LAYING DOWN THE LAW


Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.(Matthew 5: 17-18 – NAS)


In these two verses we see Jesus addressing something that certainly hounds many believers today – wanting to get out from under “The Rules.” I find it interesting that He saw the same impulse in His followers back then. Evidently, some who followed after Him thought He would relieve them of their obligations to God. And perhaps, the “religious authorities” of the day were also complaining that Jesus was not only breaking all the rules but even throwing out the ones He hadn’t broken yet.

Jesus has an answer to all that, and the answer is “No, I’m not throwing out the Laws.”

The point that Jesus wants to make here is that the Laws of God shall always have value. The Lord gave His Laws for a reason. God has a purpose in mind, and He gave guidance for how we are supposed to achieve that purpose.

But the Lord knows the difficulty we have in trying to follow the Laws. We get pulled one way and the other, and have a hard time sorting out what to apply to any given situation. Eventually, it becomes so confusing that we just give up and stop paying attention. Because we lose sight of the purpose of the Laws, they become dry and harsh, and we let them kill our hearts and souls.

There is something unbending about the Laws of God, and we break ourselves upon it. Or we break others upon it. For some people, the Laws of God seem draconian in their intent, unreasonable and harsh, unjust even, and thus they turn away from them. They often say, “If God would smite someone over this matter, then He is unjust and unworthy of allegiance.” For others, who are happy to have rules they don’t have to figure out, the Laws of God become something to hide behind. For these people, the Laws become a rock wall between them and the World, something they can continually push outward, letting the wall crush those on the other side. They don’t have to really see or interact with those on the other side of the wall of Law, so surely they are “of God.”

But the problem is that both of these sets of people have lost sight of the purpose of the Laws of God. And the purpose is to bring us closer to the holiness of God, to bring us into His presence intact.

So Jesus tells his followers that He has come not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.

“Fulfill the Law”? What does He mean by that?

He came to show us how to walk through our lives in such a way that we could every day fulfill the intention God had in giving the Laws. So that we could with each step draw nearer to our Father in Heaven.

Instead of cold words carved in stone, we would have a living, breathing example of what it would look like in a person. In Jesus.

“What Would Jesus Do?” That became a catch phrase a while ago, a populist reminder that we should be trying to “live the Christian life.” But how seriously did the people who touted the phrase follow it? Did they apply the instructions of Christ carefully to their interactions with their friends, and forget to apply them when they encountered a pan-handler outside the convenience store? But even though the phrase has been trivialized down to initialism (WWJD), the point of it gets to the heart of what Jesus meant by His fulfilling the Law.

He doesn’t mean that since He lived the perfect life and obeyed all the commandments that was the only purpose of the Laws and they could be shoved aside. No, He means that the whole purpose of the Laws was to let all of God’s people become like Jesus, perfect and worthy to stand in the presence of the Most High and Holy One.

Jesus drives this home by saying that not even the smallest bit of the Laws of God will be tossed away until everything is accomplished. We can’t be sure what that means. So we might as well stick to the guidelines we have. We don’t know how long this “not yet accomplished” state will go on. Jesus says that the time to throw away the Laws would be when “heaven and earth pass away.”

It seems that God will unmake heaven and earth before He will undo the purpose of His Laws.

For me, when I am confronted with situations where I don’t know which Law of God to apply, that perspective is what I turn to. What is it that God’s over-all purpose is? It is to bring us closer to Him. So, then, which choice do I make when it seems that ethics and justice are being challenged? I go back to ground level: God is Love.

It disturbs me when I see believers use the Law to brow-beat and castigate others, when they take the harshest stand of judgment of the actions of others. I know they feel they are making the righteous choice. I know they feel that they are in the right in condemning others who they see as breaking God’s Laws. But when they lose all sense of mercy toward others by clutching to the shape of the Law, when they use the Law to hack down those they disagree with, I am really left thinking that perhaps they do not understand the purpose God has in mind. When we use the Law to crush someone else for their choices, are we not hardening their hearts toward God? We tell them, “The Laws of God say that This is what is righteous. And because you will not do This, you will be condemned!” Why are we not remembering that God more than anything else wants to draw people to Himself?

For the overriding commandment is that we love God, and then others. That is the ultimate Law of God.

BE SHINY!


You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven.(Matthew 5: 14-16)

I think this is something that many believers often overlook and downplay, at least in the sense of how these words of Jesus reflect upon their self-identity. It is easy to understand that as His followers we are to be bringing His message to others, for He is the Light of God, after all. But they don’t look at this passage closely.

Jesus does not say “You are bringing my light to the world.” He says, “You are the light of the world.”

Each of us, individually, as the person God created us, we are the light of the world.

In other words: none of us are wall-flowers, easily overlooked, so stop trying to disappear.

A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

I live in Los Angeles, in the midst of a tremendous, sprawling empire of urban development. When I was growing up, I would hear stories of how big LA was, but I had no reference or comparison. I lived in Houston, which is a rather sprawling city in its own right, and I thought I knew “big.” That lasted until the day I flew into Southern California for the first time to attend a conference, in Claremont, east of Los Angeles. The plane crossed over a mountain pass, and immediately below I could see the beginning of the urban carpet. From those mountains to the ocean shore, about 70 miles away, it seemed to be continuous city. Suddenly I knew what they meant by “greater Los Angeles.” Even though there are many independent cities in this conglomeration, they get bunched together for reference purposes. There is no hiding that this is a City.

Jesus tells His followers that this is what they are like. Something that absolutely cannot be overlooked. He mentions the city likeness to drive home the point about what kind of light He is calling His followers to be.

“You are the light of the world.”

We have all at some point been stuck in pitch darkness without a light. We know the power and attraction of discovering some small spot of light in that darkness. We are drawn to it. We cannot see in the darkness, but we can see in the light, so we move toward even the tiniest flicker of light.

And as believers we treat ourselves as Christ’s witnesses as if we are that little flickering candle. That little bright spot that others can see. Friendly, humble little wax candle, limited in scope, with a small magnitude of light. We can illuminate our little spot. That’s enough, right?

The truth is, we do behave like we’re trying to hide our lights away, to put them under baskets because we don’t want to be noticed. Jesus reminds us that nobody really does that with their lamps. He points out that the lamp is there to illuminate the whole house. It is mounted high, so the light can reach the far corners.

I always liked His humor in saying that nobody puts a lamp under a basket. Baskets, woven of dry, combustible materials are definitely not something you want to put over an open flame of any sort. Because you know what will happen in fairly short order – the lamp will set the basket on fire!

You are the light of the world.

Certainly, Jesus wants our behavior before others to reflect well upon our Lord. He says people should “see your good works and glorify our Father in heaven.” But notice that He makes that a consequence of our being light and not the definition of it. We ourselves are the light.

God created each of us to be individuals. He gave us each specific talents, a specific heart and desire. He doesn’t repeat Himself. Even identical twins end up having distinctions between them, because they are indeed individuals. Nobody else has had exactly the same experiences we have had, made exactly the same minute choices we each have made. And God prizes each individual.

That is what Jesus is calling “the light of the world.” The person you are, right down to the smallest part of you. Everything that you are was meant to be bright, shiny, glowing, beautiful in the darkness. There is nothing that you were made to be that is not of God’s light.

How much do we consider that? How much do we hide away for whatever reason? It doesn’t even have to be because we are ashamed of some aspect of our personality. It could simply be that there is something about ourselves that we do not value. So we “stick it in a corner” and neglect it. Maybe the World tells us that a particular aspect of our nature isn’t important, that it is worthless or ugly, that it isn’t useful. And we let their judgment of that override our sense of self, of who God created us to be.

Jesus tells us that our Father made us to be bright lights, to be people that cannot be overlooked.

And yet we hesitate about really being that noticeable. We’re willing to be the small flickering candle, because we can understand that, perhaps even control it. But little candles are easily snuffed out, whereas big cities on hills are not wiped out quite so casually. Is it that we fear the attention bright lights can bring? In an age that easily falls into worshipping celebrity, that craves attention, you would think that our reactions would be different when it comes to being “the light of the world.” But the thing is, we want to be in the light, so we can show off and then slip away. We don’t want to be the light.

