That\u2019s how the Common English Bible translates the first of Jesus\u2019s Beatitudes in Matthew 5. Most translations name them as \u201cthe poor in spirit.\u201d But I like \u201cthose who are hopeless\u201d because it is closer to the real meaning of the Beatitudes.<\/p>\n
We get the Beatitudes wrong ALL THE TIME.<\/strong> So much of the commentary on the Beatitudes assumes they are essentially virtues. Good ways to be. Commendable states to seek. Which is telling, because it seems we cannot imagine God blessing someone unless they have somehow \u201cdeserved\u201d it through their laudable behavior or praiseworthy state of being. We hear Jesus proclaim \u201cBlessed are the poor in spirit\u201d and assume that being \u201cpoor in spirit\u201d must be good, because why else would Jesus bless someone.<\/p>\n But the Beatitudes are not virtues. <\/strong>Not that virtues aren\u2019t worth seeking. They clearly are, but the point of the Beatitudes is not the same as the point of the virtue lists in Ephesians or Colossians that enlighten believers in how to practice this new way of life they find themselves caught up in because they are in Christ (\u201cPut on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience\u201d).<\/p>\n The Beatitudes aren\u2019t prescriptions, they\u2019re simply proclamations.<\/strong> Announcements of sheer grace; blessing for those who have been told their whole lives they weren\u2019t worth God\u2019s time and weren\u2019t on God\u2019s mind. Jesus announces blessing to these specific people<\/em>, the ones in front of him, listening to him talk about God\u2019s kingdom, because they thought they were outside the circle of the chosen. Dallas Willard coined the term \u201chopeless unblessables\u201d1<\/a><\/span> for these people who had been ground to dust under the boot of oppressive power and told repeatedly that they were the scum of the earth who deserved all the suffering they endured.<\/p>\n Jesus looks at these hopeless unblessables and says, \u201cGuess what? You\u2019re the salt of the earth. You\u2019re the light of the world. You\u2019ve inherited the abundance of the kingdom. You have encountered the blessing of God\u2019s kingdom right here and now, despite your poverty of spirit, despite your weeping, despite your timidity, despite the injustice done to you, despite every aspect of your condition that has been used as an explanation for keeping you away from flourishing. God is bypassing that whole system and meeting you right here in the wilderness, away from the temple, and conferring the abundance and authority of the kingdom upon you.\u201d<\/p>\n It still astonishes me that we\u2019ve somehow managed to turn these grace-drenched proclamations of good news for the marginalized into a bland, status-quo-reinforcing technology for blessing, a kind of prosperity gospel, insipid ways to turn the announcement of God\u2019s prodigal love into just another<\/a> status game<\/a> to find out who\u2019s better than who. How silly.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A little rant about our relentless tendency to try and turn the Beatitudes into nice ways to be, when that’s not what they are at all… \u201cHappy are those who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.\u201d That\u2019s how the Common English Bible translates the first of Jesus\u2019s Beatitudes in Matthew 5. Most…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gravitycommons.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/dPfjQTyJSJ2LpM7D9Yr0_Photo-15-02-2014.jpg\")
<\/p>\n