The Beatitudes are the opening of Jesus' first discourse in Matthew's gospel. This first discourse set its stamp on the whole of Matthew's gospel. What are we to make of it? What relevance does it have for us today?

There are divergent conclusions among biblical scholars concerning its meanings, its use, and its intent. The sermon is sometimes considered an impossible demand designed to drag readers to their knees in repentance. For others, it is a set of emergency rules not valid for all times. At times, the sermon has been read as a body of regulations meant not for all believers but only for an elite core of especially dedicated believers within the larger whole.

This sermon is Jesus' vision of fresh possibilities opening before us with the advent of the renewing powers of the kingdom that breaks in with its ministry and the Beatitudes are the capsule summary of this vision. One biblical scholar describes them as "bolts of lightning splitting the skies" and when the sky opens, it unfolds God's vision for God's world.

This is what the prophet Isaiah had in mind when he wrote:

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down so that the mountains will quake at your presence as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil--to make your name known to your adversaries so that the nations might tremble at your presence. (Isa. 64:1)

The heavens were split open and Jesus came proclaiming the Good News of God's favor. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the Good News. Who will benefit from the inbreaking kingdom proclaimed by Jesus? Who will enter the kingdom? Inherit the earth? Have all wants supplied? Who will be ushered into God's presence and stand at God's right hand, see God's face, and count as God's own dear children? To whom will the Lord say, "Come, inherit the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world?" Only those who are called blessed. Only those who have found favor in God's eyes.

I would like to concentrate on Jesus' first beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I have always had trouble with Matthew's rendition of this text. It looks like Matthew's community was spiritualizing what Luke and his community was able to grasp in full. In this reversal of the worldly order of things, Jesus presents a view from below. Those who are the outcasts, the excluded, the marginalized, particularly the poor, are called blessed. How can these two diverging images be reconciled?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned us about the dangers of putting these two versions one against the other. In his book "The Cost of Discipleship," Bonhoeffer writes:

There is no justification whatever for setting Luke's version on the Beatitudes over against Matthew's. Matthew is not spiritualizing the Beatitudes, and Luke giving them in their original form, nor is Luke giving a political twist to an original form of the beatitude which applied only to poverty of disposition.

But we do still have a problem of what to make of the poor in spirit in Matthew? What was Matthew's community trying to say? What was the issue that prompted this inclusion in Jesus's first discourse?

Professor Robert Smith from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in California offers an alternative reading on this beatitude. He concludes that the reference here is not to the poor in Matthew's community that were pious. Matthew's community is dealing here with an internal struggle--the conflict between those leaders in the community that were charismatically endowed with all sorts of gifts and those members of the community lacking any gifts. So the reference here is to those who are poor in spirit, those who lack any gift to show as a sign of their intimacy and connectedness to the Lord.

In spite of their spiritual wealth, Jesus seems to reject them. Why? They may have been rich in spiritual endowments and works but they were poor in deeds of righteousness. We see the same situation in Paul and the community in Corinth. He wrote to them saying, "What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift? Already you have all you want. Already you have become rich." (1 Cor. 4:7b-8a)

This beatitude presents us with a very important question. What is the form of life and discipleship to which the resurrected Jesus is calling us? In Matthew's gospel Jesus values righteousness and agape love above charismatic display in exorcism, miracle, and ecstatic utterance. In Matthew's gospel we see a Jesus who values justice, mercy and faith and fidelity above sacrifice, and for that reason, he tells the people to "Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I have come to call not the righteous but the sinner." This Jesus places righteousness above tithe and empty rituals. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith."

True religion is not the following of prescribed forms and patterns. It is to be connected again to God by doing God's will. In his interpretation of the Beatitudes, Bonhoeffer emphasizes this call to total obedience to God expressed in this passage. The disciples are called blessed because they have obeyed the call of Jesus and the people as a whole because they are heirs of the promise.

True religion cannot be confined to the following of rituals or traditions. True religion is emptying oneself of everything and asking God to come and fill us with God's love and righteousness. The community that received this beatitude saw itself as the heirs of the eighth century prophets and post-exilic community in their understanding of worship. With Micah they proclaimed that what the Lord requires is "to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God." With Isaiah they also understand that religious expressions and rituals that do not embody God's concerns for God's people will not make your voice heard on high.

Along with righteousness Jesus also values agape, this life together that Bonhoeffer calls the extraordinariness of the Christian life. Agape is more than forming community, the mere act of coming together. Dr. Justo Gonzalez, a Methodist pastor and professor at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia, affirms that agape is a much stronger bond and that it could be better understood by using the concept of corporation. That's what the spirit does when it calls, gathers, and enlightens us. So strong is this corporation of the spirit that nothing will break it. That's why the apostle Paul writes, "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

This righteousness and agape is the gift for those who are poor in spirit, for those whose boast is in the Lord, whose one resource is God, whose prime gift is their emptiness, who rely without flinching on the inexhaustible grace of God.

These beatitudes, God's perspective from the underside of history, are a revelation of the life of a new community offered to the world as a sign of God's larger intentions for all creation. What God intends is a world, not just assorted individuals, but a whole universe freed from the bondage of sin and made all right, blessed by the experience of God's presence in Jesus and in us. These beatitudes are a challenge to transform our way of seeing things, to raise our understanding to a new level. The apostle Paul challenges us to "not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

Can we, the church, sustain this kind of community envisioned by Jesus in the Beatitudes? Does this really work in real life or is it only an idea in the mind of a preacher? Let me share with you the experience of our companion church in India. Most of their members come from the Dalit. They are the untouchables, the outcasts. In India's caste system, they are non-persons, they have no identity of their own. In the midst of that exploitative and dehumanizing experience they encountered the love of God in Jesus Christ. Their reflection on the Christian faith led them to the first epistle from Peter and there in this great baptismal family, they found their new identity. "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people in order that you may proclaim the mighty act of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people but now you are God's people." (1 Pet. 2:9:10a)

They came empty to the Lord because they were poor in spirit. They were filled and they received the power from on high in their baptism and for the first time in their life they became people--God's chosen people.

We too at times feel like we are non-persons in our communities, with nothing to show as a sign of our connectedness or intimacy with God. This emptiness of ours is the best offering we can give God because then God will fill us with God's presence and we will hear one more time God's words, "Blessed are you the poor in spirit for yours is the kingdom of heaven."

Let us pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, by our baptism into the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ you turn us from the old life of sin. Through Him you have called us blessed. Grant that we who are born to new life in Him may live in righteousness and holiness all our days. Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on us and fill us with your presence. Amen.