The Slow Way Newsletter: On the Most Blessed, Or Telling Ourselves the Real Truth About the World
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On the Most Blessed, Or Telling Ourselves the Real Truth About the World
“There is a soul knowledge, a victory of the Spirit, that comes only from engagement, patience, prayer, insight and in transformation. It is never attained by mere political victories or control of outcomes. In fact, when a Christian needs to ensure outcomes, you know they are outside the realm of faith. When we do not need to control the future, we are in a very creative and liminal space where God is most free to act in our lives. Faith seems to be the attitude that Jesus most praises in people, maybe because it makes hope and love possible.”
-Richard Rohr (Jesus’ Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount)
It seems to me that a lot of what we’re doing here is learning how to settle down into soul knowledge, and embracing that soul knowledge actually has very little to do with the kind of knowledge that the world around us deems valuable.
Right now I’m reading books about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and thinking a lot about the Beatitudes, his most famous portion of the sermon in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 5. I’m wondering what Jesus actually means by the words we throw out there all the time in Christian circles: The Kingdom of God, or what some call The Reign of God.
In that world, in the Reign of God, the blessings exist in an upside down paradigm. It’s not the strong who win, it’s the weak. It’s not the entities with the most powerful weapons who receive the good life, it’s the ones who work to make peace. And so in the world Jesus preached about, the world I still believe the Cosmic Christ is working to establish on earth, power and intellect, money and control all lose their value. It’s the weak, the grieving, the vulnerable, the ones without control, the abused, the intellectually disabled. These are the ones who matter, who win the blessing.
Upside down. Opposite of the rules of the earth. And it’s in that spirit, that understanding of what actually matters in the upside down world of Jesus, that we learn what it means to gain what Rohr calls “Soul Knowledge.”
Sometimes we think of the Beatitudes as honoring people other than ourselves, people that the rest of the world deems unworthy. But I’d like for us to think about how we fit into Jesus’ list of the most-blessed as well. Actually, as much as it might be difficult to believe, you are not your intellect, your power, your success, your ability to fit in at a party. You are not your ability to be happy, or healthy, or rich. It’s your weaknesses that bring you into the upside down of God’s values.
And it’s in that understanding that Rohr’s words above start to make sense. When we let go of control, when we open our hands, “we are in a very creative and liminal space where God is most free to act in our lives.” And that is faith, letting go of control, believing that the life of weakness is actually the life of the Most Blessed.
So what does that mean for you? For me? How do we translate the paradox of the Beatitudes into our lives today? I think it starts with the spiritual practice of telling the truth to ourselves about what is most important. What are you trying to control that you actually need to release? What lives around you are you deeming unworthy when the truth is actually the opposite? How are you choosing power over peacemaking in your relationships and how can that be undone?
The truth is that the Beatitudes are always going to be impossible to receive, and will always push us to see our own blind acceptance of the politics of earth. The work of God in our lives is always going to ask us to turn everything over, look at it from the other side. And that, friends, is the work of faith. Which, as Rohr says, makes hope and love possible.
a slow practice
Today’s practice is a simple one. Take some time to read and reflect on Jesus’ famous sermon Matthew 5: 1-12. And then practice “telling the truth to yourself.” Go out into the world, reminding yourself to see the blessings available all around you.
According to Jesus, who is most blessed on your walk to the park? Who is most blessed at the grocery store? Who is the most important person you pass on the street, and what does it mean for your life?
Let the reality of the Most Blessed make you uncomfortable and push you toward love. The weak, the vulnerable, the powerless, the grieving, the peacemakers, the persecuted. Who are these people in your life today? What would it mean to move toward them in love, learning to embrace the world as Jesus dreamed it?