1990 - John P. Meier - Matthew 5.3-12

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DOI: 10.1177/002096430004400307

1990 44: 281InterpretationJohn P. Meifr

12Matthew 5:3

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an d well-managed "sacred cows" are always in da ng er of beco mi ng gol dencalves.

The promis e is th at finally God "does no t deal with us acco rd in g to ou r sins,

nor requite us according to our iniquities" (Ps. 103:10). God does what the

pe op le c an no t or will no t do; Go d rem em be rs a nd is faithful to the poi nt of

bearing human sinfulness. Israel's disobedience in Exodus 32:1-14 was not

the end of the story. Peter's denial and the disciple's unfaithfulness were not

the end of the story. The church's history of disobedience has not ended the

story of God's dealing with a chosen people. The church is saved by grace!

JOHN P. MEIFR

Professor of New Testament

The Catholic University of America

Matthew 5:3-12

THE MOST DANGEROUS passages in the Bible are the familiar ones,

because we do not really listen to them. The sharp stone of God's Word,

smoothed down by the river of time, no longer cuts. Instead of being chal

lenged by hard thought or hard choices, we lean back and savor pretty words.

No pericope in the Gospels is more exposed to this familiarity that breeds

contentment than the beatitudes in Matthew's Gospel. Nine beatitudes, nine

spiritual bonbons. No sooner is "Blessed are the poor ..." intoned than eyes

be co me glassy or moist, the h ea rt is strangely war med, a nd n o one not ices that

Jesus the revolutionary is heaving a verbal grenade into our homiletic garden.

This soporific effect of the too-well-known is the reason I am willing to bebr an de d a vulgarian for preferr ing t he translation "Happy are the poor

Yes, to be sure, it sou nds flat an d insipid by com par iso n, con juri ng u p Pea nut s

cartoons of "Happiness is. . . ." But the traditional "blessed" inevitably gives

people the impression that they are being verbally showered with blessings

from God. They miss the vital point that the beatitudes do not trace their

lin eag e back to Israel' s liturgy and the kin d of cui tic blessing (berk)at h om e

there. In such liturgical blessings, it is God, not Israelites, who are declared

"blessed" with the crybaruk (in Greek, eulogetos). God is "blessed" in the sense

tha t he is prai sed an d th an ke d for the marvelous deed s he has wr ou gh t forIsrael as a whole and for individual believers.

Th e beat itu des Jes us speaks co me no t from this liturgical con tex t bu t from

Israel's wisdom tradition, which struggled to define true happiness, stipulate

its cond iti ons , an d ce lebr ate its rewards . Th e be ati tude s of Jesus ec ho the wis

dom tradition of those psalms which cry out ashr(in Greek, makanos) : "Happy

is everyone who fearsYahweh, who walks in his ways,for you shall eat the fruit

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of the labor of your hands" (Ps. 128:1-2). Here we have the basic form of the

bea tit ude : (1) an initial dec lar ati on th at so me on e is happy; (2) an adjective,

parti ciple , or relative clause, usually in the thi rd per son , tha t describes the be

havior or attitudes of the happy individual and so implicitly defines what

makes for true happiness; (3) a promise, sometimes introduced by "for," that

proclaims the rewards sure to attend such behavior and attitudes. The beati

tudes of th e Ma tt he an Jes us follow this pa tt er n exactly: (1) Happ y are (2) the

po or in spirit, (3) for their s is the Kingd om of Hea ven. He nc e, th ou gh parts

of the Sermon on the Mount may be diffused with a Moses typology, the Jesus

of the bea tit udes is mo re like an archetypal wisdom teac her or eschatologica lSolomon, revealing to the poor of Israel the path to true happiness. In the

bea tit udes, he is no t Jesus-who-replaces-Moses, h an di ng down a new set of

Te n (or Nin e) Co mm an dm en ts ; he is mo re like Jesu s Ben Sira, tea ching his

disciples the way to be genuinely happy.

Yet an O ld Te st am en t wisdom teach er m igh t well be ama zed by Jes us' defi

nition of happiness and the transformation it entails. Conservative in its

thought and forms, the wisdom of ancient Israel did not change readily.

Th ro ug ho ut the New Te sta men t perio d and beyond, one stream of Jewish

wisdom preserved the beatitude very much as it had found it, with itstra dit ion al message of go od c on du ct receiving its ju st rewa rd in this life. But

th er e also aro se a seco nd st ream of Jewish wisdom, on e tha t felt forced to

rethink and transfigure the good news the beatitude proclaimed. For a funny

th in g happ en ed to wisdom on the way to the first cen tury. It ran into J o b an d

Ecclesiastes. It ran into the bad news that the good are not always rewarded

in this life, as traditional wisdom had insisted. It also ran into the Maccabean

martyrs, brutally tortured and butchered, deprived of all happiness in this life,

assured of happiness only if there was a life to come.

