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

--Matthew 5:3 (NASB)

The first of Jesus’ beatitudes is also one of the most unsettling. It touches on one of the top things that matter to people—money—and in a way that, even not understanding the verse, we realize is reproachful.

There are two ways in which the verse is usually interpreted. The first is to truncate it, as is the parallel passage in Luke, leaving out the words “in spirit,” as if the unqualified version is to be preferred to the qualified. Would we also say that the instruction “Stop at the sign” is better than “Stop at the red, octagonal sign with the white letters ‘STOP’ written boldly upon it?”

Even if the two versions are different discourses, their meanings must be reconciled if we attribute any consistency to their author. It is possible that Matthew, from a bias of a former wealthy man, added the qualifications to the beatitudes about the poor himself, but given the historic validation for both gospels, I would guess that both passages are representations of the same oral tradition—Matthew presenting but a bit more of it (as he does at other occasions).

In any case, the truncated version is often then used to support the idea that the poor are somehow in a favored position with God. While we know that God is presented in scripture as adamant for the provision of the poor (usually almsgiving is the definitive expression of what the Bible calls “justice”),  can we go on to assert that poverty is a blessed, a happy state? Practically every poor person I have known would disagree. Poverty sucks.

Sometimes poverty is additionally presented as a holier, idealized state, sort of like “the noble savage,” as if somehow the limitation of resources to do evil reduces the evil done. Again, I’ve noticed that the wealthy have no monopoly on materialism, self-indulgence, and cruelty. One of my most shocking memories, as a child in Pakistan, was being told how the limbs of the children we saw begging on the shoulder of the highway had been broken by their parents, the better to solicit sympathy.

The other way this verse is often interpreted is to skirt the issue of wealth entirely and to say the beatitude is really about humility. This leaves the Luke parallel verse in an interpretive vacuum, so one finds the most honest of those that hold this viewpoint attempting to skate close one interpretation without abandoning the safety of the other. Here is the classic commentator, Matthew Henry, on the passage:

These meek ones are happy, even in this world. Meekness promotes wealth, comfort, and safety, even in this world.

Sounds great. Only problem is the viewpoint runs completely untrue to experience and to faith properly viewed as a knowledgeable response rather than deliberate ignorance. Are Christians called to be meek? Then they ought to realize in advance that they will be bulldozed out of their money, houses, and peaceable living like the rest of the meek.

A third interpretation of the beatitude is available to us from the very first age of the Church, when the oral tradition Matthew and Luke were both describing was still fresh. Clement writes

…wealth with wrong desires <is> a deadly combination. In such a case, to lose the wealth would be a healthy alternative. To make the soul pure—that is, poor and bare—we need to focus on the next words of the Savior, “Come, follow me…”

Yet, some people are able to hold their… possessions simply as the gifts of God. They use their things to minister for the salvation of men. They thereby return them to God, who gave them. They know that they possess them more for the sake of their brothers than for themselves. They are the masters of their belongings, not the slaves… They don’t carry their possessions around in their soul, nor do they plan their life around their things…

Even if they sometimes need to be deprived of their things, they are able to cheerfully bear the removal of their belongings just as easily as they were able to enjoy their abundance. These are the ones who are blessed by the Lord. They are the ones he calls “poor in spirit.” They are the proper heirs of the kingdom of heaven.

--David W. Bercot, ed. The Pilgrim Road, pp. 84–85. 1991

In other words, actual wealth is quite immaterial to the question of whether one is “poor in spirit.” The real question is how attached one is to the goods a person has (or does not have). The denizens of the Kingdom of God minister for God’s glory whether they have anything to minister with or not. The blessing is the ability not to be mastered by whatever wealth wanders into one’s life but to rejoice in applying it the way God has gifted to the task God has set forth.

