A colleague in Atlanta, shares an incident that occurred to him a number of years ago. The church secretary buzzed him on the intercom one morning to announce that there was a salesman who wanted to see him for a few minutes. Against his better judgment, he said, "Sure, send him in." A moment later, a well-scrubbed man came bounding into his office. Immediately the pastor understood why his predecessor had persuaded the church to install a side door in his office with direct access to the outside. It was known as "the escape hatch," and after sizing up this sales representative, who sported full-blown eyes and a grin from ear to ear, he desperately wished he could escape. But he was trapped.
The salesman thrust out his hand and confidently introduced himself as the Senior Vice-President of a thriving new firm out of Nashville called Bible Games Incorporated. And before the pastor could respond, the sales rep handed him a small, Velcro ball, and stepped to the opposite end of the office where he unfurled a Velcro sheet large enough to cover a queen-sized bed. On the sheet was a brightly-colored grid of some eighty squares with a number in each square. Now invisible behind this sheet, the man said, "O.K., now you pretend you're David and I'll pretend I'm Goliath, and I want you to throw the ball at me as hard as you can. Go ahead! Throw it!"
The pastor stood there for a moment holding the Velcro ball and feeling ridiculous. He stared at that sheet with all the squares, shook his head and thought, "What heinous sin have I committed to deserve this!"
The sales rep hollered again, "Don't be shy, throw it!" And so he did.
The ball landed on one of the squares, and the man jumped out from behind the sheet and shouted triumphantly, "You hit number 55!" He pulled out a large workbook, and as he did, he explained to the pastor that the Bible game could be played at one of three levels--beginning, intermediate, or advanced.
The salesman thumbed through the notebook until he found Question Number 55 for beginners, and read out: "Who led the Israelites out of Egypt?" The pastor responded, "Moses."
"Congratulations," the man said as he turned to the intermediate section of the game and looked up question 55. "What Old Testament woman had weak eyes?" The pastor thought about it for a few seconds and then said tentatively, "Leah?"
"Right again! You're doing just great." And he thumbed to the advanced category. The pastor says that he has suppressed whatever the advanced question was, because, frankly he did not know the answer. But it was something along the lines of, "Outline the Book of Hezekiah."
The salesman quickly made himself comfortable in the chair next to the pastor's desk, and shifted his sales pitch into high gear. "This little game is really just an ice-breaker," he said, "to get you into the mood to hear about our top-drawer game called Dollars and Sense (s-e-n-s-e)." He said this one was a board game, similar to Monopoly, that demonstrated to children the principles of what he called "Christian Economics." He said that if players land on a space marked "blue collar worker," they are paid $4,000 in play money. If they land on the space marked "college graduate," they are paid $7,000. If they landed on "Middle Level Executive," they are paid $10,000, and if they landed on "Company President," they are paid $20,000. I'm sure if the game existed today, it would be more like 20 million dollars. Anyway, whatever their earnings, if they gave ten percent of it to the church, they won really big whenever they landed on the square marked "Showers of Blessings." Anyone lucky enough to be showered with blessings got all the money in the jackpot.
I know this sounds hard to believe, but it really happened. The pastor said to the man, "Don't you think that's a crass lesson to teach a child--that the word blessedness' is associated with the word jackpot.' And without a moment's hesitation, the salesman looked the pastor straight in the eye and said, "Yes, Reverend, but isn't that the way the world works?"
My friend has no idea what happened to that cheerful salesman, or what became of his little game. But he has never forgotten the man's question. "Isn't that the way the world works?" And he said it without the slightest hint of irony or resignation in his voice.(1)
What do we think the biblical notion of blessedness means? When we say someone is "blessed," what sort of images do we conjure up in our minds? Are they the same images used by most people in our culture to measure success?
If we live in a nice neighborhood, own a car for every driver in the family, possess a closet full of clothes, have the latest computer, cell phone or other electronic gadget, don't we pretty much feel that we are more blessed than the person who lives in subsidized housing or a developing nation? Don't we generally associate the word "blessed" with a good paying job and money in the bank and children who excel and the obvious signs of success in our world?
The salesman said, "Yes, Reverend, but isn't that the way the world works? And we have to agree that it is.
