In the coming weeks and months, we will be publishing short entries on this blog commenting, one by one, the Beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew. We will do it without any attempt of erudition or academic scholarship—simply reacting carefully to what Jesus proposes, trying to apply it to our daily lives.
Preface
The Beatitudes from the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 5:1-12) are a fundamental text of the Christian faith, as well as one of the most beautiful pages of the New Testament. In them, Jesus masterfully summarizes his lifestyle, the lifestyle that he invites his followers to put into practice.
The first great virtue and merit of the Beatitudes is that, in them, Jesus avoids moral or moralistic language, and does not speak of the duty of his followers, of what they are obliged to carry out to be considered upright people. He does not prohibit anything either (in the line of the ten commandments of the Old Testament). The use of mandates and prohibitions would have turned the Beatitudes into a legalistic text, a new decalogue: perhaps useful and very wise, but not necessarily attractive or exciting. Instead of opting for the language of the law, Jesus describes his lifestyle, emphasizing what it ultimately is: a path to happiness. Happy are those who do what I am saying, he affirms. Happy. By framing his teaching in the context of joy, Jesus touches an intimate chord in everyone who listens to him. Because, who doesn’t want to be happy? Assuring that what he proposes is a journey towards joy, Jesus reaches every human being, of any age and culture, by appealing to one of the most universal desires that exist.
What then happens, of course, is that when we start reading, we find out that this path towards happiness is very paradoxical. We immediately realize that it is a surprising, daring program, far removed from the conventional formulas that we would instinctively think of if we were asked how to attain joy. Jesus’ proposal constitutes an alternative path to the one we usually imagine, from our categories and with our imagination, when we meditate on what is required to obtain happiness. This paradoxical character of Jesus’ proposal is already evident in the first beatitude.
"Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"
This is a statement that, if it is misunderstood, can lead to a dangerous demagogy: someone could use this first beatitude to praise and applaud material poverty, and could end up saying that poverty helps us become better people, and that to go hungry makes a person happy—something that any hungry person would deny without the slightest hesitation. No, Jesus (who, in line with all the Old Testament prophets, denounced economic inequality and the abuse of the poor by the wealthy and powerful) is not praising material poverty (because there is nothing praiseworthy in it).
What Jesus says, when he states that the poor in spirit will be happy, is, to begin with, that the first condition to obtain true joy is to acknowledge one’s need of other people: to be poor in one’s heart means to recognize that I need all that others, and God, give me. Thus, this first beatitude is fundamentally a serious warning against self-sufficiency. The arrogance of those who think that they are rich, in the sense that they do not need anything from anyone, is a sure path to bitterness, due to the simple fact that it is a lie: we all need others, and the sooner we recognize it, the better.
«For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.» Absolutely: only people who are aware of their fragility, their vulnerability, of needing the support, warmth, tenderness, consolation, company and friendship of others, will be able to live in the kingdom of God, the «place» where the values of the Gospel are to be found. The arrogant and self-important, the narcissist unable to recognize that other people can teach him something useful, those who see other people as a burden and not as richness, will not know how to live in a kingdom that is founded on fraternity.
In addition to this, the first beatitude has, indeed, an economic dimension. Because it is only logical to think that the poor in spirit are also those who have made a choice for a sober lifestyle. They have understood that, in this world, true wealth is to be found in others, and in the friendships that one can forge with them through life. Therefore, they have relativized the importance of all material treasures. They have understood that it is possible to live with less; they have grasped the danger of idolizing money. In consequence, they practice a healthy austerity, the responsible austerity of those who understand that the world’s resources are limited, and that, in our global village, the luxury of a few is paid with the misery of many.
