Focusing
In the online version of our worship – our weekly “Moment for Meditation:, Karen sings a song she wrote some number of years agon – “Come As You Are.” It’s similar in spirit to one we like to sing in-person: “Come In and Sit Down, You’re One of the Family.” What a great message: “Come in as you are; you belong.”
What does that mean?
Does it mean, come as you are and stay as you are? No need to change and grow?
Or does it mean, come as you are – honestly are, and as you come in all honesty and openness, join in the journey of growth and grace that Jesus has for us.
What does it mean to be part of the company around Jesus? And how do we follow him in the journey towards true and authentic human being?
Scripture Reading: Matthew 5:1-12
The reading is from the Gospel of Matthew – a passage we know as The Beatitudes (from the Latin word for “blessing”), which is the first part of a three-chapter section of the Gospel that we know as The Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew presents Jesus as a kind of “new Moses” – liberating people from the systems of their day (even their own systems), to live in a new Spirit-filled way, in accord with God’s real desire for life on Earth. Long ago, when Moses began to lead the people to the promised land, he went up Mount Sinai to receive God’s instructions on how to live out love of God and love of neighbour in their life together. Now Jesus, as he begins to gather followers, goes up on a mountain to make clear the kind of life and the kind of persons who really live in God’s way in the world.
Now when Jesus saw the crowds he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.
He said:
“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 children 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.”
Reflection
How are we to understand the Beatitudes?
If Jesus is a new Moses, leading us from the systems of our time and from unhealthy ways of living, to spiritual health and the ways of God, are the Beatitudes a new law to be followed – kind of like the Ten Commandments, only stated more positively?
Instead of a list of “thou shalt not’s,” a list of “you will’s”? You will be poor in spirit, you will mourn, you will be meek, you will be pure in heart? Are the Beatitudes a list of attitudes we are supposed to try really hard to cultivate?
Not likely. Attitudes like the ones mentioned are not the kind of thing you can really just command someone to feel, nor the kind of things we can just muster up and create in ourself by force of will.
Nor does this kind of demanding seem to be Jesus’ way of doing things, and of inviting people to the kind of life they are to live.
It’s worth noting that Jesus describes the people who show this kind of spirit in their living as people who are “blessed” – a strong and loaded word. Being “blessed” means being happy and fulfilled – but from within yourself in a very deep kind of way that has little to do with the external circumstances of your life being favourable or happy. Being “blessed” has to do with knowing yourself as a particular child of God, cared for by God, loved by God, and – this is maybe the most important of all, used by God in meaningful ways for the well-being of others and of the world around you.
So it’s more like Jesus is looking around at the people around him – a whole mix of righteous and unrighteous people, insiders and outsiders, Jewish and Gentile. And he’s saying, if you want to know who the real people of God in the world are, this is how you will know them. They are the poor in spirit, they are the ones who mourn with others, they are the meek, the ones who hunger and thirst for right ways in the world, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the ones who suffer and are ridiculed for doing right.
These are the people of God – the blessed ones. And – for me, the most important thing, it’s the moments in your life when you are this way and you act this way yourself, that you are living as one of the people of God.
The question becomes, then, how do you find ourselves in this company? How do we discover ourselves at different times and in different situations, living and breathing and acting in this way?
Suzanne Guthrie, an Episcopal priest and a spiritual writer and teacher, in her blog for this week, commenting on The Beatitudes, says that “one of the most interesting sermons I ever heard was at a monastic profession [- a service at which a novice monk was professing his vows and being received into the order].
“The preacher described the journey of the man being received as a monk in terms of the Beatitudes.
“Once the man experienced humility through some kind of trauma or setback, discovering his need for God, his journey was set in motion. (Blessed are the poor in spirit.)
“Then, because of his own misfortune, the struggles of other people touched him [in ways they had not before.-]. He found he cared for people and their sufferings in the world. (Blessed are those that mourn.)
“His arrogance [along with his sense of entitlement, self-centredness, self-righteousness and superiority to others] began to slip away (Blessed are the meek), and at the same time he began to long for holiness and justice for the oppressed and disenfranchised. (Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.)
“He began thinking of others more than himself (Blessed are the merciful) and gave himself to others more freely.
“As he continued dropping his pretensions, he uncovered his authentic self layer by layer, even surprising himself (Blessed are the poor in heart).
“And, living into the Christian imperative, he took on activism and peace-making, attracting the inevitable condemnation and ridicule from the world. (Blessed are the peace-makers. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.)
"Unconsciously, [without deciding it, but discovering it step by step through an honest life-journey,] he embodied the Beatitudes through his conversion and growing in grace through the stages of his adult life.”
Suzanne Guthrie then goes on to say that seeing the Beatitudes as a kind of ladder of perfection is not new, but has been a way of understanding the Beatitudes from the earliest years of the Christian tradition. Two things need to be said about, though.
One is it’s not a ladder with the only good step being at the very top at the end of the climb. Rather, each rung along the way is by itself an experience of perfect holiness – a blessed experience of heaven on Earth and of the fullness of God being lived out in ourselves.
The second is that the way to find our feet on the rungs of the ladder is by letting the sorrows and traumas of life – our own and others, break us open wider and wider towards living in and living out the full love of God and of others that we see in Jesus. And it is a choice.
It’s easy, in the face of life’s sorrow and trauma, to close down, close in and close up – to focus more and more on just our own private place of personal blessing for our own sell-being. But Jesus says, blessed – wholly blessed and a holy blessing, are they who let the sorrows and traumas of their life and the lives of others, break them open, to be able to find the truly human life they are called to live for the good of others, and the truly human being they are called to be in the kingdom of God.
Suzanne Guthrie then ends her blog with a reference to Catherine of Sienna, who says that all the way to heaven is heaven, because you, O Lord, are the way. “As I strive to live into the life of Jesus, I taste heaven at each new level of grace, and, I hope and pray, I inadvertently let loose a little of paradise into the world, even if I’m not conscious of either receiving or giving.”
For … … blessed are they who let themselves be broken open by sorrow and trauma – their own and the world’s, to become full and mature human beings, their most authentic self, created to live – and living, in the image of Christ.
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