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

The crowds have grown, encroaching, suffocating…everyone wants a piece of Him…everyone wants to see and hear….they come poor, dirty, hurting…needy.  I might even have begun to resent them.  Jesus leads us up a mountainside, away from the din, to teach.  We wait for Him to speak, more of what we’ve wanted to hear…words of revolution, talk of new kingdoms, of renewal and change, and here we are in the midst of it…on the inside…it’s thrilling.  Yet in a moment, as He begins, the energy is drained from our self-centric view of it all…”blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Blessed are the mourners, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, the insulted…

What…?

For so long I couldn’t even read the Beatitudes, and I imagine there were disciples who couldn’t hear it then either.  I wonder why we rarely hear this in church today?  We want clear directions…we want to know the rules…so we can be sure we remain on the “inside”.  However, these rules are unattainable…I challenge anyone to tell me the 5 simple steps to any of these.  Unattainable, yet this is the journey toward spiritual maturity.

Christ begins His teachable moment by saying, in effect, “good job to those of you who are poor in spirit…for that’s the insiders track…that’s the kingdom…that is the reward.”   I don’t get it.  It’s in giving up the inside track that we gain it… giving up preference, power, recognition… giving up our needs for these things…giving up the ways we meet these needs: ambition at work, leadership in our church, deference from our spouse.  It’s giving up the desire for the inside track, even giving up the notion that there is an inside track.  It is giving up.  We could never get it.  Poor in spirit is not something to be attained or earned…it involves loss.  Loss of self.

Even in writing these disjointed thoughts, I realize I still miss it.  Like the disciples, I’m left scratching my head…wondering what happened to that spiritual worldview that was all about me.  I only have the vague sense this simple, brief passage is central to the Christian life…death of the self, loss of the self, poverty of spirit. Lord, take me there…ask of me what you will.  Do I really mean it?

Richard Rohr again:

“…And the reward is present tense! I always say this one liner is the beginning of Jesus’ inaugural address: “Congratulations to the poor in spirit.” It is a key to everything Jesus will teach and live. Your opening line often contains your main point or leads to your main point. I wonder if most Christians have seen a simple, humble spirit as absolutely central to Jesus’ teaching?

To be “poor in spirit” means to live without a need for your own rightness, or any sense of moral superiority to anyone else. It’s a free inner emptiness, with no outer need for advancing your own reputation or any opinionated one-upmanship. If you’re actually poor in spirit it won’t be long before you’re poor in other ways too. You won’t waste the rest of your life trying to get rich because you’ll know better on the inside. Inner poverty precedes and lays the foundation for a simple, non-consuming lifestyle. ”

Adapted from Jesus’ Plan for the New World, p.130

and again…

Blessed are those who mourn: they shall be comforted
~ Matthew 5:5

“In this third Beatitude, Jesus praises the weeping ones, those who can enter into solidarity with the pain of the world and not first of all try to separate themselves from it. On our initiated men’s t-shirts, we have a quote from the American Indians, “A young man who cannot cry is a savage. An old man who cannot laugh is a fool.”

If you learn how to enter into solidarity with human suffering when you are young, you will create a humanity that makes it possible for you to smile when you are old. What a paradox. If the young are not led into this human “community of pain” in the first half of life, they become hardened, egocentric, and entitled very early in their lives. Yet baby boomer parenting has thought we needed to—or could—shield our children from all pain and human suffering. I don’t think Jesus would agree with that at all.

“The weeping mode” allows one to carry the dark side of things, the “tears of things” as the Latin poet said, to bear the pain of the world without needing to define perpetrators or victims, but instead recognizing the tragic reality that both sides are usually caught up in. I must hold these contradictions, I need to suffer them, I let them transform me. The weeping mode of life is quite different than the succeeding mode, the controlling mode, the fixing mode, the climbing mode, or even the explaining mode. Perhaps it is in the Beatitudes more than anywhere else that we see how utterly counter-cultural Jesus really is.”

Adapted from Jesus’ Plan for the New World, p.133

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on Peace and Justice
• Fundraiser for Whatcom Peace & Justice Center at Chuckanut Brewery …
• Ethiopia: Open Letter- A Campaign for Justice and Peace in …
• A potent Intervention we could all use « Places we go, People we see

• Related Blogs on Poverty
• Poverty highest in Punjab, NFC told – Punjab needs more money – Oh …
• manufactured poverty drowns hope:Gaza Ramadan day 7 « In Gaza
• Hardcore Poverty Porn, brought to you by MSF « Aid Thoughts

• Related Blogs on Sermon on the Mount
• Chill Grapevine

On objectivism:

“To say that truth is personal is to affirm the image of truth that lies within each person, regardless of creed or institutional affiliation. Indeed, if truth is personal, then creeds and institutions are only the objectified shells of the truth seeking life that pulses in every human heart. We will find truth not in the fine points of our theologies or in our organizational allegiances but in the quality of our relationships— with each other and with the whole created world.”

On subjectivism:

“The subjectivist theory of knowing, like its objectivist counterpart, finds expression in teaching.  There are some classrooms where the private self reigns, where truth is reduced to what that self sees and feels and wants.  Such a pedagogy not only neutralizes other selves; it has the same effect on the subjects we study.  If the criteria of truth are my perceptions and my needs, what claim can the study of science or history or literature make on my life? This way of  teaching and learning is simply one more strategy for avoiding transformation.  If private knowledge (no matter how full and rich) is the measure of all things, I can never be drawn into encounter with realities outside myself-especially those that might chastise and correct me.  When truth is merely “in here” we lose touch with truth’s transcendence, with the critique of our illusions that comes from participating in a community of troth (good faith, fidelity).”

Reading this prompted some thoughts.  For me Truth is not represented in subjectivity or objectivity, but in relationship…it is Personal. It’s not what I believe, or what I experience or feel…it’s who I am, who I am in relation to others, the world and to Christ, and finally all this rests in who Christ is.  It is the meaning infused in every moment of life, every beautiful sunrise, every tear of joy or sorrow, every good and evil act, every animal and plant, every landscape and season.  It’s not my feelings about or experience of these things that is truth, nor is it my measuring, approving and sorting of these things that is truth.  It is the meaning that is these things.  (does that make sense?)

For me, being caught up in objectivism or subjectivism is missing a full reality. These views of the world, peripheral and transitory, are easy distractions, for being confronted with Truth ensures we’ll be confronted with ourselves.  That’s not always the easiest thing. However, at the center, the axis around which all things peripheral revolve, I find Christ facing me with arms open. The call is to give away control and be present…to accept the embrace. Each moment has meaning, for I see and live and breathe and experience and feel all things from the warmth of this embrace.

So I’m really not concerned with my behavior, though I am in love with God, and I hope my behavior reflects this.  I’m really not concerned with whether my beliefs are right, though I have deep reverence for the One who has loved me before I could love myself.  I just am who I am, and God is who God is.

Cross Emerging from a Lotus Flower

I came across an interesting article by Phillip Jenkins, entitled “When Jesus met Buddha”, and printed in the Boston Globe. It is a poignant discussion of the contemporary collision of Christianity with the other world religions, and what its future might look like in an increasingly global community. Jenkins spends a great deal of time detailing the move of the early Christian faith into Asia and Africa, relatively detached from the main body of the Church which developed in Europe. The Church of the East gave rise to vibrant communities of Christ followers in China, whose cultural expressions of faith naturally commingled and cooperated with Buddhist thought and Confucian culture. The church that emerged there adopted the symbol of the lotus cross, a cross emerging from a lotus flower, two symbols representing liberation and redemption brought together.

The article is a good read, and raises interesting questions about how the predominately European-influenced Christian Church of today will be viewed 1000 years from now. Will it be seen as the righteous holder of Truth it views itself as? Or, will this time in history be considered a dark time in the Christian church, where the essential message of Christ was overshadowed by fundamentalism? I don’t know the answer to this. I do often recognize a great difference between the Christ I encounter in the Gospels and the Christ being proclaimed to the world by the church…the ‘Good News’ doesn’t always sound that good.

Read the full text of the article here –> or  here–>
If you’d like to discuss this issue in more depth, visit our forum topic on Interfaith Dialogue, and start a discussion.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father [and the Son].
With the Father and the Son
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. AMEN.

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on The Nicene Creed
• On undefined places in the Nicene Creed | OrthoCuban