Sermon for February 1, 2026
Epiphany 4 A
Matthew 5:1-12; Micah 6:1-8
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
Imagine yourself on a boat—not too big, but big enough for you and a few friends to go fishing on a lake. The lake is big enough that it would take a couple hours to sail across, but small enough that wherever you sail, you have a beautiful view of the mountains that surround the lake. Now imagine that you’ve caught your fish, and as you come to the dock at shore you see a large crowd gathered by the beach. As you get closer you see that it’s more than just the locals—people have different looks, different accents, different languages. As the crowd mills around, one man slips away and walks quietly up a slope. Soon after, four other men follow him—these are guys you’ve fished with before—so you run after them, curious about what they’ve been up to. As you stop to catch your breath, you see them sit and you hear the first man saying things that sound kind of backwards: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…blessed are those who mourn…blessed are the meek…blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
You don’t quite get it, but later your friends give you the scoop. That was Jesus talking, and your old fishing buddies—Simon, Andrew, James, John—well, Jesus has called them to be his disciples, students. And just like God once gave the Ten Commandments to Moses when he climbed a mountain, well, now Jesus climbed a mountain to teach a new kind of law and the disciples would be like Moses, going out among the people and inviting them to live by this new law.
Funny thing is, it’s not the kind of law we’re accustomed to, where if you “do these certain things, you’ll benefit” and if you “do those other certain things, you’ll be punished”. The law Jesus gives is not simply about how to behave properly—it goes much deeper than that. Jesus is telling us where to look for the very presence of God—where God promises to always be found—and then by faith, we can join God in the things he is doing!
Blessed are the poor in spirit? How can they be blessed when they’re living in despair? They are blessed because Jesus promises that he is with them—Jesus meets them in their despair and says “hold onto me, because I know the way to a better tomorrow”. Blessed are those who mourn? They are blessed because Jesus is especially with them, and he sends caring people to comfort them. Blessed are the meek? Now, it’s easy to forget that “meek” does not mean “weak”. “Meekness” means using whatever power or influence you have, not for your own gain, but to help someone else. That takes a lot of emotional and spiritual strength, therefore the meek need to inherit all the support possible from the ends of the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Those who devote themselves to righting the world’s wrongs will become exhausted by all the brokenness they see around them. They’re going to need Christ to fill their hearts with hope. A lot of people feel the pain and brokenness in our society and country right now, and want their hearts to be filled with hope—particularly these last couple weeks after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed, and as violence, arrests, unrest, and peaceful protests continue in Minneapolis. I recognize that people in our congregation, in our community at large, may have different opinions about why this is happening, or how the government should deal with immigration, or how the people of Minnesota should respond, or how we in Wisconsin should respond. Our different opinions are part of what make us human, and show that the more we listen to one another, the more we will learn about the hurts each person carries, and the hopes each person has for a better world, and how each of us might serve our neighbors in their time of need.
First, I want to recognize that lots of people—and this includes some people at House of Prayer, and it includes good friends and relatives of mine in Minnesota—are feeling a lot of pain, anxiety, fear, or even anger right now. They’ve seen neighbors be killed, and other neighbors living in fear for their lives, and they know this is not the way things are supposed to be. There is a deep hunger and thirst for things to be made right. And the first step towards getting there is not by taking an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth—but by coming together with others and forming a caring community, where people can gain strength and support from one another. One way to do that is to join others in lifting your heart in a spirit of prayer.
I did that myself, on Monday last week, as I attended a prayer vigil organized by the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee. There were speakers from several Christian denominations, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Unitarians. Each one came with a somewhat different mood, from fear to anxiety, outrage to anger, grief to pain. For some who were there, especially those from immigrant communities, the stress of this moment was palpable. But whatever words and prayers they offered, all of them called for upholding human dignity, civil and human rights, compassion, and peace.
I found Pardeep Kaleka’s contribution to the prayer vigil very moving. He is a member of the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, and he lost his father in the mass shooting event there 12 years ago. Pardeep asked us to hold up our lights—we were each given an electric candle—and he reminded us that we each have a light to shine, and that whenever any one person suffers, it is not just that person suffering, but also you and me. Or, if I might put it another way: “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”. When you gather with others who are mourning or in pain, God does give you comfort. And because you mourn, God gives you a hunger and thirst for the world to be made right—and calls you to do what little bit you can in helping the world to be made right—until the light of hope shines once more.
A challenging part of this is, as human beings, we often have competing notions about what righteousness even is. What one person sees as righteous, another might see as radical—and maybe both are right? How do we decide? Today’s Old Testament reading evaluates righteousness by starting with our human limitations; in Micah 6:2 the prophet writes: “The Lord has a case against his people”, meaning that God knows how often we fall short of living up to his righteous desire that each person should live in dignity and peace. God knows that even when we’re trying our best to follow him, we don’t always get it right. But Micah—after laying out the case the Lord has against his people—reveals a different and better way for God’s people to follow.
“God has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). These requirements are simple, but not easy. They do, however, sound a lot like what Jesus taught his disciples that day upon the hillside by the Sea of Galilee, when he told us where to be looking for God’s own presence. God is in our seeking of justice; God is in our loving of kindness; God is in our walking with humility. And as we follow God’s summons to put justice, kindness, and humility into practice in our own lives, sometimes we’ll get it right and sometimes we’ll get it wrong. Whatever the situation might be, living by faith in God’s grace means that we can make our reverent best guess for what the right thing to do is, and then move forward—knowing God keeps giving us a second chance to learn from our mistakes; and being thankful that God really does want to send the light of Christ to shine in each of us. Amen.