Introduction
            This sermon is the last in a series on the Beatitudes, started in the fall. I will use Martin Luther King, Jr. as an example of the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount.  According to the Jesus Seminar the Sermon on the Mount includes the most authentic sayings of Jesus of Nazareth.  The series was inspired by the book, What Jesus Meant by Erik Kolbell.
What we see in these two Beatitudes, is that not all of the sayings are attributable to Jesus.  According to the Jesus Seminar, some of the Beatitudes are clearly statements that fit the time and the type of ministry Jesus lived.  Others are things he may have said.  A few are debatable, and some were probably not said by the prophet of Christianity.  The saying, “Blessed are the Persecuted” fits Jesus’ philosophy but was probably added to the list after Jesus died.  Matthew and Luke were not written until the ninth decade of the first century, so the persecutions were a significant event the Gospels were written in part to address.
            The purpose of this sermon is not to debate the authenticity of this Beatitude, but to ask:  Do these saying fit the message of Jesus and if so, what was that message, and how could it be applied to modern times?

Gospels

Let’s begin with the full passage regarding the persecuted.  It says in the 5^th Chapter of Matthew, verses 10-12:

            Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
            Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Luke, chapter 6, verses 22-23, says it this way:

            Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

The Gospel of Thomas also includes this Beatitude in Chapters 68 and 69:
It says:

            Jesus said, “Blessed are you when you are hated and persecuted; and no place will be found, wherever you have been persecuted . . . Blessed are those who have been persecuted in their hearts:  they are the ones who have truly come to know the Father.”

Let me give you another example of the meaning of this phrase, “Blessed are the Persecuted.”  I often thank a veteran who served in one of the wars fought by the U.S.  I know they probably suffered for their effort.  I know they probably witnessed sites they have tried to forget.  For this I thank them for what they did for our country and for freedom.  This is what the author of the Beatitudes is saying when he wrote:  “Blessed are the persecuted—congratulations to you for the suffering you have encountered.
            What the Beatitudes also remind is that Jesus served those on the boundaries of the first century.  He loved the unlovable.  He preached to the common people of the day.  These people lived on the fringes of society, were not the leaders, or the wealthy, or the religious elite.  The Gospel of Thomas was written to congratulate these people for truly knowing their God by how they lived.
            Though it is questionable whether or not Jesus spoke to the persecuted, he clearly preached a message that warned people of the results if they followed his path.  Erik Kolbell says it this way:

            Jesus lived in a world that was unprepared for the radical breadth of his message, a world not unacquainted with these ancient teachings that he tried so hard to cast in a new light, but at the same time a world not ready, willing, or able to fully embrace them.  Between the occupying forces who job it was to maintain the status quo, the religious leaders who benefited from it, and the lowly poor and the peasants who despaired of ever changing it, his was an entrenched culture, wedded in a marriage of convenience to a litany of old conventions that served the few at the expense of the many.

            When the writer of Matthew said:  “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake” he was addressing those who spoke out against injustice.  This translation speaks more clearly to the situation the early Christians would have experienced.  They were a minority religion, as we are today, viewed by society with a skeptical eye, radicals outside the mainstream.  Jesus could easily have warned them that the road was not going to be easy.  The disciples in following Jesus’ path were going to face opposition from society, friends and even family. 
What the Gospel writers recognized was that living a life of conscience might also mean going against the grain of people in power, or groups that are made uncomfortable by your beliefs and your lifestyle.  It is this message that I would like to bring to us this morning.

Historical Examples

This has always been the case with people who fight for change, whether it is in religion, or politics, or the arts, or modes of living.  I would like to give you some historical examples.  The examples are numerous of people who encountered resistance to change.  Erik Kolbell mentions Vincent Van Gogh for “the bold strokes and thickened texture of his impressionist art” and Johan Sebastian Bach for “rewriting the rules on harmonization in classical music.”  Do you think the first time George Gershwin performed Rhapsody in Blue at Carnegie Hall he was applauded with gusto?  Was Ghandi loved in the beginning for his way of objecting to the ways of his culture or to the domination of British rule?  No he wasn’t. 
            How about Branch Rickey when he tried to integrate baseball?  Jackie Robinson would tell you, “The road was tough.”  What about the Freedom Riders and Civil Rights marchers of the 1950’s and ‘60’s. 
            Society tends to put people into categories, and creates circles, placing some in the circle and others out.  Our religion is founded on the principle of inclusion, not exclusion.  We need to band with others who are willing to be courageous and stand against exclusion.  I would argue that moderate Moslems are the recipients of persecution today.  Some tend to put all Moslems in the same category, and refuse them the right to build their holy places.  We should stand with them when they are refused the rights they deserve.
            One of my favorite lines of poetry is from Edwin Markham, a poet of the early 20^th century, who unknowingly summarized Unitarian Universalist history when he wrote:

            He drew a circle that shut me out—
            Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
            But love and I had the wit to win:
            We drew a circle that took him in.
                                    “The Shoe of Happiness”

Liberal Christianity challenges the creation of circles, including some and excluding others.  Their model is the Jesus who spoke to the outcasts of his day.  Kolbell, a former minister of noted Riverside Church in New York City, writes:

