My last blog promised that it would give instruction for using the blessings of Jesus, (Matthew 5) as a spiritual discipline. Instead it gave further reflections on the second blessing:

Happiness for those who grieve:

they will be comforted.

In this blog I want to make good my original promise.

1. Look at the list of blessings and focus on one that might be relevant to your life now.

Jesus said:

Happiness for those who want no power over others:

The rule of heaven belongs to them

Happiness for those who grieve:

they will be comforted.

Happiness for the gentle:

they will possess the Land.

Happiness for those who hunger and thirst for justice:

they will be satisfied.

Happiness for those who show mercy:

mercy will be shown to them.

Happiness for those who have clean hearts:

they will see God.

Happiness for the peacemakers:

they will be called God’s children.

Happiness for those persecuted in the cause of good:

the rule of heaven belongs to them.

Happiness for you, when they hurt you and persecute you and slander you for my sake,

Be full of joy and delight,

Because the reward which awaits you in heaven is huge.

For in the same way they persecuted your ancestors, the prophets.

For example, if I am conscious of a situation in which I want no power or am trying to exert power over someone, I might select the first blessing.

2. Make clear its connnection with your life.

A) If the connection with your own life is positive, seek out the happiness promised by Jesus. Note down instances of that happiness. in this case, for example, I might note:

What a relief it is not to be planning how to gain an advantage

How good it is to enjoy the other person as a person and not a means to my ends

How decisions become clearer if I have no hidden motives

How I become better at noticing those who want power over me

How I an able to share in fruitful partnership with this person and others.

B) If the connection is at odds with you, obviously,  you cannot claim the blessing for yourself immediately, but rather look at the unhappiness you are expressing or creating.

What sort of power do I want over this person?

What words and actions have expressed this desire?

Why do  I want this power?

What effect have I had on the other person?

Have I been cloaking my desire for power under an appearance of assistance or affection or religious zeal?

In view of all this unhappiness, ask: Would I not like just to give up this desire for power?

3. If you can answer yes to that question, or even if you’re not sure, go back to 2 (A) and look clearly at the advantages of renouncing power. Feel even in imagination the promised happiness, till you become sure that giving up power over others is not a sacrifice but a pleasure.

4. Remind yourself that this is the way God rules, not by power over the universe but by persuasion. The freedom enjoyed by creation and creatures right down to the movement of atomic particles is due to God’s renunciation of power. This also evident in the life, suffering death and resurrection of Jesus. The depiction of God as all powerful is a mistake based on the image of earthly rulers. When I give up power over others I open myself to the rule of God.

5. And that’s just as well, for I need to recognise that when I desire power over others I am open to being ruled by worldly powers of greed, oppression and violence. The happiness of wanting no power gives me freedom from them. Recognise and value this freedom

6. Finally, if your reflection on this blessing reminds you that you are a victim of someone or of many people who desire power, then it should remind you that Jesus and you are fellow victims in this regard. Think of his life story and his teaching as communicating “the intelligence of the victim”, some of which you know at first hand. This will give you courage to remain opposed to oppressive power without desiring it for yourself.

7. You will realise that your refusal of power over others is itself a kind of power, the power to persuade, share and enable, to suffer and to endure, which we naturally label as Christlike.

I hope these instructions which are the fruit of my own real failures and tentative successes are useful to someone else, but first of all they are meant for myself.

I’ve been thinking about each of these blessings of Jesus, with the promise that I would suggest how to use them as a spiritual discipline.

Jesus said:

Happiness for those who want no power over others:

The rule of heaven belongs to them

Happiness for those who grieve:

they will be comforted.

Happiness for the gentle:

they will possess the Land.

Happiness for those who hunger and thirst for justice:

they will be satisfied.

Happiness for those who show mercy:

mercy will be shown to them.

Happiness for those who have clean hearts:

they will see God.

Happiness for the peacemakers:

they will be called God’s children.

Happiness for those persecuted in the cause of good:

the rule of heaven belongs to them.

Happiness for you, when they hurt you and persecute you and slander you for my sake,

Be full of joy and delight

Because the reward which awaits you in heaven is huge.

For in the same way they persecuted your ancestors, the prophets.

