Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:10)
As an Orthodox Christian, I understand that the Lord’s blesses those facing persecution (for the sake of righteousness). And the greater the persecution, the greater the blessing. That’s simply bass-ackwards from the way of the world in which I was taught. In many churches, they seem to look at outward prosperity and success as a sign that God has blessed you. That is absolute rubbish. People like that generally refer to the Old Testament for justification and then only tell part of the story. They tell of the blessings on King Solomon for his early wisdom, but not of his downfall when decades of power and wealth had gotten to him. Indeed, many of the prophets and heroes and heroines of the O.T. suffered much at the hands of the wicked, many of whom were superficially “blessed” with wealth and other worldly prizes. And then, what about Jesus? His blessing was purely spiritual! I would add this indictment: The many churches of the rich world who look to Old Testament stories of worldly blessings for righteousness are simply using the Bible as a justification for pride, greed, and power.
The fact is that the blessings of Christ call for the facing of persecutions, many of them severe. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. (Matthew 5:11) A great many of our Saints attained their sainthood through martyrdom; but this is not something that someone should outwardly seek, but should receive gladly if God has chosen one for this trial. So don’t strap a bomb vest across your chest and explode yourself as a political statement in order to make headway for yourself when the Last Judgment arrives. You’ll just start burning a little bit earlier. But if someone strafes you because you believe in Christ, accept it as a blessing, don’t retaliate, and God will indeed bless you later.
Indeed, the rest of this Beatitude says: Rejoice and be ye exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. (Matthew 5:12)
St. John Chrysostom wrote that the actions from which we would be persecuted included any act of righteousness – helping another, demonstrating moral purity, speaking out for Christ. He defined righteousness in this instance as “the whole practical wisdom of the soul.”
St. Augustine took this a step further, saying that this Beatitude, the eighth, manifests the perfection of the previous seven – humility, mournfulness, meekness, desire for righteousness, mercifulness, purity, and peacefulness – and enables the bearer of these to endure the persecutions which are sure to follow. Interesting to note that persecution carries the same blessing – entrance into the kingdom of heaven – as the first Beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” The Beatitudes come full circle at Persecution, which represents the completion of the spiritual perfections and the commencement of a new phase of one’s spiritual progress towards ultimate salvation.
This eighth sentence, which goes back to the starting-point, and makes manifest the perfect man, is perhaps set forth in its meaning both by the circumcision on the eighth day in the Old Testament, and by the resurrection of the Lord after the Sabbath, the day which is certainly the eighth, and at the same time the first day; and by the celebration of the eight festival days which we celebrate in the case of the regeneration of the new man; and by the very number of Pentecost. For to the number seven, seven times multiplied, by which we make forty-nine, as it were an eighth is added, so that fifty may be made up, and we, as it were, return to the starting-point: on which day the Holy Spirit was sent, by whom we are led into the kingdom of heaven, and receive the inheritance, and are comforted; and are fed, and obtain mercy, and are purified, and are made peacemakers; and being thus perfect, we bear all troubles brought upon us from without for the sake of truth and righteousness.[italics mine]
Now, as I close out my study on these Beatitudes, I must review my own relation to them. As a measure of compliance, I would rank very, very poorly. In fact, I have done the opposite of what the Beatitudes have instructed me to do: I have not been poor in spirit, but proud. I have not been one to mourn my own sins, but exulted in them. I have not been meek, but overbearing. I have not been one to hunger and thirst after righteousness, but been gluttonous, acquisitive, worldly. I have not been merciful, but selfish. I have not been pure in heart, but full of lust and carnality. I have not been a peacemaker, but a troublemaker. I have not been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, but indeed have done most of the persecuting myself, especially of those people who demonstrated the kind of righteousness that I lacked.
This last Beatitude tells me that I have long way to go. It is a lighthouse beaming from a sea that I have not yet entered, but other seafarers have told me shines brightly for all who make it to that shore. I am not one who can face persecution easily. I am still rather thin-skinned. The Lord, I sense, wants us to be thick-skinned, but then again, to state the obvious is to set the path before us.