Light is attractive in its own right. But it also shows the world around it as it really is. It drives away shadows that can hide realities. It exposes the nature of objects: something that looks handsome and solid when sitting in shadows is shown to be painted, feeble cardboard when it is brought into the light. Because not only is light beautiful, it has a job to do. And we don’t always want to be doing that job, perhaps because we think it might be difficult.

Jesus tells us that we are already the light. If we are the person God created us to be, we will by nature do the job of light. We will so shine that the people around us will wonder at it and know God made it so.

We need to stop trying to remake ourselves, stop trying to be what others want us to be. What we really need to do trust what God made us to be.

Are you hidden under a basket? You, the light of the world? Set that basket on fire.

 Be shiny.

HOW TASTY ARE YOU?


You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
(Matthew 5: 13 – NAS)

In the modern world, we are so rich in salt that we use it to excess, to the endangerment of our health. We appreciate what it can add to foods in terms of flavor, but we no longer register the other aspects of salt that made it so valuable to the ancient world.

And it was very valuable indeed. The word “salary” comes from a salt reference – it was the money paid Roman soldiers so that they could buy their personal supply of salt. The city of Venice built its trading empire on the production of salt. Celts in middle Europe became wealthy mining salt and trading it to the Mediterranean region.

Salt not only adds flavor to foods, it helps preserve them. This is part of what created its value. Mint adds flavor too, but it doesn’t have the power to keep meats edible as long as salt does. Salt is also important to the process of tanning animal skins, making them useful as garments.

Our bodies need a certain amount of salt. It helps us retain water in our cells, preventing dehydration. Because of its quality of absorbing fluids, it is useful in cleaning wounds (yes, it stings, but it helps dry out the wound).

So when Jesus calls his followers “the salt of the earth,” He is declaring that they are very valuable. He looks to them to accept their place as crucial parts of the society they are in.

It makes for an interesting question then: just how necessary are we to the people around us? What do we bring to their lives?

Salt brings out the flavor of a food. You could say that salt makes a food taste more like itself. Do we do that for the people around us, or do we try to make them into what we think they should be? Do we try and reshape them into being someone else, either some made-up personality or reflections of ourselves? It’s a danger mentors run into, making the mistake of creating mini-versions of themselves, instead of guiding their students into being more fully the individuals they were meant to be. As salt in this situation, we should be encouraging each other to be better, brighter versions of themselves, whatever that might be.

But more than that, salt also has its own flavor. If we are “salt,” what sort of flavor are we to those around us? Are we tasty and pleasing, or are we bitter and sour? Are we bland and flavorless, or exciting to encounter? Are we so distasteful that people find a single encounter is more than enough, or are we so flavorful that people keep returning to be with us?

How often do we think of this as a commandment from Jesus: “be the life of the party”? So often the person that gets tagged with that title is actually the pathetically dangerous drunk who has lost all restraints. But, to be the true life of a party or of any gathering, we would have to be that which brings life to others. In other words, function like salt.

What about the other qualities of salt? How well do we act like those? Are we any good at preserving things so that others can use them? Do we, by nature, take care to sustain those around us? Are we any good at cleansing wounds, whether they are physical, emotional or spiritual? Are we any good at drawing the toxicity out of a hurting soul and cleaning that heart so that it can be healed by God?

When Jesus calls us the salt of the world, there is so much more than being tasty, then. We have functions, duties, uses. And they are obligations that are subtle because they are part of the very fabric of life.

We should be nearly invisible as we go about our jobs as salt. For that is another quality of salt, it is for the most part without major color. It absorbs itself into fluids and substances, and doesn’t leave much visible trace – unless too much is used.

But Jesus has a warning for us as well. He reminded His followers that the salt they knew could lose its flavor and become useless.

We could stumble over this in the modern age, dismissing it, because our basic high school chemistry tells us that “salt is salt.” It doesn’t really change. This is where knowing a little bit of history and basic use becomes important to understanding what Jesus is talking about here. In His time, salt was not purified the way it is for us now. There were often minerals mixed in with the salt. Additionally, exposure to humidity could leach the salt off the minerals. If care was not taken to protect the salt, it was easy enough to lose those aspects of it which made it useful. What would be left when this sort of thing happened? Inedible particles of minerals and bitter salts. Nothing useful could be done with this, so it got tossed out the door into the walkways of the community.

When we are struggling with the basics of our own lives, we have a hard time thinking about this call from Jesus to be flavorful for other people. Where are the salt-people of our own lives, we wonder? But are we looking for the over-load of salt on a potato chip (a less than nutritious “comfort food”) or are we looking for the light seasoning that makes bland food better?

“You are the salt of the earth.” Go be tasty, useful, necessary, and nearly invisible as you work your saltiness.

THE COMPANY OF PROPHETS


Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you, because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.(Matthew 5: 11-12 – NAS)

After telling his followers that they are blessed when they are persecuted for standing in righteousness, he goes on with the cheerful news that they can expect even more persecution because they are His followers. It’s almost as if He is really challenging them, testing how deeply they are committed to following Him on the path He is showing them.

I’ve always thought that was the distracting thing about reading the Beatitudes. All those sentences beginning with “Blessed are” create this calm, serene atmosphere like an empty church sanctuary lit by warm light setting stained glass windows glowing. But then the qualities Jesus speaks of are nitty-gritty, down and dirty, hard-nosed actions. Perhaps that is one of the things that contributes to our not giving these verses close attention.

Everything that has come before this moment has had its pragmatic point. But here Jesus removes the last worldly veil of what He is talking about. Here He tells us that because of Him we are likely to become the targets of persecution. And not just attacks and hostility, but lies and slanders about our characters and actions, all because we follow Jesus. For that is what He means by “falsely saying all kinds of evil.”

Nobody likes to have their character or actions misrepresented. We do take pride in our integrity. It pleases us to shine in our own virtues, as it were. So when someone comes along and throws figurative mud on us, we do not take it well or easily. But Jesus warns us that even though we will be blessed because of those virtues, our commitment to following Him will also bring these unpleasant attacks.

He makes a point of comparing this “fate” to the treatment that the prophets were given in older times. Treated as outcasts, outlaws, disturbing personalities, the prophets of old rarely got soft treatment. Few people wanted to have a prophet in their house. But in the elder days, a prophet was also usually a selected individual, selected by God, and usually alone in his era.

But when Jesus tells His followers that they were likely to be treated the way the prophets had been treated, I think He is also indicating that unlike “those who were before you,” His followers were each blessed as prophets. No longer was the message from God to be brought to people by individual, isolated prophets, but rather every single follower of Jesus. They would be a company of prophets.

Suddenly, the mantle of Elijah falls not just to his chosen heir Elisha, but to every single person sitting there at the feet of this teacher from Galilee – and to all of us who follow Him even now.

Oh, my. Do we even consider that these days? Or do we just look at the part about being persecuted for the sake of Jesus? Ah, martyrdom! Pious images of the committed believer patiently enduring being stoned, as Stephen was. Deep in our commitment, we want to believe we can stand that ground and not give in and grovel for mercy. But let us remember that Stephen wasn’t silent as they killed him. Like one of the prophets of old, he continued getting his message out.

We may be willing to accept the possibility of being persecuted and lied about. But are we willing to be prophets? I don’t mean in the sense of fore-telling the future, but rather as being messengers of God. To really stand up in public and speak of what is important to the Lord?

We generally do not see prophets as being followers. They don’t sit quietly in pews listening to insightful instruction from pastors and then spend the rest of their week with their attention on their mundane job. They aren’t contented with singing praise songs in worship and then returning home to lunch and football games. Prophets stand up in the middle of things and take our attention off worldly things by talking – loudly – about God.

It would seem that Jesus expects us to have that kind of passion about our commitment to Him. But He also tells us to rejoice about this, because our reward in heaven will be great.

Now, that must be something indeed, for we know already that just being part of the kingdom of heaven is a great and marvelous thing to start with. Yet Jesus says that in all that glory, when we are persecuted because we are His followers, we shall be the great among the great, the glorified in the midst of glory.

These beatitudes challenge us about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And He gives us these challenges before He even unfolds the greater details of the way to live a godly life. He makes no pretense that this is going to be easy. He even goes so far as to say explicitly it will be difficult, painful, and possibly even deadly. But if we stick it out, our reward is great.

