In a recent post on patheos, To Be Blessed: An Attitude, Pat Gohn describes her struggle with the the Beatitudes. She describes how early on these teachings from Jesus had little to do with her life. She states:

“Their paradoxes made me feel inadequate, for it seemed that on a daily basis I could name at least one instance where I was doing and being exactly the opposite.”

Gohn then reflects on various periods in her life of suffering, loss and humiliation that gave her a different perspective on these teachings, turning them from a judgment, to an invitation into transformation:

“The Beatitudes are meant to shape and form us—like “be attitudes,” the way that Jesus wants us to be. The Beatitudes give us choices to deliberately “be more” than minimalists or skimmers of the surface of life. They dare us to believe in the necessity of being a blessing now in exchange for a blessing yet unseen.”

As a privileged person, I appreciate the challenge to give up power and participate in the blessed life promised by the Beatitudes. Gohn gives me hope, that yes, I too have a place in the Reign of God if I choose to be shaped by the teachings of Jesus.

But what about those people who do not have a choice?

What about those who are made to give up power or are reminded of their powerlessness on daily basis?

Homosexuals whose spirits are broken by bullying… Undocumented Immigrants mourning the disintegrated dead bodies of their loved ones in the desert… Egyptian Citizens cut-off from communicating with the world to silence their voice…  Young Women working themselves to death in sweatshops for non-living wages to support their families…

It seems to me that it is for such as these that Jesus speaks these words.

At times I feel like an eavesdropper… amazed that I too can graft myself on to their pain… to join in with them, stand with them. What an undeserved privilege, a gift of grace that they would allow me a place at their table… those of them who do must be full of mercy, purity of heart and peacemaking skills. Otherwise, how could they stand to have me, someone who studies for a living (free to suffer or not… almost at will), around?

And yet, as Gohn expresses in her post, this text speaks to those of us with the power to choose as well. The judgment some of us may feel when reading the Beatitudes, I would argue, is actually a blessing. A call on our hearts to realize something is a-miss… something is broken and in need of repair. The amazing thing about this cry from the scriptures is the hope alive within the very cry itself: the hope that someone not only will hear the cry, but will also respond to it with compassionate action. A cry in this case is nothing more than the guilt or perhaps loneliness we feel when we read something that clearly was not written for us who do not suffer on a regular basis. Why aren’t we blessed… for completing all of our academic goals for the semester or for taking care of our kids or for paying our bills? Shouldn’t all of our hard work be recognized? Don’t we deserve a pat on the back? Don’t we deserve to be blessed too?

But there the scripture stands, both patiently and impatiently, crying against our self-centered whine-y natures, hoping for us to respond with compassionate action; calling us to a transformation of sorts, a reorientation of our logical habits from concern for our own well being (worrying about what we need/deserve and why) to the concern for the well being and flourishing of others. The question is will we, who have the privilege to choose, respond? Or instead will we just write off Jesus’s teachings as naive and antiquated? What would it mean for us to choose mercy? to choose to be pure in heart? to choose to be peacemakers?  None of these choices guarantee our own well-being. In fact, it is more likely if we practice these choices on a daily basis that we will experience what it means to be ‘poor in spirit’, to ‘mourn’, to be ‘meek’, and to ‘thirst for righteousness’. These of course are not the goals I was taught to aspire to when growing up in the United States in upper middle class white culture; in fact they seem to be the opposite. Perhaps I can describe them as up-side-down. For it’s not as if I have abandoned my life’s work… I’m still an academic, I’m still privileged, and I’m still struggling with these texts. Yet perhaps a partial answer I can point to a period of my formation, years of difficult discipleship  in multicultural settings. Through that experience now I aspire to be in relationship with others… laughing when they laugh and crying when they cry, instead of making sure everyone knows I am right, smart and God’s gift to their lives (this is just an aspiration… I mean I am siemprechipil after all). Also I aspire to have a seat set for me at the banquet table of the blessed, not because I deserve it or even because I’m Christian, but because those seated around the table have become my family.