But the Beatitudes in general tell us that we must not be prideful, ego-driven materialists who keep religion in our back pockets for special occasions like funerals, weddings, Christmas and Easter. They call for humility, modesty, and meekness. And as an American, I must say, those traits are anathema to my cultural upbringing. Writes the Blessed Theophylact, “Simply put, all the Beatitudes teach us lowliness, humility, self-effacement, and self-reproach.” He was commenting on the Beatitudes in Luke – which also deal with the flipside to this: what happens when we ignore God and lay all our chips on the world’s table:
But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. (Luke 6:23-27)
Perhaps the Christian life, then, runs against the grain of the worldly life. We are not to seek riches and fame, but to humbly accept our hardships, our penury, our degradation under the foot of those who believe only in themselves. This is quite easy to preach, impossible to do – without the hand of God on our hearts.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. (Matthew 5:9)
Before you read this missive about peacemakers, read this disclaimer: I am probably not the most eligible candidate to write a piece on peacemaking, but, I do know what an intense relief that bringing two warring parties to the table brings to the soul.
St. John Chrysostom wrote, “Here [Christ] not only responds that they (His disciples) should not feud and become hateful to one another, but He is also looking for something more, that we bring together others who are feuding. And again he promises a spiritual reward. What kind of reward is it? ‘That they themselves shall be called children of God.’ For in fact this was the crucial work of the Only Begotten: to bring together things divided and to reconcile the alienated.” Like many other of these concepts of the Beatitudes like humility, and mercy, and righteousness, peace is both a reason why God will bless you and a gift of that blessing.
And now, some terminology: The word “peacemakers” stems from Greek εἰρηνοποιός (pronounced ei-ray-no-poi-os) and means “one who makes peace; one who cultivates peace and concord.” The root of this term is εἰρήνη (eirene – ei-ray-nay), which means: peace, tranquility, concord, unity, love of peace. The Hebrew term for peace is shalom (שלום), which means all of the above things as well as “whole and entire,” and that brings an interesting angle to this discussion. Unless one is at peace one cannot be truly healthy. They say that mental or emotional anguish (in other words, being at war with oneself) brings physical disease. That’s considered a modern concept, but I believe that Bronze Age Man too had that notion pegged.
Peace is a terribly important word in the Christian language: It occurs over 100 times in the New Testament. Peacemakers, then, are those who are peaceable inwardly and outwardly; who are peace with themselves and who make peace between warring parties. With great irony, the word “peace” often breeds conflict. Massive overuse by many, often mercenary, parties, have caused the word to be devalued over time. The word has become somewhat of a misnomer. “’Peace’ is a word that has been covered with a lot of smoke from the fires of propaganda, politics, ideologies, war and nationalism,” writes Jim Forest, editor of the In Communion e-zine and co-secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. “In more recent years we had a nuclear missile christened the ‘Peacemaker.’ Such abuse of words is what George Orwell called Newspeak in his novel 1984. But ‘peace’ is a word that has also been at times abused by peace movements. Anti-war groups often reveal less about peace than about anger, alienation and even hatred.”
I would hypothesize that Jim, like many of us Orthodox, would at this juncture aim his proverbial ICBMs at the Western, modernist concept of peace. The West seems to define peace as a political process that often requires appeasing evil and accepting heterodoxy at its most compromised worst. It awards great prizes to luminaries for damnable political reasons and demystifies the notion of peace to the point that people like me end up running the other way – to belligerence or warmonger-ism – because the peace crowd has become so bellicose and hypocritical.
This leads to a larger question: What does Christ’s concept of peace truly mean? The Church Fathers draw us closer to true peace in their discussions of the contest between worldly peace (the fulfillment of selfish desires) and spiritual peace (communion with God). The writer known as Ambrosiaster wrote this: “The peace of God is one thing, but the peace of the world is another. People in the world have peace, but it works to their damnation. The peace of Christ is free from sins, and there it is pleasing to God. A person who has peace will also have love, and the God of both will protect him forever.” Perhaps, though, the peace of God is something that we on this side of eternity are not made to understand fully. Recall St. Paul’s rendering of it: “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7). God’s indescribable peace shall keep (or defend our minds from demonic attack) through Christ Jesus (our faith in the Living God and His Savior of our Souls).
St. John Chrysostom puts that this way: “This peace then, i.e. the reconciliation, the love of God, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts.” And of course, one of Jesus’ departing gifts was His peace. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” (John 14:27) He made this statement to His disciples to reassure them after they realized that He was preparing to leave them for the next world. The Blessed Theophylact paraphrases Jesus’ words like this: ”Find your peace in Me and you will not be harmed by the turmoil of this world. Oftentimes the peace of this world is forged by evil means and is mere foolishness. I give you peace that will enable you to have peace among yourselves. It will make you all one Body, and thus stronger than any adversary.”