PERSECUTION AND AUTHORITY


Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.(Matthew 5: 10 -- NAS)

This is one of those points where what Jesus has to say boggles our minds. “Wait!” we exclaim, “Persecuted? I’m going to be persecuted? And you expect me to think of this as a good thing?” We really don’t want to go there.

Everyone at some point has felt put upon or bullied. Some have endured even more intense abuse. But are these necessarily “persecution”?

The term “persecution” gets used for a very focused pursuit with intent to cause injury and agony, usually because of the victim’s beliefs.

So, being harassed just because someone dislikes you is not the same thing as being persecuted, at least for what Jesus is talking about. And that’s an important thing to remember, the “for the sake of righteousness” qualifier that our Lord included in this statement. Many people who become the target of public criticism try to put on the cloak of self-righteousness, claiming to be “rising above” the perceived attacks. Is that what Jesus meant?

We looked at the matter of righteousness before, when we considered those who hunger and thirst for it. It’s that mixture of a sense of justice and balance, and a commitment to the divine order. There’s nothing in all that about our own ego or vanity or self-image. When we are committed to righteousness, we’re committed to God’s causes.

What Jesus upholds here then, are those who are willing to take a stand on principle, regardless of the social consequences. And he is pointing out that such a choice will bring persecution down upon you. There will always be those who have no interest in seeing righteousness prevail.

“Seeing righteousness prevail.” That’s very “churchy” talk there. What does it actually look like? What are those right things in the world, those divine things? Refusing to break the law, when peers are urging it, that could be one instance. But seriously, how often do our friends do that? Well, except for things like grabbing the handicapped parking spot even though no one in the car is disabled, because it’s “just a quick run in and out.” Or asking a friend to lie about your absence so you can attend the football game where you’ve got seats on the 50 yard line. All around us, every day, there are the tiny cracking sounds of little bits of rule-breaking. But surely they don’t matter.

The problem is that we get so comfortable with tiny instances of rule-breaking that we stop distinguishing when the matter becomes more serious. And that can be dangerous. If you’re standing on a sheet of ice, and you’ve been ignoring all the tiny cracks running away from your feet, all the small noises of fractures forming, you could very suddenly find yourself dropped straight down into icy cold water that could kill you very easily.

We really don’t like it when someone with us says “You shouldn’t be parking in the handicapped spot.” We get unhappy when our close friend says, “No, I’m not going to lie for you.” We feel put-upon unjustly, even though the reality is not injustice but rather our immediate desire being thwarted. We run into a brick wall, and think it is the wall’s fault for not moving.

When we set our hearts upon righteousness, and are willing to hold onto that, there will be moments when we have to say “no” to the small rule-breaking that everyone urges us to do. By choosing righteousness, we are, in a sense, making ourselves part of the “brick wall.” Are we ready to face what will come as a result of that?

People don’t necessarily like being reminded of righteousness. It isn’t comfortable, when that’s not the route they’re choosing. They don’t like the reminder that they could be better people than they are. They don’t like the reminder that their choices could be damaging to others. And when they are reminded, their impulse is to blot out the reminder, tear up the envelope, throw the annoying message into the trash.

In a word, persecute the righteous one.

Jesus says that the person who has made the choice to stand upon righteousness, “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

I’m not sure that’s a “reward” we find easy to grasp. What does He mean by that?

I don’t think He intended it as a consolation for enduring the slings and arrows of outraged self-indulgence. I think He’s giving an affirmation to those who make this choice, to be principled, to stand their ground, to hold to righteousness. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” If they possess heaven, then, that means they have some aspect of the authority of heaven. They are in command. God puts His power into the hands of these people who are willing to stand up for righteousness and become targets.

Underneath this verse lies the issue of martyrdom, those who are attacked and killed because of their beliefs. Many people take up the causes of righteousness and boldly declare their intention to stand their ground, no matter what. They proudly declare that they are quite willing to be “martyred” for righteousness sake. And Jesus was not blind to the fact that being killed was a possibility. But “dying for the cause” is not what He is looking at here. Look again at what He says.

“Blessed are those persecuted for the sake of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” It isn’t “Blessed are those killed for the sake of righteousness for they get to go to heaven.”

In that moment when we are being attacked because of our stand upon righteousness, what are we thinking? Are we focused on defending ourselves? Are we feeling powerless to have any effect on others, other than impressing us with our rock-solid commitment? Do we ever remember in that moment that we have the authority of heaven in our hands?

And if we do remember that we possess the kingdom of heaven in that moment, that we are the wielders of the authority of God, what do we do with it? Do we browbeat and chastise our persecutors? Do we mock and ridicule them for their efforts? Or do we try and do as the Lord has done, dispensing justice and mercy and love to them?

You make a commitment to the Lord, and stand your ground on His law, for “righteousness sake”. And someone comes after you, persistently attacking you because of that stand. The authority of heaven is in your hands, you possess it. What do you do with it?

UNTANGLE FROM THE ENDS

I gave myself a break from the Sermon on the Mount study this weekend. I realized that I had been writing to specific points every day for seven weeks straight. Every day without a break. And suddenly my mind balked and said it wanted a day or two off.

So I did. (I'll pick up again with the study on Monday.) Besides, a side thought had occured to me that I wanted to muse upon. I think, in the future, I'll be posting daily entries for The Measure on weekdays and use the weekends for either breaks or thoughts on other things.

I should say something else about The Measure Dealt To Me, though. I've been writing about 1,000 words per post on this study, but have come to realize that for some of them I still haven't said enough. So what will be happening "behind the scenes" as I go along is that those posts will likely be expanded with additional illustrations and personal experience. So the final book, when it is completed, will be much more than these blog posts.

The discipline of writing daily to specific points has been very good. And it's given me a lot of food for thought. Which brings me to the title of this post.

I was washing my hair the other day, and reached the stage of working the conditioner in. For a long time, I'd had the habit of putting the conditioner on the top of my head - at the roots, and then working it through, hoping it would disentangle my very fine hair. When you have light, fine hair, it gets tangled very easily, and just yanking a comb or brush through it only pulls it out. Now I've known for a long time the instructions recommend putting the conditioner on the ends first and then working back up the strands. Yet, I'd persist with the top down practice.

However, lately, I've finally got that turned around, starting from the loose ends. And of course, this works much better, and makes it easier to get the whole hair shaft treated with the conditioner. Because by untangling the loose ends first, it makes it easier to separate them upward toward their roots. Working downward always resulted in the places that most needed untangling being the last to be separated.

Yes, there is actually a spiritual / psychological lesson here. Because that's the way my mind works at times.

What I realized is the importance of making changes by starting with the small things. Or I should say, saw something I already knew from a new perspective. Everyone always does say "Start small" but when faced with so many things that need changing, it's hard to choose a starting point. But as I was standing there, working the conditioner into the loose ends first and feeling them separate and untangle, it was like a revelation. You cannot effectively condition the roots of the strand until the small loose ends have been freed from their tangles. Massage the roots all you want, but if the conditioner hasn't freed the loose ends, the tangles still remain.

It's just one element in some self-evaluation I've been doing. So, I'm starting with some small things, and am working my way toward some bigger matters. After all, God actually is interested in our "small stuff" as much as He is interested in our "more important" things.

MAKING PEACE


Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
(Matthew 5: 9 – NAS)

Few people really want to be peacemakers. It is not a fun task. And yet, when one steps in everyone is thankful that the person was there.

We’ve all been in family or social or work situations where a conflict has sprung up between two people. The reasons for the conflict don’t even matter. These two people are clashing in public and are affecting everyone around them. The atmosphere becomes uncomfortable, and usually the onlookers cannot escape. Sometimes, the conflict spreads, as the onlookers take up one side or the other. The chaos and anger expands outward, disrupting everything.

Who in their right mind wants to get into the middle of all that? Who wants to step up and get between fighters? Who wants to become the sudden target of everyone whose emotions are caught up in the battle?

Nobody.

Nobody wants to do that, I should say.

Conflict throws things out of balance. It causes everyone to lose their equilibrium. And we need to have that in order to move onward effectively in our lives.

So someone has to step up.

What does it take to be a peacemaker, to restore balance to a situation?

It takes a sense of vision, to be able to see both sides of a situation. It requires the ability to know how each side arrived at their current place. The Peacemaker needs to be able to determine where things “went off the rails.”

