Today’s is the first post of a series that will focus on specific scripture.
While I was growing up listening to sermons about the Beatitudes I would think, these are not sayings I want to live by. Who wants to be poor? How is that a blessing? Who wants to be meek? Why would I let everyone walk all over me? I have to mourn to be comforted? Yeah, no! These expressions did not work for me.
I came upon a book in my adult life written by Robert Schuller called the Be (Happy) Attitudes: 8 Positive Attitudes That Can Transform Your Life. This book helped me realize the beatitudes were not the “be miserable attitudes” I had once considered. My viewpoints of the messages Jesus gave over 2,000 years ago have changed, not only from reading Schuller’s book but also from other writings, sermons, and finally my own spiritual growth. No matter who Jesus is to you, Son of God, prophet, or just a good person, these attitudes are helpful in life. I am going to start with a general overview and plan on expanding each attitude over time.
Let’s put on a new pair of glasses and have another look at these beautiful attitudes. According to Wikipedia, when the first dictionary came out in 1604, there were just 3,000 defined words. In the 1800’s there were over 400,000 words in the Oxford dictionary. Today, the Korean dictionary has over 1 million and the English dictionary has almost 500,000 (Wikipedia).
We have so many words today compared to a half a century ago. What a difference! As we have evolved languages have evolved as well. Think of all the new words that have developed since personal computers have come on the scene. Though I do not know for sure how many words Jesus had to work with, it seems to me he had a lot less than we do today. Jesus was bringing a new philosophy into the world but had to explain it with the limited words available at the time. We develop new words when there is not a word available to us to properly express what we are talking about (i.e. cell phones).
Another thing to keep in mind, as the Bible was translated into English, and then translated again and again to make it easier to understand, the nuances of what was being said were watered down.
Words also have more than one meaning and therefore, have to be put into proper context. Even today we have to contextualize them. We get a text back from a friend saying “whatever–it’s all good” or we receive a text back from our teenage child saying “fine”, or “whatever”. We interpret these two messages quite differently. I’d like to take a look at other possibilities of what Jesus was sharing with people and potentially how his followers understood.
For the next eight Sundays, I will be presenting one beatitude. I promise to keep it short. At a future date maybe we will dive in deeper.
Thank you for putting time aside to read these thoughts. Take your time reading and reflecting. As one of my mentor’s has said “read and eat the meat and throw away the fat”. See what resonates with you. Throw away the rest. Happy Sunday.
Theresa Contaxis 