The God Who Sees Our Need

Before we've looked at the Beatitudes and Jesus' message of the God who blesses. The Beatitudes are also Jesus' message of the God who sees our need. The beatitudes show God's focus on the downtrodden and burdened, on those who mourn, on those who hunger and thirst for righteousness -- on those distressed by the injustice of the world, on the persecuted. Luke's edition shows God's focus on the poor and hungry. Jesus does not begin his preaching with a message of God's commands. He does not begin with a message of our guilt or our need for reform. He begins with a message that God knows our sorrows, that he sees our affliction. He proclaims God's concern and God's love. More than that, he proclaims God's promise of restoration.

The basis underlying so much of Jesus' teaching is the coming kingdom of heaven. One parable after another seeks to capture the image for us, to explain some aspect of what the kingdom of heaven is like. But here in Matthew's gospel, Jesus is shown beginning his teaching ministry by explaining the kingdom of heaven in plainer words. He proclaims a new creation, and a world filled with the blessings of God, where injustice and hunger and mourning are a thing of the past. For here and now, we have Jesus' word that God knows what it is we endure.

God's goodness is the basis for our peace

Jesus' Sermon on the Mount asks us to focus on God's goodness not only when we pray, but whenever we think about our daily needs.

He tells us to focus on God's goodness when we wonder what we will eat: 

Look at the birds of the air: they do not plant fields or harvest them or store their produce in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26)

He tells us again to consider God's goodness when we wonder about our other needs: 

Consider the lilies of the field. They do not toil, they do not make cloth, but not even Solomon in all his splendor was arrayed as one of these. If that is how God cares for the grass of the field which is here today, but tomorrow is used as fuel for the fire, then how much more will he care for you, oh you of little faith?

He reminds us here of the same thing as when he taught us to pray: to trust God's goodness, that he knows what we need. 

So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well.

"Do not worry," he tells us time and again. God's goodness is the basis for our peace.

God's goodness is the basis for our prayers

God is good. That is one of the most basic messages of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, we remember the words of that prayer and we pray them. But first Jesus made sure his disciples understood why he taught us such a bold but simple prayer:

"Your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask him" (Matthew 6:8).

Jesus taught us to call God "Father" when we pray, so that every time we pray our first thought is that our heavenly father knows what we need before we ask him.

"If you, even though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?" (Matthew 7:11)

To connect the dots: if even evil people can give good things to their children, then how much more will God, who is good, give good things to his children.

Jesus teaches us to have this mind when we pray: That God is good.

"This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven ...'".

Why Christianity requires us to pray for members of violent Muslim mobs

"But I say to you: Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust." (Jesus, Sermon on the Mount)

Some people suppose that, because Christians do not retaliate in kind when people abuse us, insult us, or even attack us -- that we must not take our religion as seriously as the Muslims. But the more seriously we take Jesus, the more likely we are to return good to everyone, even those who have been evil in their treatment of us. The more seriously we take our religion, the less likely we are to retaliate in kind when someone does evil. Our response to the current attacks has been encouraging so far, for those of us who wonder if we still take Jesus seriously here in the U.S.

When we pray for Muslims, we are not to pray only for those who do not hate us, or pray for them by consoling ourselves that not all Muslims are willing to kill for their religion, or by concealing from ourselves that violence in Islam traces back to Mohammed himself and so is not likely to be disowned by the Muslim community, or by concealing from ourselves that many Muslims believe that such acts are holy rather than evil. All this effort is meant to make it easier for us to pray for them and befriend them, but it takes a wrong turn when it denies the reality that among them we find genuine enemies who genuinely hate and spitefully use and persecute -- and that these are the ones that Jesus singles out to make sure we do not forget them in our prayers and our acts of kindness. It is no good to imagine we have prayed for our enemies when we have merely focused on those who are not truly enemies.

When we pray for Muslims -- and particularly, the ones who genuinely are enemies -- we are not to blame their victims, as if the way we can love the Muslim community is to excuse any violence and blame their targets. We are called to be brothers and sisters to the oppressed. This does not mean that we imagine the people they hate and attack are some kind of saints who are free from any accusation of wrongdoing; no human is free from all wrongdoing. It means that we do not justify when someone kills those who have not, themselves, killed -- that we recognize that a wrong or an insensitivity on one side does not justify murder on the other side.

Jesus told us about our blindness when it comes to sin, how we tend to criticize the spec in someone's eye and overlook a log in our own eye. The same thing may happen even when we ourselves are not directly involved but are sympathetic to one side and unsympathetic towards the other in a dispute: our sense of proportion can be distorted so that we see a smaller fault in one side as graver than a larger fault in another. In fact, whenever we pay more attention to a small fault on one side than a large fault on the other side, we can be sure that our sense of proportion has somehow been distorted, and we must work to see clearly. We are not to look at a spec in one person's eye and say it justifies or causes the log in the other.

