The Poor in Spirit

In a recent Ezra Klein podcast, Gillian Tett, a columnist at The Financial Times and a trained anthropologist, commented on the genius of the MAGA slogan, “Make America Great Again,” in that the word “great” is ambiguous enough to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters. For some people, the word "great" connotes economic greatness, for others, military greatness, or territorial greatness, moral greatness, religious greatness (e.g., Christianity), technological greatness, patriarchal greatness, racial greatness, having a great leader, or just how good it feels to be part of something great. When you’re not feeling or doing great, being part of something great can have great appeal.

I suspect that when Jesus walked up to prospective disciples and said, “Follow me,” they thought they were joining something potentially great as well. Jesus had been announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom. His healing miracles and parables suggested that he had an important role to play. As ordinary working class Jews, Jesus’ first disciples likely felt surprised and flattered when he invited them to join him.

However, Jesus didn’t assume the role of a political or military leader. He discussed seeking and living the kingdom in one’s everyday life rather than expecting some blitzkrieg from heaven. Instead of recruiting soldiers or revolutionaries, Jesus recruited students or disciples. Near the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus sat down with his first students and shared with them what I call his Kingdom Manifesto, also known as the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus starts by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This was an ingenious way for Jesus to begin. The exact phrase “poor in spirit” isn’t found anywhere else in the Bible. This can be frustrating if you’re a biblical scholar but may expand the playing field for those of us who aren’t.

This past year, I read a book in which the author lays out the wide variety of ways each of the eight Beatitudes has been interpreted over the last 2,000 years. Virtually all the Beatitudes are at least somewhat ambiguous and invite a variety of interpretations.

So is this ambiguity a bug or a feature?

I think it’s a feature. Instead of giving specific and precise commandments, Jesus offers teachings that are ambiguous, metaphorical, hyperbolic, and parabolic. These would require an ongoing intimate, intuitive, collaborative relationship between Jesus and his followers, then and now.

All this ambiguity is going to make it difficult for followers of Jesus to hate on the world – telling the world what it’s doing wrong or, for that matter, even what other Christians are doing wrong. Jesus says in this very manifesto that we’re not to judge others lest we be judged ourselves. In other words, there isn’t much fodder here for culture wars. As the Beatitudes and the rest of Jesus’ Kingdom Manifesto unfold, it becomes clear that the kingdom isn’t supposed to come through any kind of war – cultural, military, or another kind. The seventh beatitude explicitly tells us to be peacemakers rather than warmongers. That may require telling the truth, but ultimately it’s to heal rather than to condemn.

Who doesn’t feel poor in spirit at times? There are so many disappointments in life, any number of things to be discouraged or to worry about. As someone has said, at any particular moment we are either coming out of a storm, going into a storm, or are in a storm.

We can be poor in spirit because we’re materially poor, spiritually poor, have lost someone we love, find ourselves in a difficult relationship, are dealing with a physical or mental illness, feel stuck in a tiresome job or some persistent sin, fear, or addiction, or feel plagued by a gnawing spiritual malaise. I know I’m feeling poor in spirit and sick at heart about what’s happening in Washington these days. I suspect that many of us are.

Blessed. It’s not the condition of being poor in spirit that’s a blessing, but what it makes possible or what it reminds us about – life in the kingdom of heaven, Matthew’s way of referring to the kingdom of God. (Heaven is the kingdom’s headquarters, not our ultimate destination.) While the word “kingdom” may be an anachronism, especially within our country, there are nations that still have kings and queens, and the word itself retains its archetypal appeal for many.

Philosopher James K. A. Smith writes:

To be human, we could say, is to desire the kingdom – some kingdom. To call it a “kingdom” is to signal that we’re not talking only about some personal, private Eden – some individual nirvana – but that we all live and long for a social vision of what we think society should look like too.

So again, it’s a question not of whether you long for some version of the kingdom but of which version you long for.

I think of a kingdom as including three things: 1) a ruler or rulers, 2) a set of ruling principles, and 3) a vision of the good life. Someone has to be in charge: whether God, ourselves, or another or others. There also need to be rules or guiding principles, even if the rules are 'protect yourself at all costs' or 'rebel against authority.' Finally, there needs to be some vision of the “the good life,” a life of flourishing. Jesus confirmed the legitimacy of this yearning:

Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

It’s telling that Jesus begins each beatitude with the word “blessed.” In Greek it means “happy” or “fortunate.”

