Whenever I hear the Beatitudes and am feeling
pretty good about my life, I find myself wondering if I
am missing something. I wonder if I am too satisfied, too
content, as though I am somehow not on the right track.
When I am feeling good, I feel unconnected to these words
that say those who are poor in spirit, or meek, or mourning
will be blessed. Indeed, when I hear the Beatitudes I find
myself wishing I did possess all those qualities I usually
spend my time trying to avoid. After all, the Beatitudes
state that the way to have a blessing, the way to have a
deep inner peace and an abundance of life that cannot be
taken away, is to be meek, mournful, even to be persecuted.
The Beatitudes clearly say that if you are in some state
of need, even some state of oppression, you will be blessed.
Do the words of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount
strike you as being a bit strange? The poor are called blessed.
The mark of Christian maturity is meekness. The ones who
hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied. Those
who seek peace become sons and daughters of God. And then
the most startling statement of all: when people persecute
you and heap evil against you and lie about you because
you are a follower of Christ, rejoice, for your reward is
great in heaven.
It does sound a bit odd, doesn't it? Christian
values are conveyed here that I don't find many people seeking
today. People who are meek and who make peace-seeking a
priority are rare. Personally I have never known anyone
who rejoiced when persecuted because of their belief in
Christ. Even so, Jesus is clear when he states that in all
these states, in states of weakness and need, there is a
blessing to be found.
I think these sayings of Jesus startle and
confuse us because we are used to thinking that blessings
occur when there is an abundance of something. When there
is no need or want, then we are blessed, content, satisfied.
We think people are blessed if they have financial security,
good health, remarkable beauty, or a wealth of material
possessions. We believe it is the abundance of things that
makes people blessed, not the lack of things, the state
of being without.
Yet Jesus has a different word for us. It
is important for us to understand that the Sermon on the
Mount is at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. These words
are about a new age that Jesus came to introduce. There
would now be a new way of looking at life. Blessings would
now come in unexpected ways and places. Because of this,
our expectations should be reversed. Instead of finding
blessing in states of contentment, Jesus introduced the
idea that now there would be a certain comfort and strength
that could be found in mourning. Now there would be the
gift of the Kingdom of Heaven for those felt a deep sense
of spiritual poverty. Now there would be an inheritance
for those who were meek and powerless. Now there would be
satisfaction for those who yearned for righteousness. God
would claim peacemakers as God's children, God would reward
those who suffered oppression, God would give the pure in
heart the gift of the presence of God.
Jesus' message as well as his life was not
what people expected. He was a carpenter and a crucified
prophet, not the victorious king his people expected. He
was one who served others, not a master to be served. He
did not choose to spend his time with the power-brokers
of his time, but rather broke tradition by welcoming and
eating with sinners and outcasts. Jesus' message was always
a bit surprising, and at times confusing.
And so we wonder about the meaning of the
Beatitudes for us. For we hope for security and hear from
Jesus: "Blessed are those who mourn." We hear
from counselors to assert our best selves and Jesus tells
us: "Blessed are the meek." We try to be confident
and strong, and Jesus says: "Blessed are the poor in
spirit."
One way I understand the Beatitudes is by
remembering that God intends all people to have the good
gifts God offers. God wants people who are satisfied and
content, as well as people who feel a deep sense of spiritual
poverty to be blessed, to be spiritually blessed. The beatitudes
seem to me to be an invitation to all, a summons to seek
more out of life, to make more out of each day, to pursue
God's blessings with greater hope and passion. They are
an invitation to life -- an invitation to risk happiness
and to risk faith. They are also a promise that with the
risk, will come a blessing. God does not promise us an easy
life, a smooth journey, but the Beatitudes tell us that
God does promise joy in the journey and blessings along
the way.
You see, to live a life in Christ is to expect
the unexpected. It is to expect that your life will be reversed,
turned around, in some way. It is to expect blessings in
despair, grace in time of need, hope in sorrow, and fulfillment
in striving for what is right.
