L.J. shares a reflection on this Sunday's Gospel reading from St. Matthew.
The first beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” is the key to living the teachings of Jesus, especially those in the Sermon on the Mount.
The familiar blinds us. All too often we hear a reading from scripture and we think, “Oh, I’ve heard this before.” Eyes glazed over, our minds turn to daydreaming or planning the day. It is amazing how blind we can become when we think we know something. The Beatitudes are a prime candidate for blindness by familiarity. What we need is a shock to our system to bring us to a deeper awareness and a greater incorporation of Jesus’ wisdom into our lives. Therefore, I suggest simplifying the Beatitudes to focus on the first, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and using a very different word to describe what Jesus means here. That word is nothingness.
The Beatitudes are the summary of the whole Sermon on the Mount. They represent the core of Jesus’ preaching. The first beatitude, poverty of spirit, is the key to the whole of the beatitudes, and so is key to the whole sermon on the mount. With poverty of spirit, Jesus sets the theme and spiritual practice of his disciples. Blessing poverty of spirit, Jesus teaches a way of nothingness.
When Jesus begins the Beatitudes with “Blessed are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven” he is saying that nothingness is key to living what he preaches. Clarifying some of the words of the first beatitude may help. The word “blessed” is makarios in the original Greek of the Gospel of Matthew. It means “happy.” The word we translate as poor is ptoches in Greek. It means not simply poor but absolute destitution. These are the people who own nothing and whom the first century world considered to be worthless. They are the little nothings of the world. Jesus pronounces these people to be happy! They are happy because they have the kingdom of heaven, that is, oneness with God.
Jesus is saying the “poor in spirit” are symbolic of the most necessary spiritual practice: interior nothingness. Happiness is the state of interior nothingness. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are those who are in the state of interior nothingness for theirs is the realization of oneness with God. We are only truly happy with nothing! The ones who are nothing within already have the kingdom. In fact, they are the kingdom because God alone is their happiness and their identity. The poor in spirit are happy with the invisible God and have let go all other sources of happiness. They are nothing within because they release all thinking while abiding in an interior state of pure faith, bare hope, and naked love. They drop all thinking – everything within – and drop into God.
How can we live this first beatitude? How can we concretely walk the way of nothingness? Here are two ways. The first is to sink into nothingness in prayer. The second is to practice nonresistance, nonretention, and nonreaction in daily life. God is not a thing, but mystery beyond being. Therefore, we can pray by sinking into the nothingness of God. We close our eyes and let everything in our minds fall away. We relax into the inner nothingness. This is done with faith in and love for God, but God is not a thing. Sinking into nothingness is to find all our happiness in God, the infinite nothing. It is to rest in God within and not pay attention to anything in particular.
This interior nothingness and detachment from everything we think gives us happiness, allows for a new attitude in daily life. It is the attitude of not resisting, not retaining, and not reacting to the moment. Someone interrupts your work with a problem. Don’t resist. You get a moment of pleasure that you never want to stop. Don’t retain. You try to make it through a light, but it turns red. Don’t react. Basically, this is to practice accepting the present moment as it is without fighting it, holding on to it, or judging it. It is to accept God as Mystery in the poverty of a little moment.
The inner nothingness of spiritual poverty is vital for the teachings to follow in the Beatitudes and the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. Showing mercy, being meek, thirsting for justice all depend on interior nothingness, the fertile ground for God’s own life to express itself through us. The poor in spirit have annihilated hearts, that is, hearts free and ready for God’s presence and love. The poor in spirit can love their enemies and not worry. They can be humble, honest, and compassionate. From the space of interior nothingness, they can let go of the anger that gives rise to violence, quarreling, and even murder. Their hearts are wide open to God’s mercy. In such a heart, there is no self. In such a heart, there is nothing but God.