Blessed Beggars

Last weekend my husband Whitney and I traveled to Manhattan with friends to see Martin Luther on Trial, the Fellowship for Performing Arts' most recent play,

We've been following founder Max McLean for a decade or so, since he came to perform his one-man Mark's Gospel for an event Whitney organized in his work at Scripture Union.

The words of the gospel jumped to life in McLean's performance, a rapid-fire journey through the life of Christ from baptism to resurrection.

After years of performing memorized scripture McLean began digging into other material. Several years ago, we invited friends we've known for decades to join us in Philly for The Screwtape Letters, a stylish, sardonic two-person show that captured the complex theology of C. S. Lewis and provided fuel for days of reflection and conversation.

Last year, the same six of us met in New York for The MostReluctant Convert, McLean's story of Lewis' journey into faith. We sat spell-bound in the Pearl Theater while McLean, pipe in hand, brought theology to life, capturing Lewis' brilliance, his disdain for sloppy thinking, his joy as faith broke through his lifelong inner solitude.

McLean's new play, also at the Pearl, ended its off-Broadway run Sunday. I confess, I was not as eager to go. Martin Luther is not one of my heroes, trial drama isn't my favorite, and I've been so busy lately the idea of a weekend away, even in Manhattan, seemed almost more chore than pleasure.

McLean's past plays have been one or two person shows. This one had six actors and for the first time, McLean wasn't one, serving instead as director. The play began with an imposing St. Peter sitting as judge in a trial demanded by an urbane, sardonic Satan.

According to Satan, Martin Luther was guilty of the unforgiveable sin and Satan was prepared to act as prosecutor. Luther's wife, Katie, was called, unprepared, to serve as defense attorney.

Two other actors rotated through the drama as a cast witnesses: Luther's contemporary Rabbi Josel, Hitler, Freud, Michael the Archangel, Martin Luther King, the Apostle Paul, Pope Francis.

Luther himself wandered on and off stage, writing, reading, talking, weeping, hammering his famous thesis to an invisible Wittenberg door.

We don't choose the times in which we live, but we choose how we respond. Luther lived in a time of great corruption, a time when religious leaders had compromised faithfulness to gather enormous financial and political power.

The play depicts Luther's determination to see past the fog of manipulation and corruption, his courage in calling power to account, his deepening depression and unmanageable anger when the church he loved ignored his call to repentance and renewal.

Through it all, his wife Katie defended him, challenged and confronted him, supported, fed and loved him.  Their unconventional love story was an unexpected bonus.

The trial itself spiraled to a grand conclusion, with Satan dropping his cool demeanor to shout accusations at Peter, Luther, Katie, Pope Francis, god himself.

After Satan's spectacular departure, Luther's final words, the same words scribbled on a scrap of paper just before he died, were repeated by others as they left the stage: we are beggars.

The unforgiveable sin was Satan's: demanding power, shouting accusation.

The final defense, for Luther, Peter, Katie, Pope Frances: we are beggars.

Walking back to our hotel through the lights of Times Square, watching beggars maneuver their wheelchairs along the crowded sidewalk, eyeing the sleeping shadows in the side-street alcoves, I found myself thinking of the timeliness of Luther's story.

What do faithful Christians do when Christianity itself seems aligned with power, wealth, manipulation and deceit?

How do we speak truth to power without falling prey to anger and despair?

The next morning our group met for breakfast across from Central Park, then walked down Fifth Avenue, past the machine-gunned-armed guards in front of Trump Tower, to the morning service at St. Thomas's Episcopal Church.

In his homily, (33-47), Canon Turner pulled two neighboring passages together in a way I'd not heard before, moving between the beatitudes in Matthew 5 to the third temptation of Christ in the chapter just before. 

Archbishop Rowan Williams once suggested that in order to understand the power of the Beatitudes . . . we have to look back to the narrative that precedes the Sermon on the Mount to chapter four of Matthew's gospel and the story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Williams suggest that it is the third and the most terrible of the temptations that is the most compelling as we try to understand the beatitudes.

The response of Jesus is the key to our understanding of the beatitudes.

On that mountain Jesus did not choose a relationship with human power and self-aggrandizement. Instead, he chose the perfect relationship he already had with his father and which relationship he would share with his friends.