And I write “wandered” quite purposefully, because the earliest Christians universally viewed working to acquire wealth as pagan or wicked. As far as I can tell, what wealth they had was acquired before conversion or donated or inherited. The earliest Christians, like Paul, worked only to provide what they barely needed to do their true work bringing Salve to the world. And didn’t Christ himself warn against the idea of acquiring wealth in order to minister? “You fool,” says God, “This very night your soul is required.” And elsewhere it says that we will not be entrusted with more before demonstrating that we are faithful with less. Only those that prove they are really Children of the Father by a faith response, by working his Work, will be given His inheritance. And what would the earliest Christians have said about the idea that believers ought to exercise some purported “right” to material blessing? I strongly suspect that they would have said that whoever would believe this does not know Christ and has not come to Christ at all, or at the very least has not received basic training.

So we see that Matthew’s “qualification of the beatitude” is an attempt to better communicate Christ’s meaning: to have riches is not evil, but one must be independent of them, at least in spirit.

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I realized today, in examining why I would ever show up late and unprepared for my duties at the City’s worship center, that I still haven’t gotten over the shame of my calling. I was able to make it work while my wife was away at her job and I had hired out my parenting duties for $1000 a month from her paycheck, but now that she’s home on sick leave I’m too ashamed to demonstrate in front of her exactly how much of my week I spend praying, practicing, and pursuing worship. So my ability to worship has dried up like an unwatered houseplant.

How can a worshiper, particularly a male one, do the expected and support a family? The conventional answer is to find someone to provide a salary for one’s calling.

“What!?” is my immediate response. “Demand pay for the privilege of praising my King?” Most callings, whether making widgets or music, allow one to collect on people’s appreciation. Pay is antithetical to worship because we are in fact the “consumer.” The word “worship” comes from “worth-ship.” How can I demonstrate God’s worth other than paying it? If I demand that He pay, whom do I really think is God?

We see also from Biblical example that God’s servants never worked for pay. At best, they would (quickly) accept housing, food, and logistical support (often from women). They basically depended in faith on God as expressed through the charity of others. This is a subtle but important difference from employment. In employment, one’s duties are directly tied to one’s pay. We may hope, with our current convention of hiring church workers, that their functional loyalties remain with the Father, but I can’t help but remember the prophet Balaam, one that the Bible presents as powerful and completely accurate. Might a person conclude that the main difference between Balaam and Elijah was precisely that the one sought pay and the other depended on God and several scrawny ravens?

The term “spiritual Levite” sounds SO glamorous, when in fact the historical variety depended on handouts—handouts that weren’t even given in recognition of value but that had to be mandated by God. For Levites not only lived by faith and abandoned their families to faith but required faith of the rest of the Chosen, faith that having Levites pray and wave incense and practice plunking on their proto-guitars was worth spending the tithe of wealth that every family in Israel gave up.

The human tendency, I would say, is to lack such faith. So the shame of the Levite, stuck between his or her calling not to work (at least in a conventional sense) and his or her family’s needs, never marrying, living at age 40 out of his or her parent’s basement, scrounging for multiple low-paying jobs just to do his or her one real one, smiling at the daily jibes of hard-working neighbors and dreading those of family, wondering the entire time what the HELL is wrong with himself or herself.

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Of all the tests God blesses us with to, perhaps the most difficult is the one that settles the question, “Do we love God only for his blessings?” Or perhaps that is the greatest test, the others being variations as he removes blessings in different areas and aspects of our lives.

What do we call the person who loves someone only for what he or she receives?

Job answers this question quite succinctly:

The annotated NIV has an interesting note for “foolish woman.” It says, “The Hebrew word rendered foolish denotes moral deficiency.” The first time I read this, I scratched my head for a moment in puzzlement. Then I realized, “Job basically called his wife a whore!”

Job’s test was what we usually recognize as a baptism of fire: a removal of health, wealth, companionship, contentment, or peace—blessings that most of us expect to enjoy as God’s children. However, the most foundational test is that of a removal of God’s presence.

