New Year Resolutions: The Beatitudes?

 They may not qualify as resolutions, but the Beatitudes invite us to radical living in a New Year

Thinking about New Year resolutions, I somehow leap to the Beatitudes, that list of eight striking "blessings" or "attitudes" (or whatever they are) that Matthew 5:1-12 attributes to Jesus in what is called the Sermon the Mount.

I mull over whether or not the Beatitudes qualify as resolutions. I don't think they do, per se, but the New Year certainly offers an opportunity to consider embracing their challenges as an invitation to radical living.

Here are the Beatitudes:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

A few reflections as I think about the Beatitudes in light of New Year resolutions:

1. They go to the heart of what Jesus said and lived.

2. A Beatitude seems likely to be considered a "blessing" only when we have lived through the tough circumstances to which it is a gracious response.  When we respond in Beatitude responses, we will know we have embraced them.

3. The Beatitudes are radical. They connect to the deepest human passions and life circumstances. They point to gut-wrenching realities of life: poverty and emptiness, loss and grieving, powerlessness and social contempt, spiritual hunger and yearning for right to prevail (justice), seeing needy persons being treated unjustly and neglected, bitter division and violence, religious persecution, insults, gossip, and false accusations.  It seems to me that only grace can conceive of and make possible the radical outlook and actions described in the Beatitudes.

4. It is typical to learn the Beatitudes—to have memorized them and be able to quote them. This is often as far as it goes in Christian catechism or Sunday School. But, like the Ten Commandments or the Lord’s Prayer, familiarity does not mean we understand them or joyfully cultivate them as a heart and life orientation. Compliant and eager to be an ideal Christian as I was as a child, I remember questioning the practical expression of most of the Beatitudes. It was easier to just recite them and keep them as stained glass phrases. As I have continued to revisit them, my understanding and appreciation has increased, but they are no less challenging five decades later. 

5. The Beatitudes run counter to American machismo and status quo. They unsettle presumptions of consumer Christianity. On the surface, the Beatitudes seem to be a set-up for certain failure in a society that apparently rewards rugged individualism, conformity to sameness, upward mobility, the appearance of mental or physical toughness, and a thoroughly materialistic and self-indulging orientation to value and action. Dig deeper in the Beatitudes and it gets increasingly difficult to straddle kingdoms. What emerges is that Jesus actually declares people blessed whom Western civilization has over two millennia come to despise or disparage. Jesus’ life in word and action is, in one way or another, verification that his is an upside down kingdom, an invitation to downward mobility, and an lifting up of all who sorrow, who are relegated to the margins.

6. Finally, the Beatitudes call for what Brennan Manning called “ruthless trust.” Because the blessedness or results described in the Beatitudes seem so far-fetched or distant, they call for ruthless trust in the invitation, worldview, Kingdom order, and certain future Jesus describes. As Manning puts it: “Faith in the person of Jesus and hope in his promise means that his voice, echoing and alive in the Gospels, has supreme and sovereign authority over our lives.” Does it get any more radical than that?

It seems appropriate to consider the Beatitudes on the first day of the New Year. While we wish each other a Happy New Year, we might do better to offer each other a prayer for Beatitude grace. May we exercise the ruthless trust to see them come to fruition in our hearts, lives, and world.

John Franklin Hay

Last to Arrive?

 Shall we take our place among the unlikely visitors at a stable in Bethlehem?

At the end of the Christmas season and on Epiphany (January 6 marks the visit of the Magi and Light to all people), I think about the continuing, unusual draw of unlikely people to an unlikely place in the heart—Bethlehem—and I offer the following poem:

First, census-compelled throngs

swell the local populace,

burgeoning homes and hostels

with not-so-welcome guests.

Then, a man and pregnant young woman

arrive, seeking vainly for a room.

Bedding down in a stable,

their boy is born among livestock.

Later in the night, gnarled shepherds

traipse in, finding their way

to the mangered newborn,

just as an angel had told them.

How much later we do not know, Magi

come with gracious gifts,

following a star that draws them

from beyond any traceable map.

And later still, from the four corners

of earth and time, we make our trek.

Are we the last to arrive

at the gathering in Bethlehem?

Years from now, until the end of ages,

more will be drawn and find the One

whose birth angels once proclaimed

and so shall forevermore.

An Adequate Gift

 

Four enduring stories may help our gift-giving anxiety this season

GIFT ANXIETY  What shall I give?  Will it be enough?  Will it be right?  Will it be what my dear ones desire?  Will they be pleased?  Such thoughts rattle through my mind as I think about gift-giving.  I scroll through online items and walk the aisles of stores with questions circling.  You do this, too?  We are not alone.  

Some of my favorite imaginative Christmas stories and songs revolve around gift anxiety--and its resolution.  Leaving alone the more perplexing story woven in the Twelve Days of Christmas song, you may know the following stories quite well.  I recall them here and set them in context of this question: what is an adequate gift?

LITTLE DRUMMER  The most popular of the stories I have in mind is embedded in the song, "The Little Drummer Boy."  It sings first-person of a little boy who has nothing he thinks is fit to bring to the baby who is born to be the King.  "I have no gift to bring," he sighs.  He decides—innocently, naively, hopefully—to offer the only thing he has or can do: he will play his drum the very best he can for Jesus.  In the song, the baby Jesus smiles at him as he plays.  The gift is adequate.

LITTLEST ANGEL  "The Littlest Angel" is a beloved childhood story about a troublesome little angel who, learning that God's Son is to be born on earth, manages to gather together such common things as a butterfly, a bird’s egg, stones, his favorite dog’s collar in a rough-hewn box--things that he loved as a little boy on earth—to offer the Christ child. However, when the glorious light shines on all the angels’ gift items, the littlest angel’s pales grossly in comparison to the other magnificent, shining gifts. He feels humiliated and runs to hide. But, to his surprise, his simple choices are things the little boy Jesus relates to and loves. As the Christ child looks approvingly upon his gift, it rises and transforms to become the star above the stable, giving light to all.

GIFT OF THE OF MAGI  "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry is the touching story of a young couple with very limited resources trying to offer each other a significant gift at Christmas.  Unbeknown to each other, they sacrifice the best they have for the other's best. She sells her beautiful long hair so she can purchase a golden chain for her lover's valuable watch. He, in turn, pawns his cherished timepiece to buy a golden comb for her beautiful hair.

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER  Christina Rossetti’s carol "In the Bleak Midwinter" concludes with a verse that compellingly underscores the only adequate gift we really bring is the gift of our heart: 

“What can I give Him, Poor as I am? 

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. 

If I were a wise man, I would do my part. 

Yet what I can I give Him--Give my heart.”

GIFTS WE RECEIVE  Christmas is really not about what we may give to Jesus or to others. It is about what Grace has given to us. All our gift giving is a simply response to and reflection of this gift. Whatever it is you choose to give to others, let it be joyfully and from a grace-gifted heart.