I think the very sentimental and
Hallmark nature of the footprints poem can end up disguising an ugly truth. You
know the one, in a dream the author is walking with the Lord and looks back
over their life, and notices that during the most dire moments of their life,
there are only one set of footprints, and they ask the Lord, where were you
during those times? Christ says, the times there were only one set of prints I
was carrying you. The truth buried in that poem is that God will not protect
you from the horrors of this life. God can and will carry you through, and
that’s a wonderful thing, but God will not spare you from evil. Now, I know
that’s not a very comforting message, which is why I think it’s vital to take
the being carried idea out of the sentimentalized gloss we find in the poem.
And the beatitudes do this.
It seems important to note at least
two ways that the Beatitudes themselves are given a sentimental gloss that
renders them useless. One gloss is the message that you are called to suffer in
this life (in other words: lie down and take it) and you will get your reward
when you die and go to heaven. The text doesn’t support this at all. Notice
that while most of what the blessed get is in the future tense EXCEPT for the
Kingdom of Heaven, which is in the present! Thiers IS the kingdom of heaven,
their reward IS great in heaven. More on that later.
The second gloss is that the
Beatitudes are about the poor unfortunates that need Christian charity (in
other words: the imperialism of helping.) Now, Christ certainly preached easing
the suffering of others, especially the ones who are “othered.” But I really
don’t think that’s what the Beatitudes are about. Because Christ isn’t really
describing others, He’s describing Himself!
Is Jesus not poor in spirit, mournful,
meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, merciful, pure of heart, a peacemaker
& reviled and persecuted and aren’t all kinds of evil uttered against Him?
And aren’t we, as the body of Christ, all these things? Or if we aren’t,
shouldn’t we be?
Now before I end up sounding like one
of those brood of vipers who claim they are being persecuted as a *cough*
Christian because they can’t freely oppress people, the Christians I see as reviled
and persecuted are like the 90-something old dude who keeps getting arrested
for feeding the homeless – which is illegal in many cities here in the US. And
many more horrific laws that need to be resisted are in the works as we speak. Do
not kid yourself we are in the hands of fascists. Fascist we need to resist,
but also fascist we as Christians are called to love.
An underlying theme of the Sermon on
the Mount is Jesus radicalizing the summary of the law. Love God with
EVERYTHING YOU HAVE and love your neighbor as yourself. In our last theology on
tap, Larry suggested (and I agree) that loving as described in the sermon,
means refraining from dehumanizing anyone. This is particularly hard when we’re
confronted by people who want to dehumanize us. It is a very human thing to
demonize our enemy. But it is also dehumanizing to diminish ourselves in the
face of our enemy, particularly one that is much more powerful than us. And God
is bigger than any human.
What good does it do us if God is
bigger than our enemies, if God won’t protect us from them? It puts them in
perspective - prevents us from dehumanizing them. It raises us back up to human
level when confronted by them. As for demonizing them, let me point out that
when I say the leader of the free world is a bully and a sexual predator, there
are two ways I can say that. I can say it as a matter of fact, as an
acknowledgement that something is terribly wrong, or I can say it as an insult,
as a way to see him as less-than. As if I’m not a sinner myself. For the Sermon
on the Mount does confront us with the impossibility of a sinless life.
God forgives sin, but does not prevent
it from happening, just as God will not stop the horrors to come. We can’t rely
on God to make it all right. We need to thirst and hunger for righteousness
more than ever now. And it’s going to be dire, this is single set of footprints
time. So what does it mean to be carried by Christ?
It means we will be comforted, we will
be filled, will receive mercy, will be called children of God, will see God. (This is NO SMALL THING to see
God.) This happens on a sacramental level. This happens mystically. I can
witness to all these things. None of these things stop the bad things from
happening. But they can and do strengthen us. They can keep us from despair.
Every hair on your head is counted.
And we can count on these things
because Christ became one of us, and we are now part of him. We are Christ’s
body. And we have entered the Kingdom, a Kingdom that has not come to
completion, true. (It’s when the completed Kingdom comes that inheriting the
earth refers to. Or in any case, that’s the promise in the Beatitudes I can’t
personally witness to.) Despite not being completed the Kingdom has already
broken through. And as Christ’s body as members of the Kingdom, we are to comfort
each other, fill each other, be merciful to each other and see God in each
other. For though God does this on a mystical level, we all have those one
footprint moments when we can’t know it or feel it and that especially when we
can strengthen each other – which is Christ’s new commandment, to love on each
other.
