Theology and Ministry of The Beatitudes

It is a pleasure to be asked to open this new season of these days of thinking, reflecting and praying. The theme for the year is a stimulating one, and a very fruitful one, I think. Over the year you will be looking at a profoundly, and I believe, uniquely Christian document, the Beatitudes. Other speakers will move with you through the individual Beatitudes, looking closely at the language that is used, the values proposed, and very concretely at the fleshing out of those values in real life. So I am not going to do any of that. Rather I am going to try to put together something of an overall impression of the Beatitudes. What is the point of the document, what sort of nerves might it, should it touch in us? I will try to do that from two points of view, first pretty much simply exegetical, looking at the literary and theological context of the Beatitudes as they are presented in Sacred Scripture, and the second, rather more reflective, what might be the mindset, the stance, both conceptual and ethical that the Beatitudes urge on us. What are some, at least, of the marks of a people that take the Beatitudes seriously? So first the Scriptural setting.

We usually think of beatitude as referring to that familiar passage in Matthew, with the repeated phrase "Blessed are so and so because of such and such." It is worth noting that it is a very common scriptural literary formula, used elsewhere in New Testament and quite extensively in Old Testament. It even has a technical name, a "makarion". Greek for blessed, "makarios" means literally not so much a spiritual reality as a concrete experiential one... happy, fortunate, well off. Makarion follows a very predictable formula, the blessing, or desirable condition flows from some specific set of favorable circumstances, or more usually, the practice of some particular virtue, and then, usually, some explanation of why that blessing so flows. Makarion is fairly common in prophetic literature, more so in Wisdom literature, in Psalms and Proverbs. In fact, it really is accepted as one of the classic formulas of the Wisdom tradition. So in Proverbs 3:13-14, "Blessed are those who find Wisdom, pursue understanding, because she is more valuable than silver or gold", and so on or Psalm 1:1, "Blessed are those who follow not the counsel of the wicked, or sit in the company of the insolent, because whatever they do will prosper", and on and on. Certainly in New Testament, Matthew is the focal point for that formula. However, it also exists in Luke, 6: 20-22, and those two passages are worth briefly contrasting.

Matthew gives eight, or nine Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-11), if you split up the last one as most do, and Luke gives only four (Luke 6:20-22). However Luke adds four curses (Luke 6:24-26), using really the same formula, "Blessed are you poor", etc., then "Woe to you rich", etc. Beyond that difference, the language the two evangelists use is markedly different. Luke is very concrete and immediate, Matthew seems to spiritualize the thing more. Luke says "Blessed are you poor", Matthew says "Blessed are the poor in spirit", though both actually do refer to material comfort. The difference in meaning is not great.

Luke says, "Blessed are you hungry…", Matthew says, "Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness." Luke uses second person direct address, "Blessed are you poor..." Matthew uses third person, "Blessed are the poor in spirit,..."etc. Difficult to say which version more closely reflects the actual words of Christ. It is pretty clear that Matthew is the more carefully composed of the two. Certainly his language much more clearly and directly harkens back to the Old Testament Wisdom tradition, and given Matthews's level of composition, and consistent reference to strong Old Testament traditions, the assumption would certainly be that that is purposeful. That Matthew wants to make a very particular point, not just with the actual content of the Beatitudes, but with the way in which he presents them, the way they sound. And make the point indeed he does, really pretty clearly. And the point is simply that Matthew wants these Beatitudes to be taken very seriously, that they in fact are the yardstick against which faith, righteousness, salvation, will be measured.

The Beatitudes are presented as the first of five sections in a lengthy passage from Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount, an important part of Matthew’s Gospel, really a collection of many Sermons, but a faithful one. Matthew is big on words. We can be sure that in this three chapter long sermon (Matthew 6-8), we have Christ's own thoughts, His own emphases, in parts of it, at least, His own words. In a way, the whole of the three chapters of the Sermon on the Mount are really a kind of a commentary on this first section, the Beatitudes. It is a pivotal passage in the New Testament, the heart of Christ's moral and ethical message. This is the constitution of the New Kingdom, Christ's idea of what a Christian should be, the way He wants His people to act. The setting that Matthew gives for the Sermon on Mount is important, early on in Christ's ministry, only a very short paragraph between the account of the temptation in the desert, and the Sermon on the Mount. But that paragraph has a lot of activity in it.

