Now, skip ahead to the Bible, and you would be unsurprised to hear that the Bible is the most commonplace book in the world. The Bible is the book most people would have, really. An older quote is one about the prevelance of the scriptures, that says that if a house has only three books in it, one will be by Stephen King, one will be a cookbook, and one will be the Bible. Truly, the scriptures are everywhere, and copies are available on demand all over the place. You can find copies of the Bible without even trying anymore. Sure, there used to be a time in which you would be immolated at the stake for having a copy of the Bible in your own language, and there are still places in the world that you will be arrested for having a copy of the Bible, but here in this country, the Bible is so available that you don't have to look for it anymore. It's sort of the way things go, which is the idea of a difficult to get, stand-alone Bible is foreign to us. Now, there are Bibles in every hotel room, every prison, presidents are sworn in on them, and there are dozens of Bible apps available for every OS (even windows phone. Possibly blackberry). And the prevalence of the Bible, the scriptures, runs the real risk that most people will assume that they know what is in them, and therefore don't have to read them.
It's sort of like Star Wars, or the Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, or the Sound of Music. You already get the jokes, you get the cultural references, whether you've seem the source material or not. Everyone knows who Darth Vader is, they all know
Well, fast forward to these days, and currently, in schools, we are getting close to pink shirt day. And pink shirt day is the day in schools (in the schools my children go to at any rate) where kids are supposed to wear pink shirts in solidarity against bullying. And the thing about it is that in the schools, in the elementary schools that our children go to, all the kids will be wearing pink shirts. Even the bullies.
Pink shirt day isn't the day where the bullies are called out, nor is it the day of restitution and reparations. Rather, it is the day where everyone stands together against bullies, many of whom are in the crowd, standing against the bullies. This is bizarre, but must be contemplated, where nobody believes that they themselves are bullies. No matter how bad someone is as a bully, they will never look at themselves in the mirror, and say 'Gosh, I'm a bully. Thank goodness the school has a day dedicated to putting me in my place.' Everyone who is in that class will show up, will wear a pink shirt, and will think that bullying is bad. But if everyone thinks bullying is bad, then where does bullying come from?
And that brings us to the beatitudes, and the real danger of transforming those beatitudes into platitudes. It's a real danger, you know. It's a real danger of changing the scriptures into meaning nothing, given that everyone, from the poor to the super rich, from the peacemakers to the warmongers, from the hungry to the super-filled will see themselves in these words. The Beatitudes are essentially printed on rubber, the way that they're stretched to cover each and every single human being that exists.
By way of example, and not to get too political, but I'd love to talk about Donald Trump for a moment. I know, I know, dead horse and all that, but seriously for a moment. When Donald Trump was getting inaugurated as the president of the United States, one of the invocations was that of the beatitudes. The beatitudes were read in their entirety, and then Donald Trump was sworn in as President with his hand on a Bible. And this is the same Donald Trump who earlier had stated that he had, in general, in his life, nothing to repent of. He didn't feel any real need to repent of anything in his life. Again, I have no desire to get political, so I won't talk about policies, I won't talk about supreme court picks, or executive orders. What I will talk about, though, is the bizarre juxtaposition of a billionaire, the most powerful man in the world, being sworn in as such, just after the beatitudes are read. And every single person in the crowd identified with those words.
And that's the danger, which is that if everyone is against bullying, nobody is. If everyone is the meek, nobody is. If everybody is the poor, nobody is. If everyone
When Jesus was speaking the beatitudes to the crowd, his disciples were with him, and Jesus spoke the beatitudes, beautiful words, to be sure, but words that were going to apply to the disciples sooner rather than later. The words of the beatitudes are beautiful words, but they're beautiful words to those who are hurting. Part of what we need to know and to recognize is that the words of the beatitudes, when applied to the super comfortable, to those who see no need to repent, to those who have never shed blood or tears for what they believe, the words of the beatitudes don't apply to them. These are words from Christ not to mollycoddle you where you are, not to encourage you to remain where you are, not to motivate you to do nothing, or to mire and wallow in tedium, but to pronounce blessings upon you when you begin to lose things for your faith. The Christian faith, properly considered, will cost you. It will cost you piece by piece, taking you away a piece at a time. It may not lead you to outright persecution by the government, but likely it will lead to missed opportunity, reduced social standing, fewer intimate relationships, lost time, and more work. That's what it can and will and should lead to. If your Christian faith hasn't led to anything even vaguely resembling that, then you need to reconsider what it is you believe in, and react accordingly.
The beatitudes are there to give you sweet relief, as it was to the disciples who lost everything, including life in service of their Lord. They lost their homes, their businesses, their goods, the respect of their peers, and eventually their lives. They perished in the service of their Lord, and the words of the beatitudes were vital to reassure them that the blessing of Christ were there to replace the blessings of the world. That's so much a theme of the scriptures, that you can claim your reward here, or later, remembering all the while that friendship with the world is enmity with God.
But when you do lose out, When you miss out on something. When you won't sleep with that girl, when you won't keep the money that you found in that wallet, when you won't break the law, when you won't fight the ticket even though you could on paper, when your faith costs you something, when it hurts, when you bleed for it, that's when the words of the beatitudes mean something. it's not just for when you have a bad day and you're bummed out because your team lost. It's for when keeping your faith costs you, when it pinches, and when it hurts.
The greatest living embodiment of the beatitudes is, of course, the one who spoke them into being. The one who spoke the beatitudes was the one who lived them out, and the one who realized that the disciples who were with him were not going to be faithful unto death. Jesus knew what was going to happen with his disciples, he knew that they were going to desert him, that they were going to sell him out and flee him when things got tough. But that's the point of the Christian faith, that we have Christ's grace and not our own. When you look at the beatitudes, don't strip them of their power. Instead of insisting that they all apply to you at every moment, remind yourself that they are there for when your faith will cost you. And each and every time your faith costs you, rejoice that your life has meaning and purpose, that it isn't just being blown about by the wind. And those times where you flee, where you run away and avoid the cost of discipleship, rejoice that Christ shed his blood for the weak, those who fled his side, those who left him, those who ran away.
That's worth so much more than a big bowl of platitudes.