Firstly, how can I think that any of these blessings applies to me? I’m not a spectacularly bad person, but nor am I sufficiently good to describe myself as merciful, or gentle, or a peacemaker, especially if these terms designate character traits that last over time.  Doubtless Jesus hoped that they might become traits of character, but he offered them to disciples whom he knew to be flaky at times. We can conclude therefore that he did not intend them only for those who are settled in virtue.

Perhaps I can show how they can apply to me, if I take first the one that doesn’t look like a virtue:

happiness for those who grieve:

For they will be comforted.

If I really grieve, the truth of my sorrow links me with all who grieve even if the cause of my grief is different from theirs; no true grief is selfish but is open to being shared even if an actual act of sharing does not take place; shared grieving is one of the fundamental conditions of humanity. I can be reminded of this even when my own life is comparatively fortunate, if I open myself to another’s grief. In the recognition that bad things happen to all and bad things are done and said by all (except the great saints), there is a humour and a happiness that superficial people never know. It is a blessing of tears which promises a time when all tears will be wiped away. It is the happiness of those who grieve and can be discovered by honesty about my own suffering and openness to the suffering of others. Jesus’ blessing directs me towards this honesty and this openness.

But really? Where can any promise of ultimate comfort come from, and without it, can human sharing of grief in any way match the vast and varied history of suffering? Goya looked closely at suffering in his etchings, “The disasters of war” which emphasise that there is no comfort, no possible redemption, as in this one which he entitled, “no hay quien los socorra” – there is no one to rescue them.

Are there any words which can assuage this man’s terrible grief? I’m inclined to say no, but then there is the evidence of the etching itself: another man has seen, and entered into it and borne witness with all his skill to this suffering, in such a way that his desire to share the burden of this poor man is not incredible. And if we could write the same words below an etching of the crucifixion, we might be able to see it as an image of God’s desire to share the burden of those whom no one has rescued. This identification of God with the grieving Jesus is itself resurrection, new life, tears washed away, happiness for all who mourn.

Whether the suffering is heavy or light, Jesus’ blessing invites the laughter of God’s rescue which is to come. I have particularly recognised this in moments when I am grieving my unworthiness for any of the other blessings of Jesus: even this grief, if it is genuine, can allow me to enter the place of shared humanity and shared happiness.

When I’m using the blessings as a spiritual discipline, therefore, I always start with this one, because the grief it blesses is always with me.

 

 

This blog brings me to the final blessing of Jesus recorded at the beginning of Matthew chapter 5:

“Happiness for you, when they hurt you and persecute you and slander you for my sake,

Be full of joy and delight

Because the reward which awaits you in heaven is huge.

For in the same way they persecuted your ancestors, the prophets.”

Of course this is a continuation of the previous blessing on those who are persecuted in the cause of the good, but it focuses especially here on Jesus’ disciples. The more general blessing is made particular, and the cause is identified as that of Jesus himself.  The disciple follows Jesus because Jesus fulfils his deepest intuitions of goodness, but He also corrects and sharpens them by his teachings and actions. Love of Jesus leads disciples to follow his way, which turns out to offer hurt, suspicion, slander and persecution, as well as happiness. In this case it is tempting to see the suffering as earthly and the happiness as heavenly. But Jesus commands them to be happy now. Yes, that happiness is fuelled by the promise of a reward. All who say that virtue is its own reward, are faced with Jesus’ repeated promise of the recompense that God will give to his persecuted children. Faith without reward is not the faith of Jesus, just as mercy without judgement is not the mercy of Jesus.

But the happiness is also based on the gift of ancestors whom disciples would never have claimed as their own. Jesus recognised the prophets as his own ancestors; he may have understood his own destiny through the figure of God’s suffering servant imagined by Isaiah. He often spoke in the language of the prophets, especially when promising misfortune for God’s enemies. The faithfulness of the prophets in the face of the enmity of the powerful, was an inspiration to Jesus in his ministry and in his suffering. Here, however, he offers his disciples a share in this splendid ancestry. They may not have considered themselves as prophets of God, but here they are adopted into the family of Samuel, Elijah, Amos, Hosea, Micah and Isaiah and the rest. This blessing offers to me the ancestry of God’s biblical prophets, along with the martyrs of the faith, along with Bonhoeffer, Luther King, Gandhi, and many others, some unrecorded, down to David Haines of Perth, the aid worker savagely killed by Daesh. Is this happiness?

