Blessed

I have to admit that I’ve been having a bit of a self-pity party. For many reasons, and, to be honest, it is deserved. But it’s not terribly productive. That, combined with a comment from an acquaintance who was complaining about spiritual malaise, reminded me of a Bible study I experienced recently.

The Beatitudes occur twice in the Christian Scriptures, in Matthew’s Gospel and in Luke’s Gospel. But they aren’t quite the same. The Bible study used Matthew’s text but in the discussion following I talked about how much I like Luke. And this intersected with my self-pity party.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” says Matthew, but “Blessed are you who are poor,” says Luke. And I like that better. They both sound like Jesus to me, but the first one makes me feel sorry for myself and my own current crises of purpose and relationship. Luke, however, reminds me that my emotional struggle is nothing to those who have need of food, clothing, shelter, justice, freedom, and health.

When I am feeling sorry for myself, in Luke I hear Jesus telling me to get up off my butt and do something. Telling me that, yes, I might be struggling, but that I have so much more than most of God’s beloved children. As I sit in the suburbs, with my television with hundreds of channels, my wireless internet, my refrigerator which holds so much food I constantly have to throw things out, and my trash which probably contains more edible food than some families in the world see in a day, Jesus reminds me that I am already blessed. I just need to open my eyes. And if I still feel sorry for myself, I can get up and go out and serve. I can feed the hungry, tend the sick and the dying, sit with those who mourn, clothe the naked, teach those who yearn to understand and crave opportunity, fight for the rights of all people. Not only will I help to meet the needs of others, but by doing so I will turn my own spiritual poverty into blessing and abundance.

Admittedly, this won’t solve my own personal struggle or remove its importance to me, but it reminds me that in blessing we are blessed and in giving we receive. Perhaps my own angst can become a fuel to better love my neighbor as myself.

-David