(READING 1, Matthew 4:23)

Christ has acquired a reputation, the people were curious, the scene was set for Him to proclaim Himself publically as a teacher, not just a sort of spectacular miracle worker...time to get down to business, the real business of changing people's hearts, not just their bodies.

Matthew says He "went up on the mountain..." He was the new Moses, this was the new Law, this was to be God's word. He "opened His mouth and spoke...", an Old Testament formula for true prophetic proclamation. In short, all of the weight that had been given by believers to the Mosaic Law and to the prophets, quite literally the weight of salvation itself, must now be given to the Beatitudes. A totally new ethic is being proposed, and Matthew makes no bones about it, it is the only ethic that works. Let's quickly read them out, listen to the thrust of the language.

(READING 2, Matthew 5:1-12)

It always strikes me that this language does not speak at all, really, to any sort of an immediate, direct experience of God, nor to any very explicit sense of a personal relationship with God. God is certainly not irrelevant to these Beatitudes, clearly quite the opposite. In each case, the promise, the blessedness, is inclusion in the Kingdom, one or the other quality of that inclusion, and it is the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom made possible only by God, but it is the Kingdom as it is not yet, will be, mind you, but not yet.

So, the Beatitudes speak then to an experience of the world as it is now, and a relationship to the world, all that makes up that experience, as it is now. And if there is one word than can be used to describe that experience of the world, and the virtues we are called to practice in it, that word must certainly be paradox. I'm sure that somewhere, deep down inside anyone who really works at reading, understanding, praying the Beatitudes, somewhere along the line, probably pretty early on, one of the real hurdles to overcome is the simplest and most obvious reaction to the impact of Beatitudes. "That's ridiculous." It just doesn't ring true, that is not the way life feels. And I think that is a genuine, normal, even healthy reaction. After all, in the Beatitudes, we are being asked to accept some pretty radical stuff. That is not a bad word to use in connection with the Beatitudes, radical. Use it here in its first and most basic sense, going to the root, no political connotations, at least not directly. True, the Beatitudes address very directly the root, the core of the human experience, and asks us, insists, that we challenge that experience, that we not take it as it seems to be.

Look at some of these radical notions. You are lucky, well off, when you are poor. You are victorious, when you are the underdog. You are most liable to be satisfied when you are hungry and thirsty. You are most free, most in charge, when you are powerless. What seems to be weakness is not, and what seems to be strength is not. Radical indeed, virtually none of that can be drawn very directly from human experience.

Human experience teaches us that power is critically important. That's how things get done, that's how the human condition is improved. Everybody wants power, after all, the struggle for power has been at the heart of liberation movement after liberation movement, great social reform experience teaches us that poverty, want, even need, simply not having things, is not satisfying at all, it is an emptiness, not a fullness. Human experience teaches us that the meek, the humble, the gentle, the weak, very rarely win anything at all. So paradoxical indeed, the teaching of the Beatitudes, so much of what seems to be so obviously true in the human experience, just simply isn’t and that sense of paradox, of contradiction, is amplified over the next three chapters of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount.

As I said, in many ways, the Sermon on the Mount explains, fleshes out the Beatitudes, in a real sense, it is the ethic that flows from that teaching. And at first glance, it sure seems to be the ethic of defeat, a sure fire way to get clobbered, taken advantage of, used up, and thrown away.

Christ tells us in the Beatitudes, to be poor in spirit, to be merciful, compassionate, simply kind. What does that mean concretely? Well, a chapter or so later He tells us that too. If someone asks for your coat, give away your shirt as well. If someone asks you to accompany them for a mile, go for two. Don't make loans, make gifts, expecting no repayment, often enough, not even gratitude, or even recognition. Well, if I do all of that, what guarantee do I have that there will be enough left for me, to satisfy my needs, wants. Simple. Absolutely no guarantee at all and it doesn't matter. Poverty with a vengeance.

Christ calls us to be meek, gentle, patient, to be peacemakers. What does that mean? It means if someone injures you, offer no defense, certainly take no revenge, turn the other cheek. Love your enemies, literally, do good things for them. Do good things for people who do really rotten things to you.