Yes, yes, what marvellous dignity it gives to my life when my own poor faith and discipleship, my own minor sufferings, are numbered with those of my ancestors, the prophets of God. And as I am happy to receive the honour of having them as ancestors, maybe, just maybe, they are happy to acknowledge me as one of their successors.

This blessing can help me obey Jesus’ command to be “full of joy and delight.”

 

This blog continues my meditation on the blessings of Jesus from Matthew chapter 5 which I started in my blog of May 29.

“Happiness for those persecuted in the cause of good:

the rule of heaven belongs to them.”

(I have translated the Greek “dikaiosune” neither as righteousness nor justice, which are the usual versions, but as “the good” because I think it means a comprehensive rightness.)

Being persecuted in the cause of evil is bad enough, but at least you know you’ve deserved it, whereas being persecuted in the cause of good, although common enough in this world, is surely unfair and miserable. I haven’t acted often enough in the cause of good to be able to judge with authority, but my one experience of persecution for that cause,  certainly gave me no pleasure, but rather fear, followed by fury.

So what right has Jesus to promise happiness to the persecuted?

Now that I’ve read that last sentence again, I can see how crass it is, given that Jesus knew only too well what it was like to be persecuted in the cause of good.

But he wasn’t happy, was he? It wasn’t  like the Python’s parodic crucifixion where the victims sing “Always look on the bright side of life.”

You might conclude that in this case the happiness promised is solely in the future, that is, in the resurrection life where the tears will be wiped away and the hard service rewarded.  But I’ve been arguing that although the blessings always point towards the full establishment of God’s rule, they also have a present dimension, in the ministry of jesus and his disciples, that is, in the beginning of God’s rule, through them.

The happiness Jesus promised comes from winning: the powers of the world persecute people who are committed to the good in the expectation that they will give up their commitment, either by agreeing with these powers, or by opposing them with the weapons of the world, for example with hatred and violence. But those who follow Jesus neither give in to the powers, nor do they oppose them by evil means: They hold on to goodness and suffer for it without departing from its methods. They hope that their goodwill may persuade their persecuters. This sacrificial faith is depicted in the much-misinterpreted book of The Revelation as the power which destroys the great city of “Babylon”, representative of all the oppressive empires of the world. The person who suffers for the good knows the happiness of being undefeated and continues to offer to the enemy the goodness which ultimately wins because it is the goodness of God. This is a profound happiness which nothing can remove.

The rule of God means that God wins by persuasive love, including the auffering of those who are persecuted for the good.

 

 

I’ve been working through the blessings of jesus as reported in Matthew 5. The complete passage is translated 6 blogs back.

Jesus said)

Happiness for the peacemakers!

they shall be called God’s children.

Again we should note that the respectful passive mood means that God will call them  his/her children.

The Greek word for peacemaker occurrs only here in the Bible, albeit in both Old and New Testaments peace is one of the most desired of God’s gifts. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew “Shalom” means wholeness, welfare, wellbeing, as well as peace, and is used to describe communal, societal and international conditions rather than personal experiences. In the the writings of St Paul, it refers to relationships with others or with God. Peace with God is especially treasured by Paul, while “kindness and peace from God” is one of his habitual greetings.

In Jesus’ blessings we can I think assume a primary reference to those who create interpersonal and communal peace, although there may be a secondary reference to those who create wellbeing of any sort.

Jesus would not have been starry-eyed about the human capacity for peace. Elsewhere he is reported as denying that he has come to bring peace and admitting that he causes division. Indeed he must have been aware that his ministry divided his own family and his own nation. That reminds me that the OT prophets recognised there could be a false peace:

”A curse upon those who say, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.”

Doubtless Jesus understood that true peace involved challenges to the advocates of unjust peace, especially in his ministry to the religious authorities of his people. We should note however, that he was not in favour of violent rebellion against the Roman invader. If Jesus thought of himself as a peacemaker, we must conclude that he saw it as working for God’s goodness amongst people without compromise yet without violence,  but with care for all, including the opponent.

That’s a tall order, because it does not rest on a calculation about what word or action is most likely to create peace. Jesus spoke and acted “in peace” regardless of immediate consequences.

