Canon within the Canon

Matthew 5:1-12

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.

He said: 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Ladies and gentlemen, every three years the lectionary cycles through the Gospel of Matthew, which means every three years I have the opportunity to do something kind of strange. For the next few weeks I’m going to be preaching from someone else’s sermon. My central text today, and for the next few weeks, will be from Jesus’s longest recorded sermon, a sermon that he gave from a mountain. That is why we call it the Sermon on the Mount.

I know, creative, isn’t it.

The lectionary moves quickly through the Sermon on the Mount, but I’m going to do my own thing and take a little more time with this text. Lent starts in a few weeks, so I may just extend into Lent or pick back up with this text after Easter. I just can’t skim these verses found in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 because this sermon from Jesus has been foundational for the Mennonite Church ever since the first Anabaptists started meeting in caves and private homes in the 16^th century.

Today is going to be a learning sermon, a thinking sermon. So I hope you got enough sleep last night and brought your number two pencils. What I want to do today is look at why this passage has been so influential in our church tradition. Then, I want to spend some time looking at what these first 12 verses of Matthew 5, which we call the Beatitudes, mean. And if we have enough time, I’ll look at the first beatitude or two.

Why has the Sermon on the Mount been so important for the Mennonite Church? The easy answer is because this is the longest, continuous teaching we find from Jesus in the entire Bible. And historically, we Mennonites have believed that Jesus is not simply someone to believe in. We are to follow Jesus as modern-day disciples. This means following Jesus’s example and his teaching. And since the Sermon on the Mount is the most complete teaching of Jesus we have, we consider it our canon within the canon.

Let me explain that phrase. That was canon with one internal “n.” The three-n cannon is the kind that they used in battles long ago. The Greek word, κανών, literally means a reed which was often used to measure things. Think of a ruler or a yard stick. You’ll find examples of measuring reeds in the Bible in places like Ezekiel 40:2-3, and Revelation 11:1, where John is told to measure the temple of God in heaven.

A canon, with one internal n, simply means a measuring stick.

In 382 at the Council of Rome, the church, inspired by the Holy Spirit, met together to decide which books to include in the Bible. You’ve probably heard of books like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Peter. These were not included, while Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, along with the others, were. This process formed the biblical canon, or to say it differently, these books were canonized. They were believed by the church to be authoritative, they were the canon, they were the stories of God working through history by which all others stories were to be measured.

When I say that the Sermon on the Mount has historically been the canon within the canon for the Mennonite Church, I mean that these three chapters are the measuring stick by which we measure the rest of the Bible. When two passages of scripture seem to disagree, we go to the words of Jesus for clarity. Or if Jesus says something that seems to contradict an Old Testament passage, we go with Jesus.

Every Christian has a canon within the canon, even if they don’t want to admit it. Some will say, “Oh, I follow the entire Bible.” I respect that. I respect the desire to follow the entire Bible. But the jerk within me wants to ask, “When did you perform your last sacrifice?” or “When was the last time you stoned a person caught in adultery?”

If I were to ask someone those questions, they would probably tell me that the death and resurrection of Jesus ended the sacrificial system. They might tell me the story of the woman caught in adultery where Jesus invited the one without sin to cast the first stone, and everyone walked away. In both cases, they are taking a teaching or an example from Jesus’s life to interpret an Old Testament teaching.

That is what I mean by a canon within a canon. I’m not saying that the rest of the Bible isn’t inspired. I am saying that Jesus is our ultimate canon, our ultimate measuring stick. Therefore, as the largest collection of his teachings, the Sermon on the Mount has been our canon within the canon.

Another reason to look at the Sermon on the Mount as a canon within the canon is the way it begins. I mentioned earlier upon what topographical feature this sermon took place. We are told that Jesus went up the mountain. Does it matter that Jesus preached from a mountain? Maybe, maybe not. Another Hebrew man climbed a mountain and came back down with some teachings from God as well. Remember that Moses went up Mt. Sinai and there he received the Torah from God. And the Torah has served as the Law for the Hebrew people now for over 3,000 years. When Matthew writes that Jesus climbed the mountain, would his original hearers have connected Moses receiving the word of God with Jesus receiving these words from God? Is Matthew telling us that Jesus is the new Moses? I don’t know, but it is an interesting thought.

Let’s actually look at these verses a bit. We call the first 12 verses of Matthew 5 “The Beatitudes.” The word beatitude is simply an anglicized version of the Latin word for blessed. We call them the beatitudes because these verses begin with a repeating phrase: “blessed are the…” That’s weird language, I know. Some modern translations try to make it a little clearer. The Message says, “you are blessed when…” That cleans up the language a bit, but it is still awkward. What is a blessing? I know people who really love the Common English Version, which translates these words as “happy are people who…” I really don’t like that, especially verse 4, “Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad.” So which is it? Am I happy, or will I be made glad? It sounds like I’m mourning now, which is the opposite of happy.

