Beatitudes, A New Perspective

This sermon is meant to suggest a new perspective on one of the most sermonized texts in Scripture.

Sometimes in our relationship with God and our exploration through Scripture, we have those aha moments. Moments in which Scripture etches itself into our hearts and minds. Moments in which we feel God is speaking directly to us as if it is just he and I on the planet.

A few years into my journey with God I had such a moment in the living room of my parents house. It was well past midnight and for some reason I was pondering over the concept of being “poor in spirit”.

When was the last time you heard that phrase and heard a message trying to explain it to you? And how often have you left said sermon feeling unsure if you really understood what it meant?

I’m not trying to explain its meaning. Rather, that night, all those years ago, I was wondering, if we, modern Christians, with the scripture in front of us, and centuries of theology advancing us, can not fully comprehend its meaning, how in the world did those original uneducated disciples understand? Take heart, this message assumes that the disciples were in the same boat as all of us.

Open Matthew 5 and let’s imagine the scene, Jesus goes up the mountain to preach. There are no megaphones but the elevated position allows for his voice to carry. Still, we can’t imagine Jesus yelling like our politicians. Further, Matthew says he sat down, and sitting would not be the ideal position for screaming at 5000 people. No, the message spread through the crowd of 5000 by word of mouth. People would pass it on. Sounds like a massive game of whispers. However, Jesus himself was only intending to speak to his disciples seated around him. Matthew would have had front-row seats to these words.

Then Jesus begins, ““Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”. Upon hearing this, the disciples might have gotten excited at the prospect of the kingdom, but who are the “poor in spirit”? What does that even mean?

I can imagine Jesus saying these words with great flair and majesty. At the same time, the disciples would have been looking at one another and blinking. Judas and Matthew probably whispered to themselves, “Well, we are definitely poor. And all these people are going to want free lunch.”. Peter and the other fisherman were probably looking at their flasks, holding them upside down and saying, “It feels like a long sermon is coming and we are definitely out of spirit!”

His audience probably had the same level of understanding as we do. Fortunately, we know that Jesus was a good teacher.

In school, when students don’t understand a concept, a good teacher will find other ways of explaining it. Sometimes a different perspective on the same topic can help the student.

Consider the imaginary country of Wakanda. If I try to explain to someone what it means to be a citizen of Wakanda, the definition or legal terms are not enough. For citizens by birth, the understanding of citizenship has a lot to do with loyalty and a willingness to defend one’s country. For someone trying to become a Wakandan citizen, they would need to understand the steps involved in becoming a citizen as well as the responsibility of Wakandan citizenship. They’d also have to understand what they would have to give up to be a citizen.

Jesus, the good teacher, seeing the blank expressions around him, might have decided to take another approach. He began an explanation on how to become one of the “poor in spirit”. Before I get into the process Jesus outlined, you’re probably wondering how I came to this new interpretation of such a ubiquitous text.

Coming back to the citizenship teaching example. Imagine I am the teacher and explaining Wakandan citizenship to you. I first assumed you would understand me when I said, “The happiest people are Wakandan citizens.” Of course, you didn’t understand what I meant so i quickly go through the steps involved in becoming a citizen…. And at the end of explaining the process, I would conclude by saying “And then YOU will know you are a citizen and you will experience the happiness that comes with it.”

Doesn’t this sound a lot like vv11-12? In the verses before, Jesus is speaking abstractly to “people” but in vv11-12, he changes to speaking directly to his disciples, referring to them in the second person “you”. We can imagine Jesus saying these two verses with great energy, and even pointing at his disciples “Blessed are YOU…”

Now back to the process of citizenship. Jesus’s goal was to explain how to become “poor in the spirit” in order for them to become citizens of heaven.

Step 1 – Understand your pain. If you are mourning, you are grieving. This is the first step to changing allegiances. Your old master is not working for you, but becoming a citizen of heaven gives you a new master. Don’t worry, you will be comforted in your grief.

Step 2 – Be gentle. This doesn’t mean be passive. It means do not be “ungentle” or aggressively trying to “inherit the earth”. When you understand step 1, then you also have accepted that you are not capable of forcing your way to your own happiness. Don’t worry, an abundant inheritance awaits you.

Step 3 – Find a desire for righteousness. The first two steps, acknowledging your pain and being gentle in your efforts, were about understanding and accepting your current situation. This is the first step towards changing it. Change your desire from your own security and profit to seeking God’s righteousness. Don’t worry you will be satisfied by it.

Step 4 – Be merciful, or rather show mercy out of empathy. Understand that everyone is in the same situation as you. Once you start pursuing God’s righteousness in step 3, you will also see that many others are still stuck in steps 1 & 2, trying to understand their grief and learning to be gentle. Don’t worry, all will be shown the same mercy.

Step 5 – Be pure in heart. This is the point at which seeking God’s righteousness in step 3 and understanding we all need mercy in step 4 begin to take root and transform your allegiance from within. Don’t worry in this journey God will begin to reveal himself to you more and more intimately.

Step 6 – Take action for God. Can we really take action for God until we have gotten to this point? Before Step 5, we haven’t even understood God’s will let alone have the ability to act on it. Never think you can be a peacekeeper for God without first building your relationship with God. Often churches preach this verse without understanding the prior journey needed in order to be God’s peacekeeper. Inheriting the kingdom of God, being sons of God, means you have an inheritance. At this point, people will begin to see that you are leading your life not for any worldly gain or security but for your heavenly inheritance.

Step 7 – Finally, persecution will come. You might be a peacekeeper but the world rejects God’s peacekeepers because the prior steps are against the world’s plan for security and gain. This final step is more of a, you have arrived step, the culmination of all the prior steps. Which is why the connection to the original poor in spirit. If you’re poor in spirit, yours is the kingdom of heaven. Now that you’ve gone through the steps and arrived at this point of persecution, the reward or result of the poor in spirit is yours. You have arrived.

Like a good teacher, Jesus has walked the disciples through the journey that they must go through in order to become “poor in spirit”. Perhaps poor in spirit is another name for citizen of heaven? And while the last step was a bit of a let down, nobody wants to be persecuted, Jesus inspires the disciples by reasserting that “YOU” are blessed even when these difficult times come because your reward and inheritance in heaven is assured.

The disciples may still not have understood what was meant by “poor in spirit” but they now know how to get there. They know what their journey will be like. They know the difficulties as well as what the signposts along the way are which will guide them onwards. And they know how God will be with them every step of the way. They know when they have arrived.

We may not know how to define being a citizen of heaven, but we know the journey to get there and we know when we have arrived.

Perhaps the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount is the second part of teaching this concept of citizenship. Having explained how to become a citizen of heaven, Jesus is now describing the attributes and responsibilities of a citizen of heaven. That’s left for your further study as you continue to walk down your path towards kingdom citizenship. I pray you have many of your own personal aha moments along the way.