Community Church of Durham, UCC
Matthew 5:1-16
1.
“The Kingdom of God,” a mystic once said, “can only be received by empty hands.” Let that line settle in your ears, and then in your heart, and then in your soul this morning. If you remember nothing else from church this morning, maybe you’ll remember this. “The Kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands.” That’s all it takes. But that’s the only way.
So maybe you meditate every morning, and you sit in a favorite place with your hands in your lap and your palms turned up. Because the Kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands. That’s all it takes. But that’s the only way.
And how I love going to church with Black friends, Pentecostal friends, and listening and watching as the congregation gets stirred up by an old gospel tune. And their many hands are extended to the heavens, and their many fingers waving in praise, in celebration, and (yes) in liberation. Because the Kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands.
And I think this is something like the essence, the edge even, of Jesus’ Beatitudes. Even the heart of his Gospel. That disciples move into the world, and through the world, not with clenched fists, but with empty hands. That following Jesus has as much or more to do with not knowing, and with not having, and with not winning—as it does with believing and trusting and celebrating God’s protection in our lives.
This is a raw Gospel he’s preaching. Not an all-knowing religion, or even an all-powerful God, but a raw and vulnerable Gospel. Jesus doesn’t begin his teaching ministry with elaborate rituals, or long-winded theological arguments, or intellectual critiques of ancient tradition. He begins with these Beatitudes. He begins with empty hands.
The purposes of God, it seems, are revealed only to the uncertain and unmoored, only to the willing and receptive. The mysteries, the blessings of life are revealed, finally, to hearts that are humble, to homes that are open, to hands that are empty.
2.
Matthew’s Gospel was gathered, composed, written for a community facing extraordinary uncertainty and straining against the many appetites and heartlessness of empire. Thirty, forty years after Jesus has lived and died. Ten, fifteen years after Jerusalem has been leveled by Roman armies. And Matthew asks questions we might also be asking in our own time. How might a community of disciples, followers of Jesus, lean into mercy and peace when stone-faced soldiers patrol the streets? How might friends of God lean into service and blessing when hopelessness rules public life, when decency is denied the poor and the migrant and the different? In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is determined to show us how. Jesus is determined to make us disciples of mercy in a mean world, disciples of hope in an uncertain economy, disciples of love at a table that excludes no one. And he begins right here. Where we are today. With these Beatitudes.
And this is how Jesus begins their training and ours, on the squat hillside, up just a bit from the lake the disciples used to fish. This is how Jesus distinguishes his kingdom, his kin-dom, from all the others (Pax Romana, fundamentalist religion, dog eat dog capitalism). “Happy are those destitute in the life-breath,” he says to them all and to us. “And happy are those who mourn. And happy are the gentle. And happy are those starving and parched for justice.” It’s kind of intense, right? Out of the gate, Jesus is kind of intense. And I think it’s because he knows—in his heart—that “the Kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands.” If you want to see what I see, if you want to love as I love—you’re going to have to unclench your fists, open your fingers, and let it all go. Smug won’t cut it. Preachy won’t do. We’re going to have to unclench our fists, open our fingers, and let it all go.
Matthew 5:1-16
1.
So maybe you meditate every morning, and you sit in a favorite place with your hands in your lap and your palms turned up. Because the Kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands. That’s all it takes. But that’s the only way.
And how I love going to church with Black friends, Pentecostal friends, and listening and watching as the congregation gets stirred up by an old gospel tune. And their many hands are extended to the heavens, and their many fingers waving in praise, in celebration, and (yes) in liberation. Because the Kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands.
And I think this is something like the essence, the edge even, of Jesus’ Beatitudes. Even the heart of his Gospel. That disciples move into the world, and through the world, not with clenched fists, but with empty hands. That following Jesus has as much or more to do with not knowing, and with not having, and with not winning—as it does with believing and trusting and celebrating God’s protection in our lives.
This is a raw Gospel he’s preaching. Not an all-knowing religion, or even an all-powerful God, but a raw and vulnerable Gospel. Jesus doesn’t begin his teaching ministry with elaborate rituals, or long-winded theological arguments, or intellectual critiques of ancient tradition. He begins with these Beatitudes. He begins with empty hands.
The purposes of God, it seems, are revealed only to the uncertain and unmoored, only to the willing and receptive. The mysteries, the blessings of life are revealed, finally, to hearts that are humble, to homes that are open, to hands that are empty.
2.
