financial profiteers and realized that it was ruining the city of Regensburg, where he lived. This sense of responsibility to the world remained with. Where some Anabaptist leaders insisted upon separation from state and from government, Balthasar pressed Anabaptist Christians to engage the world and to work with government rather than isolating themselves from it. In this way, he wanted to establish the kind of community whose values were based on Jesus' instruction to offer hospitality to those in need.
In a story later on in Matthew, Jesus exemplifies the importance of hospitality and human need when and was with his friends walk through a field on the Sabbath. They were plucking grain, and then rubbing it between their hands, and eating it. Working on a Sabbath was a big no-no, forbidden by covenant law. But here they were harvesting, rubbing, and eating. Pharisees were upset but Jesus' answer to them…The son of man is Lord of the Sabbath…I require mercy not sacrifice. It is with this interpretive spirit that Jesus teaches the law to his disciples.
In his teachings in the sermon on the mount and other parts of Matthew and the gospels, Jesus offers a new interpretation of the law and of the blessing that will come of being in relationship with the Lord. In Matthew and the Gospels, we are offered the story of new covenant. The relationship with God that is possible through Jesus Christ is unlimited by ethnicity, sex, orientation, age or any other physical limitation. What Jesus requires is mercy, not sacrifice. Hubmaier thought that one way to create justice and mercy was to systematize it through government.
I must say, that I have always like Luke's version of this part of the sermon better…he seems clearly more concerned with justice. He say ‘blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry' He doesn't spiritualize these terms. It is for this reason that I am attracted to the Balthasar Hubmaier type thinking that changing policy, advocating to government, political action are the way to go. Matthew lists these blessings and it is almost frustrating to read them…Who will comfort, who will be merciful, who will fill the ones who mourn and cower and are hungry?
It seems that Matthew put the answers to these questions off. And then I remember that this the introduction to a teaching that speaks directly to specific issues of engaging in conflict and violence, relationships and divorce, how to worship, responding to poverty – very concrete ethical questions – and the answer is justice and mercy. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Indeed they have received mercy, for God is merciful and just in essence.
I wonder if we can't think of each of the beatitudes in that way, not like a reward for being good, but like the Torah, was a grateful response to what God had already given. Think about the blessings like this…The blessed ones of the kingdom of God are poor in Spirit, the blessing of comfort comes in the time of mourning, the blessed ones who will inherit the earth are meek, the ones who will be blessed by the sight of God are pure of heart. The blessed children of God are peacemakers. And you…you who know that there is more than this life, that your relationship with God does not end with death, you must know that you will still be blessed even when you are persecuted and harassed and mocked for believing this and for responding faithfully to your blessing.
What follows the blessings is Jesus' working out, as clearly as we can find anywhere in the gospels, of how we respond to our blessedness. Called to the water ourselves, we can offer refreshing drink to those who are thirsty. With humility and meekness we remember that, as Hubmaier said, we are stewards and dispensers of property that is not our own.
I am learning to know this congregation as one of generosity, grace and humility, and one who is struggling to define for itself how it should respond to the world of which it is part. It seems very possible that we are about to become stewards and dispensers of property that is not our own as we embark on a project to provide storage space for the belongings of our neighbours without homes. Tonight neighbours will meet together again over a meal. I hope that in our continued conversations with our neighbours and tenants we can remember the graciousness of God to us and what it means to be blessed.
I'd like to end as I began, with the words of our father in faith, Balthasar Hubmaier.
“Let [us] also confirm [ourselves] in gratitude, so as to be thankful in words and deeds toward God for the great, overabundant and unspeakable love and goodness that he has shown [us] through his most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ…Namely that [we] now give[] praise and thanks from the heart to God. Further that [all] be of an attitude and ready will to do for Christ [our] God and Lord in turn as he had done for [us]. But since Christ does not need our good deeds, is not hungry, is not thirsty, is not naked or in prison, but heaven and earth are his and all that is in them, therefore he points us toward our neighbour…that we might fulfill the works of this our gratitude toward them physically and spiritually, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, consoling the prisoner, sheltering the needy. Then he will be ready to accept these works of mercy from us in such a way as if we had done them unto him.
(from “A Form for Christ's Supper” in Balthasar Hubmaier. Herald Press, 1989. 397)
May God's blessing be added to the preaching of God's word, Amen.