There is no way to peace, for peace is the way.

Those who follow Jesus in this respect, may not find themselves creating peacefulness around themselves, but rather offering a “place of poise” in the midst of conflicts and difficulties. Their desire for common wellbeing appeals to the same desire in others, if it exists, and may create longer or shorter times, when peace happens. But even when there is no response from others, the peacemaker is united to the great event of peacemaking, which is God. And happiness. Sometimes there will be others who share this happiness, at other times there will be none, but at all times the peacemaker knows the happiness of a true identity between her/himself and the creator of life. This is not a mystical moment but a down to earth    knowledge that one has acted with no worldly justification in the name of something the world truly needs.

Jesus did not say when God would call the peacemakers his children, but he knew that whenever he did so, it would be forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This series of blogs began on May 29th and has continued in wvery blog since. In the first of these I translated the blessings of Jesus from Matthew 5, and meditated on them as a spiritual exercise.

Happiness for those who have clean hearts:

they will see God.

So what is a dirty heart? From a biblical point of view, it is a heart with affection for idols. That begins with the story of Adam and Eve who make idols of themselves (you will be like gods!) through the incident of the golden calf, to the psychologically more subtle narrative of David’s lust for Bathsheba and its murderous consequence. Whatever becomes more important than the one God, is an idol. A dirty heart is one whose affection makes some thing, person, pleasure or even duty, demonic, letting loose into the person and the world a contaminating spiritual influence, which conceals the goodness of God.

If that sounds such a heavy mode of going  astray, that we imagine ourselves immune to its power, then we should also understand that an inordinate affection for triviality can also be idolatry: we can become so addicted to a diet of social media that we neglect matters of real importance. The person who can neglect the human being standing by their side to connect with their smart phone is a common instance of this idolatry. And of course, more generally, allowing all manner of ugliness to wash through us daily from any sort of media, is a persistent danger to our hearts.

A more serious idolatry, common in our society, is our affection for the role of consumer, which the capitalism of our time urges upon us. Clearly this involves an affection for possessions and consumables, which in turn fuels a lust for the wealth to make consumption possible. This treadmill in its turn gives people an affection for power, personal, social and political, without which they might not have the means to consume

These idolatries are dirty affections which possess and degrade the heart, depriving it of clean affection for animals, people, the universe and the creator.

For those of us who suffer from idolatry, a moment in which our hearts are seduced by true affection, can be revelatory. This can happen through genuine love, through goodwill, through beauty, through religion, through the depth of meaning in art, through an encounter with death, through comedy and its purifying laughter, through anything that breaks through the scum of addictive affection. At that point we experience goodness, we “see” God.

And it makes us happy, so happy that we may desire nothing less than that happiness  as the purpose of our living. And if we are resolute, we can allow the happiness to convert us, a process which includes evicting the dirty affections from our heart. Few of us succeed altogether in this, leaving us with divided hearts, which want sometimes to hold on to our idols at the expense of God’s goodness. But we know, now, that our dirty affections are destructive whereas our clean affections are nourishing. We want to have clean hearts, we want to see God.

 

 

 

 

In this series of blogs I am trying to understand the blessings of Jesus, which I translated in my blog of May 29, 2018, and have taken singly in subsequent blogs.

Happiness for those who show mercy:

mercy will be shown to them.

“Will be shown” – This kind of passive phrase in biblical writings usually refers to God who is not named out of reverence, but (as I will argue) here it may also refer to the habit of mutual forgiveness and compassionate care in the Christian assemblies.

The Greek ”eleémones” is used in the Gospels to refer to forgiveness of the neighbour, and to caring love, especially for the needy. On the one hand therefore it means restraint of condemnation, punishment and revenge; on the other it means the activity of forgiveness and practical compassion.

The Gospel narrative is full of instances of Jesus’ mercy, especially towards those designated as “sinners” by the righteous, and of his active care of the sick and the possessed. It is also clear in Matthew’s gospel that his announcement of God’s mercy was considered scandalous by the religious authorities. Jesus also announced in vivid language that the mercy of God would not be available to those who have no mercy on their fellow human beings. We do not need to take his words about weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth too literally, or to conclude that the hard-hearted will never be forgiven, but we would be right to worry about the ultimate futures of those responsible for separating children from their parents at the USA/ Mexican border. They’d be well- advised to fireproof their asses.

