Have We Been Getting the Beatitudes All Wrong?

Courting Rejection

I have a friend who takes great pride in flouting conventional dress rules. You might think these rules no longer exist in today’s highly informal culture, and while it is true there are far fewer than there used to be, people will always, to some extent, make assumptions about you based on how well you put yourself together. 

This man has a whole story about his childhood, being poor and unable to buy the designer labels his classmates were wearing; having to shop at thrift stores and being bullied as a result. The stories are undoubtedly true in that I believe they happened. But what’s interesting is the way he’s made a head canon of them, a sort of superhero origin story. The rich kids bullied him, and now he dedicates his life to fighting the power of the wealthy. 

The poor, he says, are the truly virtuous; the wealthy consume and destroy all the bounty of the earth and her people, and therefore, in his brave and principled stand against this evil, he refuses to bow to any sartorial conventions.

I don’t mean only that he wears things that are inexpensive and thrifted. He seems to take a perverse pleasure in wearing something that’s two sizes too big or too small, sometimes tattered or even stained. He has a pair of pants with a broken zipper that refuses to stay up; he can’t be bothered to replace or repair the pants 

Of course, he has a right to do this. There’s certainly nothing morally wrong with dressing unfashionably or humbly. But he insists on being hurt and outraged when someone mistakes him for a homeless person, or assumes he’s uneducated. It’s one thing to make an unconventional choice and accept the consequences in pursuit of a greater good. It’s another to deliberately cultivate rejection and then claim harm and injustice when you receive it. 

He’s not alone. We all do this in more subtle ways. For years I told myself that people who were financially responsible were simply slaves to the neoliberal capitalist system and that I alone was enlightened enough to see through it all. My financial instability that stemmed from overspending was freedom, or something like that. 

It’s true that people do become overly obsessed with financial security, to the point that it prevents them from taking risks and living more meaningful and enjoyable lives. But I was creating a bullshit story to distract from my own pain and addiction. As an impulsive and compulsive spender, I was no less a slave to capitalism than the workaholic or the miser. 

More #Blessed Than Thou

The Beatitudes, from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, are one of the most beloved of all scripture passages. Even people with no particular affinity for Christianity will consider it to be a great moral teaching. You know how it goes:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I must confess, I’ve always hated the Beatitudes. When you are truly suffering from something like depression, grief, or poverty, a vague notion of post-mortem reward seems like pretty cold comfort. 

“Just suffer through it,” Jesus says. “It might feel miserable now, but you’ll feel so much schadenfreude when you get to heaven!

Marxist-influenced liberation theologians have rightly criticized this idea, and come up with their own interpretation: Jesus isn’t promising pie in the sky when you die. He’s affirming that you who suffer from oppression are actually the righteous ones. You must fight oppression secure in the knowledge that God is on your side. 

This seems admirable at first, but in my experience leads to a kind of self-righteousness that proves to be self-defeating. If anything is to be learned from history, the oppressed don’t seem to have any supernatural advantage over the oppressor. Underdogs who manage to rise up and overthrow their overlords usually become tyrants themselves in the end. It’s a constant churn. 

Many of the Christians I know who buy into this reading of the Beatitudes cling to the idea that suffering makes them righteous in order to justify their own bitterness and resentment. Like my unkempt friend, they create a vicious cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy— I am righteous because I suffer; I will suffer more that I might increase my righteousness.

Keep Walking

The other day I was reading a commentary on The Gospel of Mary by French Orthodox priest and monk Jean-Yves Leloup and came across something that took me by the shoulders and made me read again. The book is translated from the French, and Leloup references a translation of the Bible made by French-Algerian-Israeli scholar and lawyer Andre Chouraqui. 

Chouraqui grew up speaking French, Arabic, and Hebrew in Algeria. During World War II he was a member of the resistance in France, and afterward became deeply invested in interfaith exploration while serving in the Israeli government. His facility with languages and interest in the common cultural and linguistic heritage of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity led him to read the sacred texts in a unique way. 

In particular, he felt that many translations missed a lot of the wordplay and allusive meaning present in the original Semitic languages, and translated his own versions of the Old and New Testaments as well as the Qu’ran into French, eschewing easy readability for more literal and sometimes startling renditions informed by Syriac and Aramaic sources.

The Chouraqui Bible has remained popular in France ever since, and it was his version of the Beatitudes, translated into English, that opened my eyes as I read Leloup.

The English “blessed” comes from the Latin beati, meaning happy or content. In the Greek of the New Testament the word is makarioi, meaning free from worry and care, and the French rendition is similar, heureux, meaning happy. All of these are quite passive and give the impression of a vague and banal sort of sentiment, like the disinterested handwaving of a minister at the end of a service.

Chouraqui contends that the Hebrew word for blessing, ashrei, is on the contrary quite active and derives from a word that implies straight-ahead movement toward a goal. He renders this in French as En marche!, which means “Walk on!” or “Forward!” In this way, we can read the Beatitudes not as anemic platitudes or a valorization of suffering, but as an encouragement that those who keep faith and move forward will find what their hearts are longing for. 

I do not think this is not the same thing as the idea of vindication over enemies and the encouragement to press on toward purely political goals that liberation theology leans toward. Neither is it an objectivist-style admonishment to self-sufficiency and bootstrapping.

What I hear instead is a promise that those who pursue the authentic good wholeheartedly, for themselves and for others, will find that they are met with the support and resources they need along the way. But it requires a willingness to “walk on.” To refuse to stay stuck in complacency, self-pity, or resentment. 

This jibes with my own experience over the years. I really do believe that the collective consciousness of the universe we live in (which is another way of saying “God”) is fundamentally on our side. And I don’t mean on the side of the just over the unjust, or the poor over the rich, etc. There’s not one of us who is immune from our own selfishness, greed, or injustice, and not one of us who doesn’t feel dejected, discouraged, and victimized from time to time.

I’ve learned that every time I turn my heart toward God and toward life (by whatever name I choose to call it) with an open heart and honest desire, I am always given just what I need to take the next step, whether it’s a new idea, a change of heart, or material resources. The more I choose to share what I receive with others, which may be material support, but is more often things like respect, kindness, honesty, encouragement, joy— all those very boring and unsexy virtues— the more I get them back in return.

That doesn’t mean I don’t think there’s a place for political work, structural analyses, or social change. But it’s always secondary to the inner work. In fact, I’m convinced that the more all of us are doing that inner work of opening to life, love, and God; learning to trust, offering gratitude, and continuing to move forward; the more things like justice, peace, and abundance grow naturally, like apples on a tree.

I’ve taken the liberty of writing my own completely non-scholarly and probably unsupportable version of the Beatitudes:

If you are dejected and discouraged, walk on! All the resources of heaven’s kingdom are at your disposal.

If you weep rivers of tears over what you have lost, walk on. You will find comfort, even in the midst of your grief.

If you struggle to stand up and claim what is yours, walk on! All the earth belongs to you, did you ever doubt it?

If you long to taste righteousness, walk on! Your persistence will bear much fruit.

If mercy and love flow from you like a fountain, walk on! It will always flow back to you in return.

If your heart is clear and true, walk on! You will always know God in the depths of your being.

If you have made yourself a channel for peace, walk on! You will always be my most beloved child.

When you suffer for standing up for what you know is right, walk on! Many angels, saints, and ancestors stand ready to support you.

I’m sorry, I just couldn’t bring myself to rewrite the very last beatitude, about suffering and being persecuted and receiving a reward in heaven. Perhaps I do not yet understand it, but still sounds like too much of a pity party to me. Could Jesus really have said that?

;-)

En Marche!

P.S.

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