Browsing by Author "Tsoluka, Flavien"

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    The Beatitudes In The Sermon On The Mountain
    (Tangaza University College, 1997) Tsoluka, Flavien
    Man wants happiness, which he calls life, peace, joy, rest, blessing and salvation. All these benefits are included in different ways in the formula with which one declares someone happy or unhappy. When Jesus, in the Gospel of Saint Luke, proclaims: "Happy are the poor... unhappy the rich" (Lk 6:20.24), he does not wish to pronounce either a blessing which gives happiness or a curse which produces unhappiness; he rather wishes to exhort the people in the name of his own experience of happiness to follow the paths which lead to it. Jesus is a wise man of great experience. He is the one who lives fully the beatitudes he proposes. In the Gospels, we have two versions of the beatitudes: In Matthew's version (Mt 5:3-12), the beatitudes stand at the beginning of Jesus' inaugural discourse; they form its very soul and they show how eschatology may go hand in hand with ethics. They are eschatological and messianic: through them sounds the claim that the prophecies are fulfilled, that the Reign of God is here. What Jesus does in them is to sketch, in eight paradoxes, the spiritual portrait of the man of the Kingdom; what is not so often noticed is that the ethics of the beatitudes are ethics of grace. Founded on the grace of the Father who gives the Kingdom to the child-like, they promise blessedness to all who are content to be beggars before God and to trust him to provide all things. The beatitudes in Matthew offer the program for Christian happiness. In Luke's version, the beatitudes are coupled with declarations of unhappiness, thus extolling the superior value of certain conditions of life (Lk 6:20-26). These two versions cannot be reduced to the beatification of virtues or states of life. They complement each other; above all they only reveal their truth if they are reported in the sense that Jesus himself gave them: Jesus came on God's behalf to give a solemn "Yes" to the promises of the Old Testament. Whereas the Old Testament came to equate the beatitude and God himself, Jesus presents himself as the one who fulfills the aspirations for happiness: the Kingdom of Heaven is present in him. It is significant then that the Kingdom is promised only to those who attach themselves to Jesus' person, and that being discipled to him is equivalent to being "in the Kingdom of God" (Mk. 10: 17-31; Lk. 9:57-62). The Kingdom of God forms the theme of the beatitudes, yet somehow the person of Jesus is always there in the background. If he says "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Mt. 5:4), it is to say that He (Jesus himself) is the comforter of those who mourn. The "Comforter" was one of Messiah's names (Is. 40:1; 61:2). Jesus wished to incarnate the beatitudes by living them perfectly, by showing himself meek and humble of heart (Mt. 11:29). Two main beatitudes include all the others: first, poverty with its retinue of works of justice, humility, meekness, purity, mercy and solicitude for peace; and secondly persecution for the love of Christ. But these values in themselves are nothing without Jesus who gives them their true meaning. Plan: This long essay will be divided into three main chapters: In the First chapter, we will talk about the beatitudes before Matthew. The beatitudes in Matthew are set in the context of the sermon on the mountain, and the Sermon itself is somehow the fruit of many teaching-sessions Jesus had with his disciples. It offers a pattern for Christian life, and it was undoubtedly used in this way from the beginning. Matthew's present arrangement is a later redaction. So, in the first Chapter we will try to find out the sources Matthew used to write his beatitudes. Two main sources will attract our attention: the Q version and the Gospel according to Luke. Then in our second chapter, we will be dealing with the beatitudes according to Matthew. We will be comparing them with the ones according to Luke. Finally in the third chapter, we will apply the beatitudes in a pastoral context: what message can we get from the beatitudes for our world to-day. We will not enter into the details of each beatitude, but we will just concentrate on the beatitude on the poor. A general conclusion will end up this reflection in which we will sum up the essential meaning and the purpose of the beatitudes for our Christian life.