“We don’t even know what our desire is. We ask other people to tell us our desires. We would like our desires to come from our deepest selves, our personal depths – but if it did, it would not be desire. Desire is always for something we feel we lack.” ~René Girard
The pandemic has revealed many different paradoxes about our society, our families, our communities, our values, and our desires. At the core of this COVID-19 confusion are frustrated desires for life, liberty, and happiness. For many of us, the coronavirus is magnifying reality: we never get all that we want.
People are social beings, we get our desires from others – first from our parents and immediate family, and then extended family, friends, commercials, classmates, social media, literature, films, and art, neighbors, coworkers: basically our culture.
Our desires are never truly fulfilled, we always feel a lack. Life is a paradox – you desire based on what others desire in your culture, but you personally pay the price for trying to fulfill them.
The pandemic is fueling our anxiety around this existential question: how can we be blessed and happy when so many of our desires are unfulfilled?
Especially if we’re facing a frustrating disruption to our children’s education and well-being, our jobs and economic stability, or worst of all infection and the fear of death.
But amidst all the anxiety and uncertainty that the pandemic has increased, amidst all the thwarted desires and plans we were striving to fulfill, there have been many heart-warming stories of personal sacrifices, of hero’s stepping forward, of people letting their light shine, of families making the most of it, of seeing the best of humanity emerging towards those who are suffering.
It’s an interesting paradox – the best of times can bring out the worst in people, and the worst of times can bring out the best in people.
It’s almost as if the “worst times” is the default setting for humanity, but we deeply yearn for “the best of times.”
If one were cynical, it would seem that out of the billions of people on our planet, too many are stuck in the worst of times, and too few are getting to enjoy the best of times.
What to do when it feels like you are getting stuck in the “worst of times”?
For Jesus of Nazareth walking the length and breadth of Israel in the first century, most of the citizens were stuck in the worst of times.
They floundered under the cruel paranoia of King Herod, the local authority who rebuilt the beautiful temple and had an eye for urban architectural design but was bloodthirsty and evil towards his own people.
On top of these injustices was the oppressive Roman Empire which sought to tamp down the violence in Israel, a stubborn people unwilling to quietly accept the blasphemies and corruption of the Caesars.
The common folks were dying of malnutrition, of untreated diseases, of trauma, of economic exploitation, of unfair justice, of hopelessness.
The entrenched political and religious oligarchies were insulated from the misery of the people – though they sought to find ways to speak for them and drain away the violent repercussions of mass poverty so the government wouldn’t take away their privileged positions.
It’s in this pandemic of terrifying imperial and royal authoritarianism that Jesus arrives to be with the people of Israel. He brings real healing and hope, speaking subversive truth and grace. Christ Jesus reconnects them to their living God, the one who brought them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, their God who created them to be a blessing to the world.
Jesus arrived to teach them his people how to participate in the kingdom of God even while they are subjected to the politics of injustice.
What Jesus is revealing to us comes across as a series of paradoxes amidst our thwarted desires. They are guideposts to us on how God keeps his promises to his conflicted people, and how to be God’s people while immersed in the politics of whatever authority and government happen to be in power.
Jesus is teaching those who will listen to him how to be blessed by God while in the worst of times.
He knows that for many people, most of their life will be marked by the tragedies and injustices of the world.
For them and us: when we can’t stop the worst of times from coming, how to find happiness, hope, a way to experience God and his goodness?
We all know that anger, vengeance, bitterness, hatred easily take root in us, our desires become full of darkness and rage, or despair and violence when we are pressed down and oppressed lacking hope of rescue.
While it’s natural, it’s also destructive to ourselves and others. What’s another way?
The Beatitudes are a realistic assessment of how God blesses his people, how he is with them, and for them, in this paradox-full world of the best of times and the worst of times.
We desire to be blessed. And at our best, we desire to be a blessing. Jesus teaches us how to be blessed and to be a blessing when we are poor and mourn when we are oppressed and hungry when we are treated unmercifully and violently when we are full of impure thoughts and persecuted for striving to live God’s way in the world.
In February 2020 I traveled through parts of the Holy Land with a group of YMCA leaders as part of our OnPrinciples program. In learning how to strengthen the presence of Christ in our Y, we spent time where Christ had been present, taught, and blessed.
It was hard to complain when we visited the Mount of Beatitudes. Yet I found myself frustrated that instead of it being a beautifully warm and sunny morning in which to soak up the glory of this historic and sacred place, it was cold, rainy, foggy, and very crowded by the time we left.
My desire for a particular kind of experience was thwarted; I wasn’t getting the full amount of what I wanted.
What to do? Remember why I am there, how much grace was part of my even being there, what kind of privilege and blessing it was to be there, and what it meant to be in a place where Jesus had been present. For all we know it had been rainy, cold, foggy and miserable when he taught the Beatitudes!
I learned while in the Holy Land that the desires there are complicated, that there are many, many paradoxes, and too often the striving for being blessed leads to violence.
The need for Christians to heed this sermon is more paramount than ever.
Below are the gospel text, some pictures and brief reflections of my time at the Mount of Beatitudes:
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.
His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.
Jesus said:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. [Jesus of Nazareth, the Gospel According to Matthew, 5.1-16, NIV]
The ongoing violence in the Holy Land is at odds with the kingdom of God revealed in the Beatitudes.
Christians in Israel and Palestine face a brutal reality – how to survive, how to be blessed by God, how to be salt and light, how to follow the teachings of Christ Jesus in the Beatitudes amidst the complex, roiling desires for justice, security, peace, prosperity, and God’s will?
Christians in the West are not immune to this brutal reality – it’s our brothers and sisters who suffer in spirit, mind and body. The persecuted Body of Christ there, of which we fully belong, must endure this violence according to the Beatitudes.
And, for Christians that are not in the minority, we must face the brutal truth – are we, in any way, propping up violent forms of politics and economics that oppose the Beatitudes?
If so, we must first face the truth, and lament this reality. Then we can begin to learn from our fellow Christians in the Holy Land on how to be blessed when you don’t get what you want.
