It is a hard act to follow after last night’s “A Nation in Concert.” Those of you who were there must have been inspired as I was. I could of course readily identify with the handicap performers. They were taken from the wings and placed on centre stage. Do you realize that all of us have one form of handicap or another. But many of you can wear masks to hide your handicap ( I am not saying that sexual orientation itself is a handicap). But those who are challenged physically, mentally, visually and aurally cannot hide so easily. Years ago I learnt that my handicap is visible but what is yours?

The message of the Concert and how you interpret it is important and I will come to that later. But it is related to the sermon this morning which I had prepared much earlier.

A few weeks ago Susan sent an email to the regular preachers about a new sermon series for the next three months. In it she wrote that we are to “embark on a simple sermon series based on The Sermon on the Mount -- to address the expressed need from members for simple, practical life skills.” This series will be interspersed with Clarence’s own sermon series on Romans. When you hear about the proposal for simple practical life skills sermons you must heave a collective sigh to relief. You no longer need to agonize through a heavy theological discourse. I must confess I have difficulty when I read a book or article with heady academic theological jargon too.

However a simple sermon has to mean only to render the message in a simple way. The message itself cannot always be simple for we live in a complex and complicated world. Simple can fall into the danger of being simplistic or superficial and will not be able to address the perplexing problems of livi8ng and chaotic crisis in life. I am reminded of Paul’s message to the Corinthians that spiritual milk is for babes in Christ and you need solid food to grow to Christian maturity. A kindergarten message cannot be relevant and helpful to the practical living in the real tough world. Like Jesus we must increase in wisdom and stature for the living of these challenging days.

With this in mind, I will make the effort to preach on the first sermon in the series which is the first beatitude. Beatitude is from the Latin word which means happiness and translated into English as blessed also. Blessed are the poor in spirit from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:3. There is a parallel teaching from the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6:20 which says plainly “blessed are the poor.” Scholars of the Bible in seeing these two different accounts conclude that both Matthew and Luke must have an unknown common written document of the teachings of Jesus before them. They began their own different interpretation and gave a peculiar emphasis to it. Luke said the poor covers a lot of situations for his Jewish and non-Jewish audience. He was more down to earth and talk about the materially poor. Matthew included the words “in spirit” and focus on spiritually poor for the benefit of the religiously-minded Jews. This is said to be an attempt of Matthew to spiritualize the gospel message.

We must not forget that Jesus’ audience were mostly poor people -- the have-nots and outcasts, unacceptable, unclean, unwelcome, maligned and marginalized, despised and downtrodden. These people are the tax collectors, criminals, beggars, lepers, prostitutes, the broken up in body and beaten down in spirit. “Poor in Spirit” includes people like us rather than simply the homeless on our streets, those destitute and out of work.

Those who were hearing the good news of Jesus were looking for liberation from their misery as colonized people in the Roman Empire impoverished by heavy taxation. They were called to live as if the world then was to be turned upside down and that the kingdom of the world was transformed into the kingdom of God or heaven. Today the liberation theologians look at this beatitude with the backdrop of all of the world’s poor, hungry, homeless and oppressed people. They pay attention to the reality of economic poverty and even proclaim that God has preferential option for the poor. That is why they seek for liberation of the poor caught in the clutches of poverty. This does not mean they are not concerned with spirituality and many of them today

I want to deal this morning with poor in terms of material poor and poor in spirit in terms of poor spiritually. Happy are those who are poor materially and spiritually. This is a strange statement to make and seems to be self-contradictory. How can the poor be blessed or even be happy. This short first beatitude on the surface appears to be simple but it takes more interpretation to understand what it actually means.

In dealing with the materially poor let us look at some of the forms of poverty. We are dealing with people who are without the basic necessities of food, shelter, health, education and freedom. They don’t have material resources. A prayer for them is just not enough. Poverty cannot be viewed as the person’s fault only in much of today’s economy. People are made poor by others because of lack of equal access to education and skills training and even lack of employment when they are trained and retrained. Those of you looking for a job know how tough it is outside these days. There is a widening gap between the rich and poor. This is economic status that we talk about. These are the destitutes who have nothing and fallen down the cracks of development and globalization. Even Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew who has a phobia of having a welfare state is going to advice topping the assets of the lower income workers to pay for their homes and medical expenses.

Then we have the social status and the class struggle to consider. There is the scramble to get to the top, stepping on others along the way and looking down at the people in the lower social classes. Discrimination is leveled at those who belong to a minority race.

Related to it is the gender issue where the male dominate the female and there is still no equality of pay and opportunity. The female is made poorer by the male chauvinistic society. Even the lesbians complain to me of their lack of recognition in this gay majority FCC.

Closer to you is the rejection of the 90% heterosexual community towards the minority 10% of the LGBT community. As a minority you hope for an inclusive and pro-diversity community. It depends upon the majority heterosexual community. You suffer from this injustice. You have to stay in your closets and in public wear the mask of heterosexuality. I can never represent or ever apologize adequately for the pain and suffering that they have caused and the wrong that they have done to you. As a church we cannot afford to meet even in a hotel function room but in the midst of a soft porn Cineplex.

Race, gender, and sexual orientation belong to the poor in our midst too. And the beatitude comes along to say to you how happy and lucky you are to belong to the poor. Do I see happy and smiling faces here?

To understand this beatitude we have to bring into view the rich who is contrasted to the poor. It is the rich who has within his or her grasp the power and influence over those who are poor. They have the power to control and determine the destiny of our future. They have the influence to decide and direct how the poor exist in our society. Not all the rich and famous conduct themselves in the way as if they are gods not only of commerce and industry and technology but gods with the forces to fashion the life of people and of the society today.

It is in such a situation that the poor and the needy develop the sense of dependency on God the Creator. Men and women cannot depend on those who own the material resources and wield the power to control. Fundamentally, we have to depend upon God and the faithful people to continue its work of creation and transformation of people and the world. It is by the power of God that we can rely upon.

I came across the writing of a scholar who looked at the beatitudes not as happy or blessed but as “be-attitude” – the attitude of being. It is the attitude of the poor. It is the attitude of dependency upon God. They trust in the power of God who will work independently and also depending upon the faithfulness of all those who are responsible to eradicate all forms domination, discrimination, marginalization, and rejection of the poor and oppressed in our time. Blessed are the poor indeed.

When we turn now to the specific spiritually poor, again what is its form and _expression.

They are those who have no sense of the presence of God and even sense no need for God. They have made it in this competitive world. They have arrived. They are the successful, success easily turn to pride and arrogance. They are fiercely independent and perniciously individualistic. They are self-made, self-sufficient and self-satisfied. They forget God readily. Spirituality is not in their vocabulary.

On the other side there are those who claim that are so full of the spirit in religious terms They just enjoy their religious spirit and do not pay attention to the suffering in the material world including the poverty stricken. Their eyes are turned heavenward and they are blind to the scenes of suffering and deaf to the cries of pain on earth. They are so future oriented and just waiting to go to heaven. On more careful reading, the other beatitudes talk about inheriting the earth, comfort, satisfaction, mercy, seeing God in this earthly life. There is work to be done on earth. There is practical living in the world that we have to pursue.

Yes, they seem superficially to be spiritual but deep down there is pain and agony of unresolved conflicts in work, family, sexuality. We live in self-delusion and state of denial, internalized fears and prejudices. The problem emerges when we are in the state of solitariness away from others and by our lonely self and with our personal God.

Let me share with you from the blog if P J Thum, Singapore’s first English Channel swimmer. He wrote how he almost gave up after three hours in the swim when he encountered a storm and the waves were high and he was tossed up and down. He wrote: about the great force: the human spirit:. “Once mother nature had stripped me bare of pride and pretension, all I had left was my determination and will to carry on and prevail. I realized I could not defeat the terrible force of nature, only hold on and keep slowly moving forward until such a time as the fickle and capricious weather left me alone. Eventually the water improved and I was able to slowly and exhaustedly carry on. Thus is the second lesson of my crossing: that the human spirit in its purest and humblest form is equal to anything in this world. Having met so many other Channel swimmers, seen what I've seen and experienced what I've experienced, I cannot help but believe that anything can be achieved if we strip away all our vanity and apply ourselves with great humility to our goals.

The teaching of the beatitude of poor in spirit is to be in the attitude of humility and not false spirituality when we are so self-assured that we are holy and pietistic.

The parable of the two men – a Pharisee and the tax collector who went to the Temple to pray in Luke 18:9-14 comes to mind. The Pharisee prayed: “God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.” The tax collector, standing afar off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breasts, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” He who humbles himself will be exalted.

Finally, the attitude of responsibility. We claim that we want to follow Christ and lead a simple Christ-like life. Then we must take to heart the teaching of the sermon on the Mount or the Plain and in particular the Beatitudes. In Billy Graham’s book the Secret of Happiness he wrote that “the character which we find in the Beatitudes is, beyond all question, nothing less than our Lord’s own character put into words.” The nature and quality of the Christ-like life includes this attitude of dependency, humility and responsibility. Faithful followers of Christ have to exercise their God-given free will to decide to work with God in the task of transforming this created world which is now imperfect. We cannot be content with our imperfection or be reconciled to our fallen nature. We are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling or be transformed by the renewal of your mind. It is much, much more than we imagine of a simple quiet practical life in Christ. Begin to take more seriously the Beatitudes will compel us to action and to deepen our faith. Have we developed the attitude of responsibility?
Desmond Sim in writing the play for A Nation in Concert has taken us to a garden scene where there are bug who dare not (Dare’nt) , slug who cannot (Can’t), and grub who will not (Won’t). We are called to take care of the garden and transform it and we are called to go to help, to do things and to change things. If we don’t we perish together. Every person differently-abled has a part to play in God’s created world. The whole Creation is groaning in travail. This is our responsibility to transform or to perish.

We must recall also Jesus first sermon he preached in his hometown of Nazareth: The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

We remember how Jesus taught us by word and example to love God and to love our neighbour and to feed my lambs and my sheep. He called us to give to the poor. Christ emptied himself, taking the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even death on the cross.

We must be in the attitude of responsibility to do all these. As the Psalmist said: Blessed is he that considers the poor. Matthew said: Blessed are the poor in spirit. This is the first beatitude. Be in the attitude of dependency, humility and responsibility and experience the joy of blessedness.