Christ calls us to be pure of heart, single-minded in our pursuit of truth and virtue. What does that mean? Well, if your hand, or your eye, or any part of your surroundings is contaminating that purity, throw it away. Not only radical its downright gruesome. Be so single-minded, that you actually go to some trouble see to it that you get no public recognition for your virtue, for the good things you do. Go to your room to pray, give alms in secret, tell nobody about the good you do. Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Well, we could develop this list of paradox, for quite a while, and not exhaust the Sermon on the Mount. We might exhaust ourselves, however.

A couple of years ago when I was teaching full time at Shanley, we did this for a class exercise in our Scripture course. I lined up the specific behaviors described in the Sermon on the Mount, with the Beatitudes and when we got all done, I asked for some comments. "What do you think, what does this all teach you about Christian ethic?" I got a lot of answers, demanding, challenging, inspiring, impossible. I liked one kid's answer especially. He said simply enough, "It's pretty scary stuff." That kid got an "A". He was absolutely right, it is pretty scary stuff, or at least, it can be, because, as I said, it does seem to be an ethic of defeat and anybody in their right mind is at least a little bit scared of getting clobbered with any great regularity.

I say "seems to be" an ethic of defeat. What keeps it from actually being so is the second part of each those Beatitudes, the promise. It is a promise of inclusion in the Kingdom, a promise of success, satisfaction, victory, victory over any challenge, or burden, or obstacle. A very life giving promise indeed. So, I would like to propose another word to use instead of defeat, a word I really think sums up pretty well the theology and the ethic of the Beatitudes, and gives us something, at least of a foothold, to use in grappling with that sense of paradox. The word is "limitlessness".

It has been written, by psychological theorists, and written convincingly to my ears, that the only thin any one of us ever truly experiences is ourselves, our own bodies. The point being that whatever stimulus we may contact outside of ourselves, whatever response we may direct outside of ourselves is inevitably, necessarily filtered through our senses, our bodies, our nervous and muscular system. Well, that means really that the first, most basic, most immediate, most powerful, and most persistent dimension of the human experience is an experience of ourselves. And part of that is inevitably and necessarily an experience of limits. To experience oneself, one's own body is to experience change, deterioration, death. It is to experience very directly and powerfully that there are limits to what I can be, what I can do, how much I can grow. I want to fly, but I can't. I want to be both here and on my couch watching TV at the same time. But I can't. I want to go on being both here and on my couch watching TV forever. But I can't. Limits, built in, seemingly constitutive limits to what I am, what I can be, what I can do.

Those who theorize about child development tell us that virtually from the onset of learning, probably from within the womb, children learn limits. I can't reach that far, I can't move as fast as I want, not big enough, strong enough to do what I want to do, etc.

Fairly early on that lesson gets filled out a bit. Not only there are limits built in to me, there are limits imposed from outside of me. I can move fast enough now to get out into the street, but if I do, somebody is going to grab me. I'm probably going to give it a shot anyway just to test those limits, but sure enough they are there and from that it is a pretty small step to move into the imposition of limits on myself. I'm not going to do that because it’s dangerous, or do that because it’s dumb, or do that because it doesn't feel good. As we keep growing, those last two become pretty uppermost. The limits we impose on ourselves are that of discomfort, or reason. I won't turn the other cheek, because it hurts. I won't give a shirt and a coat, because it’s dumb, because then I won't have either, and the other guy doesn't really need both, more than likely doesn't deserve both, hasn't earned them, and so it would be unreasonable to give it away. So from limits built in to being human, we move pretty quickly to ourselves building in limits to being human. Reasonable limits. Well, I think it is true to say that it is precisely that most radical, most rooted dimension of the human experience that is challenged by the vision of the Beatitudes, and therein lies the paradox.

I think the Beatitudes teach dramatically that there are no limits at all, neither built in, nor reasonably constructed, to what I can do, what I can give, what I can endure, no limits at all to what I can become, the fullness into which I can grow, literally, the fullness of the Kingdom itself. So in the Beatitudes, a theology, and therefore an ethic of limitlessness. Well, I propose the word, and leave it at that for now, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if you see something of the same emphasis in other speakers to come over this season. Now, move from qualities that describe the document, the Beatitudes, to a consideration of some of the qualities that mark those who actually try to live that way, those who actively struggle with that sense of paradox, actively try to build their personal ethic on the promise of the Kingdom, and give some real flesh and blood to that sense of limitlessness... in short, qualities that mark those who take the Beatitudes seriously.

