The People of God’s Kingdom

This article is an excerpt from Salt and Light.

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 righteousness,
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 righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 —Matthew 5:3–10

One of Jesus’ chief concerns was to show his friends and all who listened to him the character of the world order to come and and what its people will be like. At that time, as today, people yearned for a new order – within their own being, but at the same time in terms of the political and economic conditions of entire systems and nations. People longed for the new kingdom of justice and righteousness the ancient prophets had spoken of. They knew from these men of old, and felt with the certainty of their own religious consciences, that the justice of the prophesied future state must be a social justice. And they believed that this social justice must be so closely aligned with God’s love and grace as to be identical with both. In God’s heart, justice and righteousness dwell so close to grace that the movement of heart they signify is one and the same.

Then Jesus came, and he disclosed this very justice and righteousness to his listeners, both in the depths of its nature and in its practical consequences. He showed them that the justice and righteousness of the future kingdom needed to be completely different from the moralism of the pious and holy men who seemed to feel that they were the only ones who represented goodness. Through his own nature, and with his own clear words, Jesus made it plain that the justice and righteousness that God carries out is a living, growing power that develops organically within us, as a process that takes place in accordance with the sacred laws of life.

Daniel Bonnell, Such Is the Kingdom of God

Because of this, Jesus could not stand in front of a crowd and give them commands about the right way to conduct themselves. He approached them in a very different way. In spirit and in truth, he discerned the nature of those who had God’s righteousness and presented their character to others in this way: they are happy – blissful – and blessed – because they see God, because the kingdom of the future belongs to them, because they shall inherit the earth and be comforted and satisfied, and because, as sons and daughters of God, they shall obtain mercy.

Because Jesus’ own nature radiated the organic unity of all these traits of this spirit of the future, it was impossible for anyone to try to take any one of his sayings out of its context and promulgate it as a separate law. And if anyone should do this today – for example, to hold up pacifism or purity of heart or any other moral or political demand by itself and proclaim it to be key to a new societal order – they are on the wrong track. Certainly, it is not possible to take part in God’s kingdom without purity of heart, or without taking a decisive stand for peace; but unless a good tree is planted, good fruit cannot be harvested. Unless the change we seek extends to all areas, it is a lost cause to try to emulate Christ in one respect only.

The Beatitudes cannot be pulled apart. They portray the heart of the comrade of the kingdom, a heart whose veins cannot be cut and separated. After all, the Beatitudes begin and end with the same promise of possessing the kingdom of heaven. And each opens with the same acknowledgement of blessedness and happiness.

The disposition expressed in the Beatitudes is comprised of poverty, neediness, longing, hunger, and thirst. At the same time, it includes generous wealth, love and kindness, a readiness to give, an energetic dedication to peacemaking, and the overcoming of all resistance. It reflects a heart of purity, cleanness, and sincerity that allows its bearer to see God. The people of the Beatitudes are people of vision – inner vision – people who see what is essential. They bear the world’s suffering. They know themselves to be destitute in the face of the Spirit. They do not see any justice or righteousness in themselves. Yet they perceive justice and righteousness, and see with eyes of the Spirit, and therefore they hunger and thirst and are full of longing. This is not the happiness of satiety, nor the pleasure of gratified desire. Here a deeper happiness is disclosed – the kind that is given to eyes and hearts that have been opened. Openness to God and his riches, along with everything else that he constantly gives, can only be found where people again and again know themselves to be poor and empty, thirsty and hungry.

Richness in God and poverty of self; oneness with God along with an insatiable hunger for him; undivided resolve of the heart, and tenderness of the soul; the justice and righteousness of God’s love, alongside the ability to suffer over injustice and unrighteousness – these always belong together. This is the essence of true religious experience. Wherever there is religious satiety and moral complacency, wherever the self-righteousness of political achievements or other good works is to be found, wherever anyone feels rich or triumphant, there will be no room for the happiness of the comrades of the kingdom. But wherever Jesus has been accepted as a guide on the simple road of discipleship, there too will be found those who know the happiness of God’s kingdom and who believe in the righteousness of God’s future. Their hearts are fixed undividedly on the Spirit and the justice of complete love, and they feel each injury of injustice in themselves and around them. They feel the poverty of spirit in their own lives and in all humankind. But they still look to the justice and righteousness of God’s kingdom, and they feel comforted by the certainty that love will one day conquer the earth.

As such, the people of the Beatitudes are both poor and rich at the same time, because they are people of faith – people who have nothing in themselves and yet possess everything in God. In spite of their failings, they are people who venture, over and over again, to make the invisible real and who take nothing away from the unconditional nature of God’s love. Just as they themselves receive mercy, they pour out mercy on all who are in need. They stand on the side of poverty and suffering, on the side of all who suffer injustice and unrighteousness, and are ready to be persecuted with them for the sake of justice and righteousness. They know that they cannot traverse the world without struggle. They know that the slander of their opponents will fall on them like a hailstorm. But they rejoice in this hardship, and they remain peacemakers who overcome opposition everywhere, and everywhere conquer enmity through love. The people of the Beatitudes are the people of love. They live from God’s heart and are at home in his heart. They are the ones whom the law of the Spirit of life has set free from the mechanical law of sin and death. They are the ones whom no power can separate from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

The most remarkable mystery of these people, however, is that everywhere they go, they perceive the same seed of God, see the same light gleaming, and feel the same warm radiance. Wherever people break down under the weight of the world’s suffering, wherever hearts feel their own poverty and long for the Spirit, wherever the ardent revolutionary desire for social justice arises, wherever the passionate protest against war and bloodshed rings out, wherever people are persecuted because of their pacifism or socialism, wherever pure hearts and genuine compassion are to be found – there they see God at work, there they hear his footsteps in history, there they see the approach of his kingdom, and there they anticipate the eternal bliss to come.

There is no other way to prepare inwardly for the coming kingdom than the one way Jesus shows us here. If we want to embark on this path, we can do nothing else but admit, without qualification and without embellishment, our own poverty of spirit. Once we recognize hunger and thirst for the justice and righteousness of complete love as the most essential thing, everything else will disappear and become as utter nothingness for us, and that will open our hearts for what God alone can give.

Originally published as “Das Glück” in Das neue Werk, 1920/21.