In this sense, what at first seems like an interior kind of peace is actually something that occurs when we are part of a body, which is the Church. Only in Christ’s Church can we know true peace. We must be part of this Church to receive His protection. Then and only then can we understand His words, His Scripture, His Tradition. Thus, Christ’s peace is really a unity on the Church that transfers to the interior. When we have been received into the Church, and partake of its Sacraments, and believe in Christ thoroughly and with a childlike faith, then we will begin to receive peace. Did not St. Paul write, “…live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.” (II Cor 13:11)
And I would also offer this, that peace is one of the greatest ideals of our Christian faith. And, as one who has fought and continues to fight spiritual battles, I know what a highly coveted prize peace is. Perhaps it is the highest rung of the ladder leading to heaven. about the coming Civil War, but I am also the type to play dead if someone hits me. But just as I am one of the last people who should be writing about peace, I am writing about it because it is so important that I understand it. I do know what it is like to bring two disparate parties to the table; I know the sense of relief that brings to the soul. And I would also offer this, that peace is the greatest ideal for mankind and one of the great gifts of our Christian faith.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8)
This rather relentless study of the Sermon of Sermons presses on into this doozy of a Beatitude that is sure to separate the monks from the flunkies.
There is a sense in this, the sixth Beatitude, that each rung up the proverbial ladder towards salvation tends to be getting harder to grasp, albeit impossible without the Lord’s help. In the first Beatitude, we learned that the humble (poor in spirit) received the blessings from the Lord. Then comes honesty (those who acknowledge their sinfulness and mourn it). Then meekness, righteousness, charity (mercy), but then comes this test: How is your thinking? Noble qualities upheld in the previous Beatitudes help, but for the next step, the Lord requires of us a clean heart. We must focus on the inner demons of our thoughts – especially those pertaining to lust, anger, bitterness, etc. And trust me, I am the last person that should ever be writing a word about this!
The Blessed Theophylact wrote in his Explanation of the Gospel of St. Matthew, “There are many who are not rapacious and greedy, but are generous in almsgiving, yet they fornicate and commit other uncleanliness (sic). Christ commands, therefore, that along with the other virtues we should also be pure, that is, chaste and temperate, not only in the body, but in the heart as well. Without holiness, namely, chastity, no one will see the Lord.”
Let us consider chastity. In his seminal Christian Dictionary of 1612, Thomas Wilson defined this word as, “An abstinence and forbearing, not from marriage, but from all strange and roving lusts, about the desire of Sex.” So to be “pure in heart,” we could assume, requires us not to be lustful in our thoughts. We also know that Jesus would later, in this same homily, challenge His disciples not only to forego fornication, but also mental fornication. i.e., fantasizing about members of the opposite gender. “Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28).
But I sense that Jesus wants His disciples to be chaste from more than sexual lusts but from all temptations as well. “By the pure are here meant those who possess a perfect goodness, conscious to themselves of no evil thoughts, or again those who live in such temperance as is mostly necessary to seeing God,” said St. John Chrysostom. He alluded to Hebrews, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see God” (12:14). That wraps in the second part of this axiom, that for us to see, or be able to perceive God without distortion or imagination, but purely, we must have pure eyes. Added St. John, “For as there are many merciful, yet unchaste, to shew that mercy alone is not enough, he adds this concerning purity.” I also sense that God wanted to see His saints too – the ones that us nutty Orthodox put on icons and kiss and cross ourselves in front of… He wants us to acknowledge and to know their testimonies of holiness in a sinful world. And by bearing witness to His saints, we would be offered the opportunity to perceive Him too, once we began to become more like them. God wants us also to see reflections of Him in other people — yes, other ordinary folk, created in His own image.
This brings to mind the Transfiguration: Why were Peter, James & John only brought up on Mount Tabor to see the Lord Transfigured and bathed in the uncreated light? For one, perhaps they were the only ones spiritually mature enough to do it. They were pure – as compared to at least one of the disciples below who still had a massive imperfection in his heart. Their eyes were holy enough to perceive holiness and thus, to see God.
OK — not bad for a flunky, but I better stop here before I go way above my pay level.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. (Matthew 5:7)
In the last installment of this series, we saw that Jesus the Christ, in his brief words about thirsting after righteousness, had actually been preparing us for a discussion about giving to those in need. Recall the Lord had said, “Blessed are those which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled” (v. 6). But in the next verse about mercy, the word “merciful” was transliterated from the Greek word ἐλεήμων (ele-eimon). This is close to the Greek root for the word for almsgiving, ele-emosyne, which literally means “mercifulness,” the Blessed Theophylact tells us. Thus we could substitute almsgiving, or charitable giving, for mercy.
