In this Sunday’s account of the Beatitudes from Matthew, we celebrate a God who transforms curses into blessings. There are several tendencies that we need to be aware of as we look at this text.
The first is our tendency to turn this announcement of the Gospel into a law. Instead of a list of blessings, we read this as a list of musts. We must become poorer in spirit. We must become more merciful. Etc. We must do these things or the blessings turn back into curses. As much as the church and world need more poverty of spirit and more mercy, and as good a thing as it might be for any one of us to seek to grow in such virtues, our “blessedness” is not dependent on our ability to do better. It is precisely that notion of blessing being tied to achievement that Jesus’ teaching seeks to overturn.
Secondly, we have a tendency to see the Beatitudes as an exhaustive list rather than as shorthand for a radical reversal of the world’s values. Blessedness is a state of utter dependence on God. Every aspect of human life that stands in contrast to wealth, prestige, power, and authority is blessed. The ideal of the self-made person is completely contrary to today’s Gospel. This is indeed good news because none of us is ever able to live up to that cultural ideal.
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