It isn’t possible to resolve every single conflict around us. Some clashes run very, very deep and are beyond the ability of any one person to bring back into balance. But we all have the capability of nudging things back toward the point of equilibrium.

Telling anyone that they are wrong – even when they are – is no easy task. Because most people stand at a point believing they have done everything right. Pointing out to them everything they have done wrong doesn’t help, because they can’t always see it. It takes work to get some who is in a conflict to even look at the causes for the conflict, because hurt feelings and a sense of self-righteousness get in the way of direct examination.

I don’t like the vibe of conflict around me. But that’s an incomplete statement, for I’m as willing as the next person to get into an argument with someone about an idea or a principle or a choice. I can be just as passionate about my opinions as the next person. But there often comes a point when the arguments and disagreements move beyond mere contention and move into outright battle. And that’s where I prefer to stop. It isn’t that I fear being destroyed, though. I fear my ability to destroy others. I don’t care if I get wounded – well, not much, because I can recover from a wound. But how do I recover from so crushing someone that they bleed out (figuratively speaking)? Because I know I am just as capable as the next person in delivering such a blow. I pay attention to those around me, and I often know exactly what their weak spot might be. I’ve even been known to take jabs at those points, when I’ve been down, distress, and feeling resentful. Not a pretty picture.

But in knowing how easy it is to damage and crush someone, I find that the prospect of doing it gives me no pleasure at all. I want to get back to a balance where I can enjoy things.

And that is what can motivate someone to step in and risk being attacked by both sides of a conflict. It is the search for balance for everyone.

Making peace does not mean that everyone has to walk away all happy and lovey-dovey. That isn’t always possible. Sometimes, making peace consists of getting both sides to agree and acknowledge that neither will get everything they want, but yet a working balance can be achieved between them. This doesn’t have to be done in big ways, for even small things can have big consequences.

I once knew a man who, when I got to know him, spoke of his ex-wife almost always as “Annie’s mother” (Annie being the daughter they had together – and yes, the name has been changed here). Since he and I and the ex-wife (by this time happily remarried) all moved in the same social circles, I found his circumlocution ... disappointing, to put it mildly. It was, I felt, a way for him to deny his ex-wife’s personhood, and it didn’t really do any of them, or me, any good. So I refused to play along. I never said to him, “She has a name.” (Or at least I don’t think I did.) Instead, if she came up in conversation, I would refer to her by name. The change was not immediate, but gradually, as he became more willing to speak his ex-wife’s name, he also became more willing to be publicly gracious to her and get on with his own life. I like to feel I contributed a little bit to that, by restoring a balance that had been lost.

It’s one thing to do this when you are the disinterested third party, not directly in conflict with either of the contenders. It’s quite another thing to be the peacemaker when you are one of the parties in conflict.

To become the peacemaker in that circumstance means cultivating the ability to step back and examine one’s own behavior. It isn’t fun being honest with yourself about a clash you have with someone else. On top of that, the other person is often resentful and doesn’t want to deal with you. But if balance and peace are important to you, you shouldn’t put it off. You have to be honest both about your own actions and acknowledging how they obviously were received and about the actions of the other person and how they set you off. I’m not talking about accusing the other person of anything but rather simply a “When you did this, this is how I reacted, how I felt. And that’s why I then did this other thing.” Avoiding the matter of who is right or wrong means that the other person doesn’t have to dig in their heels to defend themselves. This is a harder process.

But look what Jesus says about those who can do this – “they shall be called sons of God.” Okay, so he was speaking to a patrilinear society where the position of women was rather subordinate, particularly in matters of inheritance. In one of his letters, Paul makes clear that the inheritance extends to all believers, and I think this is what Jesus is speaking to here. The Peacemakers shall be called the immediate heirs of the God of Creation.

What a splendiferous thing that is! If we choose to exercise this quality, we shall be seen and named as being of the direct family of God. Now that is a blessing indeed. Are you bold enough to reach for it?

WHAT'S IN YOUR HEART?


Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.(Matthew 5: 8 – NAS)

There are not many variations to this declaration. In fact the only variation I could find says “Happy are the clean in heart – because they shall see God.” This is Young’s Literal Translation. 
What does it mean to be “pure”, I wonder? Particularly when it comes to ourselves?

The word “pure” is simple enough: to be unmixed with other matter; to be free from contaminated substances; to be ritually clean; to be free from that which does not belong. Everything else the word might mean flows from these. But it has to be something more than just "clean."

So what does that make “pure in heart”?

In the ancient world, the heart was considered the location of thought and feeling. That’s why Mary “pondered things in her heart.” Even though we now know scientifically that that mass of cells in our head is where the processing of both thought and emotion lies, we still use phrases like “I know in my heart” as a way of conveying those things which we are most certain about, even if it is beyond reason. We know how vital our hearts are to keeping us alive, and so we imaginatively locate all our important things there.

People tend to generally regard the description “pure in heart” as meaning basically someone who holds to all the virtues. The “really good” people. And I think that’s a good place to start. But is it the totality of what Jesus meant?

Remember, people in that time considered the heart the seat of thought and feeling. And then there are all those scriptural references to “the desires of our hearts.”

There’s something bigger here than just “well behaved” people, then. So let’s look closer.

“Pure in thought.” We talk about people who “keep their thoughts pure” and often throw in a slightly mocking tone, because what we conjure up with that is someone who doesn’t let their thoughts stray toward “dirty matters” like sex (in any form, apparently). But humans were created as sexual creatures. Why should “purity” involve excluding something so basic and so intense in our experience? We try to shut it down because it is so intense that it often leads us astray, that’s why. We get into a mindset that it would be better not to think of something at all rather than risk going astray. What would happen if we stopped focusing on physical gratification and instead focused on commitment to our mates, emotional honesty, dedication to fidelity and honoring our partner?

But there are also the issues of how we lay out our plans in our careers. What choices are we making and are we clear about them, or are we just drifting along? “Pure in thought.”

What about “pure in emotion”? This isn’t just about holding on to all the “good” emotions. Those are certainly the ones we want to have most if not all the time. But I don’t know anyone who really succeeds in that. To me, being “pure in emotion” means being honest about what we are feeling. We can do so much damage, to ourselves and others, if we hide our emotional reactions to things. And when we deny, even to ourselves, that we have a particular negative emotion, that only festers inside us. If you are angry, be angry and deal with it. Don’t push it down and pretend it doesn’t exist. That only causes its toxicity to leak into other areas of your life. But if you face it, you can deal with it, and get back to those much more positive feelings you do enjoy. Putting something off until later does no one any service.

And when it comes to “the desires of our hearts,” what then? For I don’t think the Lord was talking about our incidental lusts for that shiny new car or the newest whiz-bang smartphone. When scripture uses that phrase, the writer is talking about something much more inherent in each specific individual. We each have something in us, buried deep in our fibers, that we want to do or be. But the world can easily divert us from those goals. They may be difficult to achieve and we can fall by the wayside in striving for that achievement. They might be something we want to do, and we are regularly thwarted from learning the necessary skills. And yet, somewhere deep within, there is something alive that wants to be manifested – the desire of our hearts.

Can we keep ourselves pure in that? Or do we let disappointments drown out its song? Do we let other things get mixed in with it until we no longer recognize that desire?

“Pure in heart” then is indeed something much bigger than just being virtuous. It involves remembering just what God created us to be, and holding onto that. It means being ready to let go of those things that don’t help us purify our very natures.

Why does it matter? Look at what Jesus says – “they shall see God.”

Before your very eyes, unveiled in His glory, you who have burned away the impurities in your hearts shall see God. Not as a stern judge and executioner. Our Lord and Father shall be there for us to see, our safe home and comfort. As a reward for striving to be so entirely the self he made us each to be.

THE QUALITY OF MERCY

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.(Matthew 5: 7)

Mercy is an interesting quality. We certainly want to be on the receiving end of mercy. The cop pulls us over for a minor infraction of traffic rules and we hope he’ll be merciful and just give us a warning. Or something awkward is said in front of the boss, and we hope that he’ll be merciful and ignore it.
So we do know what mercy is, on the receiving end.

But Jesus is talking about mercy from the active end. “Blessed are the merciful.”

