Fourth Sunday of Epiphany
By the Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Ph.D ’13
Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in the Faculty of Divinity
Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church
(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Feb. 1, 2026)
The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen. Please be seated.
So I'm a Professor of Christian Ethics, and if you looked at the length of my books, you would think that Christian ethics is complicated. But it's actually not that complicated. And our two lessons this morning basically sum it up, my long and kind of unreadable books notwithstanding.
The lesson from Micah this morning is from the prophet Micah. The last line from verse eight, chapter six, "Mortal, you know what God asks of you, do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God." Another translation, "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God." That sums it up pretty well.
And these beatitudes, too, Jesus' sermon on the mount, they capture what is at stake in Christian life and Christian discipleship so well. And if that's all you take, some days I worry that I come up here and I'm just going to over complicate things. You can walk out with those lessons, and you've got it. But let's proceed with the complication. Micah is fairly straightforward. Do justice, love mercy, welcome humbly. Matthew maybe needs some consideration. These are maybe the most familiar or they're some of the most familiar teachings of Jesus. And I think in that familiarity, they lose some of their scandal. They sound sweet and comforting, and they may be, but they're also nonsensical.
How is persecution a blessing? Anybody who's mourned deeply might be reluctant to call that mourning a blessing. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness a blessing. And it's not just that it lands wrong. Our Christian tradition has this history of valorizing suffering. And then justifying people's suffering because it is a blessing to them, or so we say. There may be something at stake in complicating these verses or at least sinking into something of their scandal.
So the gospels were originally written in Greek. Jesus almost certainly did not speak Greek, Jesus spoke probably Aramaic. When Jesus said these words from that mount to the disciples gathered around him, he probably said the Aramaic word “Ṭāḇ,” meaning “good” or “pleasant.” How good or pleasant are the persecuted? How good or pleasant is it to mourn? It's fine, but we basically have the same problem. It may be good in the moral sense, but it's not pleasant.
As I said, the only written record we have of these words are in Greek and the Greek usage is the word “Makarios.” In the first century, in Jesus' time, the Greek word “Makarios” meant happy or fortunate. Same problem. How lucky are the unlucky? Jesus seems to be saying. How happy are the unhappy? How blessed are the cursed?
As those of you who have heard me preach before, I like to dig into the etymologies to try to find a way through these difficult things. And so I dug deeper with this word “Makarios.” How did it get the meaning, happy or fortunate? And actually it turns out the Greek word “Makarios” is a primitive Greek word. It doesn't derive from other words. And in its original meaning, the Greek word “Makarios” just meant God-like.
In Greek culture, the Gods on Olympus never suffered. They never worried. Up on Olympus, the Gods were Makarios. And so by extension, the word came to mean without worry, without suffering, happy, and fortunate.
I want to return to that in a second and just briefly talk about blessing. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn and blessed to those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. When I was ordained a priest, I guess 2008 it was, 17 years ago. The person who preached at my ordination was the spouse, the wife of my childhood priest. She was a beautiful and wise lay theologian. And I wanted her to preach for me at my ordination. And I remember I was sitting in the front row at the little church I grew up in, Kentwood, Michigan, and she was in the little pulpit there. And she said, "When you become a priest." I remember her looking at me, and she actually pointed at me. She said, "Don't become one of those priests who thinks that you have the power, that you can call down sanctity upon things. Don't be one of those priests who thinks they have magic hands and that they consecrate the world. It's the trouble with priests." This lay, theologian and mentor of mine, said.
She said, "The job of a priest is not to make something holy or to make something sacred. The job of the priest is to recognize what God has made holy and what God has made sacred and then point at it. Is to pay attention and then draw people's attention to where God is in the world." My attention the last week or two has been in Minneapolis for lots of reasons. My brother and sister-in-law lived there for a few years, Nicollet Avenue, where Alex Pretti was murdered, is the street where my brother and his Japanese wife shopped at Asian markets with other immigrants.
And those of you who were here last week know that I came up here sad and frightened, and I told you I was sad and frightened. And this week, I remain sad and frightened. But I am also buoyed and heartened. And I'm buoyed and heartened because what I've seen on the streets of Minneapolis.
Look at what's happening on the streets of this American city where my brother and sister-in-law lived, where my nephew lived. There are people in the streets mourning for sure. There are peacemakers walking those streets. There are folks in those streets thirsting and hungering for righteousness and crying out. There are folks showing mercy. There are folks being persecuted for the sake of justice. They don't look meek with their whistles, their phones, and their signs. God bless them. They don't look meek, but actually the word translated into English as “meek” here. In the Greek, actually, it means something more like restraint and endurance, and the kind of non-assertive power that comes from a deep spiritual resolve. That I see. I see that on the streets of Minneapolis.
We watch the news, or we read reports, and we see their mourning and peacemaking and mercy and thirsting for righteousness. What we see is love because you can't mourn unless you love. And you can't hunger or thirst for righteousness unless you love. And you can't be merciful or make peace unless you're courageous enough to love somebody who's caused some harm. You can't endure without love. You can't show resolve and restraint without love.
I'm heartened and buoyed this week because this is what loving your neighbor looks like. I'm heartened and buoyed this week because this is what loving your enemy looks like. I'm heartened and buoyed this week because it's what God looks like.
Makarios, God-like. God is love. Every one of these scandalous, paradoxical clauses and the beatitudes is just another way of saying, "Blessed are you who love because God is like this." Not up on Olympus, free of worry and suffering. But out in the streets, making peace and crying out for justice and showing mercy. God loves you. God loves your neighbor. God loves your enemy. And so when you mourn and when you show resolve and when you show restraint and when you show mercy and when you sow peace while crying out for justice, you love like God loves, you are a blessing. You are blessed.
In a few moments after the prayers, we're going to gather around this communion table. And all of our differences and diversity having come from lots of different places to be here this morning, we are going to gather around this table, and we're going to gather gifts. The gifts you share with us, gifts of bread and wine. And we're going to pray together. And we're going to remember how Jesus loved us together. And I'm going to bless the sacraments using ancient words and ancient rights. But don't let the fancy robes and the fancy prayers fool you, all of it, all that. Basically, it just says one thing. This is what love looks like. Love looks like this. All of us gathered here in our differences. All of us sharing our fears and sharing our joys and sharing our griefs, and our hopes, and sharing this bread and this wine. This is what love looks like.
And then at the very end of the service, again, standing behind that altar, I'm going to bless you, all of you gathered here in your differences from your various distances. But when I stand there and bless you, it won't be because you need anything from me. Nor because you need anything from God that God hasn't already given you. I'm going to bless you because you are exactly what God's world needs. Because you are the people of God, because you are beloved, because you love, because you are God's great blessing.