We see a version of this kind of test in Exodus 33. Even as Moses was receiving detailed instructions for the dwelling in which God would put his presence among his people, they were defeating the plan with a man-conceived, man-made, and man-manageable version: the golden calf. God realized that they rejected him even as he was drawing up the terms of his covenant with them. He was being stood up on his wedding day for public necrophilia with a rotting corpse, and he was understandably disgusted. Bound by promise, God didn’t kill off Israel, but sent her away, saying “Look. Just take everything I swore to your parents I would give you and get the heck out of my sight.”

It was actually quite a generous offer to the Israelites. Supernatural ascendancy over any who would oppose them. Wealth they didn’t have to work for. Only without his presence, which they had already rejected.

I wonder, if this story is, as Paul alleges, written for the instruction of the Church[1], what the comparable application would be. Is it that he is bound by promise to bless us with every material and spiritual blessing even if we replace him with the manageable appearance of worshiping him[2]? And would we be only too glad to receive them even if it cost us his presence? Doesn’t all this suggest that it is possible to worship him and be blessed, all the while foregoing his actual presence?

I wonder sometimes if there remains that lonely tent of meeting outside the Encampment, hidden by rocky escarpments, accessible only across the burning sands. There definitely remain a dissatisfied few that say, with Moses, “Lord, I could care less about my ease in the comfort and blessing of the Encampment. I’d sooner die in the fiery desert looking for you.” They venture out, and some never return. I wonder if they’ve found their way and remain, with Joshua, worshiping the object of their desire by the flap of the tent, content to have found all that they left and everything else besides. Or perhaps they even sit inside, face-to-face with God, receiving with joy his intimate loving words.

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There’s a bit on Saturday Night Live, called Really!?! with Seth and Amy, where the two “newscasters” lampoon the blatant hypocrisy of some public figure. I think of it now that I’m reluctant to consider the implications of New Testament passages that claim that the veil between God and worshiper has been removed. It belies my oft stated claim to desire to be in God’s presence.

I want to be in God’s presence? Really? Doesn’t the Bible say that I can but enter God’s presence? Why then act like I long to be there? Really!

On God’s end, it seems clear that he wants to be present with us. From the moment that Scripture mentions the existence of human beings, it also records God’s driving desire to be with them. But time and again they rejected him.

At the beginning, Adam and Eve had immediate access to God’s presence but insisted on their own way, even for the price of slavery and fear. The best gift God could give them under the circumstances was death, because without destruction of their unholiness, they would be left eternally cursed like Satan and other rebellious immortals. But God already had an inkling by which, through death, their descendents could be restored…

Such was the efficacy of God’s Inkling that he could call a pagan “righteous” when Abraham believed, left his world behind, and wandered off after an inheritance of faith.

Hundreds of years later, God turned whole nations upside down in order to bring Abraham’s promised descendents into his presence. For the sign of Exodus is not the liberation of slaves; it is his presence: “And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you (all) will worship (serve) God on this mountain.[1]” The liberation was but a necessary prerequisite to the real purpose of God’s work.

Sure enough, the people did arrive at the very mountain, but then there was a problem: they refused to stay in God’s presence and ran away[2]. So God allowed one man, Moses, to approach in their stead to hear all the rest of his words directly[3].

So , they refused to stay in God’s presence because they were frightened of God’s holiness or power? Really? Despite being brought there through many solicitous and mighty miracles? Huh!

Because they certainly weren’t too afraid, in plain sight of that thundering cloud that had so “terrorized” them, to melt down their loot to construct a replacement for Moses, one that conveniently couldn’t walk off into the cloud for divine instruction nor oppose their subsequent licentious behavior—all clear violations of the few words that they did hear directly. Were they afraid Moses had died, or did they hope he was? Really!

For God has this really inconvenient peculiarity of really being God, and hence is the only thing out there that can challenge our presumption to serve only ourselves (however piously we pretend to worship anything else).