To be merciful is to extend compassion to those before us, especially when our next action can have a major effect on the other person’s life. It’s easy enough to be merciful to those whose actions have not affected us, and who won’t really be touched by what we decide. That is why there is a certain hollowness to declarations of charity directed at third parties who don’t even know the charity was extended. Where is the mercy in that? If I declare that I have pity for a teen who robbed some money in order to buy food for his hungry younger siblings, yes, that is a certain amount of compassion for him. But is that mercy? He didn’t steal from me and I don’t even know him.

Mercy requires a direct connection. There is nothing merciful at a withholding of action from a remote distance; that is just something that did not happen. True mercy cannot be done at a removed distance or through proxies.

Ah, so that is where it starts to be difficult: it has to be done face-to-face!

Starting with the instances where we are just extending compassion to someone and no injury has been done to us, this isn’t too difficult. We can encounter a needy panhandler and easily give some money, because their need is evident. There has been no injury to us, only the discomfort of seeing someone who is in great need.

But when the offense is done to us directly, it is not so easy to be merciful. It requires us to accept the injury done, and present a compassionate front to the offender. That’s a very different game.

Start small: there are daily instances where we can be slighted or disrespected. How do we respond to these? Is that matter of such importance that we really need to behave resentfully and create a confrontation? If it is not, then Jesus' call to us to be merciful comes into play. That means being compassionate enough not to make a scene about it. The offender may not even know he or she has in fact offended.

And let us make no mistake: Jesus really is calling us to develop the qualities mentioned in the Beatitudes. He hopes that we will choose to be those described as “blessed.”

But refraining from getting into hassles with those around us because of small offenses, we do end up presenting an appearance of meekness. Unfortunately, many people take that as being submissive in the weakest way. And protesting that interpretation rather negates the whole of the choice. This is when we start to realize that the life Jesus calls us to is going to be constantly misinterpreted.

Does it matter whether others understand our choices in behavior? It shouldn’t.

But there’s more to this. As we become more practiced in being merciful about minor injuries, we learn how to be merciful about larger matters.

It’s not impossible to be able to extend mercy to someone over a major injury or infraction. But it can be a struggle to exercise it, when one has not practiced it much in the smaller things of life.

Jesus does say that there is a “pay off” to being merciful toward others, though. He says that such people receive mercy back.

Something in our character is changed by being merciful toward those around us, and that change is such that it attracts merciful responses from others. Jesus doesn’t say that the merciful receive mercy from those to whom they had extended compassion. He just says “they shall receive mercy.”

We don’t know when we might need mercy from others. Even if we go through life without intentionally doing harm to others, there will still be occasions where something goes wrong and we injure others. We all need mercy at some point. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to have developed a character which attracts the impulse for mercy in others?

The real challenge is the mercy in small things, those incidents that are slight. Not big dramatic moments where we can make a public display of our mercy to a terrible person, but rather the small moments when we’ve been sneered at or insulted and not only did the other person not realize what they had done, but we have to behave as if it did not happen. Refusing to exercise our anger in public can be an act of mercy not just to the person creating the injury, but also to anyone else within range.

So maybe this mercy thing isn’t so easy after all. But it is certainly well worth doing.

DO YOU WANT TO BE HUNGRY AND THIRSTY?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
(Matthew 5: 6)

It is so easy for us to focus on the conjunction of “hunger and thirst” with “they shall be satisfied.” We may even want to skip over that “for righteousness” part. So many other verses in the Bible speak of how God watches out for us and provides for our needs that we just want to stay with that. But even though Jesus will say something about that later, that’s not what he’s saying here.

Instead, He’s talking about something else.

“Righteousness.” What is that to us, in this day and age?

The New English translation says “those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail.” Is that enough? The New Living Translation says “hunger and thirst for justice.” So what does “righteousness” really mean to us these days? According to the dictionary (I do like going back to that resource), to be “righteous” is to be “acting in accord with divine or moral law; arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality; genuine, excellent.” That is more than mere “justice” at the least.

There’s something bigger here than having things right in a worldly sense. Social justice is about balance in society. It doesn’t have much to do with balance between us and God. But it isn’t too surprising that we try to downplay the nature of “righteousness.” How far we have come from divine law! Even “moral law” is getting ground down. We live in a society that mostly focuses on just “law,” the civil regulations we have drawn up to make social interactions run smoothly.

People worry about what is legal, what they can do legally. Far too many people have stopped thinking about whether their actions are moral. Having an affair may not be moral, but the legal consequences of the action are dependent on what the people involved choose to make of them. Even fewer people consider anything related to divine concerns.

But Jesus speaks of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness – those things which God considers right or wrong. Jesus challenges us here. He makes us look beyond what society expects, He wants us to look to God Himself.

To hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God. That’s a far stronger desire than merely wanting things to be right.

I have a bad habit of not drinking enough, of anything, but especially of water. I get wrapped up in my activities, and don’t take a drink of anything. But then there comes a moment when I pick up my filled water bottle and drink. Not sip, not taste, but drink. The immediacy of water is a wonderful thing in the body. We don’t linger tasting flavors, it goes straight down, and our bodies absorb it into the system easily. It refreshes us.

And hunger, what about that? For most Americans, being really hungry isn’t an issue. They can have access to food fairly easily. It might not be wonderful to taste, but it can be sustaining. We very rarely have to do without. But say the day comes when there isn’t much food at hand, nor the means of getting any. If we’re not being particularly active, we can hold on for a time. If we don’t burn many calories, our bodies can draw on reserves stored up. But eventually we need more protein.

It is hard to step back and realize our body needs real food, not just the incidental fuel that carbohydrates provide. We’re hungry for true sustenance at that point, and when we get it, we know we have all that we need for the next day or so.

This is what Jesus is talking about: those who want God that way, who need to drink in the righteousness of God. He praises those who want God so much that they want and need to drink Him right into their very being. He praises those who need God as their daily sustenance, to fuel them through all their day’s labor.

Jesus calls these people blessed. But that isn’t all: they also will be satisfied.

They are not thirsting for the impossible. They are not hungering for the unattainable. They will be satisfied.

The desire for God’s engagement in their lives will be fulfilled. And it’s an engagement for a right balance in all aspects of life. Not just the worldly laws and justice working, but the divine sense of balance being exercised all around us.

Do we want that righteousness, though? In the play Hamlet, the prince chastises a courtier who says he will treat the play-actors “as they deserve.” Hamlet reproves him with “Use every man according to his desert and who should 'scape whipping?” Far too often we hunger for fairness (meaning we are not the one who loses). Far too often we hunger for revenge and call our desire justice. Far too often the balance we seek is that those who have oppressed us should suffer as we have suffered.

But the righteousness of God is available to all. Are we willing to give up our desire to dictate to God whom He can bless?

For a statement that seemed easy at the beginning, this has turned more complicated. And yet, here it is, something Jesus is upholding as highly desireable. To hunger and thirst after righteousness, God’s sense of what is right or wrong. It requires that we let ourselves become hungry and thirsty in a very specific way. But it also promises something quite remarkable: it promises that we will be satisfied. How can we not want that?

MEEK AND HUMBLE, WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT?


Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. 
(Matthew 5: 5 – NAS)

Most translations use the word “meek” for this verse, but the New American Standard has the word “gentle.” The New Living Translation uses the word “humble.” These possibilities are all interesting.

For modern usage, the word “meek” has fallen on hard times. The first definition given in the dictionary says “enduring injury with patience and without resentment, mild.” That doesn’t sound so bad. But it goes on with “deficient in spirit and courage; submissive; not violent or strong, moderate.” It is those later definitions that give the word its troublesome effect.

“Deficient in spirit” sounds similar to “poor in spirit,” but we tend to use “deficient” in a more negative sense, as if one has chosen to lack a quality. And I don’t think that is what Jesus is talking about. “Submissive” also carries a negative weight. The use of “humble” for the quality Jesus is referring to here might be closer to his intent. To be humble is to be something other than arrogant or proud. After all, it is possible to imagine that someone can be proud and still gentle (to a degree).

I think that Jesus meant a mix of these elements. I think he meant people who do not exalt themselves, people who will take the time to be kind to those they encounter, who are willing to be patient with the people they deal with each day.

In the musical Camelot, Mordred has a song where he mocks the virtues that King Arthur extols. He sings, “It’s not the earth the meek inherit, it’s the dirt.” He sees no benefit in being meek. The meek get trampled on, until they end up under the dirt, buried like trash – according to Mordred. That’s not a fate anyone desires. His attitude is the one that most of the world holds toward those who are meek and humble.

