Matthew 5:3
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
I don’t know about you but I’m not trying to be poor. I don’t know many people who are. Most of us, if we could help it, wouldn’t be. Oh we don’t worship money. We understand that family and friends and memories are more important than things. But we also get that it’s better to have money than not have money. Most of us given the choice between having $100 in the bank and $100,000 in the bank would take the latter. No one wants to be poor. If I spread my hands one Sunday before you left worship and said, “May you be impoverished and not have a dime to your name…” you would hardly see that as a blessing.
In fact, most of us consider the opposite to be a blessing. We equate blessings with money. If we’re comfortable and can afford things, we say we’re blessed. But Jesus says the opposite. “Blessed are the poor…”
We want to wiggle out of that don’t we? See what Jesus really means is… If you go into the Greek… If you squint your eyes and read it backwards…. So we hang a lot on that “in spirit” part.
“See,” we say, “… in spirit… blessed are the poor in spirit… that means Jesus wants us to not value things over people. He wants us to be spiritually poor… but we can keep all our stuff.”
Twisting Jesus’ words would be a lot easier if there weren’t four gospels. Because in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is even more plain:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh…”
“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.”
That is a much harder hold to get out of.
It’s been said that a Christian fundamentalist is someone who takes every word of the Bible literally except the words of Jesus. The universe was created in seven days? God said it, I believe it, that settles it! Turn the other cheek? See that’s a metaphor… What Jesus is really trying to say is… if you go into the Greek…
We try to spiritualize the teachings of Jesus into oblivion because they are too difficult for us. Too challenging to the way we live. “All of God’s word is meant for everybody all the time,” we say. Unless we’re talking about the rich young ruler who was told to sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor so he could follow Jesus. This is a special case. This is something Jesus meant for that one guy that one time. The rest of us should be poor… in spirit. Whatever that means.
What if we just added “…in spirit” to anything Jesus wants us to do but we think is too hard? We could be faithful to our wife… in spirit. We could give to the needy… in spirit. We could forgive those who have wronged us …in spirit. That would be nice wouldn’t it? We could even take up our crosses and follow Jesus… in spirit. We’d have all the grace and none of the sacrifice.
The Sermon on the Mount is not fluffy castles-in-the-sky idealism. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus' discipleship manual. These teachings are meant to be the spine of how disciples think and live. We must resist the temptation to spiritualize it all away. We need to stop and consider the deeply unsettling idea that Jesus means what he says.
"In spirit" doesn't mean what we tend to think it means. In modern usage, "in spirit" tends to mean "in my mind and in my heart." Like when you want to be there for a friend's big event but you have some other place you have to be. You say, "I'll be there with you in spirit." I won't actually but I want to be. This is not what "in spirit" means in this context. Jesus isn't saying blessed are those who are poor in mind and in heart, but not really. In Jewish thought, the spirit was not separate from the body. There was no physical world and spiritual world. It was all one thing. Your spirit was the deep down part of you: the breath that animated you and kept you living... the part of you that came from God and would one day return to God. In other words, "in spirit" is an intensifier. If someone is poor in spirit, they are totally and completely poor. Not just in body but in spirit as well. Down to their core. This isn't just someone on hard times who will bounce back. This is someone who completely and totally impoverished.
And Jesus calls them blessed. Why? Because even though every other door is closed to them, the Kingdom of God is theirs. Because God is a sucker for the weak and despised of the world and intends to make everything right. That's a powerful blessing. And it doesn't include us.
We are citizens of the wealthiest nation in the history of humanity. We enjoy, in our homes, luxuries unimaginable in other times. We may feel poor sometimes but the fact that we have running water and electricity and food in our cabinets means we are among the richest 1% of the globe. Even when we experience uncertainty and want, few of us are down-to-our-spirit poor. Jesus' first blessing is not for us. Period. Full stop.
But that's okay. Everything is not about us. As disciples, we are not called to have all the blessings; We are called to be the blessing. Instead of stigmatizing the poor or trying to sweep them under the rug and not think about them, we are called to treat them as if they are Heaven's most important citizens because, according to Jesus, they are. If you're having trouble making sense of "blessed are the poor in spirit," the answer is not to spiritualize it and make it about you. The answer is to get outside yourself and find someone to be a blessing to and see what all the fuss is about.
This isn't about you. If that feels like a kick in the teeth... well, I have to warn you: we're just getting started.
Father, Help us to be a blessing to those less fortunate than us. Help us to see those who are destitute not as animals or problems to be solved but as blessed and belonging to you. Cure us of our own self-centeredness and help us to see discipleship as being about more than us. Amen.
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