I believe that arguably the most important and impactful portion of Holy Scripture is Christ’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7… Bob just lifted his head and gave a hearty bark to that statement). It is the cornerstone to our Lord’s teaching on what it means to enter and to live in the kingdom of God. The Beatitudes of Jesus are the cornerstone to the Sermon, and, so, deserve to be highlighted.
Imagine with me that we are part of the crowd that originally heard Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. The world in which the people lived, and the religious system which they took for granted, was highly restrictive. In order to approach God, enter the kingdom, and be a good citizen, one needed to be Jewish; male; a faithful Law-keeper; physically whole, healthy, and able; and, if not wealthy, able to make a good living. That meant that Gentiles, women, those who struggled to keep the Law, the diseased and disabled, and the poor were on the outside looking in at the kingdom of God. To be blessed and have God’s stamp of approval on your life meant that you were a healthy and wealthy Jewish man who practiced a legalistic form of righteousness. But we have heard something about this guy, Jesus, and there seems to be something very compelling about him. We go to see and to listen to him, and here is what he has to say to us:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
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. (Matthew 5:3-12)
Oh, my, what words of life these are to us! Our poverty, grief, lack of power, desire for God, and our practice of mercy, purity, and peace toward others have brought nothing but persecution, but Jesus turns it all upside-down and lets us know that we are citizens of the kingdom of God! This is spiritual and earth-shattering stuff!
These Beatitudes are not a knee-jerk, random collection of pithy phrases from Jesus on what constitutes approval from God. They intentionally build upon each other. If the Sermon is the cornerstone of Christ’s teaching, and the Beatitudes are the cornerstone of the Sermon, then poverty of spirit is the cornerstone of the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit. This Beatitude is foundational to the Christian life. Most of the crowd came to Jesus thinking that they were on the margins of true religion. Instead, Jesus tells them that they have a place as poor and pitiable people. To be a person poor in spirit simply means that one is a spiritual beggar who recognizes that he/she has nothing to offer God. It is seeing oneself, one’s sin, and one’s life for what it really is: spiritual bankruptcy. Beggars have no ability to strike deals; they have nothing to leverage with; and, realize they do not deserve anything. Beggars do one thing continually; they beg. No respectable Jewish male would have ever begged for anything because they were not in want of anything; they could do it all themselves, thank you very much. Yet, spiritual beggars are constantly praying because they need God! Without God there is no hope. The kingdom of heaven belongs to the spiritual beggars.
Blessed are those who mourn. This is the emotional response of acknowledging one’s poverty and spiritual bankruptcy. Grief and lament have a central place in Christian theology and life. To avoid it, work around it, or short-circuit its process is to refuse Christ because there is no righteousness apart from mourning over sin. Crying, weeping, and even intense tears are important and necessary. To experience personal grief over one’s sins and the sins of the church and the world is a Beatitude of Jesus. You do not need to have money, position, be of a certain gender, or even be a faithful practicing religious person to be a mourner. This is the door by which we enter the kingdom.
Blessed are the meek. This is what happens when we realize our poverty of spirit and practice grief and lament. At the heart of what it means to be meek is a spirit of non-retaliation. When we are flat on our backs before God, there is no place to look but up. And it means there is no ability to look down on others. It is to be broken and moldable before God. If you and I were part of the original crowd that listened to Jesus, there is hope. I have no ability to practice retaliation, even if I wanted to because I have no earthly power. But that’s okay. It is okay because in this spirit of meekness I take personal responsibility for my attitudes and my actions. I am no worse or no better than any other person. I do not need to retaliate, even when egregiously wronged, because I can fully entrust myself to God alone who judges the living and the dead. It turns out that brokenness is not only significant but is the path to genuine righteousness.
Only those who know their poverty of spirit, personally grieve over sin, and are truly humble end up hungering and thirsting for righteousness. This is much more than just desire; this is the recognition that without God I will not make it. I cannot be righteous without Jesus. Simply put, righteousness is a right relationship with God and others. That is what happens when a person is meek. Such a person knows she cannot make things right by herself; she needs help, specifically, God’s help. If we ever have the thought that we can live most days of our lives without God, we do not yet know true righteousness. People who understand their great need for Jesus are not hard to spot. They crave and devour God’s Word as their daily food; and they cannot stop blabbering on about Jesus.