In the early 1970's Margie McCoy wrote a book
about dying. On a winter Saturday in 1985, Margie McCoy
faced her own death. Margie was an effective seminary teacher
and a popular author. In addition to her book about death,
she had written a book about Mary, the mother of Jesus,
and co-authored a book about the cross. At the time of her
death she was almost finished with the manuscript of yet
another book, but, before she could complete it, she began
to develop strange and troubling physical symptoms. She
had, it was soon discovered, a malignant brain tumor of
the most aggressive kind. Surgery, then radiation therapy,
and finally chemotherapy were required, but none of these
treatments did more than delay the inevitable.
As her condition rapidly deteriorated, she
continued to work on her book. Students, family, and friends
helped out by doing those labors her weakening body was
unable to perform. When she could no longer hold a pen in
her hand, she would discuss her thoughts with Charles, her
husband, and he would write them down. Near the end, when
she could no longer speak, Charles would say what he thought
she would want to say, and she would respond with a squeeze
of his hand.
Most people in Margie's situation would probably
have been thoroughly defeated by the pain and the relentless
malice of the disease. Margie looked instead to her faith
and to the people around her, telling them that they had
helped change "difficult days into times of wonder
and joy."
Something she said in her book, now published,
perhaps best reveals the shape of her faithful and final
struggle:
'What does it all mean?' we ask in puzzlement...?
How can all this struggle and turmoil and suffering and
caring too much or too little not have some significance
beyond being 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing?'
'No one knows,' we must respond to these
questions that well up out of our wayward longing. We are
called to trust, not to know. And trusting is difficult
for us. All our 'knowing,' if we know anything at all and
if it can really be called knowing, is knowing by faith....
Suppose ... that we could step into faith wholly, cast off
from the anxiety of the tension, and dwell fully in the
mystery. Suppose that we could learn really to trust. Is
this not what the Gospel calls us to...?
And why not? I am here and might as well,
through trust in God, make the most of it -- being on my
own particular journey, wrestling with and sometimes overcoming
my own anxieties, in the midst of mystery. Perhaps I can
even learn to say..., 'All's lost. All's found. Farewell.'
The tumor gradually expanded, stealing her
ability to write, to speak, and finally to move, but never
defeating her strong will and loving spirit. On Saturday
February 16, 1985 at 5:15 in the afternoon, Margie died.
After Margie's death, Charles discovered a
piece of paper with some words in her own handwriting. They
were probably the last words she ever wrote. "I am
discovering," she had written, "that when all
is lost, all will be found, because the end of all our journeys
is in God, with the dancing of stars and angels. So save
a dance for me!"
The promises of the Beatitudes -- blessings
of comfort and hope and fulfillment, are just that -- promises.
Promises made by God and if believed and trusted, promises
that make a difference in how we live now. God's promises,
God's blessings, and God's faithfulness are present even
in situations and places that seem void of the presence
of God.
A former professor of mine found this to be
true one summer when he helped organize a summer program
for children in Trenton. He was invited to take part in
some of the activities with the children. One day his assignment
was to teach a small class of nine to ten-year-olds. Toward
the end of their time together, three of the tired children
asked him to read them a story from the Bible. He read the
story of Noah and the rainbow. When he finished the story,
he asked, "Where do you look to see a rainbow?"
It was, he was afraid, the patronizing question of a professor
of theology.
"On the streets, " he was told.
Thinking they had misunderstood him, he repeated the question.
"On the streets," came the reply again. "You
can see rainbows in the oil slicks on puddles in the streets
and parking lots."
Those Trenton children had found God's promise
of new life not up in the sky, not way up high (for city
dwellers the view upwards is often largely blocked by the
tall buildings that line the streets and the smog that hovers
overhead). Instead they had found the sign of God's promise
way down low, in the grimy puddles of their city streets.
The rainbow of God's promise is present in
the cities too. How can we ever doubt God's blessings? Is
not the promise of God always a surprise, always coming
at unexpected times and in unexpected places? Not way up
high, but way down low. Not to the comfortable, but to the
afflicted. Not to the wise of this world but to little children.
Unto God whose promise reaches into the
night of our despair and who keeps hope alive in children
by showing them rainbows in oil slicks on city streets,
be praise and thanksgiving forever and ever.
