"Congratulations, you poor! God's domain belongs to you!
“Congratulations, you hungry! You will have a feast.
“Congratulations, you who weep now! You will laugh.”
“Damn you rich! You already have your consolation!
“Damn you who are well-fed now! You will know hunger.
“Damn you who laugh now! You will learn to weep and grieve.”
I’ve commented on this idiotic Texas law
before, wondering which “version” of the Decalogue should be used (and no, I don’t mean translation, although I still think the KJV is a non-starter. You really want kids contemplating not “coveting” their neighbor’s ass? Hell, I was giggling over that one in Sunday School, 60 years ago.) The version on the grounds of the Texas Capitol is Cecil B.’s choice, being part of his publicity campaign for Heston before Heston was an NRA shill. I’ve seen variations on the theme, and always wondered where they came from. Biblical illiterates, I imagine, who couldn’t locate the original (Exodus, if you’re wondering), or the first restatement (Deuteronomy; it’s literally how the Greek title translates to modern English). Or even know there are two versions. But context be damned, it’s the magical thinking that matters! Somehow a piece of paper with words on it will force children to contemplate their sins and honor their father and mother and not lie or commit adultery or covet their neighbor’s…. 🫏
I’m not disparaging the scriptures, I’m opposing the abuse of them as idols. If you know the scriptures (especially what happened when Moses Heston brought the tablets down from Sinai the first time), you appreciate the irony. Scripture out of context of a body of believers, of worshippers, is as much as wasted as trying to teach RFK, Jr. science, or Trump what actually stopped the wildfires in California. We like to think science or reality are readily comprehended, and yet the same public leaders who think morality is good for thee but not for they, prove even science and reality can be pearls before swine. So I’m not asking for special dispensation to say what Christians and Jews consider the scriptures, should not be treated as magical talismans with mystical powers for good, which can be absorbed by some sort of osmosis or associative principle simply by being in the proximity of children attending mandatory public education.
Context for what I want to talk about. I really do think the Beatitudes should be posted in public schools if we’re going to post anything from the Holy Bible. I also really don’t think we should require posters with verses from the HB in public schools. Maybe teach it as literature, since it’s as central to Western European culture as Shakespeare and Dante. (I once faced a whole class if college freshmen who’d never heard of the Prodigal, the Good Samaritan, Jonah, or Noah. The words alone should be evocative of cultural touchstones, whether you place any spiritual value in the stories or not. You should know the story of Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, even if you can’t analyze the power structures critiqued in them. How else undersea reference to “Hamlet’s dilemma” or “Star-crossed lovers”? The collapse of that common thread is a real loss.) So yes, study the Bible as literature. There’s cultural value in that. But leave the theological and Bible school interpretations at home.
Yeah. That’ll happen.
So we move away from public displays of religion (I meant to ask Ken Paxton, who says we need to lift up prayers in our schools, if I could bring in a Tibetan prayer wheel and keep it spinning. Or a prayer rug for Muslim prayers. A rosary, maybe. Or a brazier so I can write my prayers on slips of paper and burn them. And can I pray without ceasing, even during the lecture? Aloud?) to questions of exegesis (or as we learned to call it in seminary, “extra Jesus”).
I’ve commented on the Beatitudes before, and I don’t want to repeat myself. Rather than look at the language, I want to look at the structure. It’s symmetrical; two groups of three. Matthew, the only other gospel with beatitudes, has 9; arguably 3x3. Anthropologists and folklorists pay attention to such things. Both Luke and Matthew’s version could be said to follow the rule of threes. But Luke’s, as I say, is symmetrical: 3 blessings, 3 curses. Matthew’s 9 are repetitive. The formula is unvarying: “Blessed are…; “Blessed are…; Blessed are.” And they are repeated phrase forms, as symmetrical as Luke’s, and as repetitive: “Blessed are the…for they…” The 9th one breaks the pattern: “Blessed are you…”, and the blessing goes on for those faithful to Jesus whatever the world says or does for that faithfulness. It tells you a lot about Matthew’s community (the original audience for this gospel), but Luke’s Beatitudes give us insight into his community, too. He’s not worried about persecutions or poor spirits, he’s worried about material inequality: the chasm between poor and rich. Luke’s gospel is where we find the parable that makes that chasm literal: the story of Lazarus and the rich man.
