Beatitudes: Blessed are the Persecuted

Mathew 5:10-12

I am having a hard time finding some way to get persecuted at least the kind talked about in this beatitude. It says “Blessed are the persecuted for righteousness sake” which means being like Jesus and I am a long way from that. But, It seems to me that right now most of the persecution, criticism, rejection, and name calling aimed at Christians comes from other Christians. Liberal Christians think conservative Christians have sold their souls for political power, while conservative Christians think the liberals are being used by some enemy to destroy America. That is not persecution, that is just blind stupidity.

There is a lot of talk about a war on Christianity. The only war is among us. Not allowing a canned prayer to be read over the school address system does not mean some conspirators kicked God out of the schools and brought on every problem we now face. Anyone who wants to can pray in school they just can’t force others to participate. That comes from the constitution not some Godless liberals.

Just because merchants want to serve all of their customers by saying “Happy holidays, instead of Merry Christmas does not mean there is a war going on. Frankly we are acting like four-year-olds who have just been told they have to share. The failure of our discipleship is doing more harm to our cause than any war or any lack of a canned prayer over the speaker system.

The Greek words in this beatitude could be stated as blessed or happy are those who are pursued, criticized, ostracized, or rejected because of their fight for justice for all. Somehow I don’t think my being criticized for some of my crazy ideas and once being tried for heresy by a deacon board over some stupid church politics actually counts as persecution. So I think I must look inside and ask myself why I don’t qualify.

I think it starts with just not noticing what is happening around me, a failure to empathize with others.

I was raised in a strange small Oklahoma town. We had a very large number of black families there and it was more like Alabama than Oklahoma. Many homes including mine had “servants quarters” in the back yard. That is, If one small room could be called quarters. Easter Pipkins lived in our back yard. She did house work to pay her rent. I loved Easter and spent a great deal of time with her. I helper her make lye soap and visited with her in her room quite often, but I did so without noticing what her world really was. We had a wash house in the back yard that was separated from her room which was on the back side of the garage. The space between the wash house and her room was maybe eight feet. We had natural gas, electricity, and running water in the wash house. Easter had none of these. How much trouble would it have been to at least run an extension cord across eight feet? I did not notice because I accepted the idea of “Place.” Black people had their “Place” and I accepted that as normal and right.

I saw without seeing the separate but certainly not equal waiting rooms at the bus and train stations. The white only drinking fountains and rest rooms. There not being a single restaurant in town that would even feed people of color out the back door. That was called “Place.”

And “Place” mattered. Hundreds of American citizens were lynched as a constant reminder that “Place” was to be maintained. Being “uppity” was a death sentence, and I did not notice?

Me and my buddies climbed out of the window every Sunday to escape going to Sunday School and church. We would go to the barber shop which was closed for haircuts but was open for Jessie to shine shoes. He was always there shinning the shoes that had been left with him and we enjoyed his wit and humor more than we did church.

Looking back on those experiences it hits me that Jessie was one of the sharpest minds I ever knew. He was always well-dressed and well-groomed, very nice looking and a great personality. Did it ever dawn on me how he must have felt being the smiling and funny Jessie to some white boys who had bright futures ahead simply because their skin was white, while Jessie, with all of his talents and brilliant mind, could only shine white men’s shoes? No I accepted the idea of “Place.”

Many of us are stunned by the sudden rise of blatant racism today. I am convinced that the racism has been there all along but was exposed and turned lose because we elected a black president and suddenly the whole idea of “place” was destroyed. Never again can we assume that people of color are inferior to white people and deserve to be relegated to second class citizenship. That rattled the cages of those who must have someone forced into some inferior “Place” so they can feel good about themselves. Now “Place” includes both all people of color and human beings who happen to have different sexual orientations.

I often wonder why I was not at the bridge in Alabama or the marches for civil rights in the sixties. Now I wonder if I once again will not notice and allow the idea of “Place” to still permeate and destroy our land.

Perhaps this beatitude was Jesus issuing a challenge to His followers to examine their commitments to following Him. One of the most ignored concepts in the Bible is the emphasis God puts on actual commitment. The third commandment which we have always thought of as being against cussing actually says, “Do not pick up and carry along the name of God in a flippant or meaningless manner.” The story Jesus told about a man building a house without first counting the cost to see if he had enough to finish it was not what we have always said, “Have you counted the cost if your soul should be lost, but rather have you counted the cost if your soul should be saved?” There is a difference in believing the gospel and believing IN the gospel. Like the old story of a high wire walker pushing a wheel barrow across a canyon multiple times, and then asking an observer if he believed he could do the act. The observer assured him, yes, that he believed. Then the wire walker said, “Get in the wheel barrow.”

To me this beatitude demands that I never fail to notice and always be ready to act until the idea of “Place” is banished from our hearts and our land.

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EIGHT ATTITUDES OF SOME SALTY CHRISTIANS

Attitude one: Keep an open mind.
Attitude two: Be open to the comfort of others
Attitude three: Trust the power of love
Attitude four: Know the goal and thirst for it
Attitude five: Dare to show mercy
Attitude six: Keep it simple
Attitude seven: Seek solutions not just blame
Attitude eight: Stand for the equality of all