The album White Flag is my response to the beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), and it is important to keep in mind, as you read and listen, that the beatitudes are each steps on a journey leading us from mere belief to radical obedience. These steps cannot be taken out of order or skipped and one is of no greater importance than the others. They are a progression taking us down the narrow road of discipleship and away from religion.

What’s Wrong With This World - MATTHEW 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus addressed the massive gathering of spectators scattered on the hillside. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he announced. How strange. How seeker insensitive of Him. This is His first opportunity after all to make a good impression on such an enormous crowd of potential converts, a multitude of spiritual seekers. This is their first, and for some their last, taste of what the Messiah is like and what it will mean to follow Him. Why start like this, with poverty? He might as well have said, “You’re a loser. There’s nothing good in you and you have nothing of value to offer me or anyone else. You’re worthless inside.” And well, that’s what He meant. The first step in being a disciple of Christ, the thing we must know first is not, “God loves you and has a plan for your life,” as I was always taught. That’s true, but apparently, according to Jesus, what God wants us to know first is that we are nothing without Him. There is nothing good in us, any of us. I watched Billy Graham on Larry King Live shortly after teen gunmen had slaughtered their classmates and injured many more. Larry was racked by the same question that kept so many millions up at night, “Why did this happen?” And as Reverend Graham paused to collect his answer, I raised my hand at home. I just knew it was Marilyn Manson, video game violence, MTV, absent fathers, etc. That was the list evangelical America had raised me to recite. The problem, it had been taught to me, was always out there in the world, in need of legislation or a good boycott. And Billy Graham, much wiser than I, looked Larry in the face and explained, “Thousands of years ago, a young couple in love lived in a garden called Eden, and God placed a tree in the Garden and told them not to eat from the tree….” As it turns out, the world is not what’s wrong with me. I’m what’s wrong with the world. As Calvin wrote, “He only who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God, is poor in spirit.” So I pray to God with him… “Nothing in my hand I bring/Simply to thy cross I cling/Naked, come to thee for dress/Helpless, look to thee for grace/Foul, I to the fountain fly/Wash me, Saviour, or I die.”

Sad Song - MATTHEW 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” And the warm fuzzies kept flowing from Jesus as He continued to charm the crowd. He “encourages” them with, “Blessed are those who mourn.” This is not a shed tear over the loss of a loved one or a job. It is the deep soul-shattering lament over the loss of righteousness, the death of our innocence. When I was 6, an East Texas pastor screamed at me from his pulpit, “When you leave this church and head to your car you could die! You could step out in front of a truck and meet Jesus today! And if you’re not a Christian, you’ll go to hell!!” I had no idea the church parking lot could be so dangerous, but I wasn’t taking my chances. I didn’t want some truck sending me to hell. So I walked down the aisle, filled out a 3x5 card saying I wanted to be a Christian and felt safer in a world with trucks. Someone gave me a Bible and a lot of old ladies came by afterwards to hug and kiss me, which was a little strange. And then my family took me to Luby’s to have a steak. I got saved, American style. I put salvation, my life vest, in the closet in case I ever needed it. But when I was 12, it looked like my parents might divorce, I had few friends, I was constantly bullied and perpetually lying to win approval and appear more important or smart than I was. I was looking at pornography with my friends and stealing anything I could sell for money. I was feeling guilty, depressed, thinking about suicide often and getting worse. I felt the water rushing in around my ankles. I struggled against sin’s tide in me. I cried out with Paul, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”(Romans 7:24) And I clung, for the first time, to the cross like it was more than a symbol or a story. I held on like it was air for my suffocating soul, my only hope of staying afloat, of living, because it was. I knew then what I was being saved from: me. Jesus is more than the promise of Heaven in a world of trucks.

Amen / White Flag - Jesus continues, “Blessed are the meek.” Mourning leads us here. Jesus, tethering this radical new belief system to the ancient faith His audience was familiar with, often links the beatitudes to familiar passages from their Old Testament scriptures. In this case Jesus says the meek will “inherit the land,” and the crowd recognized this phrase from Psalm 37:1-11 where David described the character of those who will inherit the new world to come. They are people who trust God so whole-heartedly that they fear no man, are not angry, do not worry and are teachable and obedient. The meek became this way when they chose to “commit” their way to the Lord, David says. The Hebrew word for “commit” means “to roll.” We roll our poverty onto the wealth of God’s grace, our anger onto the justice of the Judge of men, and our worry onto the generous and able hands of the Father. We surrender to One greater than us and all our sin. And Jesus says this commitment, this surrender, is essential to becoming a disciple of the Messiah. It’s what mourning moves us to do with our impoverished spirits.

Crave / Hummingbird - MATTHEW 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.” Surrender transforms our human hearts from stone to flesh and makes them slaves to the Spirit of God who moves us to obey His commands (Ezekiel 36:26-27). Now the surrendered person is propelled by a new desire for right living and right thinking that beats alongside an old desire for happiness and self-fulfillment. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Blessed are those who feel weighted down and discontent by the expected ambitions of this world. Blessed are those who realize working like a hummingbird brings no end to the hunger pangs and only tethers them to a mundane and self-absorbed existence. Blessed are those who shake a fist in the face of advertisers, educators, politicians, religious fanatics, lovers and tempters of all shapes and sizes and shout, “You can’t give me what I crave! Nothing here beneath the sun can make us holy or make us one. Only Spirit and second birth can satisfy my constant thirst and pour out Heaven here on earth. You can’t give me what I crave!”

Heaven Hang On - MATTHEW 5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” The problem is we don’t know what “righteousness” is. And I suspect the Jewish audience taking in the beatitudes 2,000 years ago didn’t either. Growing up there were rules for how long my hair could be, what color it could be, what I could wear, listen to, how loud I could listen, what I could watch and who I could watch it with…. So many rules prompted by good intentions but not written on tablets of stone by the hands of God. Instead, they were etched on my brain by Sunday school teachers, parents, preachers, Christian magazines and books. And they left me confused, as confused as an ancient Jew living under the laws of the Pharisees, about what exactly “right” was. I had no idea what rules, if any, were important to God? What is righteousness? And so Jesus, knowing I’m stupid, makes it simple. He defines righteousness. “Blessed are those who show mercy,” He begins. If I want to be righteous, to follow Jesus, I can’t pass by the wounded on the other side of the street. I have to stop, stoop and dress the wounds regardless of the wounded’s stature, smell or the cost to me. I have to do more than write a check and say a prayer, more than turn the poor and battered of this world over to a political party or government program. It’s my job to play basketball with a kid of another color, teach him to read, give his mom a dress or a job or a meal. Righteousness is meeting the needs of people. Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matthew 9:12-13). And yet three years ago when a woman was cursed and kicked around the yard across the street, I paused before helping. I was scared, she was filthy and I knew her bad decisions and bad company were to blame for the beating. And when I was a kid, my father wondered how to pay the bills sometimes, and I wondered if I’d always have a house or food. And our church paused. My prayers went unanswered. No groceries came, no word of encouragement brightened the day, no money was slipped into our mailbox. We are surrounded by the sick in need of aid, prayers in need of answers. Blessed are those who become the hands of Heaven stretched out to the lowest and least. Blessed are those who lavish upon others the mercy poured out on them by God.

Bless The Lord / Only - MATTHEW 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” “Blessed are the pure in heart,” Jesus continues. Righteousness is tied not only to showing mercy but also to the motives and inclination of the mercy-shower’s heart. If I do good to look good, I’m not righteous, I’m selfish. I’m divided between benevolence and applause. I’m allegiant to my approval rating, the smiles of the religious and not to God alone. I am trying to serve two masters and not satisfying either. The psalmist sang, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully (Psalm 24:3-4). If our oath to follow Jesus all the days of our life is meant, then it will move us to obey Him with merciful hands and peace-speaking tongues. It will cause us to pledge allegiance to no man or institution on earth knowing that nations fall and rulers crawl before His throne. He is our only King. But if we are merely religious and not yet disciples of Christ, we will promise God our lives and our all but remain allegiant to the world around us. We will be tied to our love of nation, prosperity, work, denomination, practicality and comfort and become so strapped down by these loves that we’re no longer able to wiggle a hand free to serve someone else. We become so gagged by lesser things that we no longer speak out for the oppressed and stand up for justice and peace.