In dissecting this verse, we get this statement: By giving to others, God would give us a reward too. That’s a no-brainer, but wait – “giving” as a concept can get a bit twisted here in the West. We know that the Lord was speaking of all types of giving: spiritual as well as material, but once a spiritual ideal gets placed into an American and a Western idiom, the material aspects of it tend to get over-emphasized.
Now let’s go off the deep end. A thoroughly Americanized interpretation of Matthew 5:7 would be: Give and ye shall get. Give ($) and ye shall get ($$$). That seems to be the modus operandi of those purveyors of the Prosperity Gospel these days. If you tithe, expect your income to increase. Put your faith in the Lord (i.e., your cash in the offering plate), and you will get PAID. To those who think that capitalism has already failed, perhaps we can morph this concept into a political context and say, “Vote for O, and he’ll pay your mortgage.” But it all goes down the same pipe; it does not matter whether we are talking about money, votes, sexual favors, or drugs. We are projecting our own “you scratch my back, I’ll get yours” mores on to the Almighty. Basically: Get in good with God, and He will bless you.
It is really disgusting what has happened to the word “blessed” after it hit American shores. When a man is “blessed” by God, the implication is that he received a lot of material bonuses, cash, property or otherwise, that are interpreted as kudos from On High. When you receive an unexpected dividend in the mail, you have been “blessed.” When you find a disproportionately beautiful wife, you have been “blessed.” When your drug dealer gives you a bigger chunk that what you paid for, you have been summarily “blessed” (I am not being facetious). The word “blessed,” which meant “happy” and “tapped by God” when the Lord gave to us His immaculate Sermon on the Mount, has been hijacked by the secular and materialist and sometimes overtly evil forces in this world to arrive not at the Mount of Tabor and Transfiguration, but to plummet us to unspeakable depths somewhere near Gehenna.
My priest said recently in a homily that if one read the Gospels closely, he would see that following Christ does not lead to riches and material blessings, but to persecution and hardship. Jesus said: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you… If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” (John 15: 18, 20) That, friends, implies precisely the opposite of the Mammonite Creed of “give and ye shall get!” Jesus also said, “If ye were of the world, the world would love its own…” (v. 19a). Thus, we see that worldly blessings – money, power, prestige — flow not from God, but from the world (likely from the devil himself) to those practitioners of worldly devices. That is not to say that the Lord can bless any of us with material blessings – He has, He can, and He will if it be in His plans — but let us not base our faith on such aspirations! In truth, I believe that many Christians (including this one) focus on the material aspects of their faith a bit too much, and I sense that the Lord wants us to move the other way as much as we can.
Let us instead look at what the Orthodox Master of Scriptural Interpretation, St John Chrysostom (the Golden-Tongued), says about this: “Here (Jesus) seems to me to speak not of those only who show mercy in giving of money, but those likewise who are merciful in their actions.” The Blessed Theophylact adds, “Not only with money does one show mercy in almsgiving, but also with words. And should you have nothing at all to give, show mercy with tears of compassion.” Show mercy and you will experience the Lord’s mercy. Give charity (love) and you will receive charity. Be compassionate, and you will receive the Lord’s most wonderful compassion.
Lastly, the reward from God is going to be beyond our wildest imaginations. “For whereas they themselves show mercy as men, they obtain mercy from the God of all; and it is not the same thing, man’s mercy, and God’s; but as wide as is the interval between wickedness and goodness, so far is the one of these removed from the other,” says Chrysostom. Indeed, there is a great gulf fixed between the way a man could reward another man, and the way God could reward him. So let us seek the spiritual side of this gulf, lest we fall into the chasm.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)
Perhaps the overarching question herein is, “What is righteousness?” For it is something to hunger and thirst after, and something that will fill us and will ensure that we are able to filled when nothing else on this earth will fill us. It is what we desire and what we need. It is both the goal and the gift, the means and the end. We seek righteousness, and we are given righteousness. We are unrighteous, and yet we are made righteous in His name.
So what is it then?
The Greek text uses δικαιοσύνη – dee-kai-o-seen-ay. This word is also often translated in the New Testament as “just.” It is not a legal term, as is supposed by many of those who practice the Western Faith. Righteousness, indeed, is a spiritual term, and is often translated as “justice,” but this justice is not quite the same as the Western juridical concept of the word.
