Blessed are the pure
in heart, for they shall see God.
This is another value in which America isn’t entirely off
the mark. However, “pure in heart”
demands a certain standard of purity that is not individually definable, which
is where we drift off center. In
America, the value tends to be Blessed
are the sincere and consistent, for they shall see God.
Americans in general tend to be rather religious, although
the religions might not be the same.
This is more true historically than it seems to be becoming, but it is
still generally true. Whether the
religion is some form of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or
some new or newly revived religion, the majority of Americans hold to some
belief system about a spiritual world or a life beyond this earthly
incarnation. In our culture,
everyone is entitled to their opinion about religion. And increasingly it is being understood that as long as you
really believe in the religion and are consistent in following it, you will
receive the reward promised by that religion. It is the “true for you” mentality.
Sometimes this seeps into the Church, but most of the time
when it does the Church relatively quickly stops being Christian. This mentality denies the exclusivity
of Christ and undermines the very meaning of the word truth, so it is natural
that it doesn’t fit in with orthodoxy.
Where it doesn’t miss the mark entirely is that it does demand some sort
of purity, as sincerity and consistency do not allow for double-mindedness or
hypocrisy. (That being said, most
Americans don’t actually demand consistency or sincerity these days; they are
happy to allow nominal belief in whatever you choose.)
A somewhat syncretized form of this does exist in the form
of nominal Christianity. Some
believe that anyone who has, for instance, prayed a prayer accepting Jesus as
Savior or been baptized into the Church will be saved. This has a certain appeal to those
looking for personal security, but it does not seem to reflect Jesus’
teaching. He says here that it is
not those who have performed the rite of your choice, but those who are pure in
heart who will see God.
So what does it mean to be pure in heart? This is where I would point anyone to
the rest of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew
5-7. The Beatitudes are the
opening statements to the Sermon on the Mount. Whether you are or aren’t familiar with it, if you haven’t
read it today, go read it. Read it
when you’re done with this if you have time. If you don’t have time for both, stop wasting your time
reading this and read that instead.)
The Sermon on the Mount is full of teachings that say it is not only
your actions that matter (they do matter, by the way) but even your
thoughts.
Elsewhere Jesus says “Out of the overflow of the heart, the
mouth speaks.” That is, the things
you do reflect your heart. So if
you have a sinful heart, you will perform sinful deeds. But even if you manage to so discipline
your deeds that you keep every point of the Law in action, if you commit sin
internally you are still sinning.
So even if you never commit adultery, you are guilty of adultery for
lust.
“Pure in heart” is a resetting of the bar. When Jesus teaches here on the Law, he teaches
that simply following the Law is not enough. What God desires is that your very heart be pure. Sounds big, right? It is.
We have to understand how important sin is. It is not something that crops up and
is excusable because God will forgive us.
It is atrocious. It is
something to root out. It is
something that will still happen because we are still fallen and have not fully
entered into glory, but it is not something to let slide. We are encouraged, maybe even
commanded, here and elsewhere to take sin seriously and to root it out. So when we are tempted to sin, we must
not allow ourselves to entertain the temptation. We must not allow ourselves to dwell in sin or to
rebelliously plunge into it. We
must fight with everything we have to resist temptation. Those who will see God are the pure in
heart.
Yes, it is almost inevitable that we will fail. (Some reading this may be so near to
both perfection and death that they will manage to resist every temptation
between now and heaven, which is why I do not make it an absolute
certainty.) We will fail, and God
will forgive us when we repent. As
I have said before, this does not give us the right to presume upon his
forgiveness. But we can take
comfort in the knowledge that he does not cast us out for being weak. All the same, we can and must fight as
our Lord has called us to, with the certain knowledge that the Holy Spirit will
also fight with us and for us.
God, give us the grace and strength to flee temptation. Guard and preserve us by your Spirit,
that we might be pure.
Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Where do I start?
In America, we fancy ourselves peacemakers. Sometimes even global peacemakers. Within our nation, we also like to sometimes consider
ourselves peacemakers. We bring
down oppressors and uplift the downtrodden, often with extreme force. Okay, yeah, we also do a fair amount of
oppressing and treading down, but that isn’t exactly the point here. The main point is the word “peacemaker.” So let me Americanize the beatitude and
then jump to 2 Corinthians.
Blessed are the
pacifiers, for they shall be called sons of God.
The American way to bring peace is generally through
resistance, either non-violent in the best cases or (more commonly) violent
resistance. We see that there is a
non-peaceful situation and we bring peace to it. We quash all rebellion and dissent, insofar as we are able,
and declare that peace and freedom have been established or defended or
upheld. Leaving my obvious bias
about the efficacy of this approach aside, let’s look at the most important
word that St. Paul gives us with regard to this: reconciliation.
