Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive 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 for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:7-12)

Summary of Responsive/Behavioral Beatitudes
J. Marshall Jenkins, Ph.D.

We previously examined the first four Beatitudes, which I label, “receptive/attitudinal.” They lay out the spiritual foundation of discipleship with a receptive response to grace. That foundation of humility consists of gratitude, self-respecting lament, nonviolence, and desire for just relationships based on love. Now we turn to the latter four Beatitudes which I call, “responsive/behavioral” built on this foundation of humble love. We respond to God’s just and merciful peacemaking initiative with like action.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy (Mt 5:7).

To clarify the meaning of mercy: In the history of interpretation, many saw it narrowly as forgiveness of sins. It certainly includes that. Yet again, I say, not so fast. Forgiveness takes center stage when we discuss peacemaking. 

Mercy has a broader scope than forgiveness alone. Forgiveness assumes a power to act as judge of the wrongdoer, but mercy can also extend from the less to the more powerful (e.g., Mt 5:38-42). Moreover, the Parable of the Sheep and Goats (Mt 25:31-46) and similar teachings on extending care do not qualify the care based on just deserts but on need. The merciful simply see the need of the other and act to meet it, not motivated by superior power but humble gratitude for mercy they received. 

By promising mercy to those who give it, this Beatitude makes a wonderful circle. Rather than a quid pro quo, our needs to give and receive mercy complement and charge each other. Mercy is compassion in action. If mercy was duty without compassion, the promise of mercy would be a quid pro quo. If it was compassion without action, the promise would be hot air. 

Based on my experience, I recommend deep listening for cultivating the virtue of mercy further. Sometimes we need or value other forms of help more. But listening may transfer across needs and situations in everyday life more readily than any other practice. It is the practical heart of hospitality. 

When one truly listens, one must heed Christ’s imperative, “Judge not.” It requires setting aside one’s ego and attending respectfully. That nourishes the other’s psyche like milk for the bones. The listener relaxes the need to fix, not by refusing practical assistance altogether, but by making as much space for as much agency as the other can manage. The spiritual point is to practice God’s presence, meeting Christ in the communion of souls. 

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Mt 5:8).

The Parable of the Sheep and Goats, so critical to the previous Beatitude, links it to this one. For in the parable, Christ teaches that the merciful encountered Christ himself in their service to people in need. Those who put their compassion into action, then, see God. As do the pure in heart.

Personally, I consider deep listening my first practice of contemplative openness to God in a kind of prayer. It trained me to move into contemplative prayer after a lifetime of talking to God and listening to God’s children. Like a good listener, the pure in heart turn toward God with humble openness, detachment from the ego, and willingness to enter into God’s experience as it comes clear. Mother Teresa learned contemplation by a vision of Christ saying, “I thirst,” and finding Christ on the streets of Calcutta. In contemplative prayer, one opens the heart like a good listener to fellowship with God. But the emphasis shifts from transforming the Other, God, to allowing God to transform oneself.

The Latin, contemplari, or contemplation, means to gaze attentively, usually in a sacred context. Father William McNamara defined contemplation as “a long, loving look at the real.” This pertains to purity of heart because, as Soren Kierkegaard said, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” It is the one thing we most desire, and the practice entails anchoring oneself in one’s deepest, most singular desire for God. That entails the lifelong task of detachment, or subordinating all other desires to the desire for God.

The term, “detachment,” means freeing our hearts from other attachments to concentrate our desire single-mindedly on God. It does not entail absence of desire; rather, it means sharpening the deepest desire. That desire is love, ultimately love of God. When we treat other objects of our desires as gods, confession moves us back toward purity of heart. Furthermore, we can allow purity of heart through an intentional practice of prayer. In centering prayer, one sits in silence, notices experiences, lets go of them with the aid of a sacred word, and returns to silent openness to God moment-by-moment. This opens one to the grace of a pure heart.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God (Mt 5:9).

The previous two blessings of the merciful and the pure in heart draw on our deepest motive for intimacy with God. In mercy, we find Christ in care for fellow strugglers. In purity of heart, we find Christ in the inward journey toward freedom to love God as God loves us. 