If an evil man insists that someone else's wrong justifies their own greater wrong, we should not embrace either evil; we also should meet the greater wrong with greater condemnation, so that we are not accomplices in self-justifying hypocrisy. When we find fault with the victims -- and everyone does have fault in them -- then it is easier for us to return good to those who do evil -- but we do this by implying that evil is good, a justified response to whatever fault may be found. If we do not recognize evil as evil, then it is no good thing to return good for it, and we have not followed Jesus.

If there is some case where we genuinely believe those who are attacked are the evildoers, then it is to these people that Jesus' command would then apply. When he says to return good to those who do evil, it would now mean to return good to those who are attacked. So it is impossible for Jesus' words to be used to support a hateful and murderous attack, even on people who really have done evil. Jesus' words about returning good for evil will turn us away from using someone else's evil as a justification for our own. His words are a cure for that particular kind of self-justifying vindictiveness and fault-finding to which religion is so easily corrupted whenever we forget Jesus' words, or in religions that do not hear or consider Jesus' words. We know too well that murder done in God's name has caused people all around the world to condemn religion as an evil thing; we must not stand by and justify something that desecrates God's name and causes the unbelievers all around the world to blaspheme God.

When we pray for those who do evil, that act can be misunderstood as support for that evil, so we must take particular care that we are clear: we do not pray because we excuse the evil, but precisely because we do not excuse it. We pray because here we find an urgent need for God's goodness.

When we pray even for the hateful and violent among the Muslims, we are not to pray for their destruction, as Jesus said: "bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray ..." -- here we cannot imagine that the blessing and good he has called for would suddenly become a curse when we pray for them. And again it is written, "As I live," says the Lord GOD, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live." (Ezekiel 33:11).

How then do we pray for enemies? Here is a first try, but I think that better might be prayed, and invite you all to add your prayer to mine.

Lord God, who has mercy on the sinful, who has had mercy us, and whose mercy endures forever: we remember before you the sinners of the world: may they know you, and may their hearts turn to you. Lord, who takes no delight in the death of the wicked, we pray for the wicked: may they turn from their ways and live. May they despise all evil, even in their own hearts. Your heart, O Lord, is full of mercy: in your very nature, you are love. May all the world acknowledge that you are a God of compassion and mercy, and that those who truly serve you are people of compassion and mercy.

The God Who Blesses

And he began to teach them, saying: “Blessed …”

The beatitudes – the series of blessings Jesus spoke at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount – are at times taken as moral instruction. While we certainly can take moral instruction from them, they are first and foremost blessings. Jesus begins his teaching ministry with a revelation of God: the proclamation of the God who blesses.

Genesis records that the first time God spoke to man, he spoke a blessing. As the God who blesses, he is the God of Abraham whom he blessed; the God of Isaac whom he blessed; the God of Jacob who would not let him go until he blessed him. He is the God of Sinai, who commanded that his mediator, a priest, should pronounce a blessing is his name: “ ‘The LORD bless you and keep you…’ They shall put my Name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.”

Jesus’ blessings, like all of God’s blessings, are a promise. They are a promise that God takes notice of us, that God remembers us. They are a promise of God’s faithfulness to his creation. The blessings of the beatitudes are focused on proclaiming God’s goodness to those who do not now see it: the poor, the mourning, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted. The beatitudes proclaim God’s promise that their faithfulness and hardship are known to God and will not be forgotten. Jesus’ proclamation of the God who blesses is the ground of our hope.

Love your enemies

Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you, that that you may be children of your Father in heaven. ... If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even (the lowest sinners you can imagine) doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even (members of false religions) do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Jesus, Sermon on the Mount)

In the West, I believe we have forgotten what it means to pray for those who persecute us, to bless those who curse us, to love those who hate us. We have trouble loving our enemies -- even minor enemies such as people with different Christian theologies but who intend no harm, or moderate enemies who intend to degrade and harass but not to kill.

I think I have maxed out hearing the current public debate about Islam. The main approaches I hear in this debate are either denying the prevalence of hatred and violence and the legitimate cause for concern, or fomenting reciprocal hatred and fear; either relying on wishful thinking about the nature and scope of the problem or despairing of any peaceful solutions.

Jesus originally spoke the words of the Sermon on the Mount to those in occupied territory, conquered and oppressed by the Romans. Within a few centuries those conquerors were a memory, and Jesus' teachings had changed the face of the world. To the extent that we argue about his teachings rather than live them, we have a form of godliness but deny its power. Because the power is not in the page. The power is in someone who becomes Jesus' living word to the world, who dares to be kind to those who hate.

The "don't judge" dodge

"Judge not, lest you be judged; for with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." -- Jesus

In my experience, this saying of Jesus is misused more than many others. Every defiant sinner takes up "Judge not" on his or her lips as a shield against criticism. When Jesus taught the Sermon on the Mount, he kept coming back to the point of mercy and humility towards each other. It's a lesson we all need. Mercy is, in its way, a shield against the Law. But it is a shield against its condemnation, not against its rightness. "Judge not" should keep the one who points out wrong away from hypocrisy or pride or setting himself up as a judge; it should not excuse the wrongdoer or obscure whether a thing is right or wrong.