In 2 Corinthians 5:18, the Apostle declares that God has
reconciled us to himself and given us the ministry of reconciliation. Yes, this ministry is primarily one of
bringing reconciliation (or peace) between God and men. But taken along with Jesus’ statement
later in the Sermon on the Mount that we should not resist an evil person and
that we should love our enemies, the ministry of reconciliation does seem to
apply to the call to be peacemakers.
This is another American value that just exists in its
entirety within the American church.
We support war for the sake of defending freedom or American security or
fighting terrorism or a host of other reasons. Christians in the pews and in the pulpit are in favor of
stamping out resistance through violent means. And at home we are happy to stage aggressive protests or
insist on legislation that elevates one party over another and leaves the
losers out in the cold.
We have a big hatred problem in this country. We’re obviously not the only country
with this problem. How can we
respond to it? Well, we could
violently resist and breed more hatred, or we could passively ignore the
problem and breed more hatred, or we could insist on legislation that will
change the socioeconomic balance and create more hatred. Or, perhaps, we could find a way to
make peace. We could work to
reconcile the warring parties, to help those driven by hatred to overcome their
hatred and see the humanity of their fellow man, to help those driven by fear
of hatred to overcome their fear; obviously if we’re helping people overcome
fear, we’ll need to start by overcoming the hatred or else we’ll be helping the
fearful to be more scarred and create more hatred. But ultimately our goal is to produce reconciliation.
I don’t have many practical steps to offer here. The most practical thing is, of course,
prayer. The next is to examine our
own lives and discover what people we need to be reconciled to. This should probably focus more on
those we have sinned against than those who have sinned against us. Then we can work to challenge those who
are doing things that breed more discord, gently correcting them and helping
them to understand their actions.
We can work to understand ourselves. We can go outside of our homogeneous communities and
actually build relationships (not just meet people and become facebook friends)
with people who are different from us.
And when we do this, we can not flatter ourselves by pretending that the
work is done. We can work to
foster peace.
As a white man in America, I feel I have the responsibility
to point out that white men have experienced incredible privilege in this
country for its entire history and we still do. This privilege has led to a significant breach of peace,
particularly as we have used our privilege to take credit for things that were
made easier for us by our class and shamed those who do not achieve “success”
while ignoring the obstacles caused by deeply rooted systemic oppression and
segregation. If we hope for peace,
we must acknowledge our privilege and take active steps to bring about reconciliation,
beginning with learning to treat other human beings as human beings and not
potential criminals or societal leeches.
The same can be said of the wealthy in regard to the
poor. The great lie of Capitalist
America is the myth of the self-made man.
Anyone who thinks logically about those who first achieve wealth will
see that many circumstances outside of the wealthy man’s control contributed to
his success, even if it was simply the fact that he was taught as a child that
he was capable of achieving success.
But as Christians we have it spelled out for us in Scripture and the
teachings of the Fathers that no man is self-made; what wealth and success you
have is a gift from God. Further,
we are instructed to use that gift to help those who do not have wealth; we are
not permitted to hoard it or use it on ourselves without regard for the
poor. The wealthy, then, must also
acknowledge their privilege and take active steps to reach out to the
poor. And I suggest that this must
first happen by reaching out to the poor in our churches or the churches in our
community, recognizing the necessity of money in our society and the great
difficulty many have in acquiring enough to live on, and giving them some
money.
How do you know if you have the privilege of wealth? There isn’t a number on this. I have the privilege of wealth. If you make more money than you need to
cover your basic expenses then you have wealth. Many in our churches do not have the money they need to meet
their basic expenses. Things like
food, rent, utilities, gas in the car to get to work. The hoarding of wealth by the wealthy is hurting the poor in
our communities and driving wedges of frustration, bitterness, and resentment
between Christians; economic hardship for many drives them away from God so
that they no longer believe and no longer follow him. This cannot go on any longer.
“But Dan,” you say, “if God wanted to provide for the poor
then he would provide them with money.
Maybe he wants them to suffer financial difficulty for a reason.” I would echo St. John Chrysostom here;
God has provided them with money, but he provided it by giving it to you. The wealthy are stewards of the wealth
of the poor. To let the poor
suffer in their poverty without lifting a finger to help is to rob the poor of
what is theirs. By pouring money
into your own comforts without helping those in need, you have become a thief. And when you give to the poor, you have
no right to a smug sense of satisfaction or superiority; when you give to the
poor you are giving to them what you owe them, simply making good a debt.
More generally back to peace: The key to remember here is that making peace is not done
through the use of force. We are
not looking for a shift in the balance of power. We are looking for those who are in power and those who are
not in power to not simply stop fighting, but to actually get along. Maybe even to love each other.
Look, I know it’s a lot to ask. I know it seems impossible. Jesus knows it too.
How can I tell? Because he
says that those who do this will be called not simply great men, but sons of
God.
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