“A Pattern for Living”
Matthew 5:1-12
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
1/29/17
As core value
statements go, the Ten Commandments get a lot of attention. And it’s easy to
see why. They’re simple, decisive, quantifiable. Do this. Don’t do that. Their
lack of complexity becomes their strength. These 10 directives set clear standards
for human interaction, and several of them apply almost universally. Honoring
elders and categorically rejecting murder, theft, adultery, criminal deceit,
and envy – such things make life better for everyone, don’t they?
The simplicity
of Ten Commandments also becomes their weakness. Far too often, folks within
the Judeo-Christian community use these statements as permission to make
judgments only God can make. When that happens, God, the Creator becomes small
enough to fit inside the understanding of a creature. At that point, the first
two commandments are forsaken. We have reduced God to an idol.
How we apply the last eight
commandments has everything to do with how we embody the first two.
To me, most public
postings of the Ten Commandments reflect a smug self-righteousness. I know it’s
long-standing tradition in some places, but when anchored in stone on
courthouse walls, the Ten Commandments declare a kind of divine right for
judges and jurors. Judicial proceedings, whether civil or ecclesiastical, wander
into dangerous territory when human participants feel entitled to sublime
authority.
To be honest, I even wince a little
when they appear on the lawns of churches. They say to passers-by and would-be
visitors, If you come here, expect grace
to have its limits.
Now, we all
make judgments and evaluations. So, even those who condemn others for being
judgmental only reveal themselves as fellow travelers on the road of judgment. That
means, of course, that in the last sixty seconds, I have openly practiced that which I claim to oppose.
Given the virtual impossibility of pure
objectivity when faced with the reality of evil and suffering in the world, how
can any of us move toward something higher, something more gracious and up-building?
“Blessed are
the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
With these
words, Jesus begins one of the truly remarkable teachings found in any religion
or philosophy. Far more than a list of rules, the Beatitudes lay out a
progression, a path along which spiritual travelers may learn to experience,
trust, and follow God.
Strikingly different from the Ten
Commandments, the eight Beatitudes imagine God very differently. Instead of picturing
God as some enormous guy watching over things and taking names, the way of
beatitude, which means blessing or happiness, suggests that God does not
need to be pleased, or appeased, or satisfied by us. As the Eternal Initiative
for being itself, for goodness and wholeness in the universe, God pours out blessing
and holiness for the sake of the entire Creation.
Life shaped by
awareness of and openness to God has traditionally been called the kingdom of
God. Another way to express the same concept is to think of this spiritual
reality as a perpetual and dynamic
Outpouring of God. Love, creativity, righteousness, justice – all of these
blessings continually pour forth from God, like water from a spring.
In their book The Way of
Blessedness, Marjorie Thompson and Stephen Bryant say that the Beatitudes offer
us “a way of life, a pattern of commitments”1 by which we
deliberately enter, inhabit, and experience life as a participation in the eternal
Outpouring of God.
For today’s
purposes, two things about the Beatitudes stand out. First, I find it illuminating
that nowhere in the Beatitudes does Jesus say, Blessed are those who keep the Ten Commandments. When viewing the
world as a place ultimately governed by black-and-white legalism, retributive
justice, and economic scarcity, a person may still claim to be blessed, but that person almost always
ties blessing to financial success, physical health, and freedom from legal
trouble. And while such an existence has its appeal, the Beatitudes offer so
much more.
The Beatitudes, say Thompson and
Bryant, describe an inner “posture toward God, other people, ourselves, and the
created order. They direct us to attitudes of mind and habits of heart that
result in our actual way of being in the world.”2
That brings us to the second
observation: The Beatitudes are not individual proverbs, either. They present an
evolution of spiritual development through increasingly challenging stages of experience,
understanding, and practice. (Open a Bible to Mt. 5:1-12)
The journey begins with poverty of
spirit, that is, with the acknowledgement of our incompleteness as creatures
and our need for the Creator. When we recognize the limits of our awareness of
the Outpouring of God, we begin to feel those limits as the loss of something
that is naturally and fundamentally part of who we are.
We mourn that loss. Spiritual
mourning humbles us into a new sense of belonging in the creation. Feeling at
home, right here, empowers us to live
in that bold and generous spirit called meekness.
When we learn that meekness has
nothing to do with being a wilting violet, but with claiming the strength of being
placed and purposed on earth, we begin to taste its blessing. And that blessing
comes from within as a craving for righteousness. Righteousness seasons the
holiness within us.
Living according to God’s righteousness
means living with and for all of God’s creation. It means recognizing that we’re
all in this together, and vengeful power plays, greedy grasping, fearful
violence, all these things consume our sense of righteousness. Only merciful
living can take us further down the path of spiritual faithfulness.
Living mercifully may be one of the
most difficult steps. Mercy cleanses us of selfishness and judgmentalism
because it requires us to seek the good of others with the same passion with
which we seek our own good. Mercy sears our minds and purifies our hearts. And
the blessing of seeing God comes because we begin to see the Christ in one
another and in the earth through the eyes of God.
Through God’s eyes, we see that all
things are, in truth, created to live interdependently, cooperatively. What is
expedient or comfortable for me, may not be good for you. But that which is
truly, essentially good for me is also good for you – and vice versa. So, we work
for peace, the unique wholeness and holiness called Shalom.
Nothing threatens the holders of power
and privilege like those who live according to the demands of God’s justice,
grace, and Love. At the pinnacle of blessedness, God’s saints speak truth to
power and find themselves blessed with the strength to endure the intimidations
and attacks of those who wield temporal authority.
Now, here comes the turn: When
disciples find themselves under the duress of having been faithful to God, they
discover a new level of spiritual poverty. The process starts all over again,
and leads us ever-deeper in the lifelong way of beatitude.
What could it mean, then, for a
church to post the Beatitudes on their lawn instead of the Ten Commandments?
It could mean that the people of that church understand what it costs
and how it profits the Creation for God’s people to proclaim and inhabit the
Outpouring of God. And what a blessing that church would be to its community.
May we commit ourselves to
Beatitude living.
May we strive to be that church,
that people, that blessing.
1Marjorie J. Thompson and Stephen D. Bryant, The Way
of Blessedness, Upper Room Books, 2003. p. 19. This book is one in the
spiritual transformation series, Companions
in Christ.
2Ibid. p. 19.
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