I'm going to list five such qualities…some components of a philosophical, or conceptual stance, and some components of an ethic and to try and reflect something at least of the contrast between blessed and cursed in Luke's version of Beatitudes, I will also list a few traits, inclinations, typically in us that are really in contradiction to that philosophy, or that ethic. If not outright contradiction, then at least make it a whole lot tougher.

Those five I put like this. Those who take the Beatitudes seriously see themselves in a covenant relationship with the world…and again, I say with the world, and not with God, purposely, since as I say that really is the thrust of the Beatitudes. Can't really separate the two, of course, but the emphasis here is how we live now until everybody lives that way at the coming of the Kingdom.

As parties to that covenant, those who live the Beatitudes, or try to, are struck, borne up really, by a sense of their own holiness. Such people are committed to an active ministry in the world. They are a people marked, perhaps more clearly than anything else, by a genuine innocence and they are a people marked by a genuine confidence. So to the word limitless, we add these five words, "covenant", "holiness", "ministry", "innocence", and "confidence". Hardly an exhaustive list, but at least a suggestive one. There is probably a better way to put that, but you get my drift. Let's look more closely at each.

People of Beatitudes see themselves as participants in a COVENANT relationship with the world. A familiar Scriptural word, we're used to hearing about the Old Covenant, or Testament, covenants with Adam, with Abraham, with David, and so on, and then the New Covenant or Testament, Covenant with Christ, and finally with the Church. Each of those speaks to a relationship between human beings and God, and so we are probably not very familiar with the notion of a covenant relationship between people. Such a sense was familiar however to the people of Christ's time, and for centuries before that. When He used the word it rang a bell, struck a sympathetic nerve.

There are many instances of covenant relationships between people in Sacred Scripture, but we just aren't as familiar with that dimension of it. Perhaps the best way to poke that nerve in us is to contrast that word with another one that we do use to describe a relationship between people, and that word is "contract." Both covenant and contract are types of relationships between people, but each with markedly differing qualities.

A contract is a business deal... a covenant is a gift of self. In a contract, each party makes an offer, a pledge of some sort, and each party establishes a set of conditions under which that pledge will be honored, and if the pledges and the conditions are mutually acceptable, the contract is in effect, and binding. So I go into your store, and I say, I will give you 500 dollars if you give me a new TV. That is my pledge, and those are the conditions under which I will fulfill that pledge. You say fine, I will give you a new TV if you give me 500 dollars... same thing, pledge and conditions. So we each provide the conditions for the other, honor our pledge to the other, and a successful contract relationship is completed. We each got something we wanted, and everybody is happy. Good business. In a contract, I can also set a time limit only up to which the contract will be in force. You give me a TV and I will give you $100 a month for five months, after that the contractual relationship ends, and neither of us is bound any further. You don't have to give me any more TVs, and I don't have to give you any more money. So a contractual relationship ends when a mutually agreed upon limit to that relationship has been reached. But a contractual relationship can end in another way, and that is when the conditions of the contract are violated. When the contract is broken, it is over, no longer in force, no longer binds. So if you don't give me a TV, I am not bound to give you 500 dollars, whether I have pledged to do so or not. Simply enough, the contractual relationship has ceased to exist. So in a contractual relationship, limits, conditions and a mutual understanding of those limits and conditions are an integral, constitutive element of that relationship and it is supposed to be that way. Well, you can almost guess then, from my earlier use of the word limitless, how we are going to contrast covenant with contract.