It is also the way the world worked in the time of Jesus. People were fond of ascribing the notion of "blessedness" to life's most pleasant conditions. Beatitudes were short sayings about the Good Life which anyone would have been pleased to have. Sayings such as: "Blessed are the wise, for they shall not be fooled. Blessed are the strong, for their enemies shall fear them. Blessed are the wealthy, for they shall never go hungry." That sort of thing.(2) So when Jesus shared what he believed it meant to be blessed, people must have been stunned. His list of blessings were not in harmony with the conventional wisdom of his day or our day.
We find his list of blessings - what we call the Beatitudes - in both Matthew and Luke. Matthew's version is the one with which most of us are familiar, but most New Testament scholars believe that Luke's version is probably closer to the actual words of Jesus. That's because Matthew has softened the tone of them by having them address spiritual attitudes rather than real socioeconomic conditions. But in Luke's version, according to Jesus, those who are blessed are the ones who are poor, hungry, grieving and persecuted.
The Pharisees must have gotten a good laugh over that one. Because the conventional wisdom was that God gave health, wealth and prosperity to those who were good; and God sent poverty, hunger, grief and persecution to those who deserved such things.
Jesus forcefully attacked such thinking. He knew that it was not God's will that people be poor or suffer. Rather, these people lived in such conditions because those who ruled over them practiced a politics of oppression and an economics of exploitation.(3) Keep in mind that common people had no voice in the ruling of their society. There was no such thing as democracy and so the quality of their lives was determined by those who held positions of power - political power and economic power. And Jesus faced such bitter opposition and was eventually put to death, because he exposed those in power as ruthless leaders who continually thwarted God's desire for justice.
In addition to being a great teacher and healer, Jesus was a social prophet like those of Old Testament times. He warned the religious leaders to change their ways, and not to place their trust in wealth or positions of privilege. Time and again, Jesus called upon people to care for the poor and the outcast and the lonely. And he spoke woes on those who possessed wealth and refused to share it with the needy.
Jesus denounced those who supported the political and economic systems which oppressed the poor. And his harshest attacks were leveled at the religious leaders because they not only supported the system which sentenced large numbers of people to lives of poverty, but they claimed divine sanction for it. Rather than confessing that it was an unjust system which preserved their affluence while forcing large numbers to remain in poverty, they claimed that this was how God intended for it to be. They claimed that wealth and prosperity were signs of God's favor while poverty and tragedy were signs of God's displeasure. And so Jesus attacked their system while at the same time giving hope to those being oppressed by it. Blessed are those who are wealthy for they shall never go hungry? No! Jesus said. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
Jesus was not glorifying poverty and suffering. He was declaring God's deep concern for the poor. One of the "hallmarks of the kingdom of God will be the redemption of the poor. They will be released from their degradation. Oppressed now, they will enjoy God's blessings in the kingdom. The hungry will be fed, and those who weep will laugh."(4)These words of Jesus were signs of hope that when God's kingdom is fully present, things will be put right and God's justice will be a reality.
Good health, a good job, a loving family, these things certainly enhance life. We count them among our blessings, and Jesus was not opposed to these things. What he opposed was followers of God claiming that the poor were getting what they deserved. What he opposed was the idea that poverty or poor health or tragedy were caused by God. And so he said it was these people - the ones who are hurting - they are the ones about whom God is especially concerned - to them belongs the kingdom of God.
God's kingdom is not something that we simply sit back and wait for. The kingdom was begun in Jesus, and the community who follows him experiences it and helps it take root in our world when we live in harmony with God's will. As followers of Christ, we are called to care for the poor, to feed the hungry to comfort those who grieve and to demand justice for those who are persecuted. With Kosovo and Littleton, with homelessness and hunger, with grief and suffering all around us, there is much to do. But we know that our efforts are not fruitless or of no consequence, because we are siding with God's agenda. So blessed are those who put their trust not in worldly success or wealth, but in the promises of God.
NOTES
1. Sermon by Theodore J. Wardlaw, Blessed by the Difficult, preached at Central Presbyterian Church on January
31, 1999.
2. Ibid.,
3. Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999),
p.71.
4. The New Interpreter's Bible: Volume IX, Luke and John, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), p.143.
© 1999 Dr. Gregory Knox Jones, all rights reserved
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