Day 2 | Why Doesn’t God Do Something?

Read: Matthew 5:3-11

3 “Blessings on the poor in spirit! The kingdom of heaven is yours.

4 “Blessings on the mourners! You’re going to be comforted.

5 “Blessings on the meek! You’re going to inherit the earth.

6 “Blessings on people who hunger and thirst for God’s justice! You’re going to be satisfied.

7 “Blessings on the merciful! You’ll receive mercy yourselves.

8 “Blessings on the pure in heart! You will see God.

9 “Blessings on the peacemakers! You’ll be called God’s children.

10 “Blessings on people who are persecuted because of God’s saving plan! The kingdom of heaven belongs to you.

11 “Blessings on you, when people slander you and persecute you, and say all kinds of wicked things about you falsely because of me! 12 Celebrate and rejoice: there’s a great reward for you in heaven. That’s how they persecuted the prophets who went before you.”

Consider:

The beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, presents an immediate challenge to embrace the reversal of values that come with God’s heaven-plus-earth reality. People in Jesus’s day were looking for a kind of great reversal from God, but they expected it to happen the usual, bullying way. That’s all they had seen from other empires and was also their only form of resistance. Violence and increased observance of Torah­—those were the options available.

When people look around at the sad state of the world, whether back then or now, and ask, “Why doesn’t God do something?” that question betrays an expectation that God will simply swoop in, knock evil out, and install the right people. That is exactly not how Jesus, as God in person, ushers in God’s kingdom. He tells his followers they will not go the way of the bullying emperors.

Instead, Jesus offers something very different by calling down blessings on the mourners, the meek, and the poor in spirit. The last will be first, and the first will be last. The Beatitudes translate Jesus’s servant agenda into an agenda for all Jesus' followers. It’s calling in those people who are painfully waiting for justice, who are mourning over what they see, but who don’t imagine they can solve that injustice by replicating its ills.

Jesus is providing glimpses of a different way to accomplish God’s kingdom. The characteristics he highlights are a list of how God’s kingdom comes to birth. Instead of blasting away all opposition, God’s kingdom comes through calling, equipping, and enabling people to live new lives organized around trust and service. By the time the bullies and the bosses wake up to what's going on, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, and the hungry-for-justice people have been doing the work to care for the vulnerable, generate healing, and bring hope.

To be sure, Christians have certainly been part of the problem of evil in the world at various points throughout history. Many attitudes and behaviors bring shame to God’s church. But, at the same time, there have always been the individual Beatitude people, those who know in their bones that there's a way to live as a bringer of healing and hope. Those people have got on and done that, regardless of what’s happening in the power halls of church management. That has made a radical difference in God's world.

That radical difference is the point. The Beatitudes are not simply a list of behaviors that, if possessed, will grant you a spot in heaven when you die. They are how Jesus’s followers are being shaped to participate in bringing God’s kingdom on earth, as in heaven.

Reflect:

What is one beatitude you would like to focus on more intentionally this week? Who do you see as a positive example of embodying this (or any) beatitude?