“The word DIKAIWSUNH, ‘justice’,” writes Alexander Kalomiros, “is a translation of the Hebraic word tsedaka. This word means ‘the divine energy which accomplishes man’s salvation.’” To me, this says that when we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we are seeking the things of God, not the concepts of man. Many here on earth picture Christ as some kind of pill that once we swallow, will make us righteous, or justified. But throughout all of Christ’s teachings, He instructed us to follow Him, to live in a “righteous” manner. And in the end, this speaks of one term: love.
The other definitions in this verse make it quite clear that this is about cultivating a desire for the things of God.
thirst = διψάω, to thirst after spiritually
hunger = πεινάω, to hunger after, desire earnestly, long for
be filled = χορτάζω, to satisfy the desire of anyone
Let us now plug in the meanings of these words back into the verse of this study:
Blessed (happy) are those that desire earnestly for and thirst after spiritually for the divine energy that accomplishes man’s salvation, for they shall be given satisfaction.
I am happy and touched by God if I seek after and strive for the grace that sanctifies us by God. Of course it is God who does it, but what Jesus tells us here is that we must seek this too like we seek the morning’s first drink of water and morsel of bread. God’s righteousness in a sense is spiritual manna. It is a satiating substance, found when we look outside of ourselves, out of our camps, for the gift of God. And by His grace, which we obtain through our faith in His Providence, we are filled with this spiritual nutrition.
Literal food and drink are not the rewards for God’s people, but righteousness is. If we seek righteousness, avidly, as in earnestly desiring and thirsting after it, God’s promise is, we shall receive it, and it shall fill us more profoundly than any victual or beverage could. “He speaks of food with which they shall be filled at this present; to wit, that food of which the Lord spake, ‘My food is to do the will of my Father,’ that is, righteousness, and that water of which whoever drinks it shall be in him ‘a well of water springing up to life eternal,’” wrote St. Augustine.
The other side of this issue is that Jesus Christ defined righteousness as a foundation of properly giving to others (being merciful). Jesus, wrote the Blessed Theophylact, was about to speak about almsgiving (Blessed are the merciful), so first He had to define what was righteous. “He first shows that one must pursue righteousness, and not give away alms from what has been acquired by theft and extortion.” He had to set the standard the standard of righteous behavior and extol the virtues of pursuing it. He had to state simply that all things given by God had to be obtained through the striving for righteousness and not through any other means.
One obvious application of this reads thus: Any monies obtained in an unjust manner cannot be re-applied to build the kingdom of God and be considered “righteous.” Otherwise, we are dabbling in worldliness and evil and we will receive condemnation for it. If I deceive someone for his dollar and then put in the church collection, I will have to answer for it. (God only knows, I have been guilty of this often!) Dirty money cannot be rendered clean. Then again, are we not supposed to be friends with the Mammon of Unrighteousness?
Now that I have completely perplexed myself, I will safely close. Good night, sweet friends.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5)
The Lord uses much of His seminal sermon to remind us of key elements of scripture that may have passed from the consciousness of this world throughout the ages of God’s people. Today this kind of wisdom sits well-framed on someone’s foyer wall, but tell that to a guzzler of Muscle Milk at the gym and you’re likely to elicit a snort.
This verse, like so many others that Christ uttered over the course of his ministry, alludes to the Psalms.
But the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in an abundance of peace. (Psalm 36, LXX)
This was the language that his audience was familiar with; but he used it to take them into unfamiliar terrain. Or perhaps, our God-Man wanted to revisit what He felt was most important in the body of their verses. After all, meekness as a concept popped up many times throughout the Old Testament but one could hardly convict the Jewish people of that time of extolling meekness.
Meek — back in OT days, was Hebrew ענו (anav — afflicted, lowly: one who would rather bear injuries than return them), and in the days of the Greek NT, the word transliterated as “meek” was similar: πραΰς (pronounced, interestingly: “prays”: gentle, mild meek).
So here is a word that sounds like “praise” or “prays” and means gentle or mild, but connotes a characteristic of a person who knows, humbly enough, that even the most evil actions that befell him on earth were permitted by God. Meekness, then is a strong devotion to God, knowing that the wisdom thereof and submission thereto will empower him on this earth much more strongly over the long term than aggression and pride would.
But it is not just for future blessings only in a spiritual sense. The meek, saith the Lord, shall inherit ( from Greek κληρονομέω, to receive by lot) the earth. That means, that the Lord, by His own wisdom, has predestined those who are meek, by virtue of their meekness, to receive by lot (or by apportioning) the earth.
