(Matthew 5:1-12, from The Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany)
Perhaps we should read the Beatitudes on every Super Bowl Sunday.
The two cultural touchstones do more than talk past each other. Each describes – and prescribes – the complete opposite of the other.
Imagine a halftime show that consisted of one man in simple clothes standing on the 50 yard line and saying, “Blessed are the poor … blessed are the sad … blessed are the meek …”
Absurd as it sounds, I think we Christians imagine something very much like that more often than we realize – and see nothing at all strange or contradictory about it.
All week, I’ve been reading and rereading Debi Thomas’ excellent essay “The Blessing and the Bite,” in which she writes about what the Beatitudes are, and are not. I have no better insights than hers on the matter, so I’ll shamelessly rip hers off. You really ought to read the full version. I’ll just focus on a few key points here.
The Beatitudes are not, she writes, Hallmark greeting cards, to be mailed to the downtrodden as cheap pick-me-ups in a crisp envelope. Nor are they “to-do” items, urging us to seek God’s blessing by being poor or sad or humble. They also are not meant to shame us for being wealthy, happy or bold. And they are not excuses to live as passive door mats. Finally, they are not “pie-in-the-sky” promises of a better life in heaven aimed at exhorting us to put up with lousy lives in the here and now.
If your reaction is, “Well, of course not,” you might give the top half of her column a read. These errors are easier to make than you might realize.
Having described what the Beatitudes aren’t, Thomas turns to what the are, and the first thing she points out is that they are blessings, which is obvious, but that they come first, which is less so. They are the first words Jesus says to the crowd, to his disciples, and to us.
” We begin with blessing,” she writes. “Blessing, not judgment. Blessing, not terms and conditions. Blessing, not penance. Blessing, not altar calls.”
Imagine if the Super Bowl began with awarding the trophy to both teams, before either had so much as stepped onto the field? Things don’t work that way – couldn’t possibly work that way – in the Kingdom of Super Bowl. But they work exactly that way in the Kingdom of God.
“What does this mean?” Thomas continues. “It means we’re not God’s nine-to-five employees, working for blessing as our compensation. We don’t endeavor to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in order to earn God’s blessings. We do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly because we are always and already blessed.”
Thomas writes, “What would happen, I wonder, if we who profess faith in Jesus actually followed his example, and made it our first priority to bless others as we have been blessed? To lead with blessing? To make blessing our most visible and foundational gift to those around us? What would happen to our hearts, to the Church, to the world, if we offered blessings to our neighbors as generously as God offers blessings to us?”
Thomas’ next point follows easily: The Beatitudes are reversals. As in the Gospels generally, the prizes in the Beatitudes bypass the already-full hands of the winners and fall in the empty hands of the losers. The poor get the kingdom. The mourners get the comfort. The meek inherit the Earth. Imagine a Super Bowl played in reverse, with the accolades going to the players who run the slowest, fumble the most, and score the least.
“What Jesus bears witness to in the Beatitudes is God’s unwavering proximity to pain, suffering, sorrow, and loss,” Thomas writes. “God is nearest to those who are lowly, oppressed, unwanted, and broken. God isn’t obsessed with the shiny and the impressive; God is too busy sticking close to what’s messy, chaotic, unruly, and unattractive.”
According to Thomas, this proximity God maintains to the world’s losers is tough for us to keep in mind, as much in our own bad times as in our own good ones.
“The first thing I tend to ask when I’m hurting,” Thomas writes, “is, ‘Where is God? Why has God abandoned me?’ The Beatitudes assure me that God doesn’t exit my life when I find myself in low places. If anything, God is most present in the shadows. Most attentive in the fire.”
But if fear and pain blind us to God’s presence in bad times, confidence and comfort often do the same in good times, she writes. God works continuously and urgently to realize his kingdom on Earth. Good times delude us into thinking the work is already done.
“If the Beatitudes have a ‘bite’ to them, this is it,” Thomas says. “God is in the business of reversing just about everything the world values and worships. Things are about to change. Hierarchies are about to be toppled. Priorities are about to be reordered. Am I ready? Am I willing? Am I paying attention? Where am I located, vis-à-vis God’s great reversal? Do I know?”
Finally, the Beatitudes outline our vocation as imitators of Jesus, Thomas says. Because Jesus doesn’t just pronounce blessings on the down and out. He immediately gets busy helping them.
“Jesus spends every waking moment he has on earth alleviating suffering,” Thomas writes. “He never valorizes misery for its own sake. He doesn’t tell the hungry to tighten their belts. He doesn’t ignore the cruelty of the religious elite and the politically powerful. He doesn’t turn a blind eye to the incarcerated, the colonized, the ostracized, and the demonized. He doesn’t leave the sick to die, he doesn’t abandon the dead to their graves, and he never, ever tells anyone to just “grin and bear” their pain because heaven’s reprieve will fix things by and by.
In short, Thomas says, Jesus doesn’t just speak. He acts. Following him means doing the same, she says.
“Blessed are you.,” she concludes. “And you, and you, and you, and you. So now go. Become what you are, give away what you seek, bless what God blesses, and turn this world on its head. Rejoice and be glad, for you are God’s children, and the kingdom of heaven is yours. The One who blesses you is near.”
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