There is a little detail in this gospel passage that I never paid attention to before. Matthew tells us that Jesus went up the mountain to teach the disciples. What a lesson he taught them! For us, 2000 years later, the beatitudes still present a challenge, but that is because some of us still have no clue where Jesus is coming from. He certainly was not speaking to a crowd of American pilgrims visiting the Holy Land.
Unquestionably, the beatitudes are among the most famous and beloved lines in the Bible. They list the kinds of persons whom Jesus declares to be blessed, happy and fortunate, and they tell us what such persons can hope for. They place before us what our goal as Christians should be and can be. They also show us how we can reach our goal. Jesus assures us that our hopes can be fulfilled. From a teacher’s point of view, one could say that the beatitudes are the entrance requirements for entering the kingdom of heaven along with a description of the blessings that will be enjoyed by those who are there.
One drawback for many of us who are listening to Jesus share those lessons today is that we are apt to take this passage literally and miss what is truly beneath the surface. Keep in mind that each beatitude has two parts. The first part declares blessed or happy those who display certain attitudes or perform certain actions. These are the qualifications for entering the kingdom of heaven. We tend to focus on the first part and neglect the second, which lists our hopes and dreams, thus turning the beatitudes into ethical rules instead of blueprints for living.
The first part of each beatitude lists the qualities, characteristics and behaviors of those who aspire to fully participate in God’s kingdom. Such persons try to be poor in spirit, compassionate, meek, merciful, clean of heart, and peacemakers, and in the process, they are willing to be insulted and persecuted. Alas, their values stand in stark contrast to what is often celebrated and glorified in the media today.
As I said, we need to do a bit of digging to better understand where Jesus is coming from. The value that prompted all behavior back then was honor, not money. Honor was your claim to acceptance by others and their acknowledgement of that claim. What Jesus proposes here is honorable behavior on the part of his disciples. Among the basic honorable behaviors being suggested by Jesus was being poor in spirit. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Now, before you think heaven can’t be yours unless you are poor, keep in mind that Jesus isn’t speaking economics or money here. For him, being poor describes someone who has lost honorable status and must at all cost seek to regain that status.
So blessed are the poor in spirit! Jesus is not commending those who are literally poor or putting down those who are well off; he is lauding those who realize that they have lost their honor in the sight of God. Now, they see their need to repent, to change their ways, to regain the status they once possessed, and when they do, he says the kingdom of heaven will be theirs.
In our consumer-driven society, we tend to view things as the source of happiness, but Jesus is telling us not so, not so. As William Barclay, a well known scripture scholar notes, “The one who is poor in spirit is the one who has realized that things mean nothing and God means everything.” The readings today show us once again that God does not conform to the standards of the world, but rather, God turns them upside down. Those who truly love will recognize the beatitudes as examples of love in action, love that they are already showing in what they do. Lent, which begins in a few days, will provide us an opportunity to judge just how poor in spirit we really are and to see for ourselves how blessed we truly are.