Week 48 Sunday
Week 48 Sunday
We Begin a Study of the Beatitudes
Matthew 16:24-26; Luke 14:25-35; Galatians 2:20; Philippians 1:20-21
We ended yesterday our outlines for the study of the Word: If “the proper study of mankind is man,”* then the proper study of the Word is the Word. We shall pause for a moment at the opening sentences of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. If the Bible is distilled essence of great souls, then this Sermon is the distilled essence of the Soul of Christ. He is limning (painting) his own spirit on the canvas of these words.
The Beatitudes begin and end where Jesus began and ended in his ministry as a whole. They begin with the kingdom (Matt. 5:3), and end with the kingdom (v. 9). As the kingdom was the framework in which all his teaching was set, the Master-light in which everything was seen; so the kingdom is supreme here. The Sermon depicts the New Order and the character of those who are citizens of that New Order. Sorokin, head of the sociology department at Harvard, after reviewing the decay and breakdown of our social order, comes to the conclusion that the new order that will replace the present order must be patterned after the Sermon on the Mount.** This is the deliberate conclusion of a sociologist and not just a rhetorical gesture. The Sermon is turning out to be—not idealism, but what we have always been convinced it was—stark realism. The kingdom is Reality, the only Reality.
Jesus is saying here what he always insisted upon: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, . . . and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33 KJV): get this straight, and everything else will come out straight. But how do you get this supreme value straight, by holding it supreme Idea? No; but by submitting to it as a supreme Loyalty, “Blessed are the poor [renounced] in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). The kingdom is imperious, demanding on the very threshold a renunciation, and a renunciation at the deepest depths—in spirit.
On the very threshold of the kingdom, we meet a demand: Be renounced in spirit. If not, nothing else follows; if so, then everything follows.
O God, I know whose bonds are upon my heart. I know what I must do: I must renounce at the center—in my very spirit. With the center yours, then all the circumference follows. Help me let the kingdom operate from the center of my being to the circumference of my relationships. Then I shall be a kingdom-controlled person. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
* Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Man,” 1891.
** See Pitirim A. Sorokin, On the Practice of Sociology, ed. Barry V. Johnston (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
Week 48 Monday
The First Step: Receptivity
Mark 4:1-10; John 1:12; 1 Corinthians 1:30
We continue our study of the Beatitudes—“the happy ones.” Jesus gives his recipe for happiness, and it begins with renunciation. This reverses the ordinary recipe for happiness, which usually begins with assert, take, realize. Which recipe for happiness will life back?
Now note that the first three beatitudes are all receptive instead of assertive: the poor (renounced) in spirit (v. 3); those that mourn there over the mistakes, sins, and failures of themselves and others, and mourn for the coming of the kingdom (v. 4); the meek, or disciplined (v. 5). All three bespeak one thing: receptivity. These are all passive virtues.
Then follow three positive, or active virtues: the merciful (v. 7); the pure in heart (v. 8); the peacemakers (v. 9). Between these two sets of threes, passive and positive virtues, there is one that is both passive and positive: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”—that is active—“for they shall be satisfied”—passive (v. 6). This verse, made up of both, is the pivot upon which the change is made from passive to active virtues.
Now note that the kingdom way of life begins with receptivity. Is that right? Isn’t that where all life has to begin? The two cells, the ovum and the sperm, have to receive each other before they can begin the positive business of producing active life. The seed in the ground receives moisture and nutrition from the earth and the air before it can begin to give forth in flower and fruit. An organism can expend as much as it takes in, and no more. If it doesn’t begin with receptivity, it doesn’t begin.
The scientist who doesn’t sit down before the facts as a little child—who isn’t prepared to give up every preconceived notion, and isn’t willing to follow to whatever end nature will lead—will know nothing. The scientist has to be renounced, to mourn the lack of knowledge, to be humble; or that scientist gets nowhere. The first immutable law of all life, material and spiritual, is receptivity. Life confronts us with the alternatives: receive or perish.
O God, I dare not perish, when I can receive. And now, renounced and receptive, I come to you. Take my emptiness and make it into your fullness; my foolishness and make it into your wisdom; my paralysis and make it into your power; myself and make it into you. For I hunger and thirst after you. I really do. Amen.
Week 48 Tuesday
The Attitude and Its Outcome or Reward
Numbers 12:3-15; 2 Corinthians 10:1; Philippians 4:13; Colossians 3:12-17; Titus 3:1-7
We ended yesterday by saying that the first step in abundant living is receptivity. What is received? The renounced in spirit receive the kingdom of God; the mourners receive comfort; and the meek inherit the earth. The first attitude is general—the renounced in spirit, and the reward is general—the kingdom of God. But note that the verse does not say that they belong to the kingdom of God. It says that the kingdom of God belongs to them: Its powers are behind them; its resources are at their disposal; its very authority and power are at their command. They are universe-backed.
