Scripture: Matthew 5:1-8
1When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then 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“
Sermon: “Blessed Are the Pure in Heart…”
In one of the churches I served several years ago, the one in Maine, there was a man who liked to play the piano. When I was new at the church, I didn’t know anything about this man—other than somebody telling me that the man sometimes played the piano at church in the summer when the organist was away. So, I am talking to this man at coffee hour, getting to know my new parishioners, making “small talk,” like you do at coffee hour or fellowship time, and I say, “Bob [not his real name], I hear you like to play the piano.” “Yes,” he says, with a big smile, and then he mentions something offhand about his upcoming concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
And here is where the conversation goes awry. I assume the man is joking! I mean, how many actual Carnegie Hall musicians do you run into at church coffee hours? To my knowledge, up to this point, I had never run into any—it might have been different if I was in New York City instead of Maine, but I wasn’t. Plus, the man was smiling—which I interpret to mean that he’s pulling my leg. So, going in to comedian mode, I say, “Hey, Bob, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?” I say this, expecting him to play along and finish the old joke with the line, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice!” (Ba-dum-bum.) But he doesn’t. He looks at me, and because he doesn’t know me very well either, he assumes I’m not joking, and he starts giving me actual directions to Carnegie Hall, which he knows by heart, because, it turns out, he plays there so often. (Note to self: when you don’t know people, don’t assume you know when they are joking.)
I tell you this story for 2 reasons: 1) It illustrates how words can be interpreted differently, depending on the background of the speaker and the hearer; and 2) The punchline to the joke, “Practice, practice, practice,” is part of the theme of today’s scripture reading.
Today we are focusing on verse 8 from the Beatitudes section of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount,” that we have been reading for 6 weeks now. Verse 8 reads, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
I am going to ask Steve to please put up a slide of the phonetic spelling of verse 8 in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke. And, in just a minute, I will play an audio file of verse 8. In this audio file, you will hear Scholar Neil Douglas-Klotz speaking this verse in Aramaic. I play it to give you an approximate idea of what it might have been like to hear Jesus say the words himself. The file is about half a minute long, and the verse will be spoken 3 times.
[PLAY FILE]
(in Aramaic: Tubwayhun layleyn dadkeyn b’lebhon d’hinnon nehzun l’alaha.) - translation from Prayers of the Cosmos by Neil Douglas-Klotz, p. 62)
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
I would hazard a guess that most of us, in our culture, when we hear this phrase “pure in heart” interpret it as referring to those who are “wholesome and untainted by immorality, especially that of a sexual nature,” to quote my computer’s dictionary. (Apple MacBook Pro.) Bearing out this definition, when I Googled the phrase “pure in heart,” one of the first things that came up was a letter by a Catholic Bishop that denounced the evils of pornography. (http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7438) Even Protestant commentators give a similar interpretation, one referring to the avoidance of “impure thoughts” and “sexual fantasies.” (New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Vol. VIII, p. 179) However, to their credit, both the Catholic Bishop and Protestant Commentator said that the phrase “pure in heart” isn’t limited to that meaning. Both theologians talked about the deeper meaning of the phrase “pure in heart” being those whose hearts are “undivided,” those who are whole-heartedly devoted to serving God and neighbor.
And, speaking of deeper meanings, if we look more deeply into the language that Jesus spoke, Aramaic, then we can get a fuller interpretation of the phrase that is translated into English as “pure in heart.” Unlike the English word “pure,” the Aramaic word for “pure” dadkeyn does not refer to sexual morality at all. In Aramaic, the phrase “pure in heart” dadkeyn b’lebhon is much more closely related to the “whole-hearted” devotion to which the commentators also referred. In Aramaic, dadkeyn b’lebhon refers to those whose “lives radiate from a core of love,” to those who are “consistent in love or sympathy,” to those “whose natural reaction is sympathy and friendship.” (Prayers of the Cosmos, p. 62-3.)