So being poor in spirit apparently makes us good candidates for seeing (John 3:3), seeking (Matthew 6:33), receiving (Mark 10:15), and entering (John 3:5) God’s kingdom. The kingdom is basically for anyone feeling disheartened, disenchanted, or disenfranchised. It’s essential to understand each beatitude in the context of Jesus' entire teachings and ministry, including his death and resurrection. The Beatitudes aren’t just nuggets of perennial wisdom. On their own, they undoubtedly contain insights that anyone can benefit from. But their full meaning and benefit can only be realized in the context of knowing and following Jesus and embracing his entire message and work.

Anyone who has spent significant time in the Gospels should be able to recognize that the kingdom of God was the central focus of Jesus’ teaching and ministry. A third of his parables begin with the words, “The kingdom of God is like....” If there is anything that the church of Jesus Christ has failed to get right, I suspect it's the kingdom of God. God's kingdom is such a vast and mysterious reality that none of us will get it entirely right. I know I’m not going to. But it’s very easy to get it wrong.

For example, consider this verse from this morning’s Gospel reading: “Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself” (John 6:15). Unfortunately, Christians have often failed to resist the temptation to try forcing Jesus’ kingship and teaching on others.

I’m reading an excellent book right now entitled Faithful Politics: Ten Approaches to Christian Citizenship and Why It Matters, by Miranda Zapor Cruz. To be fair, as the title suggests, Christians have exercised their citizenship in a wide variety of ways over the last two millennia. A minority of believers in different traditions have consistently sought to maintain a healthy (for both sides) separation between church and state. Others have taken the view that if you have access to political power, you should exploit it to its full advantage.

But that’s not the approach Jesus took, and it's not the approach Jesus lays out before his disciples in his Kingdom Manifesto or his parting commission after his resurrection. He told his followers to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and to invite people of all nations to become his students or disciples. There was nothing forced or efficient about his strategy, unlike what’s being attempted in Washington these days. He knew it would take time for people to be convinced, and he instructed his disciples to expect opposition. In the eighth and last beatitude, he even tells them to be glad (?) when they are persecuted.

I’m convinced that what Jesus taught (e.g. "Love your enemies....") and how he died were intended to interrupt patterns of coercion and violence. In the Beatitudes Jesus is preparing us emotionally, spiritually, and theologically so we can learn a different way of responding to life's injustices and advancing his kingdom.

This God is the “I Am” God, not an “AI” god. Efficiency isn’t his priority; relationships are. Unlike AI, God doesn’t pretend to be a person, but is the source of all personhood and connection, the ground of all life and being. It matters to God when we’re poor in spirit. Jesus' Kingdom Manifesto begins with compassion rather than commandments. God wants to heal us, set us free, and help us move toward becoming more fully alive – yes, even while our democracy is being dismantled. I call this liminal living. The word “liminal” means living on the threshold or on both sides of a boundary. Jesus clearly lived within two kingdoms simultaneously and wants to teach us how to do the same for the benefit of both.

In my next post, I’ll say a bit more about what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God and how to live there, regardless of what’s happening nationally or closer to home. I sense that this political moment requires followers of Jesus to gain greater clarity about why the kingdom of God was so important to Jesus and what that means for us now, not just in the future.

Recently, an Old Testament story came to mind as I reflected on the first beatitude. Jesus was a descendant of King David; the Messiah was supposed to be a son or descendant of David. Before David became king, he was on the run from King Saul due to Saul’s paranoia over David’s growing popularity, a pattern that also surfaces during Jesus’ ministry. Here’s the passage:

David left there and escaped to the cave of Adullam; when his brothers and all his father’s house heard of it, they went down there to him. Everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him, and he became captain over them (1 Samuel 22:2).

I’ll leave it at that. If I may ask, what are ways you're feeling poor in spirit these days? What is your vision of the good life?

A few years ago, I wrote a short song about each of the beatitudes. Here’s an audio clip of my song about the first beatitude. (There is a bit of a delay at the beginning.) The movement between the major and minor keys is intended to reflect the tension of living in an already/not yet kingdom.

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