The Beatitudes

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. This follows blessed are those whose spirits are low, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who are debonair, and blessed are those who hunger for what is right. All these previous beatitudes have to do with the status of our spirit, the way we view the world, what we seek from God, but in Matthew 5:7, the exhortations or “congratulations” (as we learned the first week that “blessed” could be translated) take a turn from our state of being to how we affect the state of the union, i.e. the people around us. Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy.

Do you know what mercy means? Compassion is what first came to my mind, but dictionary.com outdid me and added five other definitions to this word.

1. compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power; compassion, pity, or benevolence: Have mercy on the poor sinner.
2. the disposition to be compassionate or forbearing: an adversary wholly without mercy.
3. the discretionary power of a judge to pardon someone or to mitigate punishment, esp. to send to prison rather than invoke the death penalty.
4. an act of kindness, compassion, or favor: She has performed countless small mercies for her friends and neighbors.
5. something that gives evidence of divine favor; blessing: It was just a mercy we had our seat belts on when it happened.
And as an idiom
6. at the mercy of, entirely in the power of; subject to: They were at the mercy of their captors. Also, at one's mercy.

The origin of the word has to do with “wages” which stems from yet another word meaning “goods.” Synonyms include forgiveness, indulgence, clemency, leniency, lenity, tenderness, mildness. And its antonym is nothing short of blunt: cruelty. Cruelty is the opposite of mercy.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Shucks to the cruel for they shall receive cruelty.

Now the text doesn’t say that, but that’s where my mind automatically went.

This text is about our behavior, and it warrants a response from God. Martin Luther may have pushed the ball into the other court when he spoke against works righteousness in the corrupt Catholic Church, but he did that seeking balance. Today though we may live in a world that might need to push back the other way. Today we are told to touch our television screens to receive the grace of God. When grace has become that abstract, perhaps we should re-evaluate the scripture.

So Ann, are you telling me that if I don’t do these things then I won’t get to heaven?

Actually, I’m not even talking about heaven. I’m talking about responding to God. For although the text says that when we are merciful, then we will receive mercy, just before that it says when we are run down, we will find God; when we mourn, we will be comforted; when we are aware, we enjoy the world around us; when we long for goodness, we will find it. And so when we are empty, we are filled by God. And the natural outpouring of that fullness are the following beatitudes.

For who, who has been broken by the world and healed by God, can not help but extend compassion to another broken soul?

For who, who has been convicted before God of stupid, selfish acts and granted pardon, can not help but pardon others?

For who, who has seen the beauty of a sunset, the awe of the Pyrenees, and felt the vastness of a Texas sky in their heart, not help but grant kindness to God’s other creation?

Me. Me. Me.

I am filled and then I spill. I eat and then claim hunger. I find peace and stir up disaster.

What else is new?

And so after our emptiness is filled by God, we are reminded in scripture to share that with others. And in verse 7, what we are to give is mercy, forgiveness, undue pardon, kindness, compassion.

And I wonder about what that looks like when I’m forced to vote on the death penalty. How do I respond to terrorist acts against me or my country? How do I help the drug addict who communicates his needs through brown cardboard signs while standing on the side of the road? How do I react to my neglectful parents or abusive ex-boyfriends or cruel neighbors or lying bosses or manipulative teachers who have hurt me in ways I can only express in a journal? These are hypothetical situations, but it’s not like we all haven’t encountered someone face to face or whether we know them or not whose sin has response from us.

So how do we respond?

In anger, do we ignore them? Punish them? Kill them? Hurt them? Forgive them? Guide them? Help them?

In the movie clip above, the protagonist, Jean Val Jean has just escaped from prison, lied to the priest in order to stay the night in his house and then slipped out before dawn, stealing the priest’s silver wear. The police catch him and return him to the priest because Jean Val Jean has again lied to the police by telling them the priest gave him the silver wear as a gift. At this point, the priest has a choice to make, he may again sentence Jean to prison by acknowledging his sin and pressing charges, or he may extend mercy. And in a beautiful act of grace, the priest grabs the silver candlesticks from the table and says to the policemen, “He’s correct,” and to Jean Val Jean he says, “But my good friend you forgot I also gave you these.” This act of mercy completely changes Jean Val Jean from a bitter man struggling to survive by any means possible to an honest man who ends up mayor of a town and surrogate father to a little girl whose mother died in prostitution. Now I know, this is a play, not reality. But every day there are stories of people who extend mercy when justice would be justified. And every day there are people redeemed by that mercy.

People like you and me.

