Epiphany 5A’26
31 January 2026
Micah 6.1-8; Mt. 5.1-12
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
North Little Rock, Arkansas
The Rev. Carey Stone <+>
O God, lead us and empower us to: Do Justice, Love Kindness, and Walk Humbly with you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. – from Micah 6.8
Blessed are the rich, Blessed are those who are happy, Blessed are the strong, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for the biggest and best, Blessed are those who have no time for the troubled and needy, Blessed are they that break hearts without guilt, Blessed are those who sow division and for whom the end justifies the means… These are the principles we see lived out all around us on a daily basis. These are the beautiful beliefs that help people get ahead in life – “haven’t you heard nice guys and nice girls always finish last. You can’t get bogged down by a conscience, bleeding hearts are for weak losers.” As for the poor the sick and the dying, the words of Dicken’s Ebeneezer Scrooge said it best, “If they are going to die then let them do it, and decrease the surplus population.”1
The dazzling prizes these principles can produce can lead the best of us astray and capture us even in the Name of God. There’s nothing new about this – for this has always been the ways of the kingdoms of this world with our egos on the throne.
Into these kingdoms came a different King who landed not in a palace but a stable and laid in a manger, a feeding crib for animals. When it was time for his coronation, he entered the city of Jerusalem riding a lowly donkey, and there he received his crown made of thorns, and finally for a throne, he was nailed to a cross. What was it that got this lowly carpenter rabbi into so much trouble? For living and preaching a message that was totally upside down to the world’s message of survival of the fittest.
His most famous sermon is known as his “sermon on the mount” and is found in Matthew’s gospel the 5th chapter. We can read the context of this sermon near the end of chapter 4: ”Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.” (verse23) He was proclaiming a very different message describing what that kingdom is like: Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are those who mourn, Blessed are the meek, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Blessed are the merciful, Blessed are the pure in heart, Blessed are the peacemakers, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Jesus then adds a zinger for all who are experiencing any of these things:
“Rejoice for great is your reward is great in heaven!” (5. 3-12)
Throughout history there have been different responses to this great sermon. One way is the way of admiration from afar as put forward by multiple US presidents including FDR and Harry Truman who both said basically the same thing that, “all of the world’s problems could be brought to a happy conclusion if the sermon on the mount was followed.”
Others respond to this list is of beatitudes or ways of being by rejecting and vilifying them. As Mary Church Terrell co-founder of the NAACP wrote: … some people cannot bear the truth, no matter how tactfully it is told. No doubt the haughty, the tyrannical, the unmerciful, the impure and the fomenters of discord take a fierce exception to the Sermon on the Mount.”
Some versions of the Christian religion have obscured the focus, as the author and satirist Kurt Vonnegutt noted: “For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings… I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. “Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
So, our options for a response to the beatitudes, are to admire them, to reject and vilify them, or obscure their focus with something else from the bible’s pages, something less costly to the ego. Or, we can embrace them as the true Christians who follow Christ and his teachings.
These beatitudes are more about ways of being and doing rather than in believing. Our Being has to do with who we’ve become, and the person we are. The Welsh protestant theologian and pastor Martyn Lloyd-Jones bore this out when he said: “We are not told in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘live like this and you will become Christian,’ rather we are told, ‘because you are Christian, live like this.’
The way forward is the way back, back to remember and renew our promises at our baptisms and confirmations:
• Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
I do
• Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
I do
• Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?
I do
It is only in the power of the Spirit and our identity as the children of God that we can hope to live out the Beatitudes of the Kingdom of God.
I’d like to close by reading the beatitudes as they have been translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message Bible translation:
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” [Blessed are the poor in spirit]
“Your blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.” [Blessed are those who mourn]
“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are – no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”
[Blessed are the meek]
“You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.” [Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness]
“You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.” [Blessed are the merciful]
“You’re blessed when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.” [Blessed are the pure in heart]
“You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.”
[Blessed are the peacemakers]
“You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom…” [Blessed is those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake]
Surely these beatitudes are what God’s kingdom on earth looks like, and God invites each of us to embrace our true identities as sons and daughters of God, and then to follow him in the way he has taught us.
Do Justice, Love Kindness, Walk Humbly with Your God! Amen.
1 Dickens, Charles, A Christmas Carol