And yet, Jesus says it is these people who will inherit the whole earth. What’s going on here?

Let’s back up and look at the people he’s talking about, what they will look like when we see them.

Someone who is meek and humble will be patient with those around them. The meek and humble person is the woman in the line at the coffee shop, who when someone cuts in front of her, merely smiles and shrugs instead of making an angry protest. This person is the cashier in a store who is patient with the protesting customer, listening carefully and trying to explain the problem as calmly and clearly as possible, not giving into anger. The meek person is the one who quickly stops to help someone who has dropped packages on the sidewalk, and then goes on without any fuss.

These are simple enough actions, so why are they worthy of note?

They’re notable because we just don’t do them, not easily. And the fact is that when we do see people who act with humility and gentleness easily, we are impressed by them. We are touched by their acts of kindness.

Jesus says that these people will “inherit the earth.” That means they will be given “the earth.”

We don’t admit it, but we really do appreciate those who treat others with patience. We admire their ability to stick with the choice, acknowledging that we probably would not be able to do likewise. That is why they become the recipients of this divine inheritance. God trusts into the hands of these people the whole of the earth.

How do we change ourselves to become one of these people? What do we have to do to be one of the meek, humble, gentle?

One of the first elements of it, I believe, is that we have to be willing to swallow our own pride. Our personal dignity is not dependent on always getting deference we think is our due. We need to be ready to do the job at hand when it needs doing, and we need to do it without complaining. Our eyes cannot be on “the prize” because the minute we start looking for a reward, we stop paying attention to what is immediately in front of us. And that is why “the prize” is an inheritance – it is the choice of the giver, it is not a wage that is earned, and there is no indication of when one would receive the inheritance.

This is one of the qualities that Jesus praise (and blesses) that seems a bit easier to get into. Perhaps more of us should try it more often. 

DEALING WITH HOLES IN OUR LIVES


Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
(Matthew 5: 4 - NAS)

So, now we have an idea of what it means to be “blessed,” and it is something that we can see working with those who are “poor in spirit.” When you know you need God, sure, we can see how that can be addressed by the Lord.

But Jesus then immediately follows that “just spiritual” condition with something everybody meets in their “ordinary” life. We may not have cause to mourn every day, but nobody gets by without some sort of loss that they mourn.

What does it mean to “mourn”? The dictionary says it means to feel and show or express grief.

To show or express grief? Oh, wait a minute here.

Our modern culture has taken a very problematic attitude toward grief. We’re not really very comfortable with the grief of others. It disturbs us.

Yet, on the one hand we make a great show of certain moments of grief. A celebrity, especially an entertainer, dies and there is suddenly an huge outpouring of public displays of grief, where fans give show to huge emotional displays of loss. I’m not trying to say that their grief is fake. The loss of a talent that has inspired many, given pleasure to many, is indeed a sad thing worth grieving over. Artists enrich our lives and we are diminished when we lose such individuals.

But our idolization of entertainment providers becomes a form of worship. It doesn’t seem to occur to people that they are raising up a god that comes before God. I have heard commentatory speak of wailing fans as being “inconsolable” – meaning they could not be comforted. Doesn’t that run contrary to what Jesus is saying?

But there’s another side of our expressions of grief. There’s a tendency for us to pressure those who have suffered a personal loss to either get over it quickly or to make a bigger, more public display of their grief. There seems to be an expectation of public display when the loss is unexpected, tragic, and caused by human agency. We put up “shrines” (and they are indeed called such) at the spot where a person was killed by some reckless driver, or where some other unjust end occurred. We institutionalize the memory of the lost one, and focus all thoughts on the fact that the dead person is lost. On the other hand, we also urge people to “get over” their grieving when the loss comes about in less dramatic ways. When the loss is some physical ailment, without heroic resistance to the ravages of some “famous disease,” many people urge the grieving to move on, get back into the flow of life.

As a culture, we are terribly inconsistent about dealing with grievers.

Loss hits us hard in the core of our being. We grieve over losses, because it changes our lives drastically. We want to express the distress of deep changes, because that expression lets the emotion flow through our being and “get out.” We used to have a broad cultural customs that dealt with the process of grieving. A year of mourning, wearing black in various ways in order to communicate to those around us that we had major loss. But we don’t do that any more. Or not much. We don’t give people very much temporal space in which to deal with their losses. Instead of formally grieving for the loss of a loved parent for a year, we zip across country to attend the funeral, maybe having a week for the “public display” of loss, and then we expect the griever to return to the usual pattern of life, and get on with things as if the loss were no different than a minor holiday weekend absence.

Perhaps the answer to this lies in the other part of what Jesus says. “They will be comforted.” What does that mean?

We do know what it means to be comfortable. That means our physical being is not being stressed. It’s possible to be comfortable in action, if we are moving in such a way that does not stress our bones and muscles. But we usually think of it as being at rest. We extend that sense of balance to our emotional lives when we mean that we are being emotionally comforted – we are brought to a place where our emotional distresses have been at the very least balanced by reassurances on the positive end of our emotional spectrum.

Mourning is a way of letting the negative baggage of loss get out of our system. Yes, it can affect the people around us, making them discomforted because they don’t know how to deal with it. And that is part of why they try to limit mourning. They feel as if they are expected to provide the comfort and they don’t know how to do that, so they want to eliminate their awareness of loss and mourning around them. Those who do try to comfort, sometimes do it badly (though not intending it that way), urging replacements on the griever long before that person is even ready to look beyond the loss.

Mourning is a way of valuing the people, places and things in our lives. When we lose them, by whatever means, we have cause to mourn. Something that was significant to us is now gone from us, for whatever reason. In order to cope with that, we do need to spend some time thinking about the value of the Lost One to us. We do need to sound out the shape that person had in our lives. But the time for mourning should be about knowing and acknowledging that loss, not taking residence inside it.

This is the difficulty about mourning, and where that word “inconsolable” comes into play. Each loss makes a hole in our lives. Some people fall into that hole, pouring the entirety of their lives into the much smaller space of their loss. “He was everything to me!” I don’t wish to belittle the importance of anyone’s grief, but that’s not true. There is only one thing, only one person that is bigger than the shape of our whole lives, and that is God Himself.

We need to address the hole that loss makes, the way we would deal with any wound. It has to be cleaned, dressed with healing ointment, and bandaged. A bandage does not hide the wound, but instead shelters the wound while it heals. There may be scars left by the healing process, so that we always have a marker of what that event was. But a scar is healthy. The wound is no longer bleeding. The wound no longer has exposed nerve endings sensitive to even the slightest brush. Mourning and the period of mourning is the time of emotional healing, and a cultural mourning period used to allow for the bandage protection and ointment that we need.

But when people start making their loss more important than their own life, they are keeping the wound open and bleeding. They are weakening themselves by letting it keep bleeding. They are feeding infection. When they do that, they make it impossible for healing and comfort to get to them.

We actually have a choice in this. Accepting the possibility of being comforted does not mean that you are diminishing the importance of what is lost, it does not mean you are disrespecting that person or place or thing. To mourn means that you are allowing yourself to express a loss, to define the shape the loss had in your life, to clean the empty space, anoint it with healing balm, cover it over to protect that place – and then move onward. The wound may heal with no visible scar, or it may leave a mark. But either way, comfort has been brought to us.

No loss is bigger than the whole of our life. If we still breathe, and do not crawl into the hole of our loss, comfort will come to us in the process of mourning and healing. We should not let others rush us through it, but we should not make the empty space our temple.

It’s easy to focus on the loss that comes from death, since such losses are our most primal ones. But we lose other things in our lives which also need to be mourned. We need to allow ourselves that process as well. Any change can be perceived as loss, and we need to accept it. Accept the comfort that comes from acknowledging and grieving those changes.

Those who mourn will be comforted.

WHAT IS "POOR IN SPIRIT"?

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
(Matthew 5: 3 – NAS)


“Blessed” is not a term we use much in our daily lives. It really is “church talk” for many people, because it just doesn’t seem to convey anything we are familiar with in the mundane, outside-church activities we engage in. So perhaps, before we go further (especially since the Sermon on the Mount begins with a whole string of statements using the term) we should define what the word means to us.