When purity of heart arrives, if only momentarily, we find inner peace. But that does not end the journey. We must take that peace into the world equipped with humility and mercy. Just as Jesus took his inner peace into the most violent, lowest place and died to make peace for all (Eph 2:11-22), so he calls us to enter the fray.

Understandably, we want absence of conflict amid life’s trials. But that represents only half of peace. Ironically, the peace that is presence of justice comes through a love that risks conflict to build bridges where many want walls. Shalom, the Hebrew for peace, means wholeness and vitality, harmonious community and personal joy. Yet, we do not get there by avoiding conflict. We get there by living a life of love willing to suffer friction in a world that resists peace. 

My work as a therapist brings out this paradoxical meaning of peace. For the tottering mental health of so many rests on the sand of pursuing absence of conflict. Certainly, some need to leave emotionally and physically violent relationships. But authentic peace at home comes with honest, assertive communication and sometimes hard conversations. 

Peace among us sinners calls for the practice of reconciliation. Concretely, that involves both apology and forgiveness. That is not easy; indeed, one best adopts reconciliation as a lifestyle rather than an occasional mental trick. But we exist by the grace of God’s forgiveness, and we find no real peace within unless we participate in God’s peacemaking work without.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:10-12).

Since peacemaking involves risking conflict with social forces that resist peace for all, little wonder Jesus concludes by blessing the persecuted. 

This Beatitude raises conundrums. It blesses people in the passive voice, not for what they did but what was done to them. Moreover, we move from virtues one can cultivate with habits in everyday life to a stark test of suffering. The previous seven Beatitudes challenge us, no doubt, but this one makes us want to stick our heads in the sand. Shall we reserve it for elite martyrs and observe it in our ordinary lives by honoring them?

It certainly calls us to honor martyrs. But I believe it offers a culminating level of spiritual maturity amid the mundane suffering of an ordinary life. “Martyr,” in Greek means, “witness.” Immediately after this closing Beatitude Jesus tells his listeners they are the “salt of the earth,” preserving and enhancing life, and the “light of the world,” revealing God’s glory (Mt 5:13-16). In other words, the Beatitudes portray witnesses.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a martyr who tackled this problem before his death at the hands of the Nazis, viewed martyrdom as a matter of election, with some chosen to bear the cross of ordinary sufferings and others giving the ultimate sacrifice. Most in the Christian tradition long since concluded that one must not actively seek persecution; rather, one must face whatever suffering is given in a life of love. We do not control how this plays out. But Bonhoeffer saw suffering discipleship as inevitable in a sinful world.

How we face the suffering given to us calls for all our spiritual resources. This climactic Beatitude invites us to revisit detachment, forgiveness, and discernment as meta-practices applied and refined in the fire of suffering love. Also, I believe that, even if we suffer for doing wrong, we can consecrate our suffering itself for Christ’s honor, as a thief crucified next to Jesus did (Luke 23:39-44). Jesus promised him paradise, just as he does in this Beatitude. 

Finally, the eighth Beatitude challenges us to find our voice, expressed in our vocation and our very being. Those willing to die for their beloved know their truth, and their lives sing it. Gandhi called it satyagraha, an absolute commitment to nonviolent love. King called it loving one’s enemies. What a terrible and wonderful way to finally satisfy one’s hunger and thirst, to finally be filled.

Conclusion

If the first four Beatitudes give us the way of humility, the second four give us mercy and its implications. The merciful participate in God’s mercy, receiving and giving in a kind of eternal dance. Merciful action piques our sense of Christ’s presence, opening our hearts to prayerful action to receive God’s grace. This cultivation of our inner peace leads us to engage the brokenness of the world in keeping with Christ’s work of reconciliation. Inevitably, we suffer from antagonists within and without resistant to God’s peace based on mercy in preference for a peace based on domination. Yet, amid that suffering love, the Spirit forms us into witnesses to God’s love in Christ, into the salt of the earth and light of the world.

Related Posts

The Way of Humility: The First Four Beatitudes

Witness Defined: See the Beatitudes

BLESSED AT THE BROKEN PLACES ARRIVES! An Answer to Prayer

Photo by Michaela Murphy on Unsplash. Public Domain.