Working through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has been a little slower going than first expected. There are the obvious hang ups (the business of life, moving nearly one thousand miles, starting a new job, etc). Then, there’s also the not so obvious hang up of definition (i.e. translating from English back to Greek for a more inclusive understanding of what I’m reading when I read it).

There’s been a lot of good in taking the time for definition, however, as it has reminded me of how I do take words for granted rather than dwelling on their inherent and implicit meanings. In addition, it reminds me of how some words (maybe in their over usage or flippant understandings?) have lost the significance, breadth, and depth on me (i.e., reading over a text and glossing over what it’s really saying all for the sake of “just reading”).

In the very act of translation, we may lose some of the force of what was originally said. Being the case, I will put out the caveat that we are not to mistrust a translation simply because it is a translation. In the vein of Christianity, we can believe that though we may not (at first) understand the intricacies of meanings behind the words we are reading, we can still yet trust that the Holy Spirit is real and that He will enlighten, penetrate, and correct our hearts and misguidance to the end that Christ is made more beautiful in and through our lives.

A little sharing regarding three verses in the Beatitudes (and hopefully, a reprieve from my “How To’s”).

Matthew 5:6 – Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Generally speaking, I would have seen this as “Blessed are those who really desire holiness because God will give them satisfaction.” Honestly, in breaking apart these words I was kind of blown away. Spiros (the main resource I use in my translation as I can’t yet understand or read Greek) gives some great insight. First, “Those who hunger” is altogether one phrase and is more correctly identified as “Those who starve, are famished; to metaphorically hunger for something other than literal food.

As a middle class American, it is hard to understand the impetus that starvation is for action to someone who is starving. The implication is that Christ is not speaking of mere desire, but of a deeply seated and desperate desire (hunger) for righteousness. The implication is that when one is starving for something, there’s not a whole lot that can avert the pains of starvation apart from satisfaction.

So the Holy Spirit reminds me, “You aren’t starving for righteousness, but you should.”

Matthew 5:7 – Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Matthew 5:7 is the only verse that uses this sense of merciful (eleēmōn) to reference believers in the New Testament of the Bible (according to Spiros). It means compassionate, benevolently merciful involving thought and action and is generally relegated in speaking of God’s mercy to us. As such, mercy is much more than giving a sandwich to the homeless person who asks you for extra change. Mercy, as defined, is a planned and intentional action for the benefit and well being of others when there is a recognized need (i.e. compassion). Therein, it is much more than “I forgive you.”

Matthew 5:12 – Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Jesus tells us that we are blessed when we are persecuted for his sake (see the preceding verse 11). If (or when) we are persecuted for His sake, the translation of verse 12 could be elaborated upon by saying “Joy to you! Be glad in an exuberant and absurd way!”

I don’t think that it is something that I can quite understand, because when I feel wronged I am not prone to turn the other cheek and rest in quiet faith. Instead, my actions will more often dictate that I simply don’t trust that God has a plan for the situations I am placed in and that there is more truth in chaos rather than in a God who has a perfect and exacting plan for my life. In essence, it’s easier to know what the truth is than it is to believe the truth.

Sometimes hope comes with the knowledge that I’m wrong, however.

I can hope in a Christ that speaks the Beatitudes so that I might be drawn to Him and changed through His power rather than a Christ that speaks and says, “Now do this, or else.” The same grace that opens my heart to see this Jesus is the same grace that allows me to accept the broken world around me and to not expect the very thing that it is unable to produce apart from God’s grace: righteousness. When I drive through the streets of my broken city, I can lament with those who are not part of my family in the knowledge that in and of myself, I am lacking too. In the vein of that knowledge, I can also (from the depths of my own iniquity) point to one who is better than us, but who became like us so that we could be better than ourselves.

In short, the Beatitudes remind us that we suck. But they also remind us that there is a God who came to us to save us, that there is a transcendent hope beyond what we consider as tangible, and that there is a completion to be fulfilled by a God who sacrificed Himself and was resurrected to give us real life. They remind us that Jesus is about the building of His kingdom and that we have the privilege and unspeakable joy (rejoicing in persecution…) to be a part of that work.

Therapy of the confession...

I used to rail against the secrets that would come in the form of blogs whose sordid realities would never caress the tenderness of a friends ear. I'm still no great proponent of speaking of such upon the web that would never be spoken of upon the person, though I still find great delight in reading others' secrets.

Last night, I read a short interview with Frank Warren [of postsecret notoriety] on Quirkee.com. A wonderfully insightful quote reads, "...I think these cards represent something more than we can see. Maybe for these people, sharing their secret is a search for grace."

I think that it's such a beautiful thing to search for grace, but the indication and impetus that he's placed on his writers is that so many of them are writing their secrets out of a deeply ingrained and socially damning guilt. Why would you, or I, or anyone else search for grace if we didn't feel like we've all done something terribly wrong to someone else or something terribly wrong period? Maybe it goes without saying, but I agree with F. Warren. I think that my agreement moves beyond the bounds of his website and really encompasses much of the web community.

So much of what I read is an escape from what actually is. Words, thoughts, feelings, and implied actions tend to be so disjoint from the same in the physical world. I thought about going on with a discourse on the subject, but BP sums it up best on the front page of his blog saying, "...in blogworld, I can attempt to replace everyone else's perception of me with my imagined self." In that, he is describing this great disconnect of who we are and who we perceive ourselves to be. Blogs, myspace.com pages, and similar venues tend to be rife with the sort of assumption of the recreation of self without the hindrances of outward assessment.

This isn't all bad, however.

On a fundamental level, the quasi-anonymity that people believe they have while surfing the web works to lower the social guards that people use in attempts to deflect embarrassment and shame [That's essentially what F. Warren says in his interview anyways]. Being the case, there is a sense that man [or man with the wo-, as the case may or may not be] is subsequently fundamentally deeper than what is generally revealed in social settings. What the web provides then, in this "search for grace," is the general acceptance and encouragement that we need in order to bring this "deeper self" to the forefront.

What the web doesn't provide [except in rare cases, as I've heard] is the accountability that's usually provided when a close friend comes to you after a comment or an action and says, "Wow, that's not really like you."

Gene Veith says that the postmodernist would say that our identities are linked solely to the situations that we may be involved in so that my person as an employee may not be the same as my person as a father or a husband and that who I portray myself to be is an act to fill the conditions of my social identity [though, I don't believe he is a proponent of the view]. I would say that we are who people think we are and not who we necessarily believe ourselves to be [though, there are some exceptions to the rule]. It's not to say that we are defined by our societal responsibilities and stations. It is to say that our societal responsibilities and stations tend to actually reveal the jewels and junk that are buried in our character.

The web offers this atmosphere that doesn't judge, criticize, or correct. Generally, we are free to create our realities as we wish them to be.

Maybe the hope of some who send their secrets into the oblivion of the WWW really believe that their guilt has been cleansed through the act of confession, but there's no grace with that...there's no redemption there. The act of confession therein is equitable to splitting doves and cattle, salting the meat, and burning an offering on an altar. The act as described is a strange work of righteousness that alleviates the consciousness of guilt without really addressing the root of the action that caused the guilt in the first place.

Of course, this is all on the assumption that folks are posting their secrets and searching for grace.

*a few books by the authors mentioned in this post: