Saturday 4 February 2017

Ghandi, Macrina Wiederkehr and the Sermon on the Mount



This is part of my message from Sunday January 29th, 2017. Please excuse any typo’s or grammar problems you find. 

The Sermon on the Mount is a description of what the Christian life should look like, but rarely does. In this sermon Jesus reveals to us the values of the kingdom of heaven and invites us to live in the kingdom way here and now.     
  
Among the people who listen to the Sermon on the Mount and try to understand its message for today are Hindus in India. They study this scripture because it was important to Mahatma Gandhi. 

Gandhi, studied the Christian faith and was thinking of becoming a Christian, but was turned off by the failure of those who name themselves as Christian’s to live out the teachings of Jesus.  He did not become a Christian, but he did fall in love and stay in love with the person of Jesus Christ. Gandhi pointed to the words of Jesus that we read this morning (Matthew 5: 1-12) as one of things that inspired him to develop the non-violent resistance movement that helped India gain independence from Britain. Gandhi said, “I found one whom I could follow. I just couldn’t stand his followers.”  

Yet there is a sense in which Gandhi became a very good example of what it means to be a follower of Jesus even though he remained a Hindu until the day he died. What is it about the Sermon on the Mount that so influenced Gandhi that he put these words on his wall that he might see them always?   

The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, had a different impression. He read the Sermon on the Mount and thought it was the stupidest fraud that had ever been perpetuated on human beings. Neitzsche said you will become a human sheep if you follow this. I am told that Alfred Rosenberg, who was influenced by Nietzsche, was asked by Adolf Hitler how he might keep all the German Christians and still do what he wanted to do.  Rosenberg cut about 80 percent of the Sermon on the Mount out of the Bible and handed it back to the German church and said they could preach the rest. For the most part they did. Some of those who dissented were rounded up and put in prison. What was it in the Sermon on the Mount that the Nazi’s found so very threatening?   

What is it about this passage that makes it so dangerous to the status quo?  What is it about this passage that makes it so subversive, so capable of inspiring action that changes the world? These words seem at first glance contradictory. We do not normally think of the poor, the sad, the meek and the thirsty as the ones who are blessed.   

Macrina Wiederkehr says these teachings of Jesus are for people who have their hearts set on the Reign of God. They are a way of life designed for those who want their lives to be a blessing.  Beatitude people are kingdom people. They have a kingdom on their minds that won’t let them rest until all the world is striving to be just, compassionate and single-hearted. They call us forth from the cosy ruts of daily living and call us to be Christ in the world. They tell us that the Reign of God is already in our midst if we bless the world with beatitude-living.     

Let us look briefly at each of the beatitudes. The first is blessed are the poor in spirit.

Macrina Weiderkehr writes these words: 
I turned to the empty ones
What does it mean to be poor in spirit? I asked
Is there anything good about being that poor? 

The poor in spirit replied:
Can God fill anyone who is full?

Being poor in spirit has something to do with being open to God, when we are too full of ourselves and our own opinions we cannot hear what God would say to us. The poor in spirit are blessed because they know heir need for a wisdom and power beyond their own – they know their need of God. They are open to hear the word that God would speak to them. 

The next beatitude says blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The word for mourn here is that kind of grief that one feels from having lost the most beloved person in your life. It is that sorrow so deep that it shakes your whole life, making you wonder if ever you will get over it. 

How can we say someone who mourns is blessed? Well firstly, mourning is related to love. People who have never mourned, have never loved. For love always involves loss.      

Macrina Wiederkehr says this
What does it mean to mourn?  
I asked those who were sorrowing
An old man stepped forward,

To mourn, he said, is to be given
A second heart
It is to care so deeply
That you show your ache in person.

To mourn is to be unashamed of tears
It is to be healed and broken all in the same moment. 

Blessed are you if you are so full of compassion
You see the need before it’s spoken.
Blessed are you if you can offer to others
A heart that feels their sorrow
A Heart that can wait quietly beside them
A heart that doesn’t try to hurry the healing. 

To mourn is to forget yourself for a moment
 and get lost in someone’s else’s pain
and then, finally to find yourself
in the very act of getting lost.

The next beatitude says blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. In our experience this is anything but true. The meek are not the ones who inherit, or win or gain a promotion or get elected president or prime minister, except maybe for Jimmy Carter. The meek are usually the ones who are left out, while the assertive and the aggressive get what they want.  We see meekness as a weakness, a character flaw. But this is not the kind of meekness that Jesus is referring to. The kind of meekness Jesus is referring to is strong. It is not thinking too highly or lowly of one’s self, but it is found in keeping a good balance, on seeing yourself as God sees you. The meek of whom Jesus is talking about here are persons not driven to step on everyone else to get what they want. They are humble before God, appreciative of the countless blessings they already have. They feel no need to be anything more than they already are, but they are also open to change, when change is required. What they inherit is a state of well being, of peace, of love, of being loved by others.  

Macrina Weiderkehr says
And to the meek, I said:
Tell me about this beatitude
It doesn’t sound like a blessing
To me, it looks like the face of weakness.

A face from the crowd of lowly ones
Shone forth with strength
Her smile reached the door of my heart
Then this lowly one spoke. 

To be meek is to be so full of truth
That everyone is comfortable
In your presence. 
It is to have a spirit young as the dawn
A heart as old as the evening.
It is to know yourself so well
And live yourself so fully
 that your very presence
calls forth gifts in others. 
It is to be comfortable
With your anger
And with your compassion.

The meek one grew silent for a moment
Then lifting her eyes, she said:
When you are meek
You don’t need a lot of followers
You just need a lot of truth. 

The lowly ones are able
To stand out in the open
And speak the truth
Sometimes quietly
Sometimes loudly.
The truth will be spoken
Even if no one listens
Even if no one hears.

For the meek person doesn’t need followers
The meek need to be true to themselves.