Midweek Faith Lift
July 10, 2019
The Be-Attitudes-Calling Us to Be
Rev. Deb Hill- Davis
Poor in Spirit, Mourning, Meek and Hungering for Righteousness are the first four of the eight “Be-Attitudes” of our humanness that Jesus highlights in what is called the “Sermon on the Mount.” That is on our menu for this week! Next week’s menu brings Mercy, Pure in Heart, Peacemakers, and Suffering Persecution for Righteousness Sake. Sounds appetizing, doesn’t it? We’d rather much rather have successful, happy, clever, prosperous, well-liked, beloved of many, and hale and healthy on the menu! Why are we being offered something else? As is typical, the teachings of Jesus embrace the paradox of our lives, the contradictions, the both/and of what it means to be a human/divine being learning to consciously love all of who we are.
The tougher menu comprises the 8 “Be-attitudes,” as they have come to be called. Each one of these human experiences, these human qualities, is a pathway to understanding our true Divine nature. As Butterworth describes the Beatitudes, they are a path of transformation that Jesus uses to teach us how to be and how to think, not what to think or what to do. They are recognition of our human condition and an invitation to realize the greater truth of us, our Divinity. In that energy, each one is a blessing or a source of realizing our “Godness” or goodness.
In particular, Butterworth points out that each of the Be Attitudes begins with the word “blessed” and that “to bless is to confer prosperity upon or to enrich.” Each one of these addresses an aspect of our humanness and shows us how to “Be” so that we are blessed in allowing each aspect to empower us to realize the Truth of our Divine nature. When I researched the Sermon on the Mount to see what the scholars of the Jesus Seminar said about it, the word they suggested was “Congratulations!” not blessed. In essence, rather than lamenting our humanness, our human condition, the energy is one of “Congratulations!” And what the word “congratulations” meant in the time of Jesus was to say, you who suffer your humanness have God’s special favor!
Ok! Let’s dive in to see if we can discern what that special favor might be with each “Be-Attitude”; what are we called to be? The first one is “Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” What does it mean to be poor in “spirit” for goodness sake? Translated more accurately, Butterworth says that this means “poor in pride.” When we are less attached to our human ambitions, that which brings us pride, then we are blessed by an expanded consciousness ie “kingdom of heaven.” It is like the leaven in the bread that Jesus used in his parable that we visited last week. The leaven in the flour expands it and with water or feelings, allows it to rise, expand and become bread.
In this “Be-Attitude” we are asked to surrender personal will and our human arrogance as a way of being and to embrace humility as we encounter all of life’s lessons. We are asked to let go of attachment to our human intelligence as a way of knowing the truth and allow ourselves to begin to know the “Truth” by living it and allowing it to live us. What that means in our experience is that letting go and letting God becomes our default position no matter what the situation. It is a humbling of our human self that says, “I can’t, God can, I think I’ll let God!” And then, we actually sit in that place of truly accepting this as Truth as we listen to the guidance of Spirit. And just perhaps that is our true path to being what we call successful! Affirm with me: “I AM OPEN AND RECEPTIVE TO THE INFLOW AND THE OUTPOURING OF ALL THERE IS IN GOD.”
And now on to “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” While this applies to all the losses we experience in our human journey, in Truth, it goes much deeper than that. In our human journey, there are inevitable losses, which cause us to feel sorrow and to mourn, such as the death of loved ones. When we allow ourselves to mourn, we will be comforted and blessed. We are enriched often because what we have lost causes us to reflect on who we are, what we have learned, and what our life now means.
Then there are also those “necessary losses” that we experience because we are too proud to say, “No, I can’t do that” or “I am not yet ready” or “Yes, I really am ready!” And on and on….you know the ones. We always know these things in hindsight, don’t we? What is the saying, “hindsight is 20/20?” These are the challenges that bring us growth that we don’t especially want or enjoy! And when it all goes so wrong, oh do we mourn! If we truly mourn and not just whine, then each of these events become a source of blessing; a source of our growth and greater good and joy. Leaning into our lessons, mourning our human shortcomings often is what brings us to a place of true happiness. I remember the Dolly Parton line from the movie Steel Magnolias, “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion!” Affirm with me: “I AM GRATEFUL FOR CHALLENGES THAT LEAD ME BEYOND MY EXTREMITY TO GOD’S OPPORTUNITY!”