The beatitudes are not a blueprint for church life. Neither are they a stoic way of dealing with disappointments. The beatitudes are the values of the kingdom and the making visible of that kingdom on earth.

As followers of Jesus we are called to make his kingdom visible through lives that are Christlike. We are blessed when we put God first and not the values of the world.

Blessed beggars. That's what we're called to be.

By any measure, I live a life of privilege.

Comfort, education, travel, opportunity.

No beggar sleeps in the Omni, attends off-Broadway play, wines and dines with friends.

And yet, on the deepest levels, I know my need.

Like Luther, I have wrestled with depression, anger, doubt.

I have struggled to make visible the values of the kingdom and failed. And know my failure.

Daily, I review the challenges around me and acknowledge how far I fall short of the task.

My patience falls short.

My compassion is lacking.

In every real way, by any honest measure, I am a beggar.

Dependent on grace.

Deeply in need of wisdom, insight, mercy and love far beyond my own.

I read back through the beatitudes, resting in the promise of blessing for all who know and admit their need.

We are blessed when poor in spirit, knowing our need of God.

Blessed as we mourn, saddened, as was Luther, by our own brokenness, and the brokenness of the world around us.

Blessed as we grow more gentle, restraining our own privilege to allow room for others to thrive.

Blessed as we hunger and thirst, pray and plead, for justice and shalom.

Blessed as we struggle to live with integrity, loyalties clear and undivided, centering our souls on God, shining as beacons of light to a broken, hopeless world.

Blessed as we work for peace, as we live in tune with God's redemptive love.

Blessed when condemned for speaking out against injustice.

Blessed when trolled and harassed for maintaining allegiance to God alone rather than the current endorsed idolatrous regime.

Rejoice and be glad at the invitation to live as beacons of another way.

Rejoice and be glad as we live - grounded in love- as a visible challenge to the lack of love around us. 

Like Luther, we live in a time of corruption.

A time of unraveling institutions.

A time of uncertainty, confusion, discord, disillusion.

As we work for justice, we will certainly fall short.

As we struggle to live as light, we will wrestle, daily, with darkness.

What a comfort, to say, with saints of every century: we are blessed beggars. This is true. 

Wir sind bettler.

Hoc est verum.

Health Care: A Matter of Soul

“We have 900 billing clerks at Duke. I’m not sure we have a nurse per bed, but we have a billing clerk per bed… it’s obscene.”
Health economist Dr. Uwe E. Reinhardt, describing the Duke Medical System

Yesterday was the start of open enrollment for health care insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

This weekend, Physicians for a National Health Program is holding its annual meeting in New Orleans to consider this year’s theme: “Seeking Health Equity: Politics, Racism, and the Fight for Single Payer.”

In Congress, majority leaders are planning major investment of time and money in investigations into every aspect of creation and implementation of the ACA, and looking for ways to vote, once again, on repeal of all or portions of the act.

And last week  the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of  King v. Burwell, a case challenging the decision of  the Fourth Circuit court to uphold an IRS rule regarding health insurance subsidies.

I confess, I’ve found the animosity toward Obamacare hard to follow, especially as expressed by Christians. Christians have historically been the ones most insistant on helping the sick, often at great cost to themselves. I posted about this several years ago: 

When plague devastated the 3rd century world, Christians cared for the sick, gathered and took into their homes people thrown into the street by family members fearful of becoming infected.

When Romans and others threw their deformed, surplus, unwanted babies on trash piles or into rivers, Christians gathered them up, fed them, cared for them as their own.

John Chrysostom taught, "If you see anyone in affliction, do not be curious to enquire further... [the needy person] is God's, whether he is a heathen or a Jew; since even if he is an unbeliever, still he needs help."

Even now, with the frightening scourge of Ebola, Christians are essential participants in care of the sick. A Sixty Minutes report on the Ebola outbreak in Liberia made no mention of the Christian faith, but showed the local health workers gathering strength and courage during their breaks by singing hymns together. Two doctors flown back to the US for Ebola treatment last summer were missionaries: Dr. Kent Brantley and Nancy Writebol, both serving with Samaritan’s Purse.

The Good Samaritan, William Henry Margetson,
London, ca 1900

Faithful Christians have always taken to heart the challenging parable of sheep and goats in Matthew 25. The sheep and goats aren’t divided by theological position, experiential worship, whether they’ve prayed or said the correct thing, followed the right leader. In Jesus' parable, they’re judged by their care of those in need: the poor, the hungry, those in prison. The sick. 

‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 

Care of the sick is not a political issue, although both parties try to  make it one.

It’s a moral issue, with practical consequences in the lives of those without access to care, and heavy financial implications in a system where the only option for the uninsured sick is to show up in emergency rooms.

Before the Affordable Care Act was passed, there were nearly 50 million uninsured Americans. According to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: 

More than eight million Americans signed up through the Marketplace, exceeding expectations and demonstrating brisk demand for quality, affordable coverage. . . In addition, over 4.8 million more people have been covered by states through Medicaid and CHIP programs, around 3 million more Americans under 26 are covered under their parents’ plans, and recent estimates show that an additional 5 million people have purchased coverage outside of the Marketplace in Affordable Care Act-compliant plans. 

That’s more than 20 million people who now have access to health care. To me, that looks like a win.

Unfortunately, some of the people most in need of care are still unable to receive it. An important 

provision of the ACA is expansion of Medicaid eligibility to individuals with incomes at or below 138 percent of poverty ($27,310 for a family of three). The expansion was intended to be national, but the June 2012 Supreme Court ruling opened the door for states to opt out. As a result, 23 states have refused to expand their programs, leaving the  median income limit for parents in 2014 at 50% of the poverty rate, an annual income of $9,893 a year for a family of three, with childless adults completely ineligible. As a result, four million adults fall into a “coverage gap”,  with incomes above Medicaid eligibility limits but below the lower limit for Marketplace premium tax credits. The majority of those are the working poor, working minimum wage jobs or trying to get by with part-time employment.

The ACA, Obamacare, was a compromise cobbled together in an attempt to care for the uninsured while keeping the insurance industry happy.

From every indicator I can see, it’s improved things for many: young adults struggling to find a permanent job with benefits, peoplewith pre-existing conditions who before would have faced bankruptcy, families of the working poor in states that have followed the Medicaid expansion plan.

And it's made it illegal to charge women more for health insurance.

But I’m still puzzled at the strong opposition to single-payer health care. To me, it’s a no-brainer. 

Why should my health care dollars pay the salary of the insurance gatekeeper who decides whether my doctor’s prescription is eligible? 

Why should my doctor spend hours every week answering to non-medical personnel eager to boost profits by denying care?

Why should a financial executive behind a desk in Hartford have more say over who needs a hospital than the doctor in the room with the patient?

A 2006 survey examined the amount of time physicians spend on billing and insurance-related paperwork in the United States and Canada (a single-payer system): 

20.6 hours of nurse time per physician in the United States versus 2.5 hours in Canada; 53.1 hours per week of clerical time in the United States versus 15.9 hours in Canada; and 3.1 hours per week of senior administrators’ time in the United States versus 0.5 hours in Canada. 

Economic analysis has repeatedly shown that a single-payer plan would slash administrative costs, allow greater focus on preventive care, free workers and employers from insurance-related staffing decisions, and save billions in health care dollars. 

I’m thankful for doctors. And for nurses, optometrists, dentists, therapists of every kind.

I’m thankful for those who spend their lives training, serving, looking for ways to bring health to bones, brains, eyes, ears, teeth.

I’m thankful for the Affordable Care Act, and the difference it’s made in lives of people I know, and don’t know.

I'm thankful for those willing to face political heat and accusations of “socialist!” to advocate for more and better care for those who are still without.

I’ll be praying this weekend for the doctors gathering to look for ways to advance the idea of a single-payer system. Their website is a revelation of simple good sense and compassion.

“The issue of universal coverage is not a matter of economics. Little more than 1% of GDP assigned to health could cover all. It is a matter of soul.”  Uwe Reinhardt

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Click on the   __ comments link below to post.

Making Peace: What God's Children Do

Too long have I lived
    among those who hate peace.
I am for peace;
    but when I speak, they are for war. Psalm 120

This week was the tenth anniversary of the war in Iraq, an occasion marked by bombs in Baghdad, reports of chemical warfare in Syria, continuing argument about drones, guns, foreign policy. 

Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.”

From all I can tell as I read the gospels, the book of Acts, the epistles to early churches, peace-making isn’t an add-on, optional activity for a few fringe followers of Christ. It’s visible evidence of family membership. It’s what God’s children do.