The Amplified Bible gives some variations for the translation – “happy, to be envied, spiritually prosperous [that is, with life, joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions].” 
Really? Let’s look a bit more closely at these terms.

“Happy.” In the end, using “happy” as an alternate translation makes it all read like “pie in the sky” spirituality. Happy according to whom? Because the condition Jesus talks about, “poor in spirit” seems to indicate someone who certainly isn’t happy in the eyes of the World. 

The same goes for “to be envied,” at least on a worldly level. Again, envied by whom? For those who do not seek a spiritual life, or a serious walk with God, why would they even care about the spiritual condition of others? On the other side of the fence, for a believer ... well, we can come back to that in a moment.

“Spiritually prosperous” is the next suggestion The Amplified Bible makes, and this seems a bit more promising. It at least addresses the sense that Jesus is talking about something that may not be visible in “ordinary life,” except in the behavior of this “blessed” person.

So, I turned to the plain ordinary dictionary (actually, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary which I keep at hand for writing purposes), and found the following tidbits: “held in reverence, venerated; honored in worship; beatific; of or enjoying happiness, especially enjoying the happiness of heaven; bringing pleasure, contentment, or good fortune; used as an intensive.” Well, that’s quite a lot to bite off.

“Held in reverence.” Now that’s unusual. That describes the act of giving respect to others. It’s not something we usually think about in our daily lives. At least it seems that way, given how rampant rudeness is. But worth keeping in mind. “Beatific” is another “church-word” and doesn’t help us define “blessed” for daily use. “Enjoying happiness,” well, we’ve met that already. I don’t think that Jesus is talking about behaving like an aggressively bouncy cheerleader. However, there might be something to “enjoying the happiness of heaven. “Bringing pleasure or contentment” might be what could fit, although in the following verses, Jesus mentions some very unpleasant experiences, things loaded with lack of contentment. And “good fortune”? Again, according to whom?

“Enjoying the happiness of heaven” perhaps is the closest to what Jesus means. But it still bothers me, mainly because I once heard a speaker make a distinction between “happiness” and “joy.” Happiness, the speaker contended, is something that “just happens” to us, and is an emotion. As an emotion, it ebbs and flows depending on circumstances. And I don’t think that Jesus means that there is an ebb and flow to God’s blessing. But this particular speaker went on to say that joy is a choice. To have that sense of well-being that is joy is something we can choose for ourselves. If we take that back to the sense of what being “blessed” means, then, perhaps we can say that such people gain that internal benefit of joy, and they get it by choice.
Wait! By choice?

Interesting possibilities. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

What does it mean to be “poor in spirit” then, especially if the reward or benefit of that state is the “kingdom of heaven”?

We usually think of “poor” as meaning those who are severely economically deprived, but that’s not what Jesus means, because He made sure to add “in spirit” to the description. So, He’s really talking about people who feel spiritually poor, who feel they have such an emptiness where their relationship with God is concerned.

Now there might be quite a lot of people who really are “poor in spirit,” who have a great emptiness in their relationship with God. But I think Jesus is speaking of those who will actually admit they feel deprived of that relationship.

People do not like to admit that they are in need. It doesn’t matter what sort of need it is, we generally don’t want to appear incompetent or lacking or (seemingly worse) an object of pity. Even when we are. We live in an age where Pride rules. We don’t like to humble ourselves to admit we lack something.

What Jesus says here is that those who know they do not have enough of God, those folks are blessed and the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

And that’s another interesting point. These needy folks are not just in the kingdom of heaven. They possess it. They have the power and authority that belongs to the kingdom of heaven. Because they know they need God. And because they can admit that they need God, they are also blessed, they are also making a choice in favor of joy about their need.

This really makes for quite a different picture as to what this person looks like to an outsider. We’ve gone from someone who is feeling so bad about him- or herself that they were all “poor me,” to someone who is so needing God’s presence they have turned their face to God, seeking Him, and in that seeking they have found Him, carrying the kingdom of heaven with them wherever they go.

Do we as believers really admit how much we need God? Or do we consider it “enough” that we spend time in prayer, for others and for ourselves? Do we think it “enough” that we go to church, are involved in church activities, that we may work with a charity or two? Isn’t that enough contact with God?

If we think we have “enough” of God, then we’re not “poor in spirit.” Because “enough” means we neither need nor are seeking more.

So then... what Jesus recommends here is that we try to be people who know how much they need God in everything they do, because they will have the power and authority of the kingdom of heaven in them, which will bring them the joy of a connection with God. It’s a choice.

GO

But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
(Matthew 28: 16-20)

Epiphany is the day that celebrates the visit of the magi to the Christ Child. It is to remind us of the manifestation of God-in-flesh and the showing forth of the Child to the wider world.

But when I was drawing up the verse selections to add to the original Advent readings (which ended at Christmas), I wanted to look beyound the usual boundaries of the Christmas story. Because it seems to me that we need to remember the bigger purposes God had in this strange story that we have coated over with enamel and jewels and sugar and sentiment.

The Lord came among us in order that we would know Him even better than we (as humans) had. God knows the vast distance that seems to lie between the glory of His majesty and the daily struggles we face, the conditions that are far from glorious, the emptiness that sucks the joy out of our lives. He wants to bridge that gap, and took this step of becoming manifest in Time in order to give us an anchor point for our relationship with HIm.

No longer to we look forward to some vague time when we might be brought to His presence. Instead, He came to us! But not just for that moment in Time, caught and pinned by the census that Caesar Augustus ordered. No, He is with us always.

One of the things I found as I have made my way through these verse selections for this season has been the call to witiness and testify to the glory of God, to praise Him for His promises -- and for how He delivers on those promises. Traveling hand in hand with that has been God taking action in my own life, showing me that the things I have been writing about and meditating upon are not "just spiritual" things, but in fact what He will manifest for us every day, if we just open the door for Him.

The Lord God is very great.

Yet, every day, it is so easy to slide away from just how great He really is. We step out of our doors to take the trash out, and wonder what to do about a pending bill we cannot meet. Fear sneaks into our hearts, as we wonder if we'll be "carried out" like the trash because we cannot find a way to address our obligations. We sit down and something someone nearby says about their relationships sets us to thinking of all the damaged or toxic relationships in our own lives, leaving us grieving and bleeding because we don't know how to recover from cuts given by those closest to us. The doctor tells us our body is crashing in on itself and we wonder how we'll be able to deal with it, alone and with limited funds to pay for the care we need. On every side challenges are manifested, touchable, pressing in on us, and we start feeling that the Lord stands outside that circle of impending disasters, just out of reach, intangible in so many ways. In our distress with the here and now we forget Who made those promises, Who has delivered on them in the past and will do so again, Who it was that came and lived as one of us.

It was the Creator of the Universe, our God who holds the very fabric of existence in His hands, That's who made those promises.

Jesus was and is the Lord made manifest to us, and all authority in heaven and on earth rests in Him. If we abide in HIm, if we wait upon Him, if we endure in Him, that glory wraps around us. Seek out a picture of the vastness of galaxies, drink in that image, think of how vast that mere segment of the whole of the universe is, and then remember that in all that, God also concerns Himself with the smallest sub-atomic particle in your being. He has pulled us close, sheltering us. He has sought us out, come hunting for us, fought off the predators. Yet we get like the myopic sheep, relying too much on our weakest sense. We cannot see clearly, and what we think we see frightens us so much we keep pushing forward out of fear. Stop. Listen for His voice. Let Him bring us back to His protection.

God doesn't expect us to do everything. That's the wonder of this relationship. In one part of our minds, we hear the charge to "Go and make disciples," and we think we have to get our act into order. That the only way we can show the glory of the Lord is by way of "being perfect." But that isn't what the Lord expects from us. He just expects us to speak of what we have seen. "Write what you have seen." Praise the Lord for the little things He has done.

The glory of God shines brightest when we stop trying to be perfect on our own. To make disciples of others, we need only show them how much we ourselves need the Lord. We need only testify to the daily small ways He meets us in our own lives. The glory of God travels with us, and each little drop that falls from our own lives into the lives of others opens the way for them. For those around us who are sitting in "great darkness," even the smallest bit of light from us shines greatly. If we carry that to others, God Himself will make so much more of it in them.

Go. Praise the Lord. Write of what you have seen. For your eyes have seen the Salvation of the Lord. You have witnessed this, tell it to the others around you so they will know what the Lord has done.