Matthew’s Gospel was gathered, composed, written for a community facing extraordinary uncertainty and straining against the many appetites and heartlessness of empire. Thirty, forty years after Jesus has lived and died. Ten, fifteen years after Jerusalem has been leveled by Roman armies. And Matthew asks questions we might also be asking in our own time. How might a community of disciples, followers of Jesus, lean into mercy and peace when stone-faced soldiers patrol the streets? How might friends of God lean into service and blessing when hopelessness rules public life, when decency is denied the poor and the migrant and the different? In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is determined to show us how. Jesus is determined to make us disciples of mercy in a mean world, disciples of hope in an uncertain economy, disciples of love at a table that excludes no one. And he begins right here. Where we are today. With these Beatitudes.
And this is how Jesus begins their training and ours, on the squat hillside, up just a bit from the lake the disciples used to fish. This is how Jesus distinguishes his kingdom, his kin-dom, from all the others (Pax Romana, fundamentalist religion, dog eat dog capitalism). “Happy are those destitute in the life-breath,” he says to them all and to us. “And happy are those who mourn. And happy are the gentle. And happy are those starving and parched for justice.” It’s kind of intense, right? Out of the gate, Jesus is kind of intense. And I think it’s because he knows—in his heart—that “the Kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands.” If you want to see what I see, if you want to love as I love—you’re going to have to unclench your fists, open your fingers, and let it all go. Smug won’t cut it. Preachy won’t do. We’re going to have to unclench our fists, open our fingers, and let it all go.
That's when God does God's work. That's when the Holy Spirit breathes new life into weary worlds.
So about those empty hands, those unclenched fingers, those open fists.
I’m thinking this morning about the two bronze figures, the two African figures, down in Portsmouth at the African Burial Ground Memorial. And I’m thinking about the way, back to back, around the wall, each seems to reach for the other. Empty hands, unclenched fingers, open fists. And I’m thinking about the flowers that seem to appear each morning, in those hands, connecting those hands, filling those hands and so many human hearts with memory and purpose.
Every time I walk by those bronze figures in Portsmouth, I stop, I have to stop to acknowledge their witness to the past, their invitation to a better future, a different future; and I have to stop to notice those hands, those simple, plaintive, human hands. Though I’ve seen them dozens of times now, over a bunch of years now. It’s their fingers uncurled, opening, hoping for support. It’s their hands unclenched, waiting, seeking out connection. Reaching around the wall. Reaching across histories.
I confess that I think of that sculpture as an icon of sorts—at least it is for me—and every time I waltz by those two figures pull me from my own self-absorbed reverie. And they remind me that “the Kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands.” So, what are you going do with that, brother? It’s almost as if they ask me that same question every time. So, what are you going to do with that, brother?
3.
In this morning’s Beatitudes, Jesus isn’t laying down the law—so much as he’s encouraging vulnerability, and inviting tenderness around human pain and suffering, and offering us a way into a frail and fragile world of woes and wonders. And that’s so important. Not a way out of that world. But a way into a frail and fragile world of woes and wonders. You can see God’s creative hand in all of it, in all of us, even in our grim histories—if you learn to weep together, to mourn for one another, to grieve together. Happy are those who mourn.
You can taste God’s breath, God’s spirit stirring in soup kitchens and refugee camps and hospital corridors too—if you learn to be gentle with one another, to be curious around your differences. If you recognize your kinship. If you see one another through the eyes of love. Happy are the gentle.
This kind of Christianity is not a playbook to be memorized. It’s not a test to be aced or even a proper prayer for the proper time. This kind of Christianity is a journey of the heart, a journey of our hearts, yours and mine—and along the way we find ourselves weeping lots, but imagining even more; grieving for the ways things are, but organizing for the way things can be. Along the way, we dare to live uncomfortably, right? We dare to live uncomfortably, unsettled and unnerved even by the God who loves us beyond measure. Happy are those starving and parched for justice, Jesus says. Happy are those starving and parched for justice. You don’t have to have all the answers, Jesus says. You can live faithfully, and love generously, and praise God wildly without all the answers, without certainty, really, about anything at all. Just keep your hands empty, and your hearts open, and your homes welcoming and warm and ready to shelter the lost and loveless. Then, then you will see God’s creative hand moving in your life, and in your soul, and (yes) in this soul-stirring and heart-breaking world. Happy are those starving and parched for justice. Happy are those who show mercy. Hands empty. Hearts open. Homes welcoming and warm.
4.
There was a moment last Sunday, downstairs at our second service, at The Table, when the raw Gospel displaced the easy Gospel—and it just about took my breath away. What happens when a community yields to vulnerability, voices its pain. And trusts the Spirit to make us one.
We were talking about Matthew’s story, and the call to discipleship that disrupts the lives of Jesus’ first friends. It all seemed straight forward to me and out of the book: how Jesus insists that they make a break with old habits and even family commitments. Remember how James and John are mending nets, and how they leave their father right there, just leave him in the boat, unfinished business. And a father without sons.
