Fourth Sunday inOrdinary Time
January 30, 2005


Are the Beatitudes nouns, adjectives or verbs?

There was a Buddhist monk sitting along side a road. A Chinese general rides by with his retinue. He stops, swears at the monk and asks: “What do you see when you see me, monk!?” “I see the Buddha”, replies the monk. “When I look at you, I see a filthy, dirty pig, no good for anything”, said the general. The monk was non-plussed – “It doesn’t surprise me. You see, because I am able to see the Buddha within, I can also recognize him without… However, if you are only able to see a filthy, dirty pig outside yourself…”

The story never goes on to say what the general did to the monk. But it tells a truth, doesn’t it. At least on one level. We are able to see outside of ourselves best what we have come to see and love within ourselves. And so I ask – What did Jesus see when he looked at people. Today’s gospel – an answer. “When Jesus SAW the crowds…” not just looked at them, but SAW the crowds, he sat down… Why, because he had to tell them what he saw.
He saw the human condition –
poor
mourning
meek
hungering and thirsting

These are not necessarily good categories… They indicate a lack. And Jesus sees that pain, that hunger, that emptiness. But he sees more. Because he has looked at his own poverty in the desert, his own lack – and hungering, he can recognize it outside of himself. But the message is AMAZING – There is more. There is always more. When it seems like mourning is your entire world – (I saw my brother fall to the ground in my front yard, physically unable to take another step into the house after my father had died) - Jesus says there is a greater truth – a blessedness that will push through – and you’ll know God. When you fear to enter into life (MEEK) – there is more to you, and from having nothing, you’ll inherit the earth.
And that blessedness will continue to push out into the world as mercy, as singleheartedness, as peacemaking, and as the ability to absorb pain (when persecuted). That’s what Jesus saw, because that is what was tested in him in the desert.

I received a thank you letter once, that I put into my box of ‘treasured things.” I thought I would be able to find, but I think now it is in a file for a talk that I gave to some high school kids. But I still remember the content, if not the actual words.

“I was hungry to know that I was valuable and worth something, and you made time to be with me in my doubt.
I mourned the death of a relationship with the only friend I really had known, and you gave me comfort by letting me cry without judging me as weak. I was poor in my self esteem and belief that I could matter and make a difference in this world, and you showed me how I was already touching lives in my work.”

And it dawned on me that Beatitudes are not just attitudes, adjectives describing a state, they are also verbs. They are a blueprint of how to act and when to act and who to reach out to first. Where there is mourning, we act. Where there is meekness, we act. Where there is poverty, we act. And so it goes.

So this week, I invite you to reread the Beatitudes – to see in yourself that “More” that Jesus promises is there within you. And then to ask, how do I need to ‘Do the Beatitude” this week…