In short, wisdom ran into apocalyptic. The basic connection between rightcon duc t and jus t re co mpe ns e was not bro ken b ut projected o nto a cosmic

screen, with room for a type of reward that was postponed from this life to the

next . Ha ppi nes s in this life was red efi ned in terms of pat ient end ur an ce amid

the eschatological woes, an endurance to be crowned with a reversal of fates

and vindication when God's kingdom finally came. Hence the Hebrew form

of the Book of Dan iel end s not with a beat it ude such as we find in th e Book

of Psalms or Proverbs but rather with an eschatological beatitude: "Happy is

the o ne who waits with patie nce a nd so arrives" at the promi sed con sum ma

tion (Dan. 12:12). Apocalyptic gave cagey wisdom a paradoxical twist: Happyare the unhappy, for God will make them happyon the last day.

It is this paradoxical, eschatological wisdom that the one-greater-than-

Solomon proclaims from the Mount of Beatitudes. Happy are those who hun

ger and thi rs t for just ice (sa lvation), for they will be satisfied (fed to th e full

with it) at the eschatological banquet (Matt. 5:6). Happy are the lowly who are

persecuted for the sake ofjustice (because they live according to God's wi ll ),

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for they will re ign in th e Kin gd om of Heav en (5:10) . Yes, tho se wh o are per

secu ted a nd s lan der ed s houl d skip with joy, for thei r reward is gre at in h eav en

(5: 11-1 2). Clearly, th e beati tud es of Jesu s are eschatological to the core.

H u m a n ha ppi nes s is no lon ger def ined by a wisdom limited to a hu m an fu

ture,but by God 's prom ise focused on God's future. Th e mour ne rs , the me ek,

the merciful are declared happy now (see v. 11) because they are certain that

they will find consolation, inheritance, and mercy on the last day, when God

sets things right. The future triumph of God, not the present misery of hu

manity, det er mi ne s wha t tru e happi nes s is, however covert its ope ra ti on in

this present age.

Yet is th er e no t a da ng er in this kin d of wisdom, a da ng er hig hli ght ed espe

cially in our own day by liberation theologians? This message of eschatologi

cal hope easily becomes pie-in-the-sky religion, the classical opiate of the

masses. For centur ie s one type of Christ ianity readily len t itself as a p rop to t he

powers that be by preaching to the wretched of the earth: "Put up with your

poor, oppressed state in this world, and God will reward you by reversing your

lot in the n ext. " As history shows, the d an ge r libe rati on theology diagnos es is

all too real.

Strange to say, though, this charge of pie-in-the-sky religion might be raised

mo re logically (I do no t say correctly) against th e form of the beat it udes fo un d

in the favorite Gospel of the liberation theologians, Luke. Luke's version of

the beat itu des (Luk e 6:200-23), while prob ably reflecting mo re faithfully th e

form of the beat itu des in the Q do cu me nt , is arguably mo re o pe n to the ac

cusation of inculcating a religion of passivity. In Luke, those who are literally

poor, hungry, weeping, and ostracized are exhorted to hope for the lifting up

of the lowly on the last day. One might claim that the Lukan beatitudes tend

to emp has ize a "passive" stance of waiting for the Lo rd to act and no th in g

more.

As is well known , Matthew, in his vers ion of the bea ti tud es , "generalizes" or

"spiritualizes" poverty and hunger, transforming them into inner attitudes

available to all Christians. Yet Matt hew does som ething m or e th an th at, som e

thi ng tha t forestalls any "pie-in-the-sky" re ad in g of the beati tud es. His par ticu

lar redaction of the beatitudes stems partly from the fact that Matthew, here

as elsewhere in his Gospel , is a "meshe r. " Tha t is to say, Matth ew tends to m es h

into a single unit traditions that Luke keeps apart. For instance, on the grand

scale, Luke writes two separate volumes, a Gospel and an Acts of the Apostles.

Matthew writes an Acts too, but he writes it right in the middle of his Gospel.Hence the key word "church," which Luke, with good historical sense, re

stricts to the Acts of the Apostles, is inserted by Matthew into the heart of his

Gospe l story (16:18; 18:17). To take an ot he r exa mpl e, Luke keeps the Mar can

material of the public ministry in blocks distinct from the blocks made up of

Q and the special Lukan source. Matthew merrily meshes Mark, Q, and his

special Matthean material, weaving a not-so-seamless garment throughout his

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Gospel.

Even in the small compass of the beatitudes, Matthew proves a mesher. He

has welded two lists of different types of beatitudes into an artistic whole, a

whole so esthetically pleasing that he has practically obliterated Luke's ver

sion from the memory of the ordinary Christian. From Q Matthew received

the list of the four beatitudes also seen in Luke, a list beginning with the

anawlm (traditionally translated in this case as "the poor") and ending with the

persecuted (Matt. 5:3, 4, 6, 11-12). These beatitudes, like their counterparts

in Luke, primarily speak hope to those unable b\ force of circumstances to act

on their own behalf, those who must wait in patience for God's salvation.