Thus rebuffed, God ended up biding a couple centuries in his tabernacle cum temple, memento of the mountain, with the terrible veil of smoke replaced by an ornate curtain. He demanded two things that could penetrate the heavy fabric of that curtain—the incense representing prayer and the fragrant oil his spirit—because even after all of this he still desired even an intangible representation of intimacy. For he expected to restore his presence through the actual event that makes any person’s faith good; namely, Christ’s death in penalty for human corruption and his resurrection at the forefront of those that believe and are restored…

When that time came, and Christ died, it is written that the curtain of the temple was torn in two. This was in full accordance with Jesus’ main message, “the kingdom of God is imminent.” With the death penalty of imperfection more than met by the sacrifice of the Perfect Immortal, God’s presence could now range freely in the world without endangering those who trusted in that sacrifice. So God busted out. He broke out of the temple, the vestibule in which he had been waiting since the time of Moses to reenter our world, a prison not so much his as ours, both by cause and effect. Now the Mountain has come to people, and this time, Egyptians and all other nations are invited to be liberated along with their former slaves, the Hebrews.

The apostles affirmed this new state of affairs with awe. In Hebrews it is written, “This time, you have not come to a mountain cloaked in smoke and thunder. You’re inside, baby, with all the angels and saints and God himself on the throne.”[4] Paul puts it this way, “Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you…”[5], a verse that crops up (sans Spirit) everywhere nowadays to proclaim the spiritual ascendency of the material. Contrary to the commercial appropriation of the message, Paul is not telling us to care for our physical bodies by not smoking, drinking a particular brand of bottled water, or engaging only in safe sex. “Body” here is plural, the constantly re-coalescing community of believers that has replaced God’s former, geophysical dwelling. Again, Peter writes, “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.”[6] By “house,” I believe Peter was thinking of the Tabernacle, the mishkan, the “dwelling” God had formerly inhabited. All this goes back to Jesus’ hint at Sychar, “You will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem... God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth.”[7]

So, it seems free access to God’s presence has been restored, the self-placed curses of Adam and Horeb having been broken by Christ’s holy act. Every worshiper now has the same access Moses’ did to the Father (if not better). And as a consequence, God’s current dwelling, the Church, is smoking with his glory and thundering with his word.

Really?

I can only confess my own state. The sad fact is that, if I am in God’s presence when I gather with the other saints, I usually don’t behave like it! I remind me of the comedy routines where someone is clowning around, unaware that they are in the presence of someone who is likely to be offended by their antics. All the while sighing about how I long to be in God’s presence.

Jesus tells this funny story where a king is slighted by all the friends he invited into his presence at a wedding feast (they, at least, were honest enough not to claim to be too frightened!). He then realizes that his friends are precisely those who come to his feast when invited and, not wanting to miss a single potential friend, invites everybody. Some poor slob thinks this means that he can show up in shorts and a dirty t-shirt. “Hey, dude, this is still a royal wedding,” remonstrates the king, and removes the man promptly.[8]

In the Bible, clothes are a symbol of one’s behavior, and I like to point out here that the custom is to change into ceremonial clothes before the event being celebrated. So the point is that, if I can simply walk into God’s presence at any moment, then I need to behave righteously at all moments. Unless, like Ananias and Saphira[9], I think entering God’s presence is just some symbolic ritual to impress others. But God remains real and holy, so such unbelief in his very presence gives God the dilemma, “Do I kill them now or just withdraw my presence?” I have to admit I ought to be a corpse many times over if God hasn’t mercifully chosen the latter time after time for me.

The truth is that I am not in God’s presence for the same reason the Israelites refused to be in his presence. I have things to attend to, pleasures to fulfill. I don’t need some God to dress up for. Rather, I piously construct a theology that puts a great distance between the kingdom and me, build an idol in God’s image, spend my hard-earned cash to make it look impressive, show up punctually on Sundays to reverence it, and imagine in its shadow about how much I’d like to be in God’s presence. “Someday,” I tell myself, “I will be…”

Really! Huh.