Capturing this understanding, Aramaic scholar Neil Douglas-Klotz offers what seems to me to be a more accurate translation of “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Remembering what we’ve looked at in previous sermons, that the word “Blessed” doesn’t mean happy, but rather refers to being “tuned” to God (like you would tune a musical instrument) and aligned with God’s values and priorities, Douglas-Klotz gives this translation for “Blessed are the pure in heart”: “Aligned with the One are those whose lives radiate from a core of love.” [REPEAT] (Prayers of the Cosmos, p. 62.)
Which raises the question: how do we do this? How do we align our lives with God so that our lives radiate from a core of love? How do we make sure we are “consistent in love or sympathy?” How do we make “sympathy and friendship” our “natural reaction”?
Answering those questions brings me back to the punch-line of the Carnegie Hall joke I started out with: How do we do these things? Practice, practice, practice. If we want to improve in anything—dancing, singing, basketball, writing, cabinet-making, cooking--we know we have to practice. If we are doing these things for school or work or for fun, we practice them—don’t we?--until we get consistent results. Take cooking, for example. How many of you who enjoy cooking—and I know there are a lot of you out there, thanks be to God!-- make your favorite dish now the same way you made it when you first tried the recipe? I bet none of you. All of the people I have met who enjoy cooking start out with a recipe-- for soup or cookies or lasagna-- and then keep making little changes over the years until they get it to the place where nothing needs improving and they can consistently create it for family and friends (or perhaps for the church auction? Just a suggestion. But I digress.)
The same is true for being “pure in heart.” If we want our lives to “radiate from a core of love,” if we want to be “consistent in love or sympathy,” if we want to get to the place where “sympathy and friendship” are our “natural reactions,” then we have to practice.
Every day, life presents us with opportunities to interact with other people, with animals, with the planet. And, every day, in those interactions, we have the opportunity to practice how to be loving, caring human beings.
Some of the interactions may be anonymous and feel like no big deal—a telemarketer calls us on the phone, interrupting our day with “hard sell” tactics OR someone cuts us off in traffic. In both of those cases, it’s tempting-- and easy-- to be rude back to the person who is being rude to us. No one is holding us accountable. But if we see those situations as training exercises in being “consistent in love,” then we have the opportunity to practice respectfully saying “no” to hard sell tactics or showing restraint in our reactions to bad drivers on the road. If we practice being loving, caring human beings in the small things, then when the bigger things happen, our natural reaction will be to respond with love instead of fighting fire with fire.
In our world today, there is a lot of fear and tempers flare when we talk about incidents we hear on the news, horrible incidents of war crimes, gun violence, decisions of politicians that scare us. How do we even talk about such things without getting into heated arguments? Practice, practice, practice. We ask God to keep us aligned to the Source of Love, because we can’t do it all by ourselves. Then we take a deep breath, and we listen more than we talk. We ask questions more than we make judgments. Not that we don’t state our opinions, but, when we do, we make sure that we state them respectfully. (Like it says in our church’s Covenant for Christian communication.)
Which brings us to the second part of our Scripture verse for today, “for they shall see God.” When we practice being aligned with God’s love, Jesus tells us “we will see God.” The Aramaic words for this part of the verse are d’hinnon nehzun l’alaha.
Neil Douglas-Klotz tells us that “Nehzun could be translated ‘see,’ but also points to inner vision or contemplation. The old roots [of the word] evoke the image of a flash of lightning that appears suddenly in the sky [he says] insight comes like that.” So putting both parts of the verse together, Douglas-Klotz offers this illuminating translation, “Aligned with the One are those whose lives radiate from a core of love; they shall see God everywhere.”
My friends, in this Lenten season, may we experience the truth of this Beatitude. May we practice showing love and sympathy until we are consistent--until our lives radiate from an inner core of love. And as we do this more and more, may God give us insight--that we may see God in all our interactions.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. May it be so.
Rev. Dr. Marlayna Schmidt
Franklin Federated Church
Franklin, MA