St. Francis, Fritz Eichenberg,
 1952, New York

Seek peace, we’re told.

Pray for peace.

Live in peace. 

Go in peace. 

Offer peace.

Turn the other cheek.

Forgive seventy times seven.

Love your neighbor as yourselves. 

Love your enemies. 

Do good to those who curse you.

Peace-making is at the heart of the good news Jesus offers: reconciliation between God and man, between warring factions, between those traditionally included and empowered and those too long treated as invisible and unworthy: 

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  (Galatians 3)

 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. . . Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace (Colossians 3). 

James, Jesus’ brother, insisting that faith reveal itself in a consistent, loving life, taught that followers of Christ would express his peace in their inner dialogue, their daily attitudes, their thoughtful, respectful words: 

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.  (James 3) 

From Old Testament to new, a sure sign of idolatrous paganism was trust in chariots and swords, military schemes, unsanctioned alliances with brutal neighbors. God’s people were expected to trust in him, not the latest military toy. His wisdom demonstrates itself in peacemaking that brings righteousness (not "rightness," but something far beyond it) 

The trust in God that vanquished fear and allowed believers to live in peace was so striking to observers of the early church that many, weary of Roman brutality, were drawn to the Christian faith, setting aside their own hatreds and weapons. Athanasius of Alexandria, ( 296-373 AD), asked:  

"Who is he that has united in peace those who hated each other, if not the beloved Son of the Father, the common Savior of all, Jesus Christ, who in his love submitted to all things for our salvation? For even from of old it had been prophesied concerning the peace ushered in by him, the scriptures saying, 'They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into sickles, and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn any more to wage war' (Isaiah 2:4).

"And such a thing is not unbelievable, inasmuch as even now the barbarians . . . while they still sacrifice to their idols, rage against one another and cannot bear to remain without a sword for a single hour, but when they hear the teaching of Christ they immediately turn to farming instead of war, and instead of arming their hands with swords stretch them out in prayer.” (On the Incarnation) 

Other early church historians echo this:  “Christ, in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier,” wrote Tertullian.

Clement of Alexandria agreed: “If you enroll as one of God’s people, heaven is your country and God your lawgiver. And what are His laws? You shall not kill, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. To him that strikes you on the one cheek, turn to him the other also.”

According to St Basil the Great, “Nothing is so characteristically Christian as being a peacemaker.”

For Athanasius and other early writers, the courageous peacemaking of the disciples of Christ was visible evidence of God’s power and of the truth of the gospel.

Peacemaking points us back to the Hebrew word “shalom.” 

Shalom is more than an absence of war, cessation of conflict, appeasement of the enemy. Shalom as described in scripture includes good health, safety and security for all, lack of fear, absence of  violence or danger, harmony with nature, joy in doing what’s right, economic justice, ample harvests, wise and equitable leadership, restored relationship with God and others.

Peaceable Kingdom, Fritz Eichenberg, 1950

Seek that.

Long for that.

Pray for that. 

Yes.

But make that? 

How?

In reality, none of us are able, on our own, to make peace.

Not even a tiny fraction of peace.

Even in ourselves, our own hearts and minds. Our own homes and yards. Our own small circles of influence.

God is the one able to create shalom – to tear down walls of oppression, restore harmonies long destroyed.

And yet he invites us to work alongside him, sowing small seeds of peace, waiting for him to bring fruit.

Just yesterday, caught in the middle of adolescent mayhem, listening to generations of anger bubble up in ill-considered words and not-so-idle threats, I found myself praying to be a maker-of-peace.

There is no recipe. No magic wand.

The tools we’re given are love, mercy, patience, a listening ear – not just to words spoken and unspoken, but to cries of the heart, too long buried, and to the Holy Spirit’s leading.

And service. Sometimes service is an avenue to peace, a way of showing love, of gently dismantling walls.

And prayer - silent prayer, spoken prayer, active, participatory prayer. 

Yesterday’s scene took some troubling turns, skidded several times toward disaster, then resolved, miraculously, with cups of tea around the dining room table, thoughtful conversation about the mysteries of the human heart and personality, then lighthearted talk and happy, healthy laughter.

I had some small part in that small breath of shalom, but the blessing was seeing God at work. Watching him bring hints of health as I offered my obedience. 