Next on the menu, meekness! “Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.” We just watched the movie “The Green Book” in which Tony “Lip” is hired to drive and essentially be a bodyguard for Dr. Shirley, an African American pianist as they traveled through the southern states in 1962. He would scoff at this one…. “yeah, right, Doc, be meek and you’ll get the crap beaten out of you!” Tony did not mince words! And he did not mince actions, either. He took a powerful stand when he needed to in order to protect Dr. Shirley in the highly segregated south of 1962.
Butterworth defines the quality of meekness: “Meekness is a sensitiveness or surrender of consciousness to the influence of something.” P. 62, Discover the Power Within You. Jesus means for us to surrender our consciousness to the influence of Spirit or the influence of love. The best conductor of electricity is the substance that is least resistant to it. We become the best conductors of “God energy” and Divine Power when we are nonresistant to it. When we allow creative energy and love to flow within and between us, we open to much more than we can imagine on our own. It is cultivating a consciousness of receptivity to Divine energy no matter where it comes from or where it goes. If it opens us to love, then it opens us to our Godness.
That is exactly what happened between Tony Lip and Dr. Shirley in their road trip together. Over time, they learned from each other about their individual and shared human journey, and they developed a mutual love, respect and deep friendship. A black classical pianist and an Italian bouncer from the Bronx….a true illustration of the power of this beatitude of meekness and how you inherit the earth, a deeply enriched human consciousness when you practice meekness. Perhaps to be truly clever, it is best to know when not to be! Affirm with me: “I AM IN TUNE WITH GOD—THAT WHICH IS GOD-INSPIRED AND GOD-DIRECTED SHALL PREVAIL.”
And now for our last item on today’s menu: hungering and thirsting for righteousness. “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” This is not the righteousness of platitudes of any kind nor is it the self-righteousness that says “I told you so; see I was right all along!” A long time ago, in a church in Des Moines, a Unity minister said something that has always stuck with me. The best way to understand the word “righteous” is to say “right use,” for example the right use of anger rather than “righteous anger.” That understanding has served me well for lo these many year; thank you Rev. Bill Hines! You never know what folks are going to remember, do you!!!
When we hunger and thirst for the “right use” of our God energy, for our true Godness to be expressed, then we will be filled with that energy. When we are finally sick and tired of being sick and tired, or whatever story we are now living, then we really will allow that infilling energy of Spirit to transform us. We will be truly motivated to make the changes we need to make, to let go of all that we need to release for that love energy of God to take charge of us. It is a question of the strength of our motivation….and where we are at this moment in “the story of our life.”
Have we, like the addict, hit bottom? Or have we learned to live with our current discomfort, resigned to it? I lived with my discomfort in a dysfunctional marriage until circumstances pushed me out. Only after mourning that loss did I truly hunger and thirst for the right use of my Divine energy. It was only after the mourning that I could truly see what it is that I hungered for in my life. And I began to seek it with all my heart, mind and body; my whole beingness. It is when that happened that things began to change in my life, and they continue to change as I hunger after greater wholeness and understanding.
I thought my “story.” my past defined me and determined what I could expect in my life. Hungering and leaning into spiritual and emotional growth has shown me a new story to live into; one that is far more satisfying. It is not necessarily easier, but it is a lot more satisfying. It is one that leads to the right use of all my human/divine potential! It is not something that happened to me. All that has changed in my life has required something of me, and Spirit has asked me to be all in, not half-baked, but fully invested no matter what. When we are fully invested, all in, then then we will realize our good, our God-ness.
We can only realize as much good as we are willing to risk letting go of what doesn’t work. None of these “attitudes of being” make any difference if we are not fully invested! And so our true prosperity comes when we are truly willing to give our all to Spirit! Let us affirm with Butterworth: “I SEEK WITH ALL MY MIND AND HEART AND BODY AND I SHALL FIND.”
AND SO IT IS, AND SO WE LET IT BE—OUR BE-ATTITUDES!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb