blessed

Lately, I have been studying the beatitudes deeply. These blessings are so powerful and so challenging. It has dawned on me that I have dodged these most of my life... Oh, I knew they were there and even quoted them and celebrated them (after all, Christians should try to make it a habit to at least nominally agree with Jesus' words, right?). But I didn't look too closely at them--sadly--because I knew that they were more demanding than I was ready for.

So I recently decided to face this text and wrestle with it... and they shocked me. If for no other reason, they shocked me as it dawned on me for the first time in my life that these are blessings.

I always regarded them as commands--a new ethical law that determines who is really a disciple and who is simply part of the crowds who hear Jesus talking but don't follow him. Or I saw them as grand ideals to look to, but not a law because Jesus was about grace not laws. Both of these readings were basically the same approach, though: Precept and Promise. In the beatitudes, Jesus gives us a precept to be lived out and a promise that is the reward for living out the precept.

Step 1: turn the beatitude into a virtue. If it said "blessed are the poor in spirit," then the virtue was "humility." 

Step 2: act out the virtue as best as possible thereby earning the promised blessing (in this case, the kingdom of heaven).

And what do I do with the next beatitude? "Blessed are those who mourn." Mourning is not a virtue. Mourning is hurting because you can't help it.... because life has been hard, things have gone horribly wrong, hurt is so deep that catching your breath seems impossible. Well, I had to fulfill "step 1" so I turned mourning into a virtue--maybe it is mourning over sin... or maybe it is mourning with those who are mourning, so it is compassion.

Justifying Rationale: Sure it's not what God said, but it is what he intended.

This system worked well for me... it may have even made me a better and more virtuous person; however, the truth is that the reward for being virtuous is being virtuous. We never earn anything from God--we never have God under our thumb, so to speak.

The truth is that these are not a requirement list, or even a recommendation list. These are blessings. Christ is saying in these blessings, "Look at what God is doing in the world. His kingdom is here at hand and you can be a part of it if you have the capacity and faith to see just how big and amazing and high and wide and deep and powerful and inclusive is this kingdom. It includes the poor and the mourning and the meek and the persecuted. The way you think of power and blessing is in need of being turned upside down. You have to learn to see the kingdom through my eyes--learn to see the world not just for what it is, but for what it could be if it were filled with the active presence of God."

For so long I thought that the greatest danger facing me was that I was not good enough. Turns out, I am not good enough, but God's answer to that has never been giving me a list of obligatory rules to make me good enough. Turns out that God's answer to that has been loving me no matter what and calling me to learn to rely not on my own practiced virtue, but on his glorious grace. Turns out I'm not half as bad as God is good. Turns out, in God's eyes, the biggest danger facing me is a lack of imagination. I don't dream big enough.