I’m mindful, today, Palm Sunday, of the darkness and division inside us all. The same voices that cried “Hosannah!” to the Prince of Peace riding into Jerusalem cried “crucify him” days later, when he refused to pick up a sword and lead a rebellion against the Romans.

We pray for peace, then look for ways to smash our enemies. We say we trust God, then watch our defense budget swallow funds more wisely used in feeding the poor, or building better schools.

We hear the command to love our neighbors as ourselves, then close our ears to discussions of waterboarding and drones, and thoughtlessly repeat what we’ve been told about the groups, parties, nations we’ve come to believe must remain our enemies.

I aspire to be a peacemaker. I’ve had numerous ambitions over the years: a tenured position at a liberal arts college. Write the great American novel. Shatter the glass ceiling in the youth ministry profession. Run a mile without dying.

Thinking and praying about peacemaking this week, I’ve realized: this is what I aspire to most. In my home and extended family. In my half-acre habitat. In the families God has called me to serve, in the unjust systems and troubled regions that are part of my daily cycle of prayer.

I long to see shalom: real health for people, places, communities; just systems of production, distribution, education; genuine love where anger, distrust, exclusion hold sway.

I’m blessed by those who share my aspiration: young adults giving sacrificially of time and energy to be agents of peace in racially divided neighborhoods, an aging social worker going far beyond the call of duty to offer stability and hope to fractured families and children in distress.

I’m nourished by stories of people like Pierre Nkurunziza, of Burundi, or  Leymah Gbowee, of Liberia, who dared to forgive, to pray, to insist on setting aside hatred and anger and model a new way forward, a way of peace.

Where to start?

There's no "peace-maker" degree I can earn.

No job opening I can apply for. 

It's a daily calling - not just for me, but for all of us who claim to follow Christ.

Works of Mercy/Works of War, Rita Corbin, c1954, New York

This is the seventh in a series on Lent and the Beatitudes:

    An  Alternative Narrative: February 10
    Seeking Blessing in a Fracture Land: February 17

    The Poor in Spirit and Those Who Mourn: February 24

    Hungering Far Past "Rightness": March 3

    Guns, God, Mercy: March 10

Lenten Reflections from 2012:

     Looking toward Lent
     Lenten Sorrow : Lament and Nacham
     Lenten Silence: Charash, Be Still
     Lenten Sweetness: Tasting Towb
     Lenten Submission: Rethinking Hupotassō     
     Lenten Song: Remembering Ranan    

Other posts about guns, war, peace, shalom:

    Words Half Heard: Guns, God, Mercy ,  Mar 10, 2013

    Words Half Heard: Guns and Good News?, Jul 15, 2012

    Words Half Heard: Choosing Life,  Jan 27, 2013

    Words Half Heard: Blessed Are the Peacemakers?, Jul 22, 2012

    Words Half Heard: Earth Day Shalom: Ripples of Resurrection, Apr 22, 2012

    Words Half Heard: Reconciling Righteousness, May, 20, 2012

Hungering Far Past "Rightness"

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

When we read the Bible, too often there are words we misunderstand, missing the richness of the original thought. As mono-lingual Americans, we assume our translations are straight one-to-one substitutions of word for word, capturing the full meaning the original implied.

Too often, the words we’re given carry only a shadow of the original intent.

“Righteousness” is one of those words.

I grew up thinking righteousness was something like “rightness.” As in: correct. The narrow tradition of my childhood church offered long lists of correct, or more often incorrect, behavior: No movies. No dances. No playing cards. No alcohol. No skirts shorter than your knees. No tank tops. No two piece bathing suits.

Righteousness was staying on the right side of the rules.

There were right opinions and wrong, on everything from baptism to women to the work of the Holy Spirit to the chronology of the end times.

“Righteousness,” to me, was a competitive activity, with a strong punitive edge.

Who would hunger and thirst after that? And what would it mean to be satisfied?

Dig a bit, and it turns out the original Greek word used in Matthew’s gospel, “dikaios,” is the same as the Hebrew word "tzedakah", a word used throughout the Old Testament to describe the character of God and God’s restorative actions: justice, truth, compassion, kindness, making right, renewing, restoring, ensuring good things for those without, restraining the powerful, lifting up the weak, repairing ruined vineyards and fields, ensuring wise governance and an equitable economy.

We have no word that comes even close.

