Jesus went up on a mountainside.  What’s it like to be on the mountain?  We tend to think of the high hills of Israel as grassy, like mountain meadows, maybe like you’d see in parts of Colorado or New Mexico.  When we think high hills and mountains, we tend to think of big vistas, seeing for miles all around, the kind of place you go both to get the bigger picture and to remember your smallness in the scheme of things.

There are those who don’t think of their smallness; sometimes they are very big, in their own eyes.  And sometimes life has a hard way of reminding the lowliest people how lowly they are, and how hard life is.  Jesus, God-With-Us, reminds us that, with him, we have the one who is biggest of all with us.  With him, we shall not want.  God shall supply all our need.  The joy of the Lord is our strength.  If this is true, if this is so, then you and I truly are freed from slavery to self for service to others.  God has us covered so that we may direct our attention beyond ourselves.

There is a helpful and an unhelpful way to stay mindful of our smallness.  The helpful way is the way of humility, always mindful of God’s ongoing goodness to us: mercy, grace, patience, and love.  Great is Thy faithfulness!  The humble way responds with prayerful gratitude, expressed in simple acts of love.  When we do acts of love for one another, we are showing our love for God; more importantly, as we serve one another (the Bible puts it quite strongly: when we slave for one another) we are sharing our love for God.

Everyone needs kindness; everyone needs comforting and encouragement, amen?  Everyone needs love!  So, everyone needs God.  It seems like there are some who just refuse to get their faith from a book; you and I can help to make this faith a real thing for them by living it in their company.  We don’t do that perfectly; we can do it faithfully.  With this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spells out our way of life, which is also the way to life.  Jesus also shares here his clear expectation that we live his way both for one another and for those outside these walls, those outside of relationship with God, so that they, too, can begin to see and love the way.  And the way is Jesus.

So, if this Sermon on the Mount is all about the way of life that is the way to life, all about encouraging one another, it may seem strange that Jesus begins by saying to those who want to follow him, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:3).  There’s that old hymn that sings about people who are “rich in things and poor in soul.”  Jesus doesn’t mean such people when he speaks of the poor in spirit.

But let’s first try and get a handle on this blessedness of which Jesus speaks.  We can think of being blessed as having many things and many advantages in this life.  We can think of being blessed as having an especially well-adjusted personality: an abundance of patience and good humor, resilience and hopefulness—gifts that help to make the rough way smoother.  I think Jesus is aiming at even bigger blessings with even bigger consequences.  Faith is definitely one of those blessings, and I hope we might be able to agree that the biggest blessing of all is love, love on the model of Jesus, love after God’s own heart: love that balances grace and truth; judgment in the sense of discernment between good and evil, right and wrong, sin and righteousness.  To be blessed, in this sense, is to be on the road to living life on God’s terms.  The poor in spirit are those on the road to life on God’s terms.  Blessed are those who, more and more, are living this life on God’s terms.

The opposite of blessed, then, is to live life on terms other than God’s terms.  That is to be wretched, no matter what the world sees or says, no matter how many material or personal advantages a person may have.

Around here, people value independence, and it feels kind of hard and just a little shameful to receive help, from anyone.  We do for our own; we do for ourselves.  That can make being church, let alone being a Christian, difficult, because to be poor, biblically speaking, is to know your need and your inherent inability to supply that need.  God shall supply all our need.  The joy of the Lord is our strength.

We like to share stories of people who, though quite poor, always seem quite happy, content, like in Honduras or someplace like that.  That boggles and amazes us; it can cause a little pang of envy: if only we could have their attitude.  But life is too complicated for that, as we know.  What makes for a rich life?  Maybe most people know the correct, ethical answer: a rich life comes with doing good.  Despite that, most people still seem set on insulating and comforting themselves with protective layers of things.  I’m not judging anybody’s accumulation of stuff—come and see mine!—and I do ask you to consider how much clothing one person really needs, how many pairs of shoes, how many tools or, especially in my case, books and CDs—but I haven’t finished the collection yet!  Anyone here have a collection that’s gotten a little out of hand?  If the only reason you’re keeping something is because you haven’t gotten rid of it yet, that might not be the best reason for holding on to it.

Economists speak of differentiating between needs and wants.  Who wants a base model if you have the means to get top of the line?  Does it really matter, anyway?  Does it really matter to God?  Maybe not, but it might if we begin—ever so slowly and unintentionally—to regard what we have bought as our own, or what we deserve, or a fitting statement about our success in life.  The things with which we surround ourselves might begin to matter to God if we begin, even from the most approved motives, to make ourselves the furthest reach of our generosity.

Let’s you and I be careful about the reward we seek.  Jesus is speaking of the kingdom, and it’s pretty clear, I think, from what he is saying, what he often says, that there’s quite a lot, in this life, that can get in the way of that reward, that can deflect us off the narrow way.  He’s talking to those who want to be his followers.  We’ve got to be vigilant and thinking about our walk with Jesus.  Jesus speaks of the narrow way (Mt 7:13, 14).  Narrow always feels so constraining to me, not like freedom at all—freedom is wide, right?—yet Jesus insists that the way of freedom is quite narrow—“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door,” he says, “because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to” (Lk 13:24).  How?  Why?

For those who take the narrow way, there is always ample room to love and serve and rejoice!  The further we get from that way—life lived on God’s terms, the way of the blessed, the way of the poor—the more our attention, our desires and thoughts, become occupied with what might be had, tried, and done here, now.  We become less concerned about serving others and more concerned about the service we receive.  It becomes harder and harder to rejoice, except for when payday comes around again, but that joy doesn’t last long, because the bills seem to get bigger and bigger.  And our need remains.  We have more things but are no more happy.  We may have bigger wallets but not bigger hearts.  We’re glad when God gives and ticked off when he doesn’t, or when He takes away: how dare He!  Who does God think He is?!  And who needs God, anyway?  Does that sound like a surprising question?  Start asking people, out there, and listen to what they have to say.  It’s great to have God there, and all, so long as He isn’t a bother or burden.

When Jesus speaks of being blessed, he means living on God’s terms, God’s way.  The poor in spirit are growing as they keep going.  All of us must grow into that way of seeing blessing.  You and I need to continue to let God renew our thinking and desiring.  Oh, we invite Him to, in this or that matter, yet sometimes we can hold out on some personal matters God also wants to change.  That’s where God and this Bible can begin to feel bothersome, burdensome.  Yet, as God works His change in us, we find we begin to understand a little better, a little more clearly.  There are those among us much further along in that than me.  I’m not saying that to flatter anyone.

When Jesus speaks of the poor, he means those who know their need for God, who are brilliantly aware of the scarcity of their inner, personal resources.  The poor in spirit know their spiritual poverty; God can fill them, then.  Working more isn’t going to fill the gap.  Acquiring more isn’t going to fill the gap.  God must.  God can.  He lets us in on the way that He fills, supplies His power for our inability, His grace for our sin, His love for our need: He serves, He gives, He encourages, He blesses.  Blessed are the poor in spirit, because they serve, they give, they encourage, they bless, and they are blessed.

The biggest blessing the one who is biggest of all gives is trust in God.  I can’t, but God can.  Apart from God I won’t; with God I will and shall.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:3).  The old hymn sang of surrendering all to Jesus.  That makes it sound as if we are vanquished, conquered: time to surrender, raise the white flag.  But surrender, though necessary, the only way to live, surrender is shameful!  Just like seeking help can feel shameful; just like needing help can feel shameful for a grown woman or man.  I don’t need help, thank you.  I don’t need your help.  I don’t want your help!  The ones who are truly going to grow in God are those who seek from God and among their fellow believers the help they know they need.

It all depends upon the one to whom you surrender.  Setting aside all the foolish love songs, surrender is typically against our will, what we are compelled to do, under the circumstances.  We’d rather keep fighting, holding out, resisting, defying!  The spirit of the poor, however, is a meek spirit.  The meek willingly offer what the vanquished never willingly surrender.  The meek make their offering.  The offering is themselves—heart, mind, and soul, will and want to.  The kingdom is theirs because they make their lives an offering to God.  The kingdom is theirs because they are already living the kingdom way: not my will but Thy will be done.

Great is the mystery of faith.  The poor in spirit are rich in faith and never misers.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.