And which earth? Does it not seem that the un-meek have inherited quite a bit of the planet by now? Could the Lord be simply speaking of a metaphorical earth? No, the Lord means this very earth, writes St. John Chrysostom: “Tell me, what kind of earth? Some say a figurative earth, but it is not this, for nowhere in Scripture do we find any mention of an earth that is merely figurative.”
Chrysostom follows with this concept: Meekness is a prescription for safety and makes good sense. The same Bible tells us to honor our parents “for so shalt live long upon the earth.” There are intensely practical reasons for honoring our parents. (#1: We’ll likely live longer!) He also reminds us that Jesus later in this sermon urged his followers to agree with their adversaries quickly or face steep consequences.
In other words, people who are less contentious, less aggressive, usually do not suffer the consequences of those who are. Someone who lets an aggressive driver cut him off on the highway instead of angrily gesturing at him is likely to reach their destination unharmed. Arguing and name-calling and pushing and shoving might be the ways of the world, but they are also a swift path to destruction.
Of course, there are many exceptions where the meek are persecuted severely, but our faith teaches us that the Lord has rewards for them as well.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)
On one level, this verse says simply that one feels better after a good cry. But its deeper significance may be difficult for many to accept because it is culturally contrary to the way we think: To be truly happy, we must adopt a spirit of grievousness over our lives and the world in which we live.
Blessed, of course, is from the Greek verb μακάριος (makarios — blessed or happy).
But it may be easier to ponder what Jesus Christ meant when he said “blessed” by defining what precisely “mourning” was. Mourn is from the Greek verb — πενθέω (pentheo): to mourn or lament, especially for the dead.
We are blessed (happy) when we mourn our dead, old selves. Blessed Theophylact said, “‘Blessed are they that mourn” for their sins, not for the things of this life. Christ said, ‘They that mourn,” that is, they that are mourning incessantly and not just one time; and not only for our own sins, but for those of our neighbor.”
This seems to be a polar opposite to the concept of maintaining health self-esteem that today’s psychologists, counselors and teachers would profess. In fact, God wants us broken.
A sacrifice unto God is a broken spirit; a heart that is broken and humbled God will not despise. (LXX, Psalm 50)
The context of mourn appears also in James:
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. (Jms 4:8)
Let us dissect this verse, defining the words:
Be afflicted [ταλαιπωρέω (talaiporeo) -- to toil heavily, endure labor and hardship] and mourn [πενθέω (pentheo) -- to mourn, lament], and weep: Let your laughter be turned to mourning [same root as "mourn" -- lamenting, mourning] and your joy [χαρά (chara) -- joy or gladness] (be turned also) to heaviness [κατήφεια (kateiphea) shame, dejection, gloom].
Putting it in context of James’ epistle: Draw closer to God and submit to Him, flee from the devil, be pure both outwardly and inwardly and cut the hypocritical living (verses 7-9), endure hardship and lament and weep for your true sinful nature from which only God can rescue you. Don’t laugh but tear in your eyes, and instead of glee — show the shamed and downcast look of someone whose only pick-me-up can come from God.
Spiritual mourning is a state akin to mourning for a loved one — where we care for nothing except for our grief at our loss. That leads to the Lord’s promised comfort.
The consolation comes by God’s innate design. People feel better after a good cry. But when we actually mourn and weep for own pathetic condition, not solely because of losses to us, then we are gaining in spiritual strength. Comforted stems from Greek παρακαλέω (parakaleo), which carries a variety of shades of meaning — to animate, encourage, comfort, console, to be cheered, comforted. Said Blessed Theophylact, “‘Comforted,’ both in this life, for he who mourns for his sins rejoices spiritually, and even moreso in the next life.”
This message probably grates at many of the happy go-lucky westerners (like myself) who view living a spiritual life through the New Age distortions of secularism and equate spirituality as a “self-help” that promotes self-esteem and enhanced productivity. But what Christ had been saying that was so revolutionary to his audience at the time was this: A man is blessed not when he is graced by wealth, luck, or happiness, but when he is wailing in a fetal position at the loss of a loved one or hitting the sharp shoals clustering on the shores of repentance.
Thomas Fleming of Chronicles Magazine wrote recently that the Beatitudes, with its emphasis on blessings for poor and meek and mournful souls, would have made a “disturbing invasion of values” for the Hellenistic Jews and the Greeks of the region. To them, God’s blessings would have consisted of wealth, power and prestige. What Jesus said was, in fact, opposite to the conventional thinking of his time — God’s blessings were on those who were poor, mournful and insignificant. Indeed, far from being blessed by God, the rich, the successful and the “happy go-lucky” types have already received their reward.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)
Traditionally, poor in spirit means “humble,” but as St. John Chrysostom explains, poor in spirit signifies “humble” with an added dimension: It refers, really, to those who were humble by choice, not those who became humble because they were forced by circumstances into humble pie.
