Views from the Ground Floor, part II

Angel, from the romanesque church 

St. Savin sur Gartempe

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Who are the poor?

The word poor is a term derived from the Latin In forma pauperis, a legal term meaning "in the manner of a pauper". The expression refers to the ability of a person with no means to proceed in court without payment of the fees associated with a lawsuit or appeal.

One who is poor, in other words, is given the gift of being allowed to proceed without being required to pay for it. They have the right to protect themselves and work for their own good, even though they have few or no means of their own.

We live in a world of laws; all of us are under that authority, which is a consistent theme in Christ's teaching. Compared to the riches of God's kingdom, and the laws that govern it, we are all paupers. Yet, as the phrase implies, we are blessed. 

The poor are not poor in spirit; they are poor, and therefore blessed with spirit.

What the poor are blessed with, spirit, is a word derived from the meaning breathe. We are given life; this is another way of understanding the phrase. Once we see these meetings and understand their relationship, we see that Christ's first phrase means something like this:

Humanity is born as a tiny creature, owning nothing, and is yet given life and breath through a blessing — the gift of God's love. This state is inherent in the nature of humanity.

The statement conveys mankind's position relative to God, along with the tremendous blessing of this sacred gift of life which has been bestowed upon us.

The second phrase, theirs is the kingdom of heaven, confers a promise. The word king is of germanic origin, and related to the word kin, which denotes relationship. We need to think quite carefully about the interaction of these various meanings, because a subtlety is implied. To be a king is to be one who rules over others; and yet embedded in that very action is the implication of relationship, because the relationship between a ruler and its subjects is what makes a ruler a ruler and the subject a subject. In other words, although it appears that the ruler and the subjects are the question at hand, the overarching authority in the equation is the relationship, not the king and the subjects.

This way we begin to understand that the word kingdom refers to relationships. A kingdom is a place where relationships are exercised, positions are established, creating an understanding of authority and duty. As such we move from understanding the word kingdom as some kind of physical location, a geographic domain owned by some despot, benign or otherwise, to a domain of relationship.

The kingdom of heaven is a domain of action and relationship.

Now, Jesus does not assign the ownership of this domain of action and relationship to God; which may seem odd. It's gifted to us: it belongs to the poor. That is, it belongs to humanity. And heaven—which means, in its essence, the sky, the cosmos, or what is higher than us —is the origin of that relationship, that kingdom. In other words, in the midst of our poverty, through the breath of spiritual life into us, we are empowered through the gift of relationship to come into contact with something higher the ourselves.

This is a subtle reference to the power of love; so another way of understanding this is that Christ is telling us, although we are poor, we are blessed in spirit with life, and it is within our ability to create a higher experience of being ( Heaven) through relationship. That relationship is a relationship of kingdom, that is, one in which authority is acknowledged. 

Implicit in this is the understanding that that authority is God's authority; yet everything that God has given us, this blessing of life, depends on the way in which we recognize authority, engage in relationship, and thereby lift ourselves from our poverty – our inability, our lack of anything— into a spiritual territory of a higher nature.

Readers will recognize many themes here which are consistent throughout Christ's teachings. Yet the embedding of God's authority in that which is lower ( the poor) and its ability to make an effort (kingdom, relationship) is striking. Also implicit here is the understanding that the universe is one of relationship, a fractal structure where that which is objectively tiny supports and builds even the most comprehensive and cosmologically important beings. 

Go. and sense, and be well.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.