Living the Beatitudes: Making Space for God's Promises

``Do you know what my favorite thing about the beatitudes is? Probably not. No. It's that they make space for us to live into god's promises. It's a reminder that we are not alone in this, that we are not alone to build community, to support all of god's people, to love one another, to provide for the needs of others as god has first provided for each of us. [00:09:24] (27 seconds)  #SpaceForGod

The beatitudes are not just moral guidelines or ethics for us to live by, and sometimes I think we look at this. I know I look at the beatitudes and think, really? Another list of things I have to live up to and live into? I thought we got through that in the Old Testament with the 10 commandments. Now we've got Jesus here with more things that I have to live into. But it's not that it just provides moral guidelines and ethics for us to live by and standards to hold others to, which we shouldn't do anyway, but they are God's promises for us to bring his kingdom into the world today through the teachings of Jesus Christ and by the grace that we have already received in his death and resurrection. [00:09:51] (43 seconds)  #PromisesNotRules

The content of the Beatitudes concerns societal visions, structures, and practices for all of us. The first four beatitudes declared divine favor on situations and practices of exploitation. They promised divine reversals in both the present and the future where god is going to come in and act on our behalf in places where we can't act on our own to change what has been given to us, but we have to do it with God beside us, with the teachings of Jesus informing us, with the Holy Spirit moving through us. [00:08:06] (37 seconds)  #DivineReversal

As such, there's this curious paradox that runs through the beatitudes. On one hand, it is clear that those who have received the grace of Jesus Christ don't always fit into this world. If, as Jesus predicts, we get ridiculed and persecuted, part of the reason will be because we're not giving in to the world's agenda. We're going to challenge a lot of conventional wisdom, shake up the powers that be. On the other hand, though, the beatitudes do not call us to be world shunning people. [00:04:15] (34 seconds)  #ChallengeNotWithdraw

They could be they could even be busy enough with helping the disenfranchised that some might sneer at the idea of one who appears to be out to save the world. Mister or miss beatitude might even be seen as a troublemaker and a nuisance, what with all the restless talk about issues and causes and politics? Not to mention the fact that there seems to be no satisfying this person, always hungering and thirsting for something better for others. And so it's quite possible that among some people anyway, mister or miss beatitude might be ridiculed. [00:03:19] (39 seconds)  #JusticeTroublemaker

Consistently kind, yet also a bit shy and shunning the limelight, always downplaying their actions by claiming they were never enough to achieve what one really wants. And so we might conclude that they have a bad self image. This would be a person who is quick to lend a hand to anyone in need, but also quick to get a bit depressed every time they hear a news story about an oil spill off the coast of some country or after seeing pictures of children dying in the terrors of war. This would be a person as often as not who would look distressed in their daily lives and seemed often to be on the verge of tears, someone who has a hard time shrugging anything off. [00:01:24] (49 seconds)  #CompassionateButHeavyHeart

The life of mister or miss beatitude will be a busy and restless one, not because he or she is trying to get to heaven, but because folks like this have seen the kingdom in Jesus. They're not going to settle for less ever again. [00:03:58] (18 seconds)  #RestlessForKingdom

Right? The beatitudes come to us in the context of the larger community. Right? We remember Jesus was up on the hillside teaching, and he had those disciples with him, but it was because there were huge crowds following him at the time. And it was time for him to share this message of how it is that we're gonna find space for god in our lives and in this world for all of those who had come and seen him and heard of him. They had watched the miracles. They had seen what had been happening. Beatitudes are for the community, for all of us to learn what it is that we can do in this world. [00:07:28] (38 seconds)  #BeatitudesForCommunity