People who have been down, but have been raised up. People crying who were comforted. People humble, who were given beauty. People hungry for truth who ended up satisfied.

And because we have received the mercy of God, so are we called to extend that mercy to others.

Amen.

This was my short spoken word last night at Beresheth kicking off our study in worship of the Beatitudes...

The Beatitudes. Truthfully, I don’t know much about them. I managed to remember they were at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, but that was about it. Upon reading it, I discovered there were 8 beatitudes – perfect. That will finish out 8 weeks in October and November for Beresheth and lead us straight into Advent. However, then I discovered they were in Luke too and that in Luke there are only four beatitudes and three woes. Didn’t fit my schedule. Not nicely nestled in the Sermon on the Mount. Sticking with Matthew’s version.

Of course, Matthew’s is different than Luke’s. Whereas Matthew says blessed are the poor in Spirit, Luke just says blessed are you who are poor. Matthew says to the poor in spirit belongs the Kingdom of Heaven. Luke says the poor have the kingdom of God. Are these differences theologically substantial, or are they just different ways of talking about the same thing?

So I looked at what “poor in spirit” meant. According to Song of Solomon the poor in spirit are those “who live in humble acknowledgment of their impoverishment before God and who lift up hopeful prayers.” David Garland juxtaposes the proud with the poor in spirit who “throw pride and caution to the wind in desperate appeals for help.” Likewise, Dom Crossan notes that the Greek word used denotes a desolate situation. And as the quote read states, Jesus called blessed “not the poor but the destitute, not poverty but beggary.” So is that different from Luke’s plain old “blessed are the poor?” N. T. Wright says no. He states, “I do not think there is much actual difference between Matthew and Luke at this point. The contrast upon which we should focus is not between material and spiritual poverty, but between the way of the powerful and the way of the powerless – who are likely to be the poor in all the senses, certainly in first-century Israel.”

And Israel was oppressed. They were all around destitute.

Quite different from the state you and I live in today.

We live in a mostly free country with a mostly ethical sense of morality. My religion isn’t suppressed, my civil liberties aren’t oppressed. In general, politically, we’re doing alright. Not well mind you, but compared to first-century Israel, or to 21st century Palestinians, we’re doing okay. Even the poorest of our poor in America can usually locate a soup kitchen.

But Matthew isn’t talking about money in this passage, he’s talking about spirituality.

Humility, some would say. Beggars before God. One scholar notes that in Aramaic the word poor in Matthew means bent down, afflicted, miserable. Juxtapose that with the word for meek in verse 4 which means bending oneself down, humble and gentle and I get a sense that poor in spirit has very little to do with how we choose to be spiritually. It seems imposed. Spiritually impoverished because we have no choice to be anything but. If I am meek, I move my body into the submission of bowing down, but if I am afflicted, I bend down due to external weight.

And that I get. And that I almost like.

Because it’s nothing I can control.

Many scholars call the Beatitudes the New Testament’s Ten Commandments. Matthew makes many references to Moses with regard to Jesus and there are many similarities. Dreams about their births, the slaughtering of male children by a ruler, people fleeing into exile, both fast for forty days and nights and both ascend a mountain.

There are distinctions too though. Matthew is careful to note these. Whereas Moses is taught by God, Jesus does his own teaching. Moses speaks in the name of God; Jesus speaks in his own name. Moses’ face shines with God’s glory, Jesus is transfigured. And the list goes on and on.

And of course whereas Moses brings Commandments, Jesus brings congratulations.

Congratulations to the poor in spirit! Beatitudes speak of happiness acquired by someone. In the Greco-Roman world it was a lovely bride, excellent children, moral stature, wisdom, wealth, honor, etc. Needless to say, poverty, humility and suffering didn’t generally make their list. But Jesus offers congratulations on these states of being and for what will come as a result.

A new way of being Israel. A new way of being the children of God.

And again Jesus calls to examine our hearts. For a rich old man may be just as spiritually estranged as a poor young boy because external circumstances do not determine the status of our spirituality. They may encourage or hinder it, granted, but what lies inside… hurt by the church, hurt by people, confused by evil, longing to be accepted and made whole… the status of our spiritual health is what Jesus congratulates here.

Congratulations Ann, you can’t make yourself whole so quit trying. Only God can accomplish that.

Congratulations Ann, you alone cannot fill up what is empty, so stop trying.

You cannot make your spirit light, you cannot make yourself powerful, you cannot heal what has been broken, free what was oppressed.

Only God can do that.

Enter the kingdom of heaven. Enter the reign of grace. Enter the policy of compassion.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Amen.