Seek the Kingdom, Seek Humility

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

At one time, Catholics were expected to learn and memorise the 10 commandments, a collection of Catholic prayers, the names of the seven sacraments and the Beatitudes. Most of us may still be able to make a fair stab at the first three. But how many of us can recall all eight beatitudes?

Today, we have a chance to listen to the list of Beatitudes which serves as the opening to the Sermon on the Mount. Saint Matthew clearly saw the Beatitudes as important, as crystallising Jesus’ teaching. They are the first words of teaching that Matthew quotes in his gospel. The “sermon” is given its name because Matthew tells us that the Lord had gone up to the mountain to teach (just as Moses did when he received the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai), and the Lord teaches sitting down, the traditional position of a rabbi when wanting to teach officially, not just off-the-cuff, throw-away lines while wandering along. Jesus and Matthew are telling us: this is important!

The Lord looks at those gathered around Him on that mountain. These are people who do not live easy, comfortable lives. They are people who for the most part live in poverty, for whom hunger, starvation even, is only one bad harvest away, for whom sickness and disease can all too readily lead to suffering and death, who are weak and vulnerable to the rapaciousness of the rich, to the violence of the powerful. He looks at them and tells them that if they follow the way of the kingdom, they will be “happy!” Try wrapping your head around this. To say to this group of poor, struggling people that one day they will be comforted, they will inherit the earth, they will see God, they will be called children of God, is just an extraordinary promise. To make such a radical connexion would require more than a few mental summersaults.

And yet, the Lord goes further: “If you follow me, you are blessed”. Each one of these eight remarkable statements begins with: “Happy are…” In other words “blessed are you…” or “you are in a good place when you are poor in spirit, when you mourn, etc…” You are in a place of hope, of life, of truth, in the here and now. Jesus tells those listening whose lives are so tough, He tells us too, “when you follow me, you are in that good place”. It’s the promise that in the midst of struggles we can be in a place of current hope, peace, joy, life. The beatitudes point us forward to an even better future but there is the promise that we can experience the taste of that future even now - joy can be found even in the midst of sorrow.

So how do we experience that place of current and future blessedness, that place of hope, of joy, of peace, of life, in the midst of the turmoil and struggles of life? Our Lord tells us: Live the life of the kingdom.

Here’s a hack on how to read the beatitudes. Although each beatitude merits a lengthy commentary, the first beatitude provides an adequate summary of the rest. “How happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Who are the poor in spirit? The poor in spirit was a phrase used throughout the Old Testament to describe those who had come to acknowledge that they were totally in need of God’s help. It was often associated with those who were economically destitute, those who had nothing left to rely on – no money, no power, no influence – and so could only trust in God. Poverty of spirit is a total emptying of oneself, an abandonment of the self to the will of God.

It is that sense of utter dependence, of acknowledging that only God can meet our needs, that is meant here. We are not to rely on our own wealth, or status, or abilities. We are to humbly acknowledge that we need God in every aspect of our lives. Christ Himself shows us what that looks like.

So, the first beatitude could be re-phrased: “You are in a good place when you acknowledge that you totally need God, that you cannot do it by yourself.” That leads us to prayer and to humility. Humility is the key to understand the Beatitudes. Humility is the key which opens the door to the kingdom. Humility is the basis and foundation of all to follow. As Saint John Chrysostom says, “Pride is the fountain of all wickedness, so is humility the principle of all self-command.”

Of all the virtues Christ commended in the Beatitudes, it is significant that the first is humility, being ‘poor in spirit’. Here is the divine irony, the ascent to the mountain of the Lord (the Mount of Beatitudes) first requires a descent: the closer we come to the Lord, the more keenly aware are we of our distance, the more we grow in holiness, the greater the awareness of our unworthiness. That is why the virtue of humility (the blessed gift of self-forgetfulness) underlies all the others. For example, you cannot mourn without appreciating how insufficient you are to handle loss in your own strength. That is humility. You cannot hunger and thirst for righteousness if you proudly think of yourself as already righteous. Longing to fill that spiritual appetite demands humility. You cannot be merciful without recognising your own need for mercy. To confess your sin and ask God and others for forgiveness takes humility. You cannot be pure in heart if your heart is filled with pride.

In the first reading, the prophet Zephaniah describes the remnant of Israel who will be restored to their land after the period of exile as “the humble of the earth.” In his view, it is the humble of the Lord who will receive divine blessing, those who seek refuge in the Name or Power of the Lord and recognise their entire dependence on Him. So if one wishes to be reconciled to God and with others, heed the call to “seek integrity, seek humility.”

St Paul provides a correction to the popular identification of humility to self-deprecation. It is not about boasting about your achievements or lack of it which makes you proud or humble but rather in whether one seeks to give glory to God or dwell in some form of narcissistic self-worship. That is why St Paul tells us in the second reading: “The human race has nothing to boast about to God” and that is why “if anyone wants to boast, let him boast about the Lord.”

The Beatitudes encourage an upside-down view of what leads to being in a good place, a place of blessing, a place of solid not just fleeting happiness. We may be tempted to think that it is when all our needs are met, when we are self-reliant, when we are financially independent, when we are in control of our lives, that we are happy. Instead, the Lord calls us to humbly acknowledge that we are always in need of God, and to live that out by living lives of prayerfulness. And we may be tempted to deny real sorrow or to avoid recognising the impact of our own failings. But instead, the Lord calls us to acknowledge the depths of our grief, the gravity of our powerlessness and the extent of our failings, for it is in doing so that we discover God as healer and comforter and the only true source of strength.