"I concentrated on the Sermon on the Mount. It was startling to me
that I could not recall a sermon ever preached on this manifesto of
Christ’s new social order in my church when I was growing up. I vaguely
remembered some talk about the Sermon on the Mount not being applicable
to our time, that it was meant for the time when we all would get to
heaven. The Sermon revealed to me what Jesus meant by the Kingdom of
God. In it, Jesus calls those who follow him to a life that completely
undermines the values and structures of this world and opens up
possibilities of a new one. The way of life described in the Sermon is
truly revolutionary, much deeper and more radical than the
revolutionary movements of which I had had a taste. The way of Jesus
overturns the assumptions of Right, Left, and Middle, and presents a
genuinely new option for both our personal and political lives. It
calls for a life lived for God, for neighbor, for the poor, and even
for enemies."
–Jim Wallis, Revive Us Again: A Sojourner’s Story (1983) p.74
The cry for justice
There
is an abiding interest in spirituality these days, but when the
interest in spirituality does not lead to a passion for justice, it
becomes a veiled and subtle form of narcissism. There is a hunger for
justice in our time, but when the longing for justice is not shaped by
a historically informed spirituality, the passion for justice can
become a brittle form of ideology. The Beatitudes, when rightly read
and wisely internalized, offer us a way and means of growing in inner
integrity and living forth our faith in a just and peacemaking manner.
The
Beatitudes begin with a call to leave the many demands of life in the
valley and ascend the peaks to hear a deeper word, a fuller word. We
are called to be poor of spirit, to turn inward and see those things we
are to let go of, those things we cling to that must be released. It is
only as we are empty that we can be filled. We are, in fact, asked to
come and die, to allow the small seed of the ego to dissolve and
disappear, to break through its constricting skin, so a fuller, a
richer, a resurrected life will emerge. The more we allow ourselves to
be emptied of our agendas and inadequate notions of identity, the more
we will be filled with a sense of our kinship and solidarity with
others, but we will also become more acutely aware of the gap between
what we long to be and what we truly are. As we become aware of our
poverty, we come to see the subtle forms that sin can take in our
lives. It is in this tension between what we aspire to be and who we
know we are that we learn what it means to mourn with those who suffer.
The more we allow ourselves to feel such pain the more we seek to do
something about it. It is through longing to do something about such
suffering and injustice that we are walked into the meaning of
meekness. Tragically, meekness has been misinterpreted in much of
Christendom. Meekness does not mean passively accepting what is.
Meekness means disciplining our passions and bringing them under
control for goodness, and the hunger for goodness is about an
unquenchable desire to ask questions about why there is suffering.
The
first three Beatitudes, then, are about the transformation of the inner
life, and, as such, the necessary issues that must be faced before we
step out onto the stage of the outer life. We are invited to be poor,
to let go of our ego. As we walk this path, we are offered the gift of
a feeling for the injustices and suffering in the world. The more we
allow ourselves to be filled with this deeper love, the fullness of
God’s abundant Grace, the more we open ourselves to allow that love to
reshape our identity and reorient our desires toward the good; this is
the meaning of meekness. The inner life, now prepared and properly
attired, is ready to enter, in spirit and truth, the outer world.
Looking outward
Jesus, after walking us from room to room in the interior life, then
points the way to the outer life. If we are willing to die to our ego,
if we are truly one with the God of Love (which means a God of Justice
and Mercy), then we will ask why there is injustice in the world and
what can be done about it. Jesus makes it quite clear that the inner
life must lead to a hunger and thirst for justice. Unfortunately, we
have often translated and interpreted, ‘Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for justice’ as ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness’, then reduced the meaning of righteousness to personal
and private piety. The text will not grant us this sort of indulgence
(any more than the prophets of old will). Jesus, in fact, is calling us
to be seekers of justice, of the common good. When the deeper vision of
this verse becomes reduced to a private and personal desire to live a
life of holiness and integrity, we sanitize the text and mute its power
and fullness. An interest in spirituality that lacks a hunger and
thirst for justice is both an opiate and a diversion.
