Some Modern Beatitudes
by Nadia Bolz Weber
What if the beatitudes aren’t about a list of conditions we should try and meet to be blessed. What if these are not virtues we should aspire to but what if Jesus saying blessed are the meek is not instructive –what if it’s performative? …meaning the pronouncement of blessing is actually what confers the blessing itself.
Maybe the Sermon on the Mount is all about Jesus’ seemingly lavish blessing of the world around him especially that which society doesn’t seem to have much time for, people in pain, people who work for peace instead of profit, people who exercise mercy instead of vengeance.
So maybe Jesus is actually just blessing people, especially the people who never seem to receive blessings otherwise.
I mean, come on, doesn’t that just sound like something Jesus would do? Extravagantly throwing around blessings as though they grew on trees?
So for this All Saints Sunday, a time when we remember and celebrate the lives of those who have gone before us – those who Jesus would bless, I thought maybe it was time to have some beatitudes for this day, for this place, and these people.
Because I like to imagine Jesus here standing among us saying…
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Blessed are the agnostics. Blessed are they who doubt. Those who aren’t sure, who can still be surprised.
Blessed are they who are spiritually impoverished and therefore not so certain about everything that they no longer take in new information.
Blessed are those who have nothing to offer.
Blessed are they for whom nothing seems to be working…
Blessed are the poor in spirit. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
Blessed are they for whom death is not an abstraction.
Blessed are they who have buried their loved ones, for whom tears are as real as an ocean.
Blessed are they who have loved enough to know what loss feels like.
Blessed are the mothers of the miscarried.
Blessed are they who don’t have the luxury of taking things for granted any more.
Blessed are they who can’t fall apart because they have to keep it together for everyone else.
Blessed are the motherless, the alone, the ones from whom so much has been taken.
Blessed are those who “still aren’t over it yet”
Blessed are they who laughed again when for so long they thought they never would…
Blessed are those who mourn. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
Blessed are those who no one else notices. The kids who sit alone at middle-school lunch tables. The laundry guys at the hospital. The sex-workers and the night shift street sweepers.
Blessed are the losers and the babies and the parts of ourselves that are so small. The parts of ourselves that don’t want to make eye contact with a world that only loves the winners.
Blessed are the forgotten. Blessed are the closeted.
Blessed are the unemployed, the unimpressive, the underrepresented.
Blessed are the teens who have to figure out ways to hide the new cuts on their arms.
Blessed are the meek. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Blessed are the wrongly accused, the ones who never catch a break, the ones for whom life is hard – for they are those with whom Jesus chose to surround himself.
Blessed are those without documentation.
Blessed are the ones without lobbyists.
Blessed are foster kids and trophy kids and special education kids and every other kid who just wants to feel safe and loved and never does.
Blessed are they who know there has to be more than this. Because they are right.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”
Blessed are those who make terrible business decisions for the sake of people.
Blessed are the burnt-out social workers and the over worked teachers and the pro-bono case takers.
Blessed are the kids who step between the bullies and the weak.
Blessed are they who delete hateful, homophobic comments off their friend’s Facebook page.
Blessed are the ones who have received such real grace that they are no longer in the position of ever deciding who the “deserving poor” are.
Blessed is everyone who has ever forgiven me when I didn’t deserve it.
Blessed are the merciful for they totally get it.
From Patheos- Progressive Christian by Nadia Bolz Weber
Nadia Bolz Weber is a Lutheran minister and public theologian. She is also the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. Nadia is the author of the New York Times bestseller Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People (Convergent, 2015). Nadia has been featured in BBC World Service, The Washington Post, Bitch Magazine, NPR’s Morning Edition, Fresh Air