In Jesus’ time, the “mitzvah of tzedakah,” the commands of righteousness, had been codified by religious leaders into giving alms to the poor, with the understanding that the poor had a moral claim to assistance, and that justice demanded recognition of that claim. The code of giving was spelled out precisely, with rules about who, when, why, how much. There were ways to measure the truly poor, and much discussion about which poor could claim aid, and how much aid was due.

That was the “righteousness of the Pharisees”: legalistic, motivated by codes, always asking “How much do I have to give?” More importantly: “When am I done?”

Jesus said ““Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” 

He pointed his listeners to the deeper, fuller expression of righteousness, the righteousness spelled out by the prophets, and claimed by Jesus when he read Isaiah in the temple:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
    and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
   for the display of his splendor. 

    (Isaiah 61, Luke 4)

Hunger and thirst for that, Jesus said. Hunger and thirst for restoration of the poor, joy for the suffering, freedom for the captive, light for those in darkness. Seek that, and you’ll be called oaks of righteousness. You’ll be rooted in it, breathing it, spreading it, a visible demonstration of God’s character, splendor, beauty.

When I think of hungering and thirsting for righteousness, I’m struck by the odd pairing of that beatitude with the one before it: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” I see a prophetic fervor in the quest for the righteousness Jesus describes. Where does meekness fit with that?

“Meek,” the Greek “praus” is another of those words flattened in translation. Variously translated humble, mild, gentle, weak, quiet, in the original it carries a suggestion of strength set aside in deference to God’s plan.

“Biblical meekness is not weakness but rather refers to exercising God's strength under His control – i.e. demonstrating power without undue harshness.” (Biblesuite) “ 

“Meekness toward God is that disposition of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting. In the OT, the meek are those wholly relying on God rather than their own strength to defend them against injustice.” (Studylight)

When I read these beatitudes together, this is what I hear:

Your greatest joy, benefit, health, will come from trusting God’s plan, and doing your best to live it, without insisting on your own rights, your own needs, your own safety.

And your greatest joy, benefit, health will come not from simply wanting God’s plan in your own life, but longing to see it revealed in the world around you, in the health of creation, provision for the poor, restoration for those mistreated. As you long to see God’s goodness revealed, you will, in fact, have that longing fulfilled.

What does that look like, day to day?

There are some lives that make this wonderfully visible. Mother Theresa comes to mind. Shane Claiborne of the Simple Way is a more contemporary, close-to-home example.

Woman in Afghanistan, Water Missions International

And I am fortunate to know many men and women quietly seeking God’s righteousness in restoration and protection of forests, wetlands and rivers, in providing clean water where disease in rampant, in offering comprehensive health services for neighborhoods lacking care, in teaching children, youth, adults in under-served communities, in advocating for peace and justice in areas like human trafficking, prison reform, responsible investment.

But for me?

I’m trying to live this hunger and thirst for righteousness on my local, personal level.

I’m involved in a local park where untamed vines are strangling the native plants needed for food for nesting birds. I want to see restoration and renewal in that little part of creation.

I’m managing my own yard as a habitat for more and more birds, trying to plant in a way that nourishes native pollinators, trying to create nesting spaces for birds crowded out by well-manicured yards and ever encroaching development.

I’m looking for ways to encourage restoration in families battered by illness, tragedy, financial strain. I’m trying to learn compassion, and to see the needs of others as needs I carry as closely as my own.  

I’m praying for God’s wisdom and grace in the lives of young adults caught in the maelstrom of economic uncertainty and changing social constructs.

I’m praying for healing in situations that seem beyond the reach of healing.

As part of a national League of Women Voters committee studying agriculture policy, and chair of a local committee trying to further discussion about the future of food and farming, I’m trying to understand what righteousness, justice, restoration would look like in our broken food system. 

And I’m looking for ways I benefit from injustice, and trying to find ways to divest, speak out, or rethink the systems that I’m part of, on everything from food, to pension investments, to the things I buy, or watch.

One thing I know about hunger and thirst: when you’re hungry, you think of little else. Hunger distracts, disrupts, reorients attention to that one thing: food. And thirst does the same. Get thirsty enough, and the only thought is to find water.

I wonder if that’s what Jesus meant: make righteousness, justice, restoration so central it’s what you think of when you wake, when you work, when you rest. Picture it, like a hungry person pictures food. Long for it, like a thirsty person longs for water.  