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I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know…what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints… (Eph. 1:18 NASB)

“Paris is just super,” goes the old joke, “except for the Parisians.” I sometimes feel the same way about the church, particularly when dealing with stubborn opposition to my ideas during committee meetings or witnessing antics that I have long grown out of. I’ve also noticed how, when someone else from The ‘Hood visits our church, we who came first tend to look him up and down and think, “I know what you’re about, and I don’t like it one bit!” Finally, I know a growing number of people who, disappointed by their experience with fellow believers, have left church altogether. What I haven’t figured out is whom they think they’re punishing.

Which is why this verse from Ephesians caught my attention. Apparently, when God sends people our way, he thinks he’s sending us treasures. Rather than politely disagree, those of us who are greedy for heavenly wealth need to take a second look—with Spirit-filled eyes this time; not natural ones.

When I look again with Spirit-filled eyes, I am astounded. I see great anointing on those who are currently taking the next steps in their faith so tentatively —anointing greater than I move in. I see new fields of heaven beckoning beyond the rusty and broken gate of a prebeliever—fields I will never work in. I see how my fellow church-goers multiply my effectiveness far beyond the limits of my own strength and gifting. I realize that my path to blessing properly lies in my efforts for others, not away from them.

It’s like buying the field in Jesus’ parable. Every believer knows about the treasure buried at the far end. Imagine one’s joy then, when one finally swings one’s pick, to discover that there is in fact treasure buried at every step. I invite all treasure-hunters to join me in having a field day!

February, 2003

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Recently, two teens attacked their own school in Littleton, Colorado, killing over a dozen people.  As I listened to the reports pour in, I became struck by how much emphasis was placed on school access and safety.  Here in Chicago, the news emphasized metal detectors and unarmored guards with handguns, as if these could deter a commando-style assault with shotguns and bombs.  The Episcopal priest who presided over the memorial service that night was quoted as saying something like, "There is no place that is safe."

It seems to me there were much larger issues on the stage that day, such as racial hatred, alienated youth, and easy access to weapons.  Only toward the end of a local Chicago newscast was a gun control group quoted.  Even the Pope showed a greater perceptivity when he wired the Bishop of Denver that he was praying for "greater respect for life."

It further seems to me that the dark legacies of this country, spirits of greed, violence, lawlessness, and hatred, have matured and begun to choke our society.  In the face of this, is the proper response of the Church likewise concern about safety?

I believe, in its preoccupation with safety, much of the Church is missing its calling.  Jesus never promised his disciples safety in this world, but, on the contrary, betrayal and violence.  In fact, he purposefully sent them out into that environment, "as sheep among wolves," charging them to act as the salt and light of the world and to "make disciples of all nations."  What, do we expect sheep among wolves not to get bitten, or people who are not yet disciples to act Christ-like?

In the world, there are institutions like the NRA that, in its rejection of government control, plants a deadly seed of lawlessness.  Far from opposing that spirit, some "believers" have fallen completely under its influence and used weapons in support of "Pro-Life."  The truly sad part of this is that these instruments of Satan have not been as loudly condemned in the popular eye by the Church they slander.  Rather, it appears much of the Church holds political safety above God's good Name and washes its hands of such "worldly" affairs.

Similarly, the Church does less to reverse the secularization and mediocrity of the public schools than to take its children "out of this world" and train them at home or in private schools.  Granted, a few believers can't make a difference versus a mammoth bureaucracy such as the Chicago Public Schools, but if all the effort and money spent by Christians in the Chicago area on private schools and home-schooling were directed instead at changing the public schools, the mammoth would move.  Instead, much energy is spent obtaining tax breaks for these expenses.  It seems the priority is on financial safety.

The cumulative effect of these and other concerns about safety is to reduce Christian impact in the world.  If, out of concern for safety, a believer flees the world, he or she also won't encounter anyone to have to tell about Jesus.  Such modern monasticism may be more properly thought of as evangelistic safety.

The joke, of course, is that such flight is imaginary.  The Episcopal bishop spoke truth -- there is nowhere to flee, and any attempt to do so is fantasy, mere escapism.  Just because Christians choose not impact the world does not mean that the world, under the malevolent forces that still influence it, will fail to impact Christians.