It’s brief: Lazarus is ptochoi; he lives in poverty at the gate of the rich man. Both die; Lazarus goes to the bosom of Abraham; the rich man to perdition and eternal torment. The rich man begs Abraham for a boon, but Abraham says there is a chasm between them that cannot be crossed. Like the social chasm in life that separated him from Lazarus.
It is quite literally, a story of reversal (not the only way to read it.) But Luke is always concerned with what we call “social justice,” and yet the lasting impact of this parable is the base concept of hell: a place of fire and torment so far removed from heaven, that you cannot cross between them. This is why Milton places Hell at the opposite end of the universe from heaven. The lasting lesson of the parable, the lesson we took above all else from this story, is our everlasting visions of hell. Believe in it or not, we know what it’s supposed to be like. The parable of Lazarus is why.
So Luke’s Beatitudes give us three blessings, three related curses, all on the theme of wealth and poverty. And all involving radical reversals; just like the parable of Lazarus. The blessings provide; the curses take away. But Lazarus doesn’t just wind up in heaven, he changes places with the rich man. And the hungry won’t just be fed; those who eat now, will go hungry. What Jesus is saying is that all the ptochoi will change places with all the rich. It’s kind of interesting, actually, that this is never treated as a prophecy.
Because Jesus says these things will happen. What Luke presents us with is a series of fundamental reversals. We’ve seen this already in Luke’s gospel, starting with Mary’s Magnificat. There, Mary sings of the powerful being cast down from their thrones and the rich sent away empty while the poor take their place. But reversals are a sign of God’s actions throughout the scriptures, starting with God gently chiding Sarah for doubting she could have a child so late in her life (a story echoed in Luke’s Annunciation). Isaiah speaks of streams in the desert. Ezekiel sees the valley of dry bones restored to life, a vivid metaphor for the recovery of Israel from Exile.
In Luke’s telling, the blessings will happen because the reversals are the fruits of the basileia tou theou. Because that will bring justice, and justice means some will gain, and some will lose. It doesn’t really lift all boats. Justice levels the playing field. “Will bring” is a mistake, though. Jesus meant the basileia was here, was now; is here, is now. The blessings will be the result if we see it, if we live it: now. The reversal of justice will happen. It is not a matter of waiting for God’s actions. It’s in our hands.
When God came to Abraham and promised as many descendants as stars in the sky, Abraham showed trust (faith), and God’s promise was fulfilled. Joseph led the children of Abraham into Egypt to escape the famine, and generations later Moses led them out again, and gave them God’s law to follow, do life would be good for everyone. As Isaiah later said, so the nations would be drawn to God’s holy mountain and the blessings Israel enjoyed. But Israel didn’t follow God’s law, and they spent 40 years in the desert. Later, they ignored God’s law again, and God left them to their own devices, which led to the Exile.
The point being that, in Israel’s salvific history, salvation always through their hands. That is the basileia tou theou. It can be, if we will live it. It can be God’s domain, plan, will, goal. If we will do it.
Jesus came proclaiming the
basileia tou theou. And it is pronounced again in the “congratulations,” and the “damns.” Announced in the reversal; in the use of threes. A common trope of oral traditions, where three signifies the importance, and the completeness, of the point. And three easiest to remember. Which is easier to memorize: Luke’s pair of three? Or Matthew’s triplet of threes (had you even noticed that before?)? It’s not a contest. Each has its purpose, each its virtues. But they offer very different, and complimentary, teachings. Kind of like the difference between
Luke’s “Our Father,” and
Matthew’s.
Always some uncertainty, right?