Are these the ones who heeded Jesus and immediately sold off their riches and gave to the poor?
“What is meant by ‘the poor in spirit?’” St. Chrysostom said in his fifteenth homily. “The humble and contrite in mind. For by ’spirit’ He hath here designated the soul, and the faculty of choice. That is, since many are humble not willingly, but compelled by stress of circumstances; letting these pass (for this were no matter of praise), He blesses them first, who by choice humble and contract themselves.”
I have known people who appeared quite humble — modest, quiet, non-self-assuming… I think the word we’re looking for is non-egotistical. They were not as self-centered as they rest of us are. They seemed to have been born with a natural humility that was built in to their personality. But, St. Chrysostom tells us, Jesus really seeks to bless those who were not only lowly but are “awestruck,” and who “tremble at the commandments of God.” Perhaps, then, acting humble is not enough, but abiding in a deeper sense of humility achieves this concept of being poor in spirit.
Those who receive the direct blessing — the actually poor in spirit — were those who possessed both senses of this term: the modesty and the God fear. St. Chrysostom was reminded of Isaiah’s admonition, To whom will I look, but to him who is meek and quiet, and trembleth at my words? (Isa 66:2, LXX). Thus, poor in spirit means more than humble or modest, but meek, quiet, God-fearing.
He also proposed that Isaiah gave us different types of humility. One of which is humble in his own measure, the next is excessive lowliness. “It is this last lowliness of mind which that blessed prophet commends, picturing to us the temper that is not merely subdued, but utterly broken…”
Of course, the antithesis of poor in spirit is proud, and St. Augustine gives us a view of pride that I think will help us to understand what exactly the Lord meant when he spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.
St. Augustine wrote: “We read in Scripture concerning the striving after temporal things, ‘All is vanity and presumption of spirit;’ but presumption of spirit means audacity and pride: usually also the proud are said to have great spirits; and rightly, inasmuch as the wind also is called spirit. And hence it is written, ‘Fire, hail, snow, ice, spirit of tempest.’ But, indeed, who does not know that the proud are spoken of as puffed up, as if swelled out with wind? And hence also that expression of the apostle, ‘Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.’ And ‘the poor in spirit’ are rightly understood here, as meaning the humble and God-fearing, i.e. those who have not the spirit which puffeth up. Nor ought blessedness to begin at any other point whatever, if indeed it is to attain unto the highest wisdom; ‘but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;’ for, on the other hand also, ‘pride’ is entitled ‘the beginning of all sin.’ Let the proud, therefore, seek after and love the kingdoms of the earth; but ‘blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’”
In other words, poor in spirit means pride-poor. If pride denotes a striving for earthly things — money, power, prestige, etc., then poverty of spirit describes a yearning for the things of God that do not involve money, power or prestige. Thus, poor in spirit alludes that a mere human being is deficient in everything that is important to God, and can only receive those God-honored traits by his faith in Almighty God.
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying… (Matthew 5:1-2)
The Word soars high and fresh with meaning, allusions, application, and contention from the outset of our Lord’s most renowned message, the Sermon on the Mount. We are moved with his compassion from his beholding of the throng below him at the foot of the mountain, and we are also aware of the urgent need for discipleship, at his bidding for an audience to hear his message of obedience and love to the world for the ages.
A few different schools of thought have emerged in the two millennia since Christ first uttered his Sermon. One contention occurs at the outset, with the question of who were his disciples for this message? Were they separate from the multitudes, or part of?
These “multitudes” came from Greek: ὄχλος, or ochlos, meaning: a crowd that had flocked together at the same place at the same time. (The word “rabble” could even be substituted for it.) Our text tells us that these people had followed him from Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, and from the other side of the Jordan (Matthew 4:25). Once Jesus observed the massing crowds of miracle seekers, he removed to the mountain to give his lesson. Then he was “seated,” the seating of an instructor was mandatory in those days and the sermon began. My question is thus: how many disciples were there?
Some preachers have even referred to the audience of the Sermon on the Mount as separate from the crowd that flocked below. They contend that Jesus’ greatest sermon was reserved for his select students, and that the multitudes were seen by him from his vantage point, the only real listeners to him were his apostles and other select disciples.