And as it becomes, more and more, the motivating force of the day, you’ll see it, taste it, know it. You’ll learn to recognize it, in tired faces on dirty streets, quiet corners of empty fields, thoughtful conversations over simple, home-cooked meals.

I wonder: what would our world look like, if more of those who claim the name of Christian would live in meekness, hungering and thirsting, working and praying, for the restoration and renewal Jesus promised?

The Lord’s justice will dwell in the desert,
    his righteousness live in the fertile field.
The fruit of that righteousness will be peace;
    its effect will be quietness and confidence forever
My people will live in peaceful dwelling places,
    in secure homes,
    in undisturbed places of rest.
Though hail flattens the forest
    and the city is leveled completely,
how blessed you will be,
    sowing your seed by every stream,
    and letting your cattle and donkeys range free.
                                                         (Isaiah 32)

This is the fourth in a series on Lent and the Beatitudes:
    
    An  Alternative Narrative: February 10
    Seeking Blessing in a Fracture Land: February 17

    The Poor in Spirit and Those Who Mourn: February 24

Lenten Reflections from 2012:

     Looking toward Lent
     Lenten Sorrow : Lament and Nacham
     Lenten Silence: Charash, Be Still
     Lenten Sweetness: Tasting Towb 
     Lenten Submission: Rethinking Hupotassō     
     Lenten Song: Remembering Ranan 

The Poor in Spirit and Those Who Mourn

Jesus’ first recorded words, out in the Galilean hillside, were these: 

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 

The Sermon on the Mount,
 Albert Decaris, France, 1953

In the world of literary interpretation, there are few pieces of writing that have promoted more discussion, analysis, explication than the beatitudes. The first one alone: when Jesus spoke of the “the poor in spirit,” did he mean the actual poor? If material prosperity is a sign of God’s blessing (isn’t that what we’re told?), then surely “poor in spirit” must mean something other than physical poverty?

The word “poor” that Jesus used, the  Greek Word ptochos, describes a beggar, “desitute of wealth, influence, position, honour, . . . helpless, powerless to accomplish an end." (Studylight)

Most interpretations assume it’s not real poverty Jesus was speaking of, not genuine destitution, but an attitude of receptivity:  

"The kingdom of God can only be received by empty hands. Jesus warns against (a) worldly self-sufficiency: you trust yourself and your own resources and don't need God; (b) religious self-sufficiency: you trust your religious attitude and moral life and don't need Jesus." ( Michael H. Crosby, Spirituality of the Beatitudes: Matthew's Vision for the Church in an Unjust World) 

So – don’t trust your wealth. And don’t trust your self-sufficiency. We can manage that. Kind of.

And most interpretations assume this isn't an ongoing state, but a one time occasion: the prodigal son, turning toward home, convinced of his failure and unsure of his welcome. The thief on the cross, asking “Lord, remember me.” We acknowledge our poverty of spirit as a step toward salvation and eternal life. 

But what if Jesus meant something different? What if this “poverty of spirit,” this utter dependency, is the permanent state of those who claim to follow him?

N. T. Wright argues that the first beatitude, and those that follow, are an ongoing sign of God’s kingdom here on earth:

“‘Blessings on the poor in spirit! The kingdom of heaven is yours!’ doesn’t mean, ‘You will go to heaven when you die’. It means you will be one of those through whom God’s kingdom, heaven’s rule, begins to appear on earth as in heaven. The Beatitudes are the agenda for kingdom people. They are not simply about how to behave, so that God will do something nice to you. They are about the way in which Jesus wants to rule the world. He wants to do it through this sort of people—people, actually, just like himself.” (Simply Jesus) 

Too often, Christians are known as the ones with the answers: judgmental, arrogant, quick to find fault. Insensitive. Unwilling to listen. Certain we’re right, and others, always, are wrong. 

We hear the part about God wanting to rule the world through us, but miss the reality of what that looks like: waiting in humility for God to work. Listening, with open hands, for a way better than our own.