There are three practices of living that arise from being filled with God’s righteousness. They are the next three Beatitudes of mercy, purity, and peacemaking. These cannot be conjured up by our own will. They organically grow up within us and are freely expressed because of what God is doing in our lives. You cannot force them any more than you can force a stalk of corn to grow on your terms. Instead, you work with the unforced rhythms of God’s grace and allow his righteousness to take root in you. Below the soil the activity of spiritual poverty, mourning, and humility takes place. Then, when the plant breaks the soil and flowers, it produces mercy, purity, and peace-making.
Blessed are the merciful. Mercy begins with a disposition of the heart that seeks to be generous. Mercy is a loving response to someone or a group of people in misery. We accept them and help them because we ourselves have been there. Mercy looks for ways to come alongside others and help, rather than, like the religious establishment, just pile expectations and burdens on others without mentoring them in the ways of God. Yes, Christian discipleship involves mentoring others. When Jesus talked of us taking his yoke, he was providing a picture of what he wants to do with people. Two oxen would typically be yoked together in a field. One was young and strong, the other older and wiser. The older ox would essentially train the younger ox on how to plow a field. There is no righteousness and no mercy apart from learning from Jesus how to live in this world. If there is no yoking together in mentoring relationships, there is no accountability, and if there is no accountability, there is no planting, growing, and harvesting, and then there is nothing but a barren empty field.
Blessed are the pure in heart. Purity also results from true righteousness. A stalk of corn might look good, but if you shuck it and it is filled with worms, it isn’t going to be worth much. Legalistic righteousness is concerned to look good, is obsessed with performance, perfection, and possessions. But the righteousness of God fills our hungry hearts and makes us pure and holy, set apart for His use.
Blessed are the peacemakers. Peacemakers are people who find themselves caught in the middle and want to live righteously with the mercy and purity that God has provided for them. There is no peace in this world because there are no peacemakers. There are no peacemakers because even the good people of this world have not availed themselves of God’s righteousness; they have not availed themselves of God’s righteousness because they are not humble; they are not humble because they do not realize their poverty of spirit. In order to achieve peace, one must first be at peace with God. That’s why we desperately need the cross of Jesus Christ because through his blood peace has been achieved. There is now no wall of separation because Christ’s cross has torn it down.
Jesus was the ultimate peacemaker, provoking and challenging the establishment. You see, peace is not the absence of conflict. Jesus brought on conflict in order to bring real and lasting peace. The cross became an act of subversion to the existing religious system. Jesus championed the crowd, the common good of all, by his death. The violence of the cross brought the serenity of peace.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness. When a person exists and lives in this righteousness as presented by Jesus, there will be persecution. Folks who are offended by even slight criticisms are usually the ones who are privileged and in power. They have not yet learned the ways of Jesus. Pettiness is nothing more than a sign of unrighteousness. The point here is that yoking up with Jesus, following him, and living into his words and ways has always been risky and dangerous. The Beatitudes of Jesus are not characteristics that lead to power, prestige, or possessions, but likely just the opposite.
Pope Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, explained Christ’s Beatitudes this way: “The Beatitudes, spoken with the community of Jesus’ disciples in view, are paradoxes – the standards of the world are turned upside down as soon as things are seen in their right perspective, which is to say, in terms of God’s values, so different from those of the world. It is precisely those who are poor in worldly terms, those thought of as lost souls, who are truly fortunate ones, the blessed, who have every reason to rejoice and exult in the midst of their suffering. The Beatitudes are promises resplendent with the new image of the world and humanity inaugurated by Jesus.”
Those who are in Jesus Christ become living beatitudes, walking, talking blessings to the world. Those who live with Jesus in his kingdom have a destiny to be witnesses to another subversive, yet wonderful, way of life, where the last are first and the greatest are the least.
