The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse — who can understand it?

With Jeremiah's words let's get the ball rolling. Put simply, there's a problem. We humans have a problem. As Lutherans we understand that problem to be sin — but we can also get at it by thinking about shame, or violence, or injustice, or poverty, or the devious heart — as Jeremiah so aptly put it. The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse — who indeed can understand it?

So we humans have a problem — Sin, or the human predicament. But if we have a problem, we've also been given a solution, God's solution. And just as God sent Moses to the people of Israel, God sent Jesus to the rest of us. Just as Moses gave the people the gift of the Ten Commandments, so too did Jesus give us the gift of the Sermon on the Mount — or in Luke's version, the Sermon on the Plain. This morning we focus our thoughts on the beginning of the Sermon on the Plain — the marvelous and amazing beatitudes. Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who weep, and the persecuted. But woe to the rich, the full, the laughing ones, and the popular. Aren't those words strange and unsettling? Don't the beatitudes invert everything we think we understand? How can the poor and hungry and sad and persecuted be blessed? How are we to read and hear these strange words?

This morning I'd like to suggest that we read the Beatitudes through three lenses: The Beatitudes as ethics; the Beatitudes as Law; and the Beatitudes as Promise.

The beatitudes are ethical guidelines. Just as Moses gave the Israelites the 10 Commandments, so too does Jesus give us his ethical teachings. The 10 Commandments were given to a people mired in slavery and oppression — 400 years they lived as slaves in Egypt. Abused people abuse others. I've no doubt that left to their own devices, the recently liberated Jewish community would have succumbed to chaos and violence. But the merciful God gave them ethical guidelines for community life — the 10 commandments. Paralleling this, Jesus came to announce our liberation from slavery — the breaking in of the Kingdom of God. On a very basic level the Sermon on the Plain describes the rules of the new order. The Beatitudes are ethical principles for life in the new kingdom. Here is high poetry; but more than poetry. These ethical teaching of Jesus are beloved among religious folk all over the world — and not just Christians. Buddhists and Moslems know the teachings well. The Sermon deeply influenced Mahatma Gandhi as well as Martin Luther King — two great workers for justice. It was repeated reading of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount that caused Leo Tolstoy to give up everything, including his wife, children, and career as a writer, in order to tramp through the Russian countryside as a wandering peasant. The Beatitudes and more broadly the sermon on the Plain have had enormous ethical influence — so much so that a preacher can only feel humble beneath these lofty words.

Secondly, the beatitudes probe our hearts. A stern doctor stands before us with a checklist. You are being examined with a moral scalpel. How many of the beatitudes can you withstand? How many are true for you? You must be honest — it is life or death. Down the checklist he goes. Blessed are the poor. Are you poor? Or are you rich? Aren't we all rich? Even if we don't have a lot, we have enough. And there are so many who have nothing, so many who live in grinding poverty. What do we do about our wealth when confronted with this beatitude? Are we aware of our need, our desperate need? We feel so confident in ourselves, remaining so secure that we are not poor. Thank God for the Board of Pensions, who are squirreling away some money for this pastor's retirement. Blessed are the hungry.... Am I hungry? Are you? Have you ever been? I've been hungry — for an hour or two. But I don't remember ever going to bed hungry — except by choice. Blessed are those who weep. Do you weep? All of us have. But I don't often weep for the aching world. Sometimes maybe. Do we grieve for our condition? Are we sad for our broken world? Do you weep for the world with a grief that can't be hidden? Are we the blessed who weep and mourn? And finally blessed are you when you're hated, or excluded, or reviled on account of Jesus. Have you ever been persecuted for your faith? Have you ever stood up for the Master, been made a fool? Have they laughed at you or made fun of you or thrown rocks at you or shot you? Have you ever really been hated or defamed on account of the Son of Man? The stern Physician, in this scenario, closes his checklist and puts down his pen. How have you done? Are you blessed or woeful? He looks at you, clears his throat as if to say something, and is suddenly gone. How have we done? How blessed are you? Or do you have a fatal disease? We have been tested by a stern Physician. None of us, I think, have passed the test.

But that's not the end of the story. For the beatitudes also function as promise. Imagine this scenario. You are Peter or Andrew, James or John. You were in your boat when he called, and the call was irresistible. You followed. Or you are part of this huge crowd milling about on the flat plain, attracted to this strange and holy Rabbi. He's looking around with compassion and friendliness. He looks at you — not with the cold eyes of the Physician, but with warmth. Silence, then speech. Blessed are the poor. He looks at you as he says it, and you know that you're one of the rich, but look at his warmth. There are so many that are poor. He's so generous. Inclusive. Incredibly generous and broad minded. All are welcome. Your heart is stirred. Blessed are you who are hungry, he says. I'm not hungry now, you think, but I've been hungry. But look at those who clamor in our streets, begging, starving, even dying. They are blessed? What strange words. But again, what a broad and inclusive vision he has. Then his compassionate knowing eyes are upon you. And this warmth you feel toward Jesus deepens. He's captured your imagination. Blessed are you who weep, he says. And you see his compassion. You see the love he has for the multitude. And you know that you've never loved others like this, that you've been selfish. And your heart breaks a little, with compassion you've never known. Maybe you even weep a little. Blessed are you when you're hated, he says, and defamed on account of the Son of Man. Again he's looking at you. You don't understand. But you remember the stern Physician's gaze. You remember the guilt you felt under the scalpel of the law. And you realize that even that examination can be understood as persecution. Maybe you'll be persecuted in other ways too. I won't go looking for it, but if it comes, I'll be given strength, you think. As it is, the world is sorrowful. To live under this love, and yet to know the world's brokenness — this too is persecution. You're beginning to understand. These beatitudes, they aren't just commandments. Nor are they unattainable ideals. These are promises. They are descriptions, the rules of the game. He is promising us a certain way of life, and he is describing that way of life. In him all things are possible, even the inverted logic of the kingdom of God. He is looking at you, and he sees that you are beginning to see, beginning to be blessed. You know it too. Thank you for blessing us.

Somewhere in Luther's letters you can find the following phrase: confident despair. Luther's writing to a man who's been very pious. Luther encourages him to despair of himself, and to put confidence in Christ. The true state of a Christian, Luther writes, is that of confident despair. And this is accurate. For we must despair of every attempt from the human side to reach God. At the same time we must receive with all confidence the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Confident despair. Confidence in Him. Despair of ourselves.

We stand on the plain, and hear the beatitudes, and two things happen. He judges us, and he forgives us. The scalpel probes our sinful hearts. The jig is up, and our game is exposed. And that's the moment Luther describes as despair. We despair of our ability to reach this holy God, to live a blessed life. But that moment is our salvation. And it makes room for the joy of confidence. In him we can have confidence. He's more than the ethical teacher, or the stern Physician. He is also the loving and merciful savior. And he is here for us: to save us; to look at us with compassion and warmth and even humor. Receive his word in the condition of humility, of confident despair. His word is always both judgment and promise. And these words we hear today, the Beatitudes of Luke — these words are a promise. They are describing the rules of the inbreaking kingdom, broad and compassionate, with delightful inversions, thrilling us, filling us with laughter and joy. The description is accurate: the Beatitudes describe the new world order, the kingdom of God. May God bless you and give you the gift of confident despair. — Amen.