My Enemy / Peace Has Broken Out - MATTHEW 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” Then Jesus tells the gathering of Jews, forever under the thumb of violent oppressors and abusers, “Blessed are those who make peace.” Later in the Sermon on the Mount He elaborates, adding that we should pray for our accusers, meet their needs, carry their load farther than they’ve commanded us to, not punch them back, and allow them to strike and humiliate us without end if we can’t get away. And for three centuries after these words were spoken, the Church believed Jesus meant it. They believed and taught that this command to be nonviolent and even kind to those who harm us and hate us applied as much to the treatment of an irritating next door neighbor or schoolyard bully as it did to Roman soldiers intent on raping, torturing and killing the innocent. Jesus has the audacity today and in his day to remind His battered and oppressed followers to love their enemies as we were loved by God. He reminds us that those who live by the sword die by the sword, and He promises a day when lions will lay down with lambs, there will be no more flags to wave, when eternal peace breaks out. Until that day He teaches us to pray for and serve the backstabber in the office, the smart-mouthed teenager in our house and the candidate from the other side of the aisle. I was an enemy of God deserving to be punished with death, but instead He met my greatest need and calls me His friend. Doing the same, when I want to hate and hurt, is righteousness crucial to following Jesus.

Narrow - MATTHEW 5:10-12 “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” The faces on that hillside 2,000 years ago must have been etched with a mixture of anger and bewilderment at this point in Jesus’ sermon. And, to be honest, He had irreparably ruined his chances of a large altar call or good merchandise sales. Poverty, mourning, surrender, showing mercy to the trash of this world, severing ties with it as well, and now being kind to those brutes the Romans? Then Jesus issues his most repulsive blessing yet, the one that will insure Him few followers. “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.” He promises that if we follow Him in the seven ways just described, we will be persecuted, a word that means to be pursued with intent to physically harm or kill. We can be certain that a life beginning with admitted poverty and eventually dedicated to mercy showing, allegiance cutting and peace making will cost us greatly. It seems that while we in Christian ministry/industry focus so much on lowering the bar and widening the way in order to increase the numbers of converts, amount of revenue, and acceptance of our faith, Jesus does the opposite. He makes sure the thousands listening to Him then and today realize His way is narrow and the bar is too high to ever be popular. I forget sometimes that the cross is not just the place where Jesus laid down his life and His perfection to buy mine. It is also a symbol of what happens to the faithful when the pursuit of righteousness collides with Caesar, displeases the crowd and riles up the religious. Following Christ means, in part, following in His footsteps knowing they may lead us to Golgotha. This causes me to think of the beatitudes, this corridor to Christ-likeness, as a funnel growing more and more confining and difficult to traverse as I walk it. Millions stand at its wide opening and readily admit they are flawed. Many of those, but not all, will stop to mourn and regret their wickedness in our upbeat and positive culture. Many of those, but not all, will roll that shame and sadness into the strong grasp of Jesus. Many of those, but not all, will spend their life chasing after something more than an SUV and a house in the suburbs. Some of those, but not all, will see the needs around them and stop to help, live like a citizen of Heaven and not of earth, and pour love and not loathing on those who intend them harm. These words of Jesus, preached from an ancient mountainside, if lived out, transform us and our faith into something truly alien, something truly worthy of disdain from pagans and puritans alike. If followed, they might lead us to failure and not success as defined by our culture. And if obeyed, they will birth us a difficult and dangerous life characterized by poverty, scorn, bruises and even death. This is the abundant life we were created for. But this way is narrow.