War Cry

Propers: The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, A.D. 2017 A

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Beatitudes are not cutesy-poo sentiment, nor are they the anodyne schmaltz of a reasonable, middle-of-the-road, don’t-rock-the-boat prophet. The Beatitudes are Jesus’ public declaration of war. In proclaiming them, He has already signed His own death warrant.

In the weeks since the Epiphany, we have recounted together the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry. We’ve heard His birth announced by angels and celebrated by shepherds. We’ve seen Wise Men from the East come bearing exotic and prophetic gifts. We’ve watched the Holy Family flee into Egypt, and Mary ponder all these things in her heart. Around age 30, Jesus is baptized in the River Jordan and proclaimed the Lamb of God by none other than John the Baptist. Those there present witness the Holy Spirit descending upon Him as a dove, and the voice of God the Father proclaim, “This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!”

Last week, with John the Baptist imprisoned, we heard how Jesus gathered up the scattered sheep of John’s dispirited flock, calling them from their fishing boats to be the first of His Apostles. And He’s gone about the Galilee, preaching and teaching, healing the sick and proclaiming the long awaited Kingdom of God. Now, with a great crowd gathered about Him, Jesus preaches His first and most famous homily, the Sermon on the Mount. It’s His coming out party. Imagine, if you would, a great natural theater, a hill by the Sea of Galilee, with a sort of scoop out of the side. Here literally thousands of people could sit and be able to see and be seen by a single speaker at the top.

They’ve come from all around: lepers, demoniacs, paralytics, outcasts, sinners, the poor and dispossessed. What’s more, there are Greeks as well as Jews, the occupiers as well as the oppressed, natives and aliens and everyone in between. I can’t help but wonder as to whether Peter and Andrew, James and John, when told by Jesus that they would become fishers of men, had the slightest notion as to what sort of men Jesus would be gathering all into the same boat.

And here the Lord boldly proclaims to the assembled masses:

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 shall 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.

Now I shouldn’t have to tell you that this is the stuff of lunacy—or worse, of insurrection. Blessed are the poor? Any fool can see that the poor are anything but blessed. Blessed are the meek? Dear fellow, in the Roman Empire, no one trusts a man who doesn’t boast. Image is everything, after all, and big men must both talk big and carry big sticks. Blessed are the merciful, the peacemakers, the pure in heart? Mercy may have its uses in good P.R., but in this world of hierarchy, patronage, and obedience, one must know where to stick one’s knife, lest one find a knife in his own back first. Just ask Caesar, or Herod, or for that matter Pontius Pilate.

Jesus is promising a Kingdom to the underclass, a Kingdom that inverts every assumption and social norm upon which the Roman Empire so firmly rests. He’s proclaiming power to the powerless—never a good sign in the Middle East. We’re accustomed to paying lip service to these ideals, but we must understand just how radical, how subversive, these Beatitudes truly are; not just in Rome’s day, but in our own as well. The West is nothing, after all, if not the inheritor of Rome.

A consumerist society is a society built on lies. A consumerist society tells us that each and every one of us is a sovereign little god, a spark of pure will floating about in an arbitrary and malleable body just begging for customization. We are told that our choices should be, and are of right, infinite; that anything which imposes natural limits or proper boundaries is oppressive; and that we can do anything, be anything, so long as we are willing to pay for it.

The only good in such a society is the exercise of the will in the pursuit of novelty and pleasure. The only law in such a society is that of the almighty dollar. The only product of such a society is a menu of infinite choice, the manufacture of new demands, and the concurrent inability to distinguish between need and want, between truth and whim. In the words of notorious Satanist Aleister Crowley, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will.” A consumerist society is by nature an atheist society, because it pushes away transcendent goods in order to focus on proximate goods. Who has time to think about God, after all, when there’s so much neat stuff to order online?

This is the world once opened only to the Roman elite. This is the world that we now attempt to open to the entire middle class, especially those in perpetual servitude to debt. I mean, sure, some people buy more than they can afford, but hey, them’s the breaks, right? You want a nice high-definition flatscreen omelet, you gotta break few eggs. The strong will survive. The rest are just suckers, who get what they deserve.

“Blessed are the poor,” Jesus says. “Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the peacemakers.” And this bald statement of truth tears off our society’s façade: a society shrieking that the rich are blessed, the bold are blessed, those who get even are blessed, the guy with the biggest army is blessed! “No,” Jesus says. “That’s not blessing. That’s not freedom. That’s the worst type of slavery there is: slavery to desire, slavery to ego, slavery to sin. And it ends where sin always ends, in the grave, in the ground, dead to the world.”

Your bank account won’t save you. Your credit card won’t save you. Your purchases and possessions and your pills won’t save you. None of that stuff makes it beyond the grave. Heck, most of it never even gets taken out of the closet. None of the things that we think make us important or powerful or respected or successful will mean a bloody thing 100 years from now. It’s all just drek! A kingdom of lies!

But Christ proclaims an alternate Kingdom, a true Kingdom, a Kingdom beyond all the powers of the devil, the world, and the flesh. It is a Kingdom of selfless love and powerful service, a Kingdom of forgiveness and healing, a Kingdom of everlasting life poured out not upon the deserving but upon the needy, one and all! It is not a Kingdom of this world, but it is a Kingdom that transforms this world, that heals this world, that remakes it into what it was always meant to be. This is the Kingdom that will still be rising, ever rising, long after Rome and her cohorts lay mouldering in the grave. This is the Kingdom in which lies are unmasked and shadows are banished and death itself withers away to die.

And it’s a threat: a threat to the devil and all the powers that would oppress us; a threat to every tyrant who would keep us in bondage to our own twisted, broken wills. The Beatitudes are a war cry of Truth proclaimed to the father of lies, a gauntlet thrown down against the usurping powers that be. Don’t you see? Jesus has come to destroy them all, to liberate we who are their slaves and to raise us up in freedom and love and life everlasting! This is a fight to the death! They must kill Him if they seek to smother His words, to snuff out His light! Kill the King, before He can raise up the slaves!

And that’s exactly what they will try to do. That’s what every tyrant and tin-Hitler from Christ’s birth down to our own day will try to do. They will try to kill Him, to silence Him, to put Him out. And they will all and always fail. You can’t kill Life. You can’t falsify Truth. You can’t stop God.

Blessed are the poor and the pure, the meek and the mourning, the healers and the hungry. Blessed are you! For Christ has come to save us all, and all the powers of hell haven’t got a prayer.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.