I was talking about—or at least trying to talk about—the ways Jesus constitutes a new family of sisters, brothers and siblings in the church. And I was imagining that that had to be unsettling for James and John, and for Simon and Andrew. Leaving home to make a new home. With Jesus. But it had to be done.
And in our circle downstairs, in conversation around this story, one among us said something like: “That just seems all wrong. For Jesus to ask us to betray our families like that.” And her voice kind of shook. Anger, maybe. Grief. “Maybe their father needed them out there,” she said. “Maybe he was getting older, or sick even. And maybe he really needed his sons around the house. Helping with the business.” And then there was a tear in her eye: and she said that her own family’s living with immense grief these days, caring wholeheartedly for one who is gravely ill, and of course she’s not going to leave her family. For Jesus. For any god at all. And it just seemed awful for her to even imagine Jesus taking children from their parents like that.
And I saw, looking around the Table then, that others were crying too. One of the musicians actually got up from his stool, walked over, and put his big arms around her. Gave her a hug. Thanked her for being real. “Happy are those who mourn,” Jesus says. "Happy are those who mourn, because they will be comforted.” And then, “Happy are the gentle,” he says, “because they will be heirs of all the earth.”
I guess the thing is that being human is hard, being a mother is hard, caring for a family is hard, just having friends is hard. And suffering comes for all of us, for every one of our families, for each of our neighborhoods and churches, eventually. The spiritual opportunity is to meet that suffering with love, the gospel challenge is to meet all that vulnerability with care and with love. And that means weeping when the tears come, and grieving when the sadness overwhelms us, and reaching out for the empty hands of friends whose kindness and faith we trust. “Happy are those who mourn,” Jesus says. Blessed are those who embrace the many ways we suffer together. Blessed are those whose hearts break together. Blessed are those who trust in the God whose own heart knows brokenness, and enfolds us in every sadness and every worry, and loves us without end.
So about those empty hands, those unclenched fingers, those open fists.
I’m thinking this morning about the two bronze figures, the two African figures, down in Portsmouth at the African Burial Ground Memorial. And I’m thinking about the way, back to back, around the wall, each seems to reach for the other. Empty hands, unclenched fingers, open fists. And I’m thinking about the flowers that seem to appear each morning, in those hands, connecting those hands, filling those hands and so many human hearts with memory and purpose.
Every time I walk by those bronze figures in Portsmouth, I stop, I have to stop to acknowledge their witness to the past, their invitation to a better future, a different future; and I have to stop to notice those hands, those simple, plaintive, human hands. Though I’ve seen them dozens of times now, over a bunch of years now. It’s their fingers uncurled, opening, hoping for support. It’s their hands unclenched, waiting, seeking out connection. Reaching around the wall. Reaching across histories.
I confess that I think of that sculpture as an icon of sorts—at least it is for me—and every time I waltz by those two figures pull me from my own self-absorbed reverie. And they remind me that “the Kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands.” So, what are you going do with that, brother? It’s almost as if they ask me that same question every time. So, what are you going to do with that, brother?
3.
In this morning’s Beatitudes, Jesus isn’t laying down the law—so much as he’s encouraging vulnerability, and inviting tenderness around human pain and suffering, and offering us a way into a frail and fragile world of woes and wonders. And that’s so important. Not a way out of that world. But a way into a frail and fragile world of woes and wonders. You can see God’s creative hand in all of it, in all of us, even in our grim histories—if you learn to weep together, to mourn for one another, to grieve together. Happy are those who mourn.
You can taste God’s breath, God’s spirit stirring in soup kitchens and refugee camps and hospital corridors too—if you learn to be gentle with one another, to be curious around your differences. If you recognize your kinship. If you see one another through the eyes of love. Happy are the gentle.
This kind of Christianity is not a playbook to be memorized. It’s not a test to be aced or even a proper prayer for the proper time. This kind of Christianity is a journey of the heart, a journey of our hearts, yours and mine—and along the way we find ourselves weeping lots, but imagining even more; grieving for the ways things are, but organizing for the way things can be. Along the way, we dare to live uncomfortably, right? We dare to live uncomfortably, unsettled and unnerved even by the God who loves us beyond measure. Happy are those starving and parched for justice, Jesus says. Happy are those starving and parched for justice. You don’t have to have all the answers, Jesus says. You can live faithfully, and love generously, and praise God wildly without all the answers, without certainty, really, about anything at all. Just keep your hands empty, and your hearts open, and your homes welcoming and warm and ready to shelter the lost and loveless. Then, then you will see God’s creative hand moving in your life, and in your soul, and (yes) in this soul-stirring and heart-breaking world. Happy are those starving and parched for justice. Happy are those who show mercy. Hands empty. Hearts open. Homes welcoming and warm.
4.