Jesus’ blessing, however, promises happiness to merciful people, when the evidence suggests that his acts of mercy aroused the hatred that led to his murder, and that in many modern societies merciful people are mocked, patronised and often denounced as harmful. “Do-gooders” is a term of abuse. How then should we understand the happiness of the merciful?

The first answer is that acts of mercy promote human solidarity, although they are not done with that motive. Those who are forgiven are often enabled to form loyal and merciful relationships with others including those whom they have wronged. Those who are cared for often desire to show similar care to others. To be part of such a process of mercy is a genuine happiness, evident in first Christian assembly described in Acts 2 and 4, but also for example in the Buddhist Community of Plum Village in France or in the many groups of addicts who follow a 12 -step programme. This is in no way a smug happiness of conscious virtue, but rather a determination that neither past wrongs or present needs should inhibit the pleasure of being alive, with others.

The second answer is to do with the response of God. Jesus taught a shocking reciprocity between human and divine behaviour: forgive as our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Surely Jesus was not saying that God would allow his actions to be determined by human beings! It seems disgraceful, yet he went out of his way to assert it: “for if you do not forgive others, neither will your father in heaven forgive you.”  But this is no more than the obvious fact that those who condemn others will not inagine that they need forgiveness, nor will they trust in any teaching about God’s mercy to sinners, so they are already half- way to hell and in need of rescue. The same is true of those who exercise no compassion towards the needy. They will never imagine that they are in need of God’s compassion. Those who exercise mercy, however, will seek it from those whom they have wronged and from God if they are believers. They will trust in human and divine forgiveness, and will know the happiness of living in a climate of mercy.

And if that happiness were to catch  a hard-hearted person unawares, even just for an hour, or maybe even a minute, it might turn them towards the mercy they have despised.

Of course Jesus was promising an eternal mercy: in the world to come, in the Rule of God, mercy will be offered by God and the merciful will be able to receive it; kindness will be offered and the kind will be able to receive it. Jesus had such respect for human choice, that he could not imagine even the merciful father overuling the choices his children had made. Perhaps we can only say of the unmerciful, that God will wait for them to turn. But the merciful, even if their sins are as heavy as mine, will know mercy and be happy.

 

This series of blogs is devoted to exploring the blessings of Jesus set out in Matthew chapter 5 which I translated three blogs ago. Today I am looking at the fourth blessing:

Happiness for those who hunger and thirst for justice:

they will be satisfied.

Most of these blessings sound paradoxical; indeed in this case it seems perfectly obvious that justice- seekers are rarely satisfied, and that the more comprehensive the justice sought, the less likely it is to be found. Often people who have sought and obtained a limited justice go on to tackle greater and greater injustices, as for example Ghandi, who from his beginnings as an opponent of racism in South Africa tackled the greater problems of colonial rule in India, and was still working for social justice when he was killed. Was he satisfied? It seems that if we say he was satisfied we deny the continuing, burning commitment to radical justice which makes him important.

If we can ask the question about Ghandi then we can also ask it about Jesus, who proclaimed the arrival of God’s justice in his own ministry yet died on a Roman execution stake, as the victim of a Jewish kangaroo court. Was Jesus satisfied? Some Gospels mitigate the savage irony of Jesus’ death with pious utterances, which do not ring as true as the cry of anger accusing God of desertion that we read in Mark and Matthew. Even if we doubt all versions of Jesus’ last words, we can admit that John’s “It is finished” is probably meant to tease the reader into some recognition of Jesus’ satisfaction.

In this context I always think of something I once read in a newspaper and half-remember:

A TV company had sent a reporter, cameraman and driver into an African famine zone to get firsthand reports. The truck they used smacked into a huge boulder, wrecking the stearing and spilling the team out into the sand. At first, because of the heat they were glad to see the sun going going down, but afterwards, in intense cold, getting no phone signal, stood and shouted for help, although they could see nobody. Thinking they might freeze to death, they huddled together and waited. Out of complete darkness some men approached them, signalling them to follow. After an hour’s walk they found themselves in a small tribal settlement, where women attended to their wounds and bruises, before leading them to a warm shelter, where at last, they could sleep.

