I keep coming back to the Beatitudes. This is distilled essence of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom of God. They are also a series of sayings that simply and uncompromisingly contradict the cultural assumptions that fuel the way we live just now.
Ever since Christians thought seriously about the Sermon on the Mount as a charter for human life and flourishing, there have been arguments and qualifications and rhetorical moves to soften the demands, and even evade the ethical imperatives of the Kingdom of God.
The Beatitudes are so counter-intuitive, and so counter-cultural that reading them as true statements can create cognitive dissonance, an inner uneasiness that we are being asked to believe statements inherently contradictory.
It's that blessed word 'Blessed', that causes the bother! How can Jesus possibly think, and say, and claim, that all these poor in spirit, mourners,meek, hungry and thirsty folk are to be congratulated? Helped, supported, defended - all of that - but to describe them as blessed and happy? And once you work out how the world works, are we really to make habits of mercy, purity of heart, peaceable peace-making, and welcoming persecution the working assumptions of our lives? Really? Is that what Jesus demands of us? Yes. Really.
So whenever we return to these words of Jesus, and read and hear again these outrageous reversals of our usual perceptions, we are likely to be not a little unsettled. Which is good. Because sometimes we become a little too settled. These are words that stop the slippage of minds too preoccupied to seek first the Kingdom of God; they collide with any kind of complacency about what a Christian world view is for those who faithfully follow Jesus; and they set the agenda for any of us who dare to pray "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."
So I often return to the Beatitudes
to get my motives, motivation and moral compass reset towards Christ as the magnetic north
to have my eyes tested to ensure I am still looking at the world through eyes attentive to movements of mercy and options for peace-making
to check that my appetite for justice and righteousness is still hungry and thirsty and pushing me towards the new reality that is God's purpose of shalom
to listen for a Voice that isn't trying to seduce me into selfishness, and its multiple goals of buying, possessing, competing, resenting, coveting and colluding
to hear Jesus say, once again, as a regular reminder, "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness" and all the other things that matter most will fall into place
to lay my mind and heart open to the deep cleaning corrective of promises that do not promise free expression of my self-interest, but the freedom to engage in a life work shaped by redemptive gestures of Kingdom grace.
No wonder Matthew tells his readers that Jesus took his disciples to a high place, up the mountainside. The Sermon on the Mount sets the rules of the Kingdom of God. The reign of God in a human life is not about coercive power; it is an invitation to risk, a calling to side with the vulnerable, a demand that we choose one of two ways, one of two foundations, one of two lifestyles.
So, yes, the Beatitudes are not airy fairy ideals for the sentimental, or the over spiritual happy makers; they are demands for a way of seeing the world, and living in the world by practices that subvert the way things are. The Beatitudes are not for the fainthearted, but for those whose hearts are already and repeatedly given over to the reign of God.
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