BREAKING UP THE FALLOW GROUND

NEW BE-ATTITUDES
Matthew 5: 1-12

It is easy for people to allow their hearts and lives to become like the hard ground of winter. We do the same things over and over by habit or we are surrounded by so many difficult things that we just simply shut down and stop feeling anything. It is then that we calcify and become hardened. Life is difficult. Often it is easier to do things like we have always done them, keeping our thoughts and attitudes the same, not allowing the shovel and hoe to penetrate the hardness so we can get a new and maybe different perspective of life. We see things as unfair or unjust or just plain sad; yet feel powerless to do anything about the circumstances or situations. So we become hardened, discouraged and cynical.

The people Jesus was speaking to were also living in difficult times. Many were poor, outcasts, discriminated against and even persecuted. Something drew these people to come and listen to this new teacher who was saying new things about a new kingdom that was coming, one that they could be a part of. His words were full of hope and speaking to their condition. But they were words that at first didn’t make much sense. The ideas he was expressing seemed upside down, not the usual ways things go. He was saying those who are “blessed, happy, to be envied and spiritually prosperous, are those who are poor, meek, persecuted and reviled against.” How could that be? How could people in those circumstances feel blessed? And then this teacher honors those who are merciful, pure in heart and are peacemakers. Be merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers in a society that tortures us? How can this be?

Jesus’ words were cracking through and breaking up the hardness and futility that had grow around their hearts and minds just as a plow breaks up the fallow ground of winter so that new seeds can be planted. Jesus wanted to show them a new way of seeing their lives and their circumstances and create new attitudes and new ways to BE.