Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God

Craig

This blog series has been a challenge for me because, as I’ve said before, I’ve struggled with the idea that a conventional reading of the Beatitudes suggests all the blessings Jesus talks about are coming in the future. I’m finished with the versions of Christianity that locate these blessings as rewards we won’t experience this side of heaven because this idea cuts against everything I see Jesus standing for. He was fully in touch with the issues of his day, and with the real lives of the individuals he met and spoke with. I also know that the idea that our reward is all in the future couldn’t have been something he believed, because the Judaism of his day had a very under-developed theology of heaven. 

So I’ve been digging into the nature of the Aramaic language and I’ve discovered that Aramaic is a language of relationship and process. An English word will generally have a singular meaning, which is why I’m frequently sitting at my computer searching for just the right word when I write anything, and I can do that because English has over 1 million words to choose from. But, according to dictionaries of the dialect spoken in Jesus’ region, he would have had access to between 5,000 and 10,000 distinct words. This means that the Aramaic language functions differently to English. A single Aramaic word can hold multiple dimensions of meaning simultaneously, and might describe a physical reality alongside an emotional state, a psychological process and maybe a spiritual dimension as well. 

So when an Aramaic word is translated into Greek, and then Latin, and then English, a translator is forced to choose the dimension they prefer, and the very nature of the English language means they are forced to present it as the sole and precise meaning. The translators of the Beatitudes consistently choose the moral dimension, the language of virtue and reward, because Jesus is believed to be a great moral teacher. But, in doing this, they abandon the other dimensions which is where most of the meaning is found. 

So ‘blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God’ means more than purity in the moral sense of that word. It’s not about being perfect or sinless in the traditional sense. It’s about being undivided, not teaching one thing whilst practicing another, not saying yes while meaning no, not claiming one motivation whilst serving another. Jesus is talking about coherence and integrity. About covenant faithfulness and undivided devotion to God.

Julie

Yeah, I definitely agree. It’s our posture towards God and humility which ties in with all the other Beatitudes we’ve covered. I think it’s about knowing who God is, and knowing who we are in relation to that awareness. So that picks up on the relationship language we’ve been using. Knowing who we are and being pure in heart helps us see God. It’s about making space to see God, and reducing ourselves to an appropriate level of humility before God.

Simon

It seems probable that Jesus was referring to Psalm 24. ‘Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, those who don’t lift up their souls to what is false and don’t swear deceitfully’. So I think there’s something really interesting going on in terms of where we are. We’re in Galilee. We’re in a really mixed community. Not everyone was Jewish. There would have been a bunch of people present who would have been excluded from the temple. And there’s a ritual they’d have to go through, which includes ritual washing to get into the temple. And Jesus misses that bit out. He misses out the clean hands bit because doesn’t talk about seeing God as dwelling in the temple. So I think he’s saying to these people who are a long way geographically, politically, and spiritually from the religious centre: ‘you can see God too’. You don’t have to go to the temple. You don’t have to go through all of this ritual process. You all have within you the ability to see God. This purity of heart is something you can attain. That’s not to say you can attain it without the work of the Holy Spirit, but it is not something that another person or a religious institution is going to give you. You can see God.

Julie

I love that, Simon. That’s brilliant.

Roy

Yeah, I had not seen that. We’re posing this question, are we not, in the light of the title of the blog series: was Jesus naive? And I think there is something here that is far from being naive – that is actually really profound. What Simon’s just said moves the statement away from outward observance and behaviour modification to an inward reality that opens up a possibility of being connected to, and relating with, God.

Craig

I think it’s worth commenting on the second part at this point: what will they see? Now, obviously, Jesus says they will see God. But what does that mean? Because we aren’t, all of a sudden, physically or literally going to see God, because God has no form we can see. So Jesus is talking about perceiving a reality, and it’s about engaging with a reality that is beyond anything we can construct for ourselves. A reality that has nothing to do with our own ideas or preferences. To be pure in heart is to be undivided, which is essential because a divided consciousness can’t perceive anything clearly. Its own division distorts everything it sees, whereas a unified consciousness perceives what’s actually there, including that divine reality that Jesus calls God. And also, of course, a reality who is experienced by him as his Father.

Roy

I’m reminded of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s “clear glasses effect” which is captured in his famous quote: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”. When looking back at the past, everything seems clear. Patterns emerge, cause and effect is obvious, and decisions we have made can be evaluated. So looking back is like wearing a pair of clear glasses that brings the past into sharper focus, but life is lived in the present and looks toward the future, which is murky, unknown, and unpredictable. So we may crave understanding before we act, but that clarity only arrives after the action is taken. We are therefore forced to make choices and take “leaps of faith” without knowing how they will turn out.

So, maybe, to be pure in heart is to have a clearer perspective on how God sees the world –  as it really is – which removes some of the clutter, in order to focus on God, to ‘see’ where God would want us to leap. This doesn’t mean we don’t make any mistakes, but maybe we are able to see the world through Jesus’ eyes.

To be continued…