Covenant is a permanent and irrevocable agreement between two parties which binds each party independently of the response of the other…in a word, no limits, no conditions. In a covenant, all that matters is the force of the pledge, whether or not any conditions are met by the other party. A covenant, obviously enough can certainly be violated. I or the other party to the covenant can go back on their pledge, stop living out that covenant relationship. But that violation in a covenant unlike a contract does not end the relationship. The covenant is still in force, still binding, whether or not the conditions are met by the other. In Catholic theology, this sense of a covenant relationship is critically important, because more immediately and more profoundly than anything else, that is what the sacraments are. That sense has been underlined for us again in all the publicity surrounding the Pope's visit, and the usual questions by reporters as to when is the Pope going to allow divorce. Well, the answer is, he isn't going to, because in Catholic tradition, marriage is not a contract, but a covenant... a sacramentally valid marriage cannot end any more than the New Testament can end the bond between God and His people. It can be violated, certainly... but that doesn't end it. And all of that is so not simply because of a church law that the Pope can change with changing times. Rather it is so because of the heart of the nature of sacrament. For the church to suddenly teach that divorce ends the sacramental dimension of a marriage would be to say that well, there really aren't seven sacraments any more, just six. And that is never going to happen. Now obviously, there is a lot more to say on that, but no time to say it right now. In fact a whole day could be spent on looking at this notion of a covenant relation between Christians and the world, but for now enough to say that it really is a mark of the people of the Beatitudes. The ethics urged on us by the Beatitudes, what we are to be in the world, how we are to act towards the world, people, anything, does not depend on how they act towards us, doesn't depend on whether or not anyone responds in terms with any conditions I may set. It doesn't depend on whether or not that ethic is good business. The New Testament says, "If you love only those who love you, what good is that?" (Matthew 5:46)

HOLINESS, we can deal with this pretty briefly, because it really flows pretty directly from what has been said. The heart in Sacred Scripture of the notion of the holiness of God, which is the model really for the holiness of human beings, is very simply put. It is the otherness of God. My ways are not your ways, My thoughts are not your thoughts... as far as the east is from the west so far are My ways from Your ways… God consistently refuses in Sacred Scripture to allow Himself to be judged, measured by any human standards, there are no yardsticks that can be used to measure whether or not God is really being what He should be, doing what He should do. Same thing is true of people of the Beatitudes, we too must be something other than what society proposes as the model of success, of being what we should be. We must be conscious of that otherness, and glory in it.

We must simply refuse to allow ourselves to be measured by any of society's yardsticks, by how rich or how powerful, or productive, or attractive and acceptable we may or may not be. And we must certainly refuse to measure anyone else by those yardsticks. That would really be a grotesque violation of our own holiness as well as theirs. Whether or not our ethic of the Beatitudes is effective, productive, just doesn't matter. The point of a covenant after all is not what it produces, rather the point is simply the authenticity of the pledge made. In a word, as a holy people, a people of the Beatitudes, effort is our concern, effectiveness is God's. And the trait in us that mitigates against that holiness is simply enough, conformity, being like everybody else, buying in to the same standards, same yardsticks as does everybody else.

Catholics went through an orgy of that right after Vatican II. We were all embarrassed about being, looking, thinking, acting, differently, and so we ended most of that. In doing so, we damaged ourselves. As Father Andrew Greely wrote in a recent article, we spent most all of our social capital, most of what we had going for us, and didn't get much in return. Wasn't even good business, let alone good covenant.

MINISTRY, again, really, much the same emphasis. People of the Beatitudes place themselves at the service of those around them. And they do so not as hired help, but as lovers, givers of gifts. Again, return for investment, wages paid for services offered, whether those wages be money or recognition, or just personal satisfaction, whatever, all of that is the point of a contract, not a covenant. I think the biggest obstacle to ministry with a beatitudinal quality is simply power. There is no necessarily mutually exclusive sort of contradiction between power and ministry, but it sure makes it tough. Power is a very tempting and addictive thing. Power is simply enough the ability to make a change in someone else's life, whether they like that change or not. Power can make it a lot easier to speak than to listen... easier to give a command than to accept one. Power makes it a lot easier to decide for others, what is really in their best interests, what their needs are, rather than to let them tell me how I may best be of service in their world, their life. Perhaps that's part of why in the Sacred Scripture God most always chose as His ministers and prophets the least powerful, least effective, least expert people He could find, and gave them power and effectiveness and expertise, but in His way, and on His terms. Holiness again.