In the second, the attitude is specific—those that mourn, and the reward is specific—they shall be comforted. But the comfort is con “together,” and fortis “brave,” so the meaning is “brave together.” There is a sense of human-Divine togetherness; a sense of adequacy, not because of one’s strength, but because of one’s Resources. You and Christ are afraid of nothing, because you can use everything.
In the third, the attitude is again specific—the meek; and the reward is specific—they inherit the earth. The meek are not the weak. They are the trained, the disciplined, the receptive. They inherit not only heaven but also the earth. The meek-minded scientist inherits the world of fact. Every great scientist is humble—has to be, for if a scientist is proud and know-all in attitude, Nature will shut up like a clam and reveal nothing.
When the French people voted as to the greatest Frenchman, they passed by Napoleon and fastened upon Pasteur, whose discoveries benefited so many. The meek inherited the world of affections and reverence. If the American people should vote on the greatest American, they would undoubtedly fasten upon Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, the humble-souled liberator of the oppressed. The earth belongs to the meek because it won’t respond to the proud, the vaunting. The earth is made in its inner constitution to work in the Christian way, and hence none but the Christian meek can inherit it.
Napoleon said, “There are only two forces in the world: the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.”*
O God, I see that the earth rots in the hands of those who try to take it by force and pride and domination. It doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to your Son and to those who meekly follow him. Help me inherit him and then I shall inherit the earth and all that is in it. Amen.
* Widely attributed to Napoleon.
Week 48 Wednesday
Goodness Is Our Native Air
2 Chronicles 6:41; Psalms 42:1-5; 63:1-8; 107:9; John 7:37-39
We turn from the three receptive qualities to the pivotal quality of outgoing-incoming, positive-passive in the statement, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for goodness! they will be satisfied” (Matt. 5:6 Moffatt). This group is as outreaching as hunger and as thirst, but outgoing for what? Money, fame, sex satisfaction, power? No, goodness! Result? They are satisfied! Those who are outreaching for money, fame, sex satisfaction, and power are forever dissatisfied; they have the doom of thirst upon them. The more they get, the more they want. Those who thirst for goodness, thirst for what they are made for, hence they can be satisfied. But if the eye should thirst for darkness instead of light, the conscience thirst for error instead of truth, the aesthetic nature thirst for ugliness instead of beauty, the heart thirst for hate instead of love—the end? Dissatisfaction, frustration, conflict, breakdown.
Goodness is our native air. We live to the extent that we live in goodness. We gasp and die if we try to live in evil. These are the alternate heartbeats of healthy, abundant living: Outgoing for goodness—incoming with satisfaction; outgoing for goodness—incoming with satisfaction. A heart that beats with this rhythm lives forever.
But the heartbeat of the wrongly directed thirst is: Outgoing for evil—incoming with dissatisfaction; outgoing for evil—incoming with dissatisfaction. A heart that beats with this false rhythm dies of heart failure, eternally dies of heart failure, perishes.
Jesus said, “Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again” (John 4:13). Those who drink of the waters of lust, of money, of power, of fame, of thrills have the doom of thirst upon them; they thirst again, inevitably and invariably. “But,” continued Jesus, “whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst” (v. 14a): a life without exhausting thirsts! A central and fundamental satisfaction! “A well of water within, springing up to everlasting life” (v. 14b KJV)!
And note that it is “springing up”: it is not a dull, bovine satisfaction, but a satisfaction that is popping with novelty and exciting adventure.
O God, my Lord, you are giving me two satisfactions—the satisfaction of fulfillment, and the satisfaction of growth. I am deeply satisfied with you, and yet I am forever reaching for more. You satisfy me and stimulate me. I rest and am forever unresting until I awake in your likeness. I am so grateful, so grateful. Amen.
Week 48 Thursday
From the Receptive to the Positive Virtues
Exodus 33:13-15; Matthew 17:5-8; John 9:36-38; 12:20-21
We proceed in our study of the Beatitudes from the receptive side to the positive side. The first three are receptive; the fourth is partly receptive and partly outgoing; and the next three are positive and assertive: the merciful who obtain mercy, the pure in heart who see God, and the peacemakers who are called children of God.
The kingdom-of-God life begins with receptivity and ends in positive activity; the passive becomes the positive. The positives are three: they exercise power mercifully; they have gained a central insight—they see God; they go out and are able to make people change and come to peaceful solutions.
The astonishing thing is that when Jesus turns from the receptive side, the first thing he mentions is power wielded mercifully. He tells of masterful, dominating personalities who have people in their power, but who wield that power mercifully and beneficently. Does receptivity bring power over others? Yes; a receptive person becomes a vigorous person. Divine resources make the person humanly resourceful. But the vigor is constructive and redemptive; power is controlled by love, the only safe power. Jesus had all power, but he used it not for himself, not for the destruction of enemies, not to awe his hearers, but only for purposes of mercy.