I prefer to use the old, confusing language of “blessed.” And if you really want to sound churchy, you make that into two syllables: bless-ed.

But I want to offer a warning here. The beatitudes aren’t a self-help program. This isn’t “9 Steps to Experience God’s Blessings.” This isn’t Jesus saying, “Be poor in spirit, then you’ll be blessed,” or “Mourn, and then God will pour out his blessings on you!” This isn’t how to achieve blessings. This is a statement of where God stands in the middle of all of this.

Though he has fallen out of favor a bit among Christians in the last few years, former pastor, Rob Bell, gave what is perhaps my favorite explanation of what it means to be blessed in these beatitudes. Bell says that the beatitudes teach us where God is in the midst of your suffering, in the midst of being poor in spirit. Bell says, “God is on your side.”

You see, this is exactly the opposite of what is expected. And that shouldn’t surprise anyone who has ever heard the words of Jesus before. The world consistently says that God is on the side of the powerful and the rich. We see domination of another country as God’s blessing. We see the Ferrari in the garage and perfect health as a sign of God’s divine favor; God has blessed that person. And maybe that is true. Maybe God did bless the person with a Ferrari, I don’t know. But what we do know is that isn’t the only place we find God.

When you are poor in spirit, when you don’t know if God is even real, when you are struggling to make sense of the world. When you choose to believe in spite of your unbelief, guess what. God is there. God is with you. God is on your side. God doesn’t say, “This person is having their doubts, so I’m outta here!” No, God moves closer.

That is why the beatitudes are so counterintuitive. The position of those mentioned in the beatitudes aren’t what we usually think of when we think about being blessed or being close to God. But when you are in a dark place, when you feel like you cannot go on. When you, too, are poor in spirit, Jesus steps in and says, “You are blessed.”

That’s not to say that you have all of the joys that material things can give you. When Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he is telling the people that God is closer than they even know.

I heard someone ask a rhetorical question about the beatitudes the other day. They imagined Jesus giving this sermon in a modern worship session, in a church where people often yell, “Amen!” in the middle of the message to affirm what the pastor had just said. They wondered at what time the people would stop saying “amen.”

Blessed are the poor in spirit? No, blessed are those who are firm in their faith! Blessed are those who mourn? No! blessed are those who celebrate that their loved one is now in heaven. Blessed are the meek? The merciful? Absolutely not. This is Cobra Kai, Show No Mercy! Sweep the leg, Johnny!

Imma gonna bet most people didn’t make it through the beatitudes, let alone the entire sermon.

I want to look at one of these beatitudes yet this morning, and we will look at some more next week. The second beatitude is universal. It affects the rich and the poor, the young and the old. Your race or gender does not matter, nor does your political affiliation. We all know what it means to mourn. Verse 4 says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

There was a great tragedy last Sunday when a helicopter carrying nine people, including former NBA star Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gigi, crashed, killing all the passengers. They were heading to Gigi’s basketball game, and some of the other passengers were her teammates and their parents.

Kobe Bryant was not without his shortcomings, and it has been interesting to hear how the world has reacted to his death. But one of the things that really sticks with me is that Kobe and Gigi attended the 7:00 am service at their church and received communion the morning of the accident. The father of daughters, Kobe was a champion of women’s sports, a businessman, and a husband. I was never a huge Kobe fan, but this one hurt.

Maybe it was because Kobe was about my age. Maybe it was because he seemed to turn his life around after his legal and ethical problems. I don’t know why this one has been so hard for me, but I know that I’m not alone. Seeing gigantic men, like Shaq, tearing up is a reminder that this was more than just the loss of an athlete. This was a universal loss. Young and old, rich and poor, black, white, yellow, brown, we all mourn the loss of our fellow human beings, especially those who had so much living yet to do.

My question always comes back to, “Where was God in all this?” I refuse to see this as the punishment for sin. The God I serve isn’t the kind of God who takes the lives of young girls for some capricious reason. And unfortunately, Jesus never promises that we won’t have to experience pain. I haven’t heard any good reasons for why this happened, and I don’t expect to hear any anytime soon. What I do know is that Jesus does promise that in the midst of our pain, in the midst of our mourning, God is with us. God is on our side.

We saw that God was on the side of those who mourned when sworn enemies, teams that had to face Kobe in games and championships, put together video tributes to him, wore his number, or took ceremonial 8 and 24-second violations, the numbers that Kobe wore in his playing days. We saw God on the side of those who mourn when the UConn Huskies, Gigi’s favorite college basketball team, honored a 13-year-old girl who had never set a foot on their basketball floor as “forever a Husky.”

We saw that God was on the side of those who mourned when thousands showed up to a college baseball game this week at a stadium that only seated 500, because it wasn’t just the famous people who passed away.

The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t always go the way we expect it. I think that is, in part, because the world isn’t the way it should be. While the world bases their assessment of who is blessed on material wealth and social status, Jesus reminds us that if you really want to find God, you will be with those who are suffering. Because God is with those who mourn. God is on their side.