INNOCENCE, and here in the deepest and most real sense of the word. At the core of it, innocence means not harmful. Nocens… to do harm. In-nocens, not to do harm. We have kind of twisted the meaning of that word, culturally. We use it in a legal sense, to mean not blameworthy, not punishable for an act. It doesn't necessarily mean I didn't do the act, though usually that is the sense of it, but whether I did it or not, innocent means I am not to be punished for it. We talk about innocence as though it meant ignorance. So and so is young and innocent, doesn't know the ways of the world, or so on. Innocence there is almost a failing.

When we talk about someone losing their innocence, we usually mean that they have gained experience, and as often as not we mean sexual experience. Well none of that really reflects the Sacred Scripture’s sense of innocence. The only way anyone can ever really lose their innocence is to do harm to someone. I always think the perfect image of innocence in Sacred Scripture is the description that Isaiah gives of the Servant of God (Isaiah 42:1-3). A person who moves through the world so gently that he doesn't even crush the grass on which he walks, a bruised reed he doesn't break, or a smoldering wick he doesn't quench, and so on.

I think an awful lot of those paradoxical sounding passages in the Sermon on the Mount, turn the other cheek, don't refuse to give when asked, really speak to that quality of innocence. The people of the Beatitudes, simply enough, don't do any damage to each other, or to anyone, ever, for any reason. And I think a couple of traits that militate against innocence are fear, we harm what we fear, get them before they get me sort of thing, and plain and simple dullness of spirit... just not being aware of the damage that we can do to one another thoughtlessly, carelessly as we move through the world.

And finally, CONFIDENCE, truly a mark of the people of the Beatitudes. Confidence in oneself, in the world, and in God. A real sense, and the ability to take a real pleasure in the sense that the pledge that I make in this covenant relationship with the world is a valuable one. I have some very good things to bring in to this covenant. The best of which is simply my ministry, my willingness to be of service, and to try at least to get beyond being of service on my terms. A confidence that all of that is going to do some good. Far from being simply not harmful, I am going to leave the world better than I found it. It is good for the world that it is in covenant with me. I may not see it, but that doesn't matter. I will almost certainly not be able to define or measure that good, but that doesn't matter. The relationship after all, is a covenant, not a contract. Confidence in my partner in that covenant, confidence in the world and confidence in God

The world may be, certainly is, complicated, incomplete, even screwy from time to time. But ultimately, it is not really dangerous. The people of the Beatitudes know with a real confidence, that turning the other cheek won't kill you. In fact, the worst that can happen by turning the other cheek is you get slapped again. And that is not fun, certainly, but neither is it deadly. And that is not a bad lesson to learn from time to time. I can take a fair bit of slapping around by life, without really being damaged by it, if that is what it takes to be faithful to the covenant. Learning that from time to time can be a real bolster to a person's confidence. Even when life gets uncomfortable, even painful, it is not deadly. I can do it. And I can do it pretty well.

Confidence in God, simply enough taking His word for the way things really are. Sometimes the difference between confidence in God and confidence in the world is pretty slim. Sometimes all I have to go on in saying the world is not dangerous is God's promise that it is so. Sometimes it seems that the crosses that come along will kill me, just as they threaten to do. And all I have to go on is God's promise that "No, crosses don't kill you, even if it feels like it for a while. And if crosses don't kill you, turning the other cheek certainly won't."

Strange as it may sound, one of the traits in us that I think most directly militates against that kind of confidence in God is not nearly so much fear or doubt as it is a kind of pride. Pride in the sense that a lot of times I am a lot more ready, willing to trust, to accept as authoritative, my own interpretation of the world, of the experience of being human, than I am God's interpretation of all of that. So it's a question of whom do I trust and in a real way that is the final paradox posed by the Beatitudes.

Do I trust my own experience, which can, and certainly does from time to time, tell me that the world is indeed a scary and dangerous place, that power is all that ever really works, that I don't have much, if any, of that, that the problems which surround society, surround me, are just too great, that the world really is in the hands of criminals and madmen, and there is nothing I can do about that, pitifully little good I can accomplish. Do I trust that?

Or do I trust the word of God which tells me that the world is His, created as a Paradise, and right now being recreated as just that. That the world is a garden of Eden right now being planted with the seeds of ministry and holiness and innocence, being planted not by contract laborers, but by covenant lovers, the people of the Beatitudes, who move through that garden in utter confidence that what they sow will surely and certainly, in God's time, and on His terms, come to full fruit in His Kingdom.