Today’s gospel is, perhaps, one of the most famous in the Christian scriptures. It appears in Matthew 5 (and also in Luke 6) and is called “The Beatitudes.” The word beatitude means “blessing” and these are a series of statements where Jesus identifies certain groups (or certain behaviors or dispositions) as “blessed.”
It’s probably important to say that I don’t think Jesus was telling people, “It’s a good thing (a blessing) that unfortunate events happened to you…You should be grateful that you’re heartbroken or lost or persecuted!” And Jesus was also very aware that unjust systems are ever at work disproportionately bringing mourning, persecution and poverty (in body and spirit) to some groups over others. So he was certainly not saying that being victimized by those systems was any kind of blessing.
So if he wasn’t saying that these things were good, what was he saying? What , exactly, is the blessing?
Like so many other teachings that Jesus offers, he turns the conventional wisdom upside-down. In the beatitudes, he is essentially saying that you don’t come to understand the kin-dom of God by being in charge, having success and status or gaining power and control. God’s kin-dom doesn’t operate by those rules.
In Mark 4 – just a few lines before we hear today’s words – Jesus has chosen his closest circle and is trying to make sure they really get what he’s about. He says, “Listen carefully to what I am saying—and be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes.”
The beatitudes are not about getting ahead. They are about developing the conditions in which beloved community and radical interdependence can thrive. And the beloved community will require people who are humble and who thirst for justice. It will need people who are able to mourn and weep and who are peacemakers. It will require those with pure hearts and a willingness to endure suffering for the sake of doing what’s right.
Just recently, Spiritus celebrated our Chiapas ministry with their annual fiesta and preaching at mass. Six pilgrims who had gone to Chiapas over the years offered reflections on their experiences. Each of them became emotional and moved to tears describing the generosity, hospitality, humility and joy embodied in the people they encountered there.
The people of Chiapas appear on no magazine covers. They are not famous. Most earn just a few dollars a day for their hard work and live in simple homes. Their lives are hard and often filled with suffering. And yet how they live and love feels different than what most of us here in the United States might be used to – so much so that it brings up deep emotions in us.
I would suggest that our Spiritus pilgrims encountered “beatitude people” there.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that it is “good” that people earn just dollars a day and live such hard lives. But that way of living forces you to look outside of the success systems, materialism and power games to find value. And it necessitates a way of living together where people look out for each other (versus looking out only for themselves). Community care becomes essential to self-care.
I often think of the author Mia Birdsong who wrote a beautiful book called How We Show Up. She talks about how the people who really know how to organize inclusive systems are actually the ones who have been excluded from the systems. They know this, in part, because they have had to organize in such a way as to keep themselves and others who are marginalized alive.
My guess is that Jesus knew this as well and witnessed it in the circles that he moved in. And in Jesus’ case, he often taught that once you have learned to live outside of the systems of wealth, power, status and success and not depend on them so much, you are far more likely to depend on God.
Richard Rohr, OFM, who has written extensively on the beatitudes says that they are a description of what a free life looks like and are really an orientation to the world that Jesus wanted his followers to cultivate. But the higher you go on the social ladder, the more wealth you have and the more you have to protect and defend, the less likely you are to understand these attributes let alone try to practice them.
Which is why he warned his followers, again and again, about the dangers of wealth, domination systems, greed, individualism, etc.
Whenever I think of the beatitudes, I reflect a lot on the culture we live in here. So much of what we have organized our life around here in the United States seems to be the opposite of what today’s gospel calls us to. Naturally I get glimpses into beatitude living in my own life or in communal settings, and it is important for us to keep having experiences (maybe like what happened to the Chiapas pilgrims) that help us to see, feel, touch and taste what another way of living looks like.
As we sit with today’s gospel, we can all let these words sink more deeply into our lives and hearts. We can work to orient ourselves towards a greater and greater dependence on God (and each other) as we work to decrease our dependence on the systems of this world – and build the alternative as we go.
Based on the beatitudes, I wrote a brief prayer that we might say:
God, as I move through my day
Help me do so with a spirit of humility
And openness to your word
Let my heart and life break open
And break free from all that holds them back
May all that I mourn in this world
Fuel my hunger for justice
Help me to live peacefully
Even if the world does not
In a world of distractions
Give me focus
So that I can help to build
The world you dreamed of
2 Comments
Pete Scorsone
Outstanding post Mike. Thank you for constantly sharing your amazing gift.
Sarah Brownell
I love this post and your poem, Mike. After spending so much time at the Catholic Worker and in Haiti, everything in mainstream US society feels wrong to me, like we’ve taken a really bad wrong turn. I worry that we keep trying to spread our American way to the rest of the world, like a virus. I went to Chiapas last November because the ways of Latin America feel so much better to me (not perfect, but better) and I needed an infusion to sustain life. I feel like a lot of other people here in the US, my colleagues at work, my neighbors, feel this too…there is too much loneliness and isolation, too much not feeling like we are enough, too much hoping that stuff or status might make us feel better somehow. But it’s just a big lie that we are all stuck in. Let’s get out! Still, the system is designed to trap us in fear for its own purposes…so HOW?
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