There was a moment last Sunday, downstairs at our second service, at The Table, when the raw Gospel displaced the easy Gospel—and it just about took my breath away. What happens when a community yields to vulnerability, voices its pain. And trusts the Spirit to make us one.
We were talking about Matthew’s story, and the call to discipleship that disrupts the lives of Jesus’ first friends. It all seemed straight forward to me and out of the book: how Jesus insists that they make a break with old habits and even family commitments. Remember how James and John are mending nets, and how they leave their father right there, just leave him in the boat, unfinished business. And a father without sons.
I was talking about—or at least trying to talk about—the ways Jesus constitutes a new family of sisters, brothers and siblings in the church. And I was imagining that that had to be unsettling for James and John, and for Simon and Andrew. Leaving home to make a new home. With Jesus. But it had to be done.
And in our circle downstairs, in conversation around this story, one among us said something like: “That just seems all wrong. For Jesus to ask us to betray our families like that.” And her voice kind of shook. Anger, maybe. Grief. “Maybe their father needed them out there,” she said. “Maybe he was getting older, or sick even. And maybe he really needed his sons around the house. Helping with the business.” And then there was a tear in her eye: and she said that her own family’s living with immense grief these days, caring wholeheartedly for one who is gravely ill, and of course she’s not going to leave her family. For Jesus. For any god at all. And it just seemed awful for her to even imagine Jesus taking children from their parents like that.
And I saw, looking around the Table then, that others were crying too. One of the musicians actually got up from his stool, walked over, and put his big arms around her. Gave her a hug. Thanked her for being real. “Happy are those who mourn,” Jesus says. "Happy are those who mourn, because they will be comforted.” And then, “Happy are the gentle,” he says, “because they will be heirs of all the earth.”
I guess the thing is that being human is hard, being a mother is hard, caring for a family is hard, just having friends is hard. And suffering comes for all of us, for every one of our families, for each of our neighborhoods and churches, eventually. The spiritual opportunity is to meet that suffering with love, the gospel challenge is to meet all that vulnerability with care and with love. And that means weeping when the tears come, and grieving when the sadness overwhelms us, and reaching out for the empty hands of friends whose kindness and faith we trust. “Happy are those who mourn,” Jesus says. Blessed are those who embrace the many ways we suffer together. Blessed are those whose hearts break together. Blessed are those who trust in the God whose own heart knows brokenness, and enfolds us in every sadness and every worry, and loves us without end.
That God, the God of mercy and love, broke through at the Table, in worship last week. And enfolded us in care and kindness.
So I wish I could simplify the Beatitudes—fit them all on a postcard—hand it out after worship this morning and send you on your way. But you know I can’t do that. What I can offer you is this remarkable community—Sunday gatherings, singing circles, Koinonia small groups, service teams and families—I can offer you all this and the journey of grace that awaits us all. A church of human being, leaning into love. And I can remind you that we are growing together and praying together and learning together, like those first disciples on the squat hillside, up just a bit from the lake the disciples used to fish. Week by week, we help one another embrace the frail and fragile world. Week by week, we encourage one another to love our frail and fragile selves. And week by week, we empower our frail and fragile families with kindness and creativity. And sometimes we laugh. And sometimes we cry. And almost always we sing.
This is faith. And in all this we come to see and know the One whose gentleness we can trust day after day, sadness after sadness. We can learn to be gentle because God is gentle beyond measure. We can learn to weep together because God shows up and holds us and comfort us in our weeping. And we can shine, even as the light of the world—we can shine because God our Savior, our Maker, our Lover shines in you and me. In this very moment. In the next. And in every moment to come.
Amen and Ashe.
So I wish I could simplify the Beatitudes—fit them all on a postcard—hand it out after worship this morning and send you on your way. But you know I can’t do that. What I can offer you is this remarkable community—Sunday gatherings, singing circles, Koinonia small groups, service teams and families—I can offer you all this and the journey of grace that awaits us all. A church of human being, leaning into love. And I can remind you that we are growing together and praying together and learning together, like those first disciples on the squat hillside, up just a bit from the lake the disciples used to fish. Week by week, we help one another embrace the frail and fragile world. Week by week, we encourage one another to love our frail and fragile selves. And week by week, we empower our frail and fragile families with kindness and creativity. And sometimes we laugh. And sometimes we cry. And almost always we sing.
This is faith. And in all this we come to see and know the One whose gentleness we can trust day after day, sadness after sadness. We can learn to be gentle because God is gentle beyond measure. We can learn to weep together because God shows up and holds us and comfort us in our weeping. And we can shine, even as the light of the world—we can shine because God our Savior, our Maker, our Lover shines in you and me. In this very moment. In the next. And in every moment to come.
Amen and Ashe.