The second outgoing quality is purity of heart, which has a central insight—it sees God. Those who are receptive cannot only do, they also see. There are two great types of personalities: those who desire to do, to achieve, to wield power; and those who desire to have insights, to know, to gain the world of insight into the relationships of things. The first are the people of action, and the second the people of thought—the pioneers, the philosophers. Both types are produced out of receptivity, and both are needed. But the central insight that is needed is people who can see God—God at work in redemption, in beauty, in the moral universe, overruling the affairs of people. The pure in heart are in the breathless adventure of seeing God everywhere!
O God, I would be pure in heart, single-minded, so that my insights may be clarified, for I want to see you—to see you in the blade of grass, in the procession of the stars, in the rough-and-tumble of human events, and in my own heart when I close the door and make tryst with you there. I would see you—you. Then I am satisfied. Amen.
Week 48 Friday
The Center of the Christian Gospel: Reconciliation
Matthew 5:23-24; Romans 5:10-11; 2 Corinthians 13:11; Hebrews 12:14; James 3:13-18
The undivided in heart see God. Where other people see dead matter, they see the Creator’s delicacy of touch; where others see history as a mere matter of meaningless events, they see history as his Story; where others see the tragedy of a good man dying a martyr, they see the triumph of the God who redeems through his own death.
But they not only see; they also have the positive power to get others to see and change and come to reconciliation on a higher level. The third positive quality is peacemaking: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” The receptive find power to reconcile in three directions: between people and God, between people and people, and between people and self. They have the power to help humanity be at home with God, at home with their fellow humans, and at home with themselves.
If I were to pick out the one verse that most nearly expresses the Christian gospel, it would be this: “God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19 CEB). God was in the positive business of an outgoing love that reconciled humanity to God when humanity did not want to be reconciled. We do what God does; God trusts us with the work of reconciling. In two outstanding passages from Moffatt we are called sons of the Father, and for the same reason: “Blessed are the peacemakers! they will be ranked sons of God” (Matt. 5:9), and “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (vv. 44-45). You are most like God when you are bringing people together in reconciliation.
When I was trying to find a basis for reconciliation between Japan and America, Admiral Nomura took my hand and said, “Thank you for what you are doing. Those who are trying to reconcile others are doing the work of Heaven, for it is Heaven’s work to reconcile us.” A non-Christian put his finger on the central Christian quality: reconciliation.
O God, my Lord, I would be like you. You are reconciling—I would be too. Take out of me all antagonisms, all divisions, all clashes, so that those whom I meet this day will instinctively feel that I breathe “Peace.” O let me breathe “Peace” upon the hot hearts of humanity and cool them with your love. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Week 48 Saturday
The Kingdom Belongs to the Receptive, the Positive
Isaiah 57:15; Matthew 18:1-4; Romans 8:35-39; 1 Corinthians 3:21-23; 1 Peter 5:5-7
We come to the last of the “Blesseds”: “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of goodness! the Realm of heaven is theirs” (Matt. 5:10 Moffatt). This “blessed” is the result of the other seven. Those who are so receptive that they become positive and outgoing are a judgment to others. Their lives become superior, and people do not like to be silently judged, so they kick back in persecution. Society demands conformity. If you fall beneath its standards, it will punish you; if you rise above its standards, it will persecute you. It demands an average, gray conformity. But the Christian is different. Christians are a departure upward; their heads are lifted above the multitude; hence they get hit. If the head doesn’t get hit, it is not lifted above the multitude. “Woe to you,” said Jesus, “when all men speak well of you” (Luke 6:26); if they do, you are like them. Christians must therefore get used to the sight of their own blood.
But what is the result of being so positive that you are persecuted? “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:10). Note: They do not belong to the kingdom of God; the kingdom of God belongs to them: its powers are with them, behind them, at their disposal. Now note that these “Beatitudes” say that the kingdom belongs to two: “those who are renounced in spirit”—the receptive; and “those who are persecuted for the sake of goodness”—those so positive that they are persecuted. The kingdom of God does not belong to the receptive alone or to the positive alone; it belongs to the receptive-positive, the incoming-outgoing types. They are the Mystic-Masters who have caught the balance between the introvert and the extrovert: they are the ambivert.
Now note: the world reverses this; it begins with positive self-assertiveness without receptivity. It soon runs through its resources and ends in receptivity by circumstances; it becomes a prey of environment, mastered by life, defeated, frustrated, empty. The kingdom life begins with humble receptivity and ends in mastery.
O God, I thank you that I have hold of the right end of the handle of life—humble receptivity. Now I can wield the other end in positive achievement and output. I can never, never run through my Resources; so I shall never, never fail in result. I am but the wire along which your power runs. Keep me connected and insulated. Amen.