In the morning the headman of the village told them that they had very little food, because of the famine. Some of their number had already died of malnutrition. He apologised that they could not feed their guests as they would have wished, but invited them to share what they had. The tribe gathered in a circle, perhaps some thirty people including children. In the middle was a large wooden board, on to which families placed what food they had: a few tubers, some animal bones, one bit of something like bread. The headman blessed the food, broke it up, and passed it round. Each person had a morsel of tuber, a lick of marrow,a crumb of bread, except the children and nursing mothers who had double.

The journalist wrote that he had never experienced such absolute justice, nor had he ever felt so completely satisfied.

This incident is the best commentary I know on the so-called feeding of the 5000 by Jesus, where a body of people shares the little it has, yet all are satisfied. The explanation of the mystery is that every step towards justice is just, just as every step towards peace is peaceful. And every step is also a foretaste of the final justice promised by God, so that in addition to the present instance of justice, there is the prospect of something complete. The faithful person can be happy in the present instance of justice confident that more is to come. Martin Luther King the day before his assassination spoke of his happiness that he had climbed the mountain and seen the promised land: mine eyes, he said, have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Yeah, maybe that makes sense for the great activists and saints, but what about the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, the despised and rejected of our world, who may not have any chance to do more than long for justice, for whom there is only the longing without any instance of justice? For them the happiness is knowing that in God’s time they will receive recompense for all their grief, while their persecutors will get justice for their evil.

Surely I’m not meaning heaven and hell? Yes, better believe it, I sure am. But does God not forgive all sinners? No, God offers forgivness to all, but only those who are sorry for their evil can receive it; the rest remain in the darkness they have chosen. Some modern theologians dismiss this view of justice as primitive and in any case, beyond our knowledge, but I insist that unless I can trust in the justice of God for the oppressed of the earth, I cannot believe or worship.

There is every evidence in the Gospels that Jesus knew the present happiness of small justice achieved, while risking his life for the greater justice to come. His blessing issues from experience.

 

My last two blogs have explored the first two beatitudes or blessings of Jesus as reported in Matthew Chapter 5. The third of Jesus’ blessings is hard to translate. I have given it as:

Happiness for the gentle;

they will possess the Land.

The KJV has:

blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth

The word “praeis” is found in the Greek Old Testament at Psalm 37:11 where it translates the original Hebrew “anawim” which means afflicted, poor, God- fearing. Perhaps it’s not very different from the first blessing on “those who demand no power over others”, with in this case an emphasis on not demanding/ not having land. Every person in Israel was meant to inherit some of the land given by God. Powerful people, however , grabbled land for themselves. Gentle people might often end up landless.

The verb “ kleronomesousin” in Greek does have the sense of inheriting, that is, possessing what God has given. It does not mean only a legal right, more a social fact. The Greek “gey”can mean the earth, but here it is probably a reference to ”eretz yisrael”, the promised land.

So, how can the dispossessed, landless, gentle people “possess the land.”? The answer is in Jesus’ words to his disciples ( Mark 10: 29) that those who have given up family, houses, fields, to follow him will receive these gifts back tenfold in the shared life of the assembly of Jesus, where possession is communal. The gentle people are ready for this sharing which brings great human wealth and happiness. There is a future dimension to this blessing but Jesus knows that the happiness starts now, even in the midst of dispossession and poverty, where gentle people trust his word.

Those who are not gentle, but are ready to grab the land and its resources for themselves, are not happy, for the price of this kind of possession is insecurity, vigilance and the threat of violence. But if any such accept Jesus’ teaching, they will find themselves welcomed by the sharing assemblies, and will be converted by the happiness of possessing nothing yet posessing everything – as St. Paul puts it, “penniless, we own the world!”

So, the blessing is fulfilled already even in the midst of a greedy society where the rich and ruthless “possess”the land. But more is promised which has not yet arrived: The assemblies of Jesus offer a fuller measure of shared life, but they are in turn only a foretaste of the life of God’s Rule, which will come one day.

The Assembly where I minister at present has a drop-in free cafe twice a week for anyone who wants food and company. Those who attend have suffered multiple deprivations, but are ready to welcome me with grace and humour. They have very little but they know how to share. There are many sorrows in their lives but they know the happiness of shelter, warmth, food, affection and dignity. Many religious assemblies in this city provide something similar, and are committed jointly to creating a more just society.

