The
Beatitudes and the Politics of Grief
Throughout Lent, I’m reading
the beatitudes and think about them politically. Today we deal specifically
with the promise about loss: blessed are those who mourn for they will be
comforted. On the surface, it sounds so awful to my ears. It reminds me of the
things people say when they don’t know what to say. Like when people say,
“Everything happens for a reason. Others have it worse than you. Are you over
her yet? She’s been gone a long time. She wouldn’t want you to be so sad. God
wanted her more than you. Heaven needed another angel. God will never give you
more than you can handle.” When we make thoughtless comments in our own discomfort,
we try to minimize and fix another’s grief, but only manage to make it worse.
It’s a way for people to disconnect from the excruciating pain another feels
when someone dies.
I think we need a different
lens to understand the beatitudes. How can Jesus so boldly claim that those who
mourn are actually blessed? It’s one of those surprise reversals Jesus is known
for. Jesus redefines suffering. Those who suffer are the ones who flourish. You
can only experience it once you realize the world's present regime is passing
away. The violence. The hatred. The greed. The leaders who satisfy themselves
at the expense of the poor. The politicians who pretend to care for the
downtrodden while taking away their rights. The terrorist who go into houses of
worship and murder people of faith. Jesus says a new world is growing.
Wholeness, peace, and compassionate justice have been planted. In this new
reality, the so-called losers are the ones who flourish. Flourishers have a
hunger and thirst for God to set the world to right. For Jesus, all this
hungering and thirsting for righteousness, all this poverty, grief, and
persecution, sets hearts in line to help a God’s new aims for the world.
Blessed are those who mourn.
They shall be comforted. We all bear the ravages of grief and the toll of
sickness in our bodies and in our relationships. Most religions deal with the
question of human finitude. For the Buddhist, pain is inevitable. Growing old.
Illness. Dying. Even love is full of pain. If we are all going to die, then how
do we keep on living? How can humans be saved from pain? The Buddha asked: What
might happen if we stop struggling against the pain in our life? For Chinese
Taoism, the sacred principle behind the universe is like a river. You can
choose to swim against the current or you can choose to be saved by simply
going with the flow. For Ancient Judaism, the answer was to turn to community
and guarantee the survival of the tribe. Through keeping covenant, Jews are
saved as a people for a prosperous and reproductive life here on earth. The
basic problem with human nature, as Islam sees it, is injustice. The Prophet
Mohammad’s world was torn apart by blood feuds between rival clans, threatening
his people’s security and prosperity. Muhammad’s revelation demanded that every
person submit to God alone, leaving behind vengeance killings and other
injustices in favor of a single consistent sacred law, regardless of that
person’s social station or tribal affiliation. For Islam, salvation is achieved
when the just society is established.
Christians also deal with
human finitude. Christianity taught that because of human sin, human life is
hard and short. The fix is accepting the atoning work of Christ, enjoying
abundant life here on earth and eternal life in the hereafter. Jesus will
return, gather the faithful and bring them to Heaven. We hear it in our reading
from 1 Thessalonians. Paul writes to a little church in modern-day Greece. The
members of the church have been persecuted for their faith. Paul has reports
that they are losing their way. So he writes a letter to encourage them.
Towards the end of the letter he says:
And now,
dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the
believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope . .
. We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the
Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. For the Lord will come down from heaven with
a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call
of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then,
together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be
caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the
Lord forever.
1
Thessalonians 4:13-17
Christianity has spawned many
movements of people who wait out the final return of the Lord. In America, some
of them were Utopian communities. Others, like the Adventists, are still with
us today. They all play on a theme that has been with us for a long time: Jesus
will return and reward the virtuous for their courage. Jesus will also punish
evil-doers, with a clear separation between saints and sinners. A future moment
will come when all tears will be wiped away, sorrow forgotten, joy restored,
and the faithful will live in the light of God forever. We hear it in Ozark
Mountain hymns like “I’ll fly away,” written by a man who dreamed of soaring
away from the cotton fields of Oklahoma.
