meditatio at the water's edge

Over the next few months, we are going to be looking at Matthew 5-7, and we are going to be listening from the position that Dallas Willard suggests in "The Divine Conspiracy." We began this past Sunday night with the following material.

The Beatitudes:
Guess Who Is Invited to the Party?

What was Jesus saying by calling these people ‘blessed’?

Jesus was answering the question, “who is really well off?” by challenging the assumptions of his culture.

1 When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him.
2 He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying,
3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 "Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
10 "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 "Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
12 "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Have you ever not received an invitation to a party you really wanted to be at?

(In our gathering, Heidi shared a little bit about a wedding invitation that she had been promised, but never arrived. Kathy shared about some parties in college that she was not invited to. How about you? How do you feel when you are one of the 'uninvited'?)

As Jesus was opening his mouth to teach the people on the hillside, I believe he was making an announcement to all the 'uninvited' people of the world. I believe he was making the announcement that the kingdom of God is now available to anyone and everyone who would place their confidence in Jesus and follow him.

I won't go into depth of all of the beatitudes of Jesus, but I would like to look at a few as examples.

Blessed are the Poor in spirit.
The poor in spirit are those people who you think don’t have a clue about the spiritual life. They are the people who seem apathetic about anything beyond the moment.
To religiously minded people, the poor in spirit are a waste of time. Religious-minded people look at these and quote things like, “Don’t cast your pearls before swine,” and stuff like that.
But Jesus is announcing that God’s ruling can be brought into even the most spiritually impoverished person you can imagine. So, in Luke's version of the Beatitudes, Jesus puts out some tough warnings to the people who think they have it all together. Watch out, you holier-than-thou types! Watch out you high-minded orthocrats! You theology nazis.
Watch out, all of you who think you are high on God’s list because of the doctrinal positions you hold, because there will be people entering in the kingdom who know nothing of your doctrines—and they will be getting in the party ahead of you!


Blessed are Those Who Mourn.
Those who mourn, of course, are those whose lives have been devastated by tragedy. These are the people who our world calls the failures. The wife just can’t seem to get over the death of her husband. She hears the whispers, “Why can’t she just move on?” The father who loses his job and doesn’t seem to be employable. He entertains thoughts like, “Maybe I’m worth more dead than alive.”
To these, Jesus announces that there is right now available a life of blessedness under the ruling of God. He announces that this life is one that no tragedy can touch, one that no circumstance can mark a person with the name ‘failure.’


Blessed are the Meek and gentle.
The Meek and the Gentle among us are those who are stepped over and walked on. They are those timid people who are often taken advantage of. They do not get far up the corporate ladder. They end up serving as perpetual rungs on the ladder. They are the butt of everyone’s jokes.
To these, Jesus announces that they too are welcome to God’s party. God does not limit the invitation to the corporate climbers, the five-diamond distributors, and the politically influential. Jesus is saying something just like the lyrics from Paul Simon, “Blessed are the sat upon, spat upon, ratted on.”

6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
7 "Blessed are the merciful
8 "Blessed are the pure in heart
9 "Blessed are the peacemakers
10 "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness
11 "Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.

Jesus is not holding these up as models for morality. He is simply saying, “To those of you here who happen to be spiritually bankrupt…to those of you here who feel like you have lost everything when you lost someone you loved…to those of you here who are getting stepped on and walked all over…and all the rest who have been deemed ‘uninvited’…you have an opportunity here and now to enter into the life of beatitude.

You are invited to God’s party.

Dallas Willard writes, “The gospel of the kingdom is that no one is beyond beatitude, because the rule of God from the heaviness is available to all. Everyone can reach it, and it can reach everyone. We respond appropriately to the Beatitudes of Jesus by living as if this were so, as it concerns others and as it concerns ourselves.”

Who have you written off as hopeless?

The other day, I was sitting with a few friends around a picnic table and a man drove by several times in his loud car. It was very distracting, so after about the third time this guy drove past us, one of my friends said, “Oh well, he’s going to hell anyway.” Of course, he was just kidding. I’m sure he is not that cynical. But many of us are about the people in our lives.

We write them off. “There’s nothing I can do. They’re going to hell anyway.” The Beatitudes of Jesus will prevent us from regarding anyone as hopeless.

Who might we put on our list of hopeless cases?

Again, Dallas Willard is helpful, “The flunk-outs and drop-outs and burned-outs. The broke and the broken. The drug heads and the divorced. The HIV-positive and the herpes-ridden. The brain-damaged, the incurably ill. The barren and the pregnant too-many—times or at the wrong time. The overemployed, the underemployed. The unemployable. The swindled, the shoved aside, the replaced. The parents with children living on the street, the children with parents not dying in the ‘rest’ home. The lonely, the incompetent, the stupid. The emotionally starved or emotionally dead. And on and on and on….Jesus offers such people as these the present blessedness of the present kingdom—regardless of circumstances. The condition of life sought for by human beings through the ages is attained in the quietly transforming friendship of Jesus.”

And even more, the kingdom of God is available to the walking moral disaster areas. Even the most disgustingly immoral person will be received by God as they place their confidence in Jesus and place themselves beneath the ruling and reigning of God.

The church is not a group of “shiny, happy people” who have it all together. It is a mixture of people with checkered pasts and sketchy character who have intended to place their lives under the direction of the Creator of the universe. It is a gathering of the intelligent and the simple-minded, the party animals and the zoologists, the beer-chuggers and the tea-totalers—a collection of thinkers, doers, and do-nothings—all of whom have answered the invitation to God’s great party called Life in the Kingdom of God.

So reconsider the people you have written off, because they too are welcomed to join the party.

(Then we prayed:)
Great God and Maker of All,
You are full of mercy and your compassion never ends.
Your love endures forever.
You did not write us off as hopeless, even when we have acted as your enemies.
While we were still living in wrong stories, the Messiah died for us.
Welcome us into the life of abundant, creative goodness
as we welcome those around us whom we have previously written off as hopeless.
Help us to live in the confidence that you wil provice for our needs
so that we may be generous to those in need around us.
Deliver us from being apathetic to people who offend us
with their words, their clothes, their smells, and their actions.
And bring our lives increasingly under your exceedingly good rule and reign
so that the world may be blessed because of how we live.
Amen.