Justice
is about asking why there is poverty, why there is injustice, who are
the powerful that perpetuate such evils and what can be done about it.
There is, in fact, a moral plumbline by which empires, nations,
communities and individuals can be measured, and if we lose this
vigorous moral vision, the religious journey can slip into
sentimentality. The quest for justice must always be balanced by a
concern for mercy. Blessed are those who are merciful. Those who seek
justice often ask the hard questions and sacrifice much, but they can,
at times, lack mercy, graciousness and charity. Those who only play the
strings of mercy often contribute to injustice by their refusal to ask
why the poor are poor. Jesus never separated justice and mercy. Neither
should we. Those who have spent much time in the outer world of justice
and mercy know only too well the hurt and harm that can come to the
heart. Despair and cynicism can come to dominate the day, and dark
clouds can circle the soul. This is why Jesus then brings us back to
the inner life. Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God.
Life can be difficult, and it is easy to grow bitter, vindictive, angry
or store toxins within. The longing for justice can make us unjust. It
is in the realm and sacred place of the heart that we often need to
turn to be pure. The Greek word for purity of heart means cleansing,
catharsis. If we do not allow God, again and again, to burn the dross
from the gold in our heart, then our passion for justice and mercy can
be undermined and subverted. Jesus welcomes us to enter the castle of
the soul and clean up what must be cleaned, but we are not allowed to
stay there. The drawbridge must be lowered, and we will be nudged to
cross the moat and enter the world again. We are not all allowed to
hide away in some pietistic ghetto or assume there will be a quick and
speedy resolution to the difficult dilemmas of life. Escapism and
triumphalism are foreign to the Beatitudes.
What is a peacemaker?
Blessed are the peacemakers. A peacemaker is one who goes into the
midst of the fray and attempts to broker reconciliation. Martin Luther
King Jr. once said, ‘Peace is not the absence of tension; it is the
presence of justice’. Therefore, we cannot separate justice and
peacemaking. Peacemaking is an active and conscious decision to be an
agent of justice and reconciliation. It is not a retreating from or
repressing conflict for the sake of a shallow unity. A peacemaker is a
bridge-builder between two warring tribes, and often the peacemaker is
shot at by both clans and their chieftains. Such though is the vocation
of a just peacemaker. Jesus concludes the Beatitudes by insisting that
those who seek justice will be treated as the prophets of old.
The Beatitudes are, in a most significant sense, a distillation of the
Jewish prophetic vision. Such a vision knits together an in-depth
journey into the mansions of the soul and a call to walk onto the stage
of life to be makers of peace and agents of justice. It is this
prophetic vision that is at the ethical core and center of the
Christian faith. When we ignore, domesticate, sanitize or censure the
script of this Magna Carta of faith, the text of our inner and outer
life will lack the fullness and richness of a mature faith.
Just
as it is natural for a bird to spread wide wings and take to the blue
canopy, and just as it is natural for an apple tree to produce apples,
so, in our new life in Christ, we cannot but live forth the Beatitudes.
Our very being will be transformed into this new life, this deeper
conversion, and this more profound rebirth is a delicate blend of God’s
inviting grace and our receptivity to such overtures of love. In
Christ, our new nature is finally known, and in the Beatitudes, the
scent and aroma of such a nature can be detected and picked up by the
senses of the soul.
When Jesus finished the Beatitudes and
Sermon on the Mount, the disciples had to descend from the mountain, in
a centered and more deeply informed way, to live forth the new life,
and share such a transformed life with others. The good news is about
being freed from the many demons (and ego within) just as it is about
freeing the oppressed from the bonds of injustices. When such good news
is embodied in thought, word and deed, the prophetic vision of the
Beatitudes will take root and bear an abundant harvest in time.
rsd