IT'S NOT A SECRET
Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in its strength.

When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things."
(Revelation 1: 12-19)

"Write the things which you have seen."

Very few of us are given a direct vision of the Christ standing in Heaven. So we're not going to run out and talk of the Being Made of Light, at least not as something we'd give witness testimony about. But I think there's more to the commandment than Christ telling John to write about his vision.

On every side these days, society pushes for people to be more discrete about their faith. The thinking seems to be that if people "don't go public" with their faith, those around them will not be disquieted or made uncomfortable. We've somehow reached a place where being comfortable is equated with being at peace.

This man we speak of began his life in a stable and spent His ministry walking back and forth across His country without a settled home, I don't think He was particularly concerned with what is "comfortable." Oh, He certainly did believe in the kind of comfort that is consolation, the soothing of the raw emotions of loss, grief, hurt. But He didn't seem particularly interested in whether or not we were "comfortable" in the sense of being settled easily. In fact, he seemed best pleased with unsettling the people He met.

I don't know about you, but I would be greatly unsettled to encounter the one John describes in Revelation -- One standing in the midst of light, who had such brightness around him that His face and hair seemed white, whose feet glowed like molten metal, who held stars in one hand. Such a one can speak with a high degree of authority. And this Person charges John to write of what he sees.

We're not told to be silent about the things we witness, particularly not as believers. Instead, we are told to proclaim the glory of God, to praise Him. Why would we even think that we should refrain from speaking of what we have seen God do in our lives? When we try to dismiss the incredible, as Zacharias did, we might be stricken silent. But that was in order to impell him to his declarations -- because he wouldn't accept the news, and instead made a joke of it, he had to be silent once the news was confirmed, silent for a long stretch until the baby was delivered. But once he could talk again, the first things out of his mouth were praise for the actions of the Lord. When the shepherds were told by angels of the Christ's birth, they immediately ran to see the wonderful Child and then as they returned to their jobs, they told everyone they met of the event. They could not keep silent.

Why would we keep silent when the Lord meets us in small ways every day? Because for many of us, those small encounters are far more important that a dream-vision of Heaven. The small encounters that allow us to pay a looming bill, that help us deal with an immediate injury, that change a flat tire on our car; these things are important to us. The gentle touch of a hand when we've been wracked with loneliness, the soft voice speaking just to us when we haven't been spoken to in days, the unexpected gift from a friend when we've been struggling with something. Are these not so wonderful to us that we just can't keep quiet about them?

And yet we do.

We don't speak of these small shining glimpses of Heaven. Instead, we speak of the dark clouds that sit on us, the tangling vines that keep us from moving, the sticky mud that slows us down. We let our obstacles become more important than our destination. I'm as guilty of doing that as much as the next person. It's so easy to talk about what is right in my face - bills to be paid, jobs to be hunted, things that can't be done because I don't have the means right now, food I don't have, companions I'm without, pleasures denied.

Why do we do that? We don't really get any pleasure out of complaining, nor does it give joy to anyone around us. Why do we choose to testify to the unglorious things that happen?

The Shining One of God has come and dwelt among us. He has met us where we are. His coming was promised, and He did indeed come. He seeks us out and He finds us, no matter how far we stray from the flock. He shelters us, even in our most humble circumstances.

"Write of what you have seen."

Here are my drops of glory this moring, these little splashes of God's presence --

I had a friend spot me some funds for a pleasing dinner last night. I was hungry and didn't have much at hand, and he blessed me, and not out of pity, but out of respect and affection.

The sun is shining outside right now, and the weather is amazingly mild and warm for the season - something the hand of no human could accomplish.

I have before me at my desk two photographs. On one side, a photograph of my parents that I took on a lovely day, my favorite picture of them. They are relaxed and joyful, and the memory of that particular day shines bright in it. On the other side, a picture of a delightful couple that are as dear to me as my parents, a couple that moved beyond being professional mentors and inspiration.

Near at hand is a small book written by a friend, telling of many obstacles he has overcome, pages shining with encouragement and persistence.

These are the small gifts from the Lord, the immediate things. These are the things of Heaven that I have seen. If I can speak of these, I can speak of the bigger things too. Of the assurance that the Lord is with me no matter what. Oh, there've been times when I would have rather not traveled with that knowledge, when I was feeling resentful that I wasn't getting what "I wanted." But even then, knowing I could not out-run the Lord gave a sense of shelter.

The world is uncertain around us. The next instant could bring wind, fire, earthquake, sickness, loss, disaster. But no matter what, the Lord stands with me. I abide in Him, and His glory is around me. All I need do is open my eyes and let myself truly see.

I have seen the salvation of the Lord, and His love is beyond measure. And it waits for everyone.

What have you seen?

MY EYES HAVE SEEN

And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to carry out for Him the custom of the Law, then he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said,

"Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace,
According to Your word;
For my eyes have seen Your salvation,
Which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
A Light of revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel."

And His father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about Him.
And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, "Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed -- and a sword will pierce even your own soul -- to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed."
(Luke 2: 25-35)

Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. Because of this, and his comment about now being released to "depart in peace," he is traditionally considered to be an old man when he met the Holy Family at the temple. He had been waiting a long, long time for the coming of the Promised One.

We spend the season of Advent preparing for the coming of the Messiah. Once we are out of the season and past Christmas, we often settle our lives back into a daily pattern of doing our jobs, taking care of our loved ones, struggling with the challenges in front of us. We don't keep thinking about Christ coming to us. We go back to thinking about His being "with us" and accept it as part of the background of our lives.

But Simeon seems to have spent much of his adult life waiting and looking, expecting something remarkable. He had been promised the Christ, not just as a participant in the general promise to the People, but as someone who had an individual promise made specifically to him. He would see the Lord's Christ.

This is the wonder of God: He makes big general promises to His people, but they also apply to specific individuals. We have been promised that Christ is with us, as a people and as individuals. We have been promised that the Lord has planned good things for us, that He will provide for us, that we are partakers in His glory.

We face a new year, and we like to make dividing lines between the things that were and the things that have not yet come. We stand on this threshold, and we want to believe that what lies ahead are indeed good things, especially if what we've just been through has been challenging and stressful. I'm certainly feeling that way. Last year was the least comfortable year I've had, in so many ways. Oh, there were good things in it, to be sure. But much of it made me feel I was caught between two very rough stones, being squeezed and ground down.

The challenges don't really go away. Sometimes aspects of our circumstances keep stretching onward - financial challenges, repairs to our home environment that are needed but we don't have the means to address at present, relationships that are difficult but cannot be avoided, work that needs to be done. It's not easy to let go of our anxiety about these things, giving them to the Lord and trusting Him to provide for these matters. The imagery of the Good Shepherd is comforting. But our brains tell us that we don't live on metaphors. The world around us expects bills to be paid, jobs to be done. We sit and wonder, where is the Lord's Salvation for those things? How can we see it?

Did Simeon know that he was waiting to see a baby, I wonder? If he had waited many years to see the Promised One, I would imagine that he had spent a lot of time studying everything that spoke of the Promised One. And some of them mention a child to be born. So maybe he did know that a child would be involved. But maybe he looked to see an adult. I think all he knew for certain was that the Holy Spirit had promised he would see the Christ. He seems not to have worried about the details, but rather to have entirely trusted the promptings of the Holy Spirit (which is why, I suspect, he was given this particular promise in the first place). The Holy Spirit had prompted him to be at the temple at that time, on that day. And he knew the face of his Messiah when he saw it, even though it was a baby.

"My eyes have seen your salvation."

What have my eyes seen?

I have seen people prompted to give me assistance in my need, and I know the Lord's hand has been in that. I have seen the Lord moving people in advance of danger, and though they lost nearly everything in their home, they themselves were all safe from harm. I have seen the Lord provide a new home to a couple, one their hearts had been set on and which seemed to fall away from their grasp. And I have seen others waiting for the salvation of their worldly circumstances and challenges. I am waiting too.

But I ask myself, on this eve of Epiphany, am I really waiting to see the face of the Lord? Or am I just waiting to see some fiscal providence? I want to think that I am waiting on the Lord.

I have seen the hand of the Lord touching lives in varioius ways. I have to believe that He won't stop now. He is the Good Shepherd, and He is on the job.