Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Who wants to be poor? Not me, and yet this is what the first Beatitude requires.

Eight Steps to Emotional, Relational, Spiritual Wholeness: The Healing Power of the Beatitudes

Chapter 1

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3

“Poor” Who wants to be “poor”….in anything? Much less “poor in spirit”. That sounds like the end of the road. That sounds like about as low as one can go. That sounds like there are no other options. Yup, that is exactly what this verse means.

Two Greek words for poor

There are two Greek words for “poor”. One means that you don’t have much, but you are trying your best to make it through life. The other Greek word means: you are drowning. You are a beggar. You cannot lift your head up enough even to ask for help…much less to feed yourself. You are at the end. ……The second meaning is what the verse implies.

Why would God ever call this “fortunate”? Because then and only then are we in a position to get help. Flat out, on our face in the dirt with no other options.

Coping Mechanisms

We have so many ways to cope, defense mechanisms, psychological “tricks”, and it is a long, long journey to come to the end of them.

We are hobbled right from the beginning by our basic nature. There are three very young boys at dinner with their parents. One of them is done and goes into the other room to the toy box and chooses a red sports match box car. There are maybe 20 matchbox cars in that toybox, but when the other brothers come into the room, they immediately go to the red sports car and try to take it away from their brother. What child does not clench his fist and say, “MINE!”

We as human beings are born with that clenched fist that says “mine”. Though this self-grasping inborn tendency does help us survive in this world, much of parenting lies in teaching children to open their hands and say, “No, you can have it this time” and “I’ll share.” Much of the world has yet to learn this lesson.

Compassion

We assume that we are a compassionate people. And at times, to some extent, we are. But when pushed into a corner? Not usually. Research shows the clenched fist dominates.

Research has repeatedly shown that no matter where one is on the social scale [lower, middle, upper class], each level believes they deserve more. The poorest of the poor believe they deserve more, but the top 1% also believe they deserve more (Krause). Over fifty million hours of human behavior research reveals that people in power positions can and will use others to achieve what they desire, be it wealth, power, or prestige, three of the biggest addictions on the face of this earth. Yet to what extent do we write, preach, teach about their destructive power and hold people accountable because of it? To what extend do we give individuals positions of power who misuse one or more of wealth, power, or prestige?

  

The famous Stanford experiment (Zimbardo) revealed that volunteers put in power positions [in this case mock jail conditions] will have a natural strong tendency to abuse. The renowned Milgram experiment (Zimbardo) revealed that most humans would be willing to shock an individual repeatedly just because they gave a wrong answer. The electric shocks started at fifteen volts, and increasing each shock by fifteen volts, went all the way to four hundred fifty volts. Volunteers for the experiment would continue to administer the shocks even to the point the volunteers thought they had killed the subject. It only required someone dressed like an authority figure standing behind them saying,  “You must go on. It is for their good.”

And we never really see ourselves, as we truly are. We never admit, “This is me.” We are the Pharisee standing in the temple, (Luke 18:9-18) comparing ourselves to everyone else, and thinking we are looking pretty good. But God calls us to be the Publican, while we beat our chest in consternation and say the basic historical prayer for encountering God: [centering prayer]

     “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Work Cited

Kraus, M. W. and Stephens, N. M. (2012), A Road Map for an Emerging Psychology of

Social Class. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6: 642–656. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00453.x

Zimbardo, Philip. The Lucifer Effect. Random House, 2007