I like Oswald Chamber’s description of this:  

“As long as we have a conceited, self-righteous idea that we can do the thing if God will help us, God has to allow us to go on until we break the neck of our ignorance over some obstacle, then we will be willing to come and receive from Him. The bed-rock of Jesus Christ’s Kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility: “I cannot begin to do it.” Then, says Jesus, “Blessed are you.” That is the entrance, and it takes us a long while to believe we are poor. The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus Christ works. (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount)

Blind Beggar, Richard Hedley, UK, 1897

This poverty of spirit is both entrance and arena: an expansive frontier where change becomes possible. In a culture that prizes resourcefulness, independence, “can-do” attitudes, confident certainty, we tend to run from that place Chambers points toward: the wilderness where our answers fall short, our neat logical categories shatter. I catch glimpses of it when I’m willing to walk beside people in pain and confusion, to listen with compassion to views not my own.

The more I try to understand what it is to be “poor in spirit,” the more I see it linked to the sentence that comes after: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

If “blessed” means “happy,” this makes no sense at all.

But if "blesssed" means, as I suggested last week, "rightly placed, set in right relationship with earth, other humans, and God as well," then mourning takes on new meaning.

This isn't the mourning of personal loss, grief for our own individual sorrows, although that can certainly be part of it. It's the grief of seeing how far we are from the kingdom God invites us to demonstrate, sorrow over the distance between the just, generous world we are called to model and the systems of injustice and destruction we accommodate in everything we do.

Gregory of Nyssa, (c. 335 – c. 395) wrote "It is impossible for one to live without tears who considers things exactly as they are."  Many centuries later, Bible scholar M. Eugene Boring expanded on this idea: 

"One of the characteristics of the true people of God is that they lament the present condition of God's people and God's program in the world…This is the community that does not resign itself to the present condition of the world as final, but laments the fact that God's kingdom has not yet come and that God's will is not yet done." (The People's New Testament Commentary)

I want to run from sorrow as much as I want to run from helplessness.  But the first step toward change is acknowledgement of where we are, and acknowledegement of our inability to fix it. Walter Brueggemann has written extensively about lament, and the force of lament in the face of denial. He describes laments as “refusals to settle for the way things are. They are acts of relentless hope that believes no situation falls outside of Yahweh's capacity for transformation.” And he speaks of grief as a subversive, transfomative act, an act of "tearful defiance thrown in the face of empire. The weepers in their weeping said, 'We will not be silent. We will not swallow our tears. We will tell the truth about loss.'"

Oswawldo Guayasamin, Ecuador

I've spent much of my life working hard to manage grief, trying hard to be resourceful and resilient. But maybe there’s a time to stop, look closely at the world, and speak out in tearful defiance, to say, with the prophets, "Like an empty-handed beggar I am helpless in the face of all that grieves me, but I won't be silent. And I won't pretend that all is well."

So I grieve.

Intractable mental illness in a culture impatient with human frailty.

Disordered family systems in a world where investment in children is rarely rewarded.

Twelve million children unsure of their next meal in a country that spends billions each year on nuclear weapons, billions more locking non-violent offenders away. 

I grieve industries dependent on child slavery for profits. 

Children lost to preventable disease, lack of clean water, war, young men with guns.

Communities lost to religious violence, rising flood waters, unmanned missiles, mudslides, fires.

I grieve the loss of real dialogue about the challenges that face us, the secret money that shapes policy,  shouts down dissent,and leads us in directions we should never go.    

A century ago, our grandparents talked about the war to end all wars.

They looked toward an end to disease.

Knowledge would save us.

Reason would pave the way toward peace.

Our knowledge has brought us new diseases, new weapons, sorrows unimagined a century ago.

And reason, reasonably applied, can only show how helpless we are in the face of our own failures.

Surely we should grieve? And wait – poor in spirit – for the comfort promised. For God to work. For his people to take their place as blessed: agents of the kingdom, humble recipients and bestowers of grace, in that wide open space where we leave our shoddy tools behind and listen for an answer. 

Recònditas Señales, Eduardo Kingman, Ecuador, 1969

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—
. . . I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.                               
 

. . . In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not. 
                             (T S Eliot, East Coker, Four Quartets)

This is the third in a series on Lent and the Beatitudes:

    An  Alternative Narrative: February 10
    Seeking Blessing in a Fracture Land: Februaray 17

Lenten Reflections from 2012:

     Looking toward Lent
     Lenten Sorrow : Lament and Nacham
     Lenten Silence: Charash, Be Still
     Lenten Sweetness: Tasting Towb    
     Lenten Submission: Rethinking Hupotassō
     Lenten Song: Remembering Ranan