I can see and experience the truth of Jesus’ blessing in these communities, but it is a revolutionary teaching in a society like Scotland, where so much land is in the hands of the idle aristocracy or has been increasingly grabbed by very rich institutions and individuals. Land which might well provide a living for refugees or homes for the poor, is being used for the various forms of killing which delight the powerful. This does not justify any violent expropriation of those who own too much of our common inheritance, but it would justify gentle people insisting on electing a government that would very gently pass land reform laws to bring back into public control and for public benefit, land that has been alienated by unfettered capitalism and medieval privilege.

Meanwhile faithful disciples should model themselves on the Assembly described in Acts chapters 2 and 4 which allowed gentle people to possess “the land” together.

 

 

 

Last blog began a series proposing a spiritual discipline based on the beatitudes or blessings of Jesus which can be found in my translation there. In this series I firstly investigate each blessing, after which I will suggest a way of using them all.

The second blessing is:

Happiness for those who grieve:

they will be comforted.

Jesus trusted in the Rule of God which would one day fully establish God’s will on earth, and he saw this rule arriving in his own ministry of teaching and healing. The happiness he promises does have a future dimension, but it begins in the present.

How can that be true for people who are grieving? This grief is not limited to personal bereavement, although it includes that, but covers also personal and communal grief at disasater, atrocity, oppression , poverty and injustice. How can there be any happiness for those mourning the death of a partner or a disaster which has affected a whole community? The Grenfell Tower disaster caused both personal and communal grief, so it provides a real test. Can there be any happiness for those survivors and relatives of victims?

The present public enquiry hints at an answer: although grief is not lessened by being shared, indeed it has in some instances been sharpened, the acts of speaking the grief and of listening to it confer a sense of privilege, of the preciousness of human sorrow, of the uniqueness as well as as the commonality of each particular sorrow, that constitutes a kind of happiness which those untouched by grief will never know. Is it mere rhetoric to call this happiness if it does not wipe the tears away? I don’t think so. Sure it does not lessen grief, but rather offers a profound experience of human solidarity to set against it, a happiness fragile but undeniable which does not deny the grief.

This precious solidarity is present wherever grief is shared, whether in a public investigation such as the Grenfell enquiry, or by two women in a maternity ward whose babies have been stillborn. The trust in which such grief can be shared is not a relationship only of the moment, but one which includes a future commitment to each other’s welfare and to a justice which tackles the causes of suffering. Anyone who is invited to share a sorrow, either as speaker or listener, is encouraged by Jesus’ blessing to trust this small good thing out of which the sorrow and its causes can be faced.

One of the very great pieces of writing I know is Raymond Carver’s short story, “A small good thing,” which recounts the tragedy of a young boy’s death, on his birthday, after a car accident. The terrible grief of his parents is accentuated by repeated phone messages from the baker whom the mother has engaged to make a birthday cake. He mistakes their lack of response as an attempt to ignore the deal they have made with him, and becomes slightly aggressive in his demand for payment. In the extremity of grief the mother decides to face up the baker, whether to shame him or destroy him is not clear. In the early hours of the morning the baker opens his bakery to them and is faced with the appalling fact of the child’s death and the inappropriateness of his messages. Instead of running away, or defending himself, the baker asks them to sit down, and serves them some of his new made bread, which creates a moment of peace in which they all recognise that the bread is a “small good thing” to set against the very large bad thing which has happened. Then the parents can talk and grieve with this stranger whom they know will understand. This summary in no way does justice to the beauty of the story – please read it for yourself- but it serves to model the happiness which arises from the shared truth of grief. Another American, e e cummings, wrote of this in a poem about his father:

His sorrow was as true as bread;

no liar looked him in the head.

The happiness of shared grief cannot be created by the lies of official regret, or the pious lies of conventional religion, or the intrusive lies of “sympathetic” media: it requires the recognition of fact: what happened and to whom it happened. This is nothing to do with the fashionble fatalism which says, “shit happens”: the fact is that tsunamis happen, but fires happen through negligence, chemical warfare is waged, terrorists kill people, children die of preventable disease, evil is done.

And when we open our hearts to share our own or another’s suffering, a fragile happiness is done.