Just where is true safety?  Once a former roommate of mine ruminated about how I survived a potentially deadly situation.  He used process of elimination:  "Street smart?  Nah.  Intimidating?  Get real!  Got a brain?  Maybe, but he doesn't necessarily use it."  He concluded that I lived only by God's will.

If we are kept safe only by God's will, how then should we live?  We should live primarily to remain in God's will, then to be safe.  With such a priority, we are certain to suffer loss, but it is worse to suffer loss while denying Christ.  The reason why heaven honors true martyrdom and faith is that these should be familiar to each of us.  Let us struggle together, then, encouraging one another especially in times of loss, to live in that "spirit of power, not of timidity."

September, 1999

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Lately our pastor has been teaching on the life of David. One of the odd moments in the story is how “everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him” (1 Sam. 22:2 NRSV). Why would a man after God’s own heart hang out with such men? And what did desperadoes find so appealing in the handsome and charismatic future king?

Oddly enough, I ask myself the same questions about our church, where a small but steady stream of such characters has also established itself. Some come from broad-shouldered walks of life: cops, repo men. Others are from the sidewalks or make their own path through life. Some are, dare we say, beholden to no one for their hygiene or manners. But all are men that live by their convictions, that would rather act than surrender to overwhelming circumstance, and that accept the consequences with no complaint and but briefly acknowledged regrets.

Such men are hard to find in a typical Sunday service. Surrounded by flowers and robes, well-scrubbed faces and Sunday best, tears and spontaneous outbursts of emotion, they know that they are far from their domain. They experience the same discomfiture that they would if dragged into a lingerie department—worse, perhaps, for the prying eyes. So they typically cast a jaundiced eye to “church” and “organized religion” and prefer to stay at home, on the streets, or in the Great North Woods.

So the number is astonishing who, after visiting for some reason or meeting the pastor, return regularly. I think it’s more than the unfrilly nature of the décor at our church (like the huge two-handed sword that used to hang in the office). I think these guys sense sincerity, honesty, and acceptance. They can hear all they ask of God’s message, but are never denied the responsibility of responding to it on their own. Our church is their opportunity to meet with God on their own terms, a desire so long impossible to fulfill that those who know them well are shocked by their sudden enthusiasm.

And, having them join us, my enthusiasm also grows. I remember how some of David’s motley crew of down-and-outs, malcontents, and ne’er-do-wells grew to such exploits of faith that their names, even now, are remembered from scripture: Joab, Jashobeam, Eleazar, Abishai, Benaiah…

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Next month I will baptize my friend.

I've hardly known her more than a year or two, but she's been many things to me in that time. At first she was little more than an afterthought. All I knew was that another friend I pray for had a new girlfriend, so I tacked her on to my sometime prayers for him. Then I got to meet her and, one remarkable afternoon, ended up in a discussion of the disappointment she had suffered when she first drew near God. Our friendship grew till my wife and I were bold enough to offer to start a seekers' group in their house, and she was bold enough to accept. We had hardly finished examining Christ's nature and accomplishment when she decided to resume her long interrupted relationship with him. Now in amazement I watch God's characteristics of generosity and concern surge forth, as if they had been in her all along, pent up, waiting to be set free. From the sidelines, I cheer her and Jesus on with all I've got--I'm their biggest fan.

It's taken me a while to learn that sharing the gospel is not about me. It's not my big opportunity to show how charismatic, knowledgeable, sensitive, pious, or persuasive I've become. It's always someone else's game; someone else's life. I am called to the sidelines, to be ever ready to share a mug of hot coffee, remind the team which way the end zone lies, yell "Boo!" at overbearing umps, linger stubbornly in the cold autumn rain or looming defeat. And I've discovered what every true fan knows: such insistent devotion makes every yard pleasing, every touchdown sweeter, every win a triumphant moment we will recount long after we swarm from the stands.

You go girl!
 

September, 2002

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