TAKING THE BAIT?
Matthew 5:1-12
Fourth Sunday of After Epiphany, Year A
Analysis by Chris Repp
1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his
disciples came to him. 2And he began to speak and taught them, saying:
3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10“Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
11“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account. 12Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in
heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
From Wikimedia Commons
“With the Beatitudes as bait, as manifestations of the gospel, we go to all nations to hook others by the heart and draw them into life that really is life.”
Author’s note: Noting that this famous pericope follows Jesus’ calling of his disciples (the previous week’s text in the RCL), and bearing in mind who the disciples reveal themselves to be throughout Matthew’s Gospel, it seems to me that with this teaching Jesus is gently drawing them into the radically new reality of the Kingdom of Heaven. So, I decided to play with the fishing imagery, hopeful that from such play something true and helpful might emerge.
DIAGNOSIS: Enmeshed in the World
Step 1: Initial Diagnosis (External Problem) – Gone Fishing
This is the first teaching that Jesus does with his disciples after calling them and promising to make them “fishers of men” (Matt. 4:18-19). I wonder what about that call appealed to them? Trusting that Jesus was the promised Messiah who was bringing the Kingdom of God, did they imagine their new calling to be like their old one – corralling and overpowering the unwilling, like the fish they caught in their nets? And did they imagine the new kingdom to be like the old one, with the strong, the rich, and the well-connected blessed by God to lord it over the rest? If Jesus was calling them into that kind of kingdom as his inner circle, wouldn’t they become the strong, rich, and well-connected?
And what about us? Do we share their dream and their values? (Have you ever fantasized about winning the lottery?) Do we also tend to look down on the ones Jesus is surprisingly calling blessed in his teaching here?
Step 2: Advanced Diagnosis (Internal Problem) – Trusting their Gear
The disciples know and trust that power and wealth work, just like their nets work on fish. They have seen how the Romans have conquered and now rule their Judean neighbors, and how the Romans’ puppet kings rule locally. They also conclude that since God is more powerful than all of them, God’s kingdom will channel God’s power the way earthly kingdoms channel the power of their kings. And that makes them wonder what they’re doing out here in the wilderness with all of these losers. Shouldn’t they be raising an army?
And isn’t it our instinct to draw the same conclusions? We’ve heard the stories about “those kinds of Christians” who on hearing the Beatitudes in church ask their pastor where she got that socialist nonsense, and when learning it was Jesus say, “Well, that doesn’t work anymore.” We scoff, but secretly we agree. Meekness, poverty, peacemaking, and righteousness are for the naïve. Next thing you know we’ll be asked to love our enemies (Mt. 5:44).
Step 3: Final Diagnosis (Eternal Problem) – Caught in the Nets
We don’t know yet that these newly ex-fishermen are harboring these attitudes. But we will find out over the course of Matthew’s Gospel as they jockey for position (Mt. 20), argue about status (Mt. 18), and resort to violence against those coming to arrest Jesus (Mt. 26). Life by the sword leads to death by the sword, Jesus will tell them. Their entanglement in the ways and means of the world has become a death trap.
Jesus words to the disciples in the garden are for us as well, who put our trust in status, wealth, and violence, and scorn the likes of those down the mountain, whether overtly or in secret. (We are soon to be reminded that our Father sees in secret. But not everything seen there is reward-worthy.) Our misplaced faith is a dead end.
PROGNOSIS: Hooked by the Gospel
Step 4: Initial Prognosis (Eternal Solution) – Breaking the Nets
Jesus joins us in that dead end, determined that it should not be our ultimate fate. He takes the deadly consequences of our misplaced faith upon himself, and gives us his life in return. But this is God at work here, and death never has the last word where God is concerned. By enduring our death, he breaks the bonds (let’s call them nets) of death and sin and evil and is raised to new life. And that life is one that values and delights in the kinds of folks we previously dismissed: the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers.
Step 5: Advanced Prognosis (Internal Solution) – Taking the Bait – Drawn into Life
Jesus not only makes his disciples into “fishers of people,” but lures them into a new kind of fishing. Only this one is not coercive. In showing us those whom God values and loves in Jesus, we get “hooked” by our hearts, so that God’s values and God’s love become ours. These kinds of fisher folk first need to be caught before they can go fishing.
Step 6: Final Prognosis (External Solution) – Gone Fishing
But once we are caught, we can’t help but go. And with the Beatitudes as bait, as manifestations of the gospel, we go to all nations to hook others by the heart and draw them into life that really is life.
