A New View of the Beatitudes

The most basic teachings of Jesus Christ are found in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in chapters five through seven of the Gospel according to Matthew. What is generally called the Beatitudes are found in that fifth chapter, and I invite you to consider, newly, those verses. 

Following the Call: A Good Old View

On Jan. 2, the first Sunday of this new year, I started reading the book Following the Call (2021), edited by Charles E. Moore and issued by Plough Publishing House.**

There are 52 chapters in Moore’s new book (and I plan to read a chapter every Sunday morning this year). On the page before the first chapter, the “overview” begins with these words:

The beatitudes are a summary of the entire Sermon [on the Mount], shorthand for what is to come. They describe Jesus himself . . . . And they depict the character of those who strive to follow Jesus.

Each chapter of Moore’s book has one to four brief excerpts from the writings of a wide variety of notable Christians. Chapter 1 begins with words by E. Stanley Jones (1884~1973), the venerable Methodist missionary to India. Jones wrote:

Here is the key to the Sermon on the Mount. We mistake it entirely if we look on it as the chart of the Christian’s duty; rather, it is the charter of the Christian’s liberty—his [or her] liberty to go beyond, to do the thing that love impels and not merely the thing that duty compels.

American Saint: A Good New View

One of the intriguing novels I read last year was American Saint (2019) by Sean Gandert, about whom I was unable to learn much, even from his website.

The “saint” in Gandert’s book is Gabriel Romero, who was “raised in a poor neighborhood in Albuquerque by his mother and curandera [= medicine woman] grandmother” and who “grows up fervently religious, privately conflicted, and consumed by what he’s certain is the true will of God.”

Toward the climax of the novel, Gabriel preaches at the Sunday morning Mass in the unconventional (Catholic) church he started. In his sermon he paraphrases the Beatitudes, not as describing Jesus himself but rather suggesting what “love impels” (Jones). Here is what he says:

So who now, I ask, are those who Christ supports? Who are the meek, the hungry, the poor? Who are the pure in heart and the ones who mourn? I tell you they are the same now as they were two thousand years ago, and that God has not lost sight of them, no matter how much the rest of us have. God tells us this: blessed are the immigrants, for they shall find comfort in the land of God. 

Blessed are the homeless, for they shall find shelter. 

Blessed are the addicts, for they shall find relief. 

Blessed are those who suffer from racist oppression, for they shall find justice. 

Blessed are those who find themselves with child and choose not to carry to term, for they shall find compassion. 

Blessed are those whose lands have been stolen and colonized, for they shall own their own destinies. 

Blessed are the prisoners and the unjustly convicted, for they will find freedom. 

And blessed are those shunned because of their gender or sexuality, for they shall find love” (pp. 288-9).

Can We Agree with Gabriel?

As you might guess, some who heard Gabriel’s new view of the Beatitudes were offended and criticized his ideas as outlandish. In reflecting on that development, Anna, who was one of Gabriel’s most faithful supporters, declared,

You get a lot of hate for spreading a message of love. You get a lot of hate for acting out the words of Christ, who wasn’t particularly popular in His day either (p. 306).

So, what about it? Can we agree with Gabriel, or do we want to be judgmental of those who are hurting the most? Can we recognize and affirm God’s amazing grace?

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** (Moore, b. 1956, is a long-time Bruderhof member and currently is a member of the Durham House, a Bruderhof community in North Carolina. I first learned of him when I read Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, 1999, which he edited and which I highly recommend.)