With this list, however, Matthew dovetails a notably different list of beati

tudes, one he inherited from his M tradition. This list, too, begins with the

anawlm (traditionally translated in this case as "the meek") and ends with the

pe rs ec ut ed (5:5, 7, 8, 9, 10), but this M list has a mor e activist tone t ha n the

Q list. Those declared happy include those who show7 mercy to others, those

who act single-mindedly in pur sui t of God' s will ("the pu re of hear t" ), and

thos e who make peace. In these activist bea ti tud es, even the per secu ted suffer

"for justice' sake," that is to say, because they doGo d' s will (a favorite theme

of Matthew and his tradition). In this list, the persecuted are so because they

act.

Matthew the mesher thus weaves a splendid tapestry of the passive and ac

tive dimensions in Christian living. It is a tapestry that still depicts the woof and

warp of our Christian existence today. All of us, to be sure, must on the most

basic level of our lives wait upon God, hoping in his power to save us where

we could never save ourselvesfrom a present of meaningless suffering and

a future of eternal nothingness. Here the passive beatitudes function as a

barrier against any subtle return to Pelagianism or self-salvation. But in

Matthew this barrier does not create a prison where Christians must wait pas

sively for a future that they have no part in forming. Preciselv because God's

futu re p romise imp ing es on an d molds ou r pres en t lives, we who hear an d

believe the message of Jesus in the beatitudes are energi/ed, galvanized, em

powered to reflect God's saving action in our own Christian action. Precisely

because the spirituallv poor see through the shoddy promises and props of

this world's power and wealth, preciselv becauseJesus ' disciples refuse to ac

cept this world as the absolute goal or mainstay of their existence, they have

the courage to show God's mercy, to make God's peace, to "do the right thing"

willed by God in the face of persecution. The saving action of God that

touches the m inJesus'beat itudes is also the saving action they are em po we re d

to imitate. Their unlimited love reflects the family resemblance they derive

from their heavenly Father (5:44-48). Thus, in Matthew the mesher, the

beatitudes call for a unique trust in God wiiich in turn enables a unique

imitation of God. Whatever this is, it is not pie-in-the-sky by and by.

Not surprisingly, in Matthew's Gospel imitation of God the Father involves

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concre tely imitation of Jesus the Son (3:17), Jesu s ou r bro th er (12: 49-5 0).

Even in the beat itud es, Matthe w intimate s that th e divine action we are called

to mi rr or has already bee n m ir ro re d for us in Jes us. It is hardly by accident that

Matthew uses "meek" (the Greek word ispras) only th re e times in his Gospel :

once of th e disciples (5:5) and twice of Jes us (11:29; 21:5) , the mee k teacher

and king.

In 11:29, Jes us the wisdom teacher an d apocalyptic reveale r has ju st

thanked the Father for having revealed through him the secret relationship

of Father and Son to mere childrenno doubt, to the poor and meek

disciples felicitated in the beatitudes. Then, assuming the solemn mantle ofWisdom herself,Jesus su mm on s all the heavily bu rd ene d to co me to him, to

learn in his school of wisdom, and thus find peace and rest for their souls. The

reason why they should come to this particular school lies in the person of

Jesus himself: "For I am meekand humb le of hea rt . . . . my yoke is easy, my

burden light." To learn and accept the instruction, the way of life, the "yoke"

of Jes us is to lea rn no t just from or abo ut Jesus; it is ultimately to learn Jes us

himself,Jesus the meek an d hu mb le , Jesus the archety pe of the anawlm .

We find a similar message in 21:5, wher e Matthew procla ims th atJesus, as

he rides int o Je ru sa le m on the way to his passion , fulfills Zech ar iah' s pr op he cyconcerning the messianic king: "Say to Daughter Zion: Behold, your king

comes to you, meekan d seated up on a donkey ." Curiously, Matthew omit s

Zechariah's further description of the king as "just and saving." Obviously,

Matthew is not against such a description ofJesus, as 1:21 makes clear ("he

shall savehis pe op le from t hei r sins"; cf. also 27:19). Rat her , Matthew wishes

to focus intensely on the paradoxical quality of this messianic king who comes

to Zion not on a war horse but on a donkey, the animal of peace. For all the

talk of a "triumphal entry," the Matthean Jesus enters his royal capital not as

the triumphant king who conquers through force but as a meek, peaceableking wh o will win his ki ng do m at the cost of the cross. It is as th e me ek and

humble leader of those anaioim he has ta ught that this King advances to the

ulti mate impo ver is hme nt of dea th. As Flann ery O' Co nn or observed: "You

can't be poorer than dead." By his teaching, by his living, and finally by his

dying, Jes us the wisdom teache r an d revealer identifies totally with those he

calls happy in the beatitudes. In felicitating others, he deftly describes

himself.

In the end, th en, th e bea tit udes are the auto bio gra phy of Jesus, a pe rfect

self-portrait by the Master. Jes us the meek te acher of wisdo m and m ee k kingof the universe, Jesus crucified an d risen, is the only fully hap py ma n who ever

lived. We disciples slowly learn his path to happiness as we walk his way ofwis

dom, his way of the cross. Happy are those who discover on the way, like a

treasure hidden in a field, the Christology hidden in the beatitudes.

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1990 - John P. Meier - Matthew 5.3-12