            The circle represents safety, even if it sometimes also represents the stifling of creativity or the tolerance of injustice.  Which is why what Jesus proclaimed, as did the prophets before and after him, is that God’s world is bigger than this, that he did not simply create this or that corner of the universe, that his love is not confined to an inner circle of a select few, but that the whole world is our opportunity and our obligation, the place were we must live in such a way as to be fully realized as human beings, in sometimes uneasy alliance with one another.  (p. 127)
 
Liberal Christians follow the path of this man whom they believe:

. . . loved the loveless, washed their feet and raised their dead and taught their children and healed their wounds and forgave their sins, whose ministry was very much lived on the outer edge, has called us here, to the sacred responsibility of an eccentric life, and all the blessing and costs that that will entail.  (p. 127)

Redemptive Suffering

            I don’t call myself a Christian, even in this liberal sense, but I respect this message as preached in the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes--the message that calls for us to love our enemies and work for justice.  What the Beatitudes also reminds us is that if we do so we will probably suffer.  Society will not respect us or speak kindly of us, and in some cases will persecute us.
            Christians call this redemptive suffering, suffering for a purpose.   Rabbi Abraham Twerski tells the story of a man who was sentenced to years of hard labor, whose legs were shackled to a wall in his prison cell.  Every day the man was forced to turn a heavy wheel.  He imagined that the wheel was operating a mill that ground grain, or maybe a pump that extruded water out of the ground.  This gave the man’s life purpose and meaning.  When the man’s prison sentence was over he went outside the prison to discover that the wheel was attached to nothing.  His hard labor was for no purpose.  The storyteller concludes, “the man collapsed under the weight of the absurdity of it all.  His suffering was not redemptive.”
            So often this is the case.  Individuals are persecuted, sometimes imprisoned, and die, without knowing that their suffering has any positive benefit.  Some women in the 19^th century were persecuted because they struggled for their right to vote not knowing what would happen in the next century.  Slaves suffered and died for their master not knowing about the Emancipation Proclamation.  In the 20^th century, Civil Rights workers in Mississippi died for their protestations, not knowing the result of their work.  Gays and lesbians have lived and died without the experience of equality given to others.
            Through the centuries the Jews have experienced persecution more than most groups.  In recent times, many Palestinians have experienced similar persecution.  Our religion calls for us to honor and support the efforts of all groups to achieve freedom and equality.  We can use the Beatitudes as an example, a model for congratulating those who have lived through suffering because of the color of their skin, or their heritage, or their beliefs.
            Some people are satisfied that those who suffer will be rewarded in another life.  This philosophy can sow the seeds of violence and martyrdom.  I, personally, can’t accept this philosophy.  I believe in heaven and hell on earth, not in the hereafter.  I also believe our calling as religious liberals is to join with those who are on the edges of society, who are persecuted and suffer because of the accident of birth.

Conclusions

            Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life we will celebrate next week, also spoke out of this liberal Christian tradition.  Erik Kolbell wrote his book influenced by King.  The final words of his book could have been given by King or by Jesus himself.  He writes:

            We have come some distance in the emergence of this kingdom, the leisurely blossoming of this vivid bouquet.  And we have a long way to go, for we are still far from home.  The obstacles are many, the roads steep and rutted, the persecutors plentiful, the demons Dionysian, tempting, and beautiful.  The process is slow.  But we will roll on together, each one of us, for we are the pebbles that compose a landslide.  We will come down from that mountain, arm in arm, and we will not be fatigued, and we will not be deterred.
           
This is the message of Jesus that has inspired Christians through the centuries.  When I am frustrated by setbacks, I am reminded of these words and models for living.  Several years ago I joined together with over 50 of my colleagues in the ministry to return to some of the sites of the original march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama over 40 years ago.  Four participants in that march were with us.  Richard Leonard, one of the marchers, wrote a book titled, Call to Selma.  In that book he wrote: 

            March, 1965, Selma, Alabama—a time and place where violence and bloodshed horrified our nation, where justice won out over oppression, where love cast out fear, where hope proved justified.
  
That march of ’65 was a testimony to the life of Jesus and to the truth of the Beatitude under consideration this morning.  It is estimated that over 1/3 of the clergy who joined in that original march were Unitarian  Universalist ministers.
I remember standing with my colleagues and walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside of Selma, singing “We Shall Overcome,” then later walking to the memorial for Unitarian Universalist Viola Liuzzo, one of the martyrs killed during that original march.  Our day was coming to an end.  We were tired, getting ready to get back on the bus for our ride back to Birmingham.  I looked back and noticed that I was leading a line of people from the memorial with the sun setting in the background. I took a picture of that sunset and the trail of tears before me.   Tears came to my eyes because I felt we had honored Viola, and James Reeb, and all those who had suffered for their faith, and their stance of protest against the ways of society.
The title of that picture I took that day could have been,  “Blessed are those who have suffered persecution for justice.”  I know deep in my heart that heaven belongs to them.  In this case for me heaven can only be a place in our hearts.  My prayer this morning is that it may it be so.  Amen.