But the word disciples (Greek: μαθητής (mathetes) for learner or pupil) does not necessarily refer to a select group, but from those who simply became students. The Church Fathers side with this view, that Jesus was speaking to at least part of this multitude, in that some of those who had followed him from other locales transformed from miracle seekers into students.
Writes St. John Chrysostom (St. John of the Golden Tongue): “But when He had gone up into the mount, and ‘was set down, His disciples came unto Him.’ Seest thou their growth in virtue? and how in a moment they became better men? Since the multitude were but gazers on the miracles, but these from that hour desired also to hear some great and high thing. And indeed this it was set Him on His teaching, and made Him begin this discourse.”
Still, a huge difference between those who stayed off the mountain and those who ascended with him yawns. The Blessed Theophylact wrote, “The multitude comes for the miracles, but the disciples come for the teachings.” And these teachings are not easy ones. They teach us to be humble, and meek, mournful about our sinfulness, wary of our thought-life and circumspect about our motives, moves, and murmurings. Thus, in a way, it is much easier just to behold his miracles. Accept the grace of God insofar as it makes us feel better but when it begins to demand something of us in our conduct or conversation, then we stay off the mountain.
This ferreting between multitude and disciples has another application in the Church. There is a difference between those who come for the entire Liturgy — the teaching and the miracle of the Eucharist at the end, and those who just want communion and come 30 minutes from the end, get their body and blood and leave. Jesus, I would say, wants us to behold both the miracle of the Communion of God and man, and the moral application thereof.
So, whatever it is that needs saving in your life — whether your body, your mind, your soul, or a loved one, remember that Jesus is the only one who can do it. And we must attend in faith to that miracle and then attend to his teachings so we may continue to bask in his bright and eternal salvation.
But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. (Mk 13:32)
First let me say what this piece is not. It is not one of many meditations written by modern-day “prophets” suggesting possible dates and times for his return. I think there is enough ammo out there against that sort of thing. But this missive is a little different: it is more about God’s motive for telling the apostles that the return date was thus unknown by him. Also, I seek not to write an opinion piece, but merely a survey of some of the views out there on this.
Several of the Church Fathers felt that Jesus actually did know the hour of his return. After all, he is God, consubstantial with the Father, the Word made flesh, etc. The Church Fathers argued extensively, and quite elegantly then, that it was simply not possible for him not have known the hour of his return. He said what he said because, they contend, he needed to deflect the apostles from begging of him his return trip information.
The Blessed Theophylact likened it to a father trying to hide something in his hand and his child crying incessantly to see it. The father, finally, puts the object away and opens his hands instead showing nothing there, and thus satisfying the child. This is an endearing explanation. But my question is this: would Jesus have told a little white lie?
In fact, there are many other takes on this account from the Holy Fathers too. The “philological argument,” by St. Basil the Great, holds that a slight mis-transliteration bars us from understanding what Jesus Christ really meant. A more accurate translation from the original Greek would have stated, But of that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, if not (ei me) the Father.” Here he was actually saying that because he was the Son of God, not simply a son of God (like, someone in God’s good graces), but the Son who is consubstantial with the Father, prophesied by Scripture. Indeed, Jesus was saying, according to this view, that he did know the hour because he and the Father are one. (“Oh, and by the way, I’m still not telling.”)
Another concept, put forth by St. Augustine, maintains that “to know” in this use connotes “to reveal.” In other words, he had knowledge of it on one level as one aspect of the godhead, but was simply not revealing the time yet. There is something appealing in that explanation, because it tells us that there are several more degrees of God’s “knowing.” God already knows everything, but the way and timeline and manner in which He reveals things to us is beyond human comprehension.
Another interesting explanation of this maintains that Jesus, who had not yet ascended to the Father and into timeless eternity, could not have discerned, from that present perspective, the when of the impending end-time. Francis Gumerlock wrote in Trinity Journal: “The main strength of Athanasius’s anthropological interpretation is that it harmonizes with Luke’s Gospel, which assigns to Christ a growth in wisdom. Since the Gospel writer claims that the Christ-child “grew in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52), it is inferred that Christ was ignorant of certain things.”
In the final analysys, it should not matter if Jesus did know or did not know, or knew but not in a way that could have revealed anything to us. The point is that we are not supposed to know the hour of his return. We are charged to Watch and pray. I don’t understand why so many theologians both now and throughout the ages have taken stabs at this sacred subject. Moreover, that “unknowingness” makes our Christian walks all the more exciting.
