After buying tickets months in advance, getting to the show early, then waiting in line for half an hour to get in – that cringe of angst comes over us when the usher says, ‘Tickets please’ – and we suddenly remember that we left them on the dresser.  We can’t get in.  The drive home and back is too long. And there we are, stuck outside the doors we’d planned on being on the other side of - for months.

That’s how the most famous words of Jesus, the Beatitudes, often leave me.  When I hear them, ‘Blessed are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom, Blessed are the hungry, for you will be filled,’ etc., I can’t help but think that they don’t fit - what’s needed to get in, I just don’t have – and it’s much too late for me to acquire it.

Many Western Christians feel this guilt, shame, and remorse – even though most of our circumstances were and are dictated by factors beyond our control.  We beat ourselves up for not suffering more - for not being, poor, sorrowful, meek, and humble.  Or we simply avoid thinking about it figuring that if we just live the best lives we can, we’ll be OK.  We tend to take these harsh words as prescriptive of what we need to do to be God’s blessed people – but perhaps what we should be doing is looking at these words as descriptive instead: the Beatitudes tell us who God is and what heaven’s like.  Both are accepting and comforting of those most in need – neither forgetting nor abandoning anyone at the end of life’s rope.  Also, both are condemning, in the harshest of terms, of the hoarding, self-centered and uncharitable.

If they’re descriptive at all, the Beatitudes reinforce Jesus’ main understanding of who Christians are: Those who trust their lives and well being to loving and serving God and others over the long haul – as opposed to resting their hopes in the self-interested and short-lived gains of the present world.  One of modern Christendom’s biggest challenges is getting over the guilt - of privilege, prosperity, and affluence - and getting on with the work we’re called to do.  It’s about seeing the big picture.  It’s about getting our minds on heaven.  How might we put aside the guilt and embrace the call to follow Christ more sincerely and completely?

Reading

The Joys and Sorrows of Work – Alain de Botton

Radical – David Platt

Strength for the Journey – Peter Gomes