But wait a minute. I’m not a
persecuted Christian. In fact, I am blessed. By pure luck, I’m a straight,
white, married man with access to the privileges of the dominant culture. I
don’t know much about persecution and enslavement. Here’s what I do know. I
know pain. I know loneliness and depression. I know grief. I’ve sat with and
listened to a hundred people who grieve from the depths of their being. I’ve
witnessed the sorrow of prejudice against my friends, and my children. I’ve grieved
with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender friends who suffer the trauma of
treatment as second-class citizens. And during it all, I am not going to wait to
fly away from earth to my heavenly home for life to get better. I want to know
salvation NOW. I want those who grieve to flourish, NOW. I want the world to
experience healing NOW. I want tears to be wiped away NOW, sorrow comforted
NOW, love’s joy restored NOW. I think this is what God wants, too. But I’m not
just going to wait around for it. So, I guess you and I will just have to help
make this blessed human flourishing happen … NOW.
The urgency of our times means
those who grieve are part of a political process. I’m not talking about joining
a political party so you can get your individual preferences voted into power. Mourners
take part in active civic engagement and collective deliberation about all
matters affecting our community. And those who mourn … well, that’s everyone.
There is no shortage of suffering. The blessing of grief has its greatest
political impact every time suffering citizens gather in a public space to
deliberate and decide about matters of collective concern. Power springs up
whenever people get together and act together. Think on the opportunities we’ve
had to watch this principle in action this week. We listened to those who mourn
the deaths from gun violence and mass murder, and our young people who took to
the streets demanding for sane gun laws this week. They build power and show us
what it means to flourish when the odds are against them. Protesters gathered on
the mall to grieve the killing of the Earth and demanded laws to combat climate
change. They get together and act together. In their grief, they are blessed
because they know what a new Earth really means for our survival and can show
us the way there. We cry along with those who mourn the murder of Muslim
worshippers in New Zealand by an ani-immigrant, anti-Muslim terrorist. Their
vulnerable tears remind us that white supremacy is a sinful expression of power
in the hands of haters. God’s new world invites those who mourn to help create
powerful communities that flourish by going beyond our private self-interest.
And that’s where we come in.
Faith disconnected from real
life and real suffering is vanity. And vanity is a luxury that Christians can
no longer afford in today’s world. That’s why I love this poem by the mystic
Kabir. He lived around the year 1500 CE. Kabir was a Muslim who tried to reconcile
Sufi Islam with Hinduism. He wanted people to leave aside the Qur'an and Vedas,
and people’s entrenched assumptions, so they could follow the simple way of
oneness with God. Here is one of his poems, translated by Robert Bly.
Friend,
hope for the guest while you are alive.
Jump
into experience while you are alive!
Think
. . . and think . . . while you are alive.
What
you call salvation belongs to the time before death.
If
you don’t break your ropes while you are alive,
Do
you think ghosts will do it after?
The
idea that the soul will rejoin with the ecstatic just because the body is
rotten—
That
is all fantasy.
What
is found now is found then.
If
you find nothing now,
You
will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If
you make love with the divine now,
In
the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.
So
plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is.
Believe
in the Great Sound!
Kabir
says this:
When
the Guest is being searched for,
It
is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look
at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity
Did
you hear what Kabir suggest? Jump into experience while you are still alive. If
we don’t break our ropes NOW, how will it happen later? Don’t wait for some
future healing of our mistakes and bad decisions. Don’t let pain paralyze us
into inaction. What is found now is found later.
Without even being aware of
it, we can easily slip into living life as if it were a rehearsal for the real
thing. We only have this moment. You know where I get glimpses and little
reminders of the reality of NOW? For me, it’s in the simplest treasures: A
supporting hand upon my shoulder or a loving brush of my cheek; the softest
whisper of truth spoken in adoration; the early morning orchestra of music from
the birds outside my window; the refreshment of the breeze, the contagious
laughter of those we love; the pain of
loss; the miracle of healing; the unstoppable toil for a better world; the
constant reminders of how precious each moment truly is; the moments when I
experience kindness and compassion.
Jump
into experience while you are still alive.
Break
the ropes
Plunge
into truth
Fall
into love.
Cry
YES! To the immensity of life.
Say
YES! To sharing the power of beauty.
Do
this while mourning, and you are blessed.
As we become present to
ourselves and God and others, we begin a journey without end. All we are asked
to do is start down that road. NOW.
Sources:
http://progressivechristianity.org/resources/823/
http://uustoughtonma.org/Sermons/Archives/20020331-DancingWithEternity.htm
http://www.namethathymn.com/hymn-lyrics-detective-forum/index.php?a=vtopic&t=177
http://throughaglass.net/archives/2012/02/24/saving-my-life/
Roger
Housden, Ten Poems to Change Your Life, pp. 53-62.
Ernest
Best, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, Blacks NT Commentary.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/
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