Beatitudes: Like God are the merciful...
Beatitudes: Like God are the merciful...
...for they will be shown mercy
I hope it is becoming apparent how each Beatitude leads to the success of the next as we progress.
Before anything else can work, I must become like God: poor in spirit, not treasuring any position of advantage over others.
Only when I become like God, to be poor in spirit, can I properly be in touch with the pain of this world, mine and others, and truly mourn.
Through proper mourning - being empathetic to pain and suffering - I am genuinely made meek as my powers of choice and ability are tempered through a realization of the impact of what I do upon others.
Then, with my position given up, my renewed empathy, and my power tamed, I no longer act in the world for my own advantage. Instead, I now begin to realize the disadvantages of others, and I find that I crave righteousness for them, restoration. At the same intensity with which my body needs food and water to live and thrive, I find after the previous three steps that I need things to be made right for those in need. I find that I cannot live and thrive any longer without working for their uplifting. My life is used charitably to love the oppressed, restore the poor, and more.
Having spoken to our personal lives in the first three steps, Jesus’ fourth concern is how we connect with the victims of this world: we crave their restoration. Only after connecting with and working for the victims can I come to the Beatitude of mercy.
The fourth Beatitude deals with how we handle victims in the world, while the fifth speaks to how we approach the victimizers - the wrongdoers.
It is through the previous rungs that my heart has been properly shaped to be merciful to wrongdoers. In a poverty of spirit, I do not approach them from a place of pride. In my mourning, I can empathize with the pain in them. In my meekness, I will not abuse my power against them. And in my craving for righteousness toward the victims and needy of this world, I can begin to see where the victimizers are victims themselves - captives to the evil of this world.
If we have read Matthew’s gospel leading up to the Beatitudes, we will have found his theme that the Savior did not come to do what the Jews expected - save “us” from and against “them” (Matthew 1:21).
Very often, we feel that the “good” people of this world are to be saved against “them,” who we have labeled the bad people.
However, we will find that the Savior’s plan is not to save us from them but me from myself. Through multiple interactions, Jesus shifts the continual human tendency from “What about those people?” to “What about you?”
And these Beatitudes are all about me and my heart.
The new heart being formed within me as I have climbed the previous four rungs causes me to see the humanity in even the victimizers. This is what happened to the woman who gave up her crust of bread to a Nazi.
The process of the world is to dehumanize others - “them.” This is playing out to the extreme in the cross-party political hatred in the US.
I experienced it most blatantly when I shipped out to Army basic training in August of 2001. It was in the middle of my training that the events of 9/11 happened, and we knew we were training for war. As we were on the firing range, we were led as we shot our targets to scream, “TERRORIST BASTARDS!”
The dehumanization that would prevent mercy from affecting my combat abilities had begun. I was being trained to picture in my mind that those I would be shooting and killing were not humans like me. It was removed from thought that except for where we were born, I might be them, and they might be me. My training removed any sense of humanity from my enemy and reduced them from complex humans to a one-dimensional label, TERRORISTS.
That label alone made them worthy of death, and regard for anything else about them as a person was disregarded.
That label was made more clear when we called them bastards. In other words, when a human has been reduced to the one-dimensional label “terrorist,” that now categorizes them as an illegitimate class that rightly should not be here anyway. And as I made them illegitimate, my own legitimacy was elevated in my mind. My view of myself and my goodness was propped up against them.
So often, we relish the perceived increase in our own humanity, not because we have truly advanced but because we have buried others under us. In making the hole deeper under us, we believe we have gained elevation. To do this, we dehumanize and suffocate mercy.
My mercy was being deprogrammed with every shot I took, and I screamed, “TERRORIST BASTARD!”
But Jesus has come with the counter-program called the Beatitudes - one that removes labels, restores humanity, and recovers mercy.
When the wrongdoer is (re)humanized so that I see them as I see myself, I now experience real mercy for them. In this way, I become like God who prays mercy upon those who are lynching him. God has not reduced them to the deicide they are committing, but because God is the Beatitudes, he continues to see them as the humans they are, and he expresses mercy for them rather than condemnation.
Mercy lets go of “give ‘em what they deserve,” and it realizes that Christianity is not about balanced scales of justice and fairness. Until we come to see this, we will not understand our faith.
Because Jesus says, “The kingdom is like a landowner who does not pay fairly but pays according to what each person needs.”
Mercy disregards fair and offers what is needed, and God knows all of humanity needs mercy.
As the liturgical prayer goes…
“Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.”